MATTHEWGOODONLINE

I adore the term acceptable dictator. Every time I hear it, or the term friendly dictator, it’s as if the voice of Henry Kissinger is saying it in my head – who knows a thing or two about friendly dictators. Then again, the fact that that happens is somewhat creepy.

But I’m jumping the gun. First, a little back story…

Though little known, or reported, Afghanistan’s Hamid Karzai, after his falling out with the Taliban, spent much of his energies on the reinstatement of Zahir Shah while in self imposed exile in Pakistan. This, of course, is the very same man that was later singled out to become the legitimate face of ‘Afghan democracy’ – which should be rather telling regarding Karzai’s personal ambitions given the fact that he went from promoting the return of a Monarch to the West’s champion of democratic freedom almost overnight.

Since becoming the President of Afghanistan, Karzai has been labeled the Mayor of Kabul, primarily because the influence of his government extends little further than its outskirts without the existence of foreign occupational forces which, in truth, ensure the continued existence of Afghanistan’s fledgling shake-and-bake democracy.

But with Karzai has come the reality that the West could do better, that a far more pliable leader would be more advantageous to Western objectives – even if that leader were not a democratic one, an assertion recently made by Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, the British Ambassador. From Elaine Sciolino in today’s New York Times…

“A coded French diplomatic cable leaked to a French newspaper quotes the British ambassador in Afghanistan as predicting that the NATO-led military campaign against the Taliban will fail. That was not all. The best solution for the country, the ambassador said, would be installing an “acceptable dictator,” according to the newspaper.

“The current situation is bad, the security situation is getting worse, so is corruption, and the government has lost all trust,” the British envoy, Sherard Cowper-Coles, was quoted as saying by the author of the cable, François Fitou, the French deputy ambassador to Kabul.

The two-page cable — which was sent to the Élysée Palace and the French Foreign Ministry on Sept. 2, and was leaked to the investigative and satirical weekly Le Canard Enchaîné, which printed excerpts in its Wednesday issue — said that the NATO-led military presence was making it harder to stabilize the country.

“The presence of the coalition, in particular its military presence, is part of the problem, not part of its solution,” Sir Sherard was quoted as saying. “Foreign forces are the lifeline of a regime that would rapidly collapse without them. As such, they slow down and complicate a possible emergence from the crisis.”

Within 5 to 10 years, the only “realistic” way to unite Afghanistan would be for it to be “governed by an acceptable dictator,” the cable said, adding, “We should think of preparing our public opinion” for such an outcome.”

There’s Kissinger’s voice in my head again.

Since the beginning of the Mr. Bush’s Surge in Iraq, 1,000 US soldiers have died, almost a quarter of all US fatalities. As has been revealed of late, there was considerable opposition to the Surge among prominent US military leaders. While the President has routinely claimed that he ‘listens to the commanders on the ground’, the Surge was anything but a military request. It was a White House driven directive that did not take into consideration the opinions of the Joint Chiefs, nor commanders in Iraq itself. It was a politically motivated move aimed at altering domestic perceptions of the war.

In the year that has followed, many in the media, and the White House, have claimed the Surge a success. Even the outgoing commander of all US forces in Iraq, General David Petraeus, testified before Congress that the Surge had achieved many of its goals. But while overall violence is down in Iraq, the Surge cannot realistically take credit for it.

Despite claims that support the Surge’s success, it is first important to remember that the Sunni insurgency against occupational forces was diminished not by US efforts, but by the growing strength and influence of Shia militias. Secondly, it is important to remember that Sunnis only constitute 20% of Iraq’s population that the Iraqi government, and a variety of its ministries, are predominantly controlled by Shi’ites and, in some cases, are highly influenced or have been infiltrated by Shia militias. This is the primary reason why the Sunni Awakening occurred and why its leaders allied themselves directly with the US rather than the Iraqi government. As an aside, the Awakening was also a move on the part of tribal leaders, former nationalists and Ba’athists, to diminish the influence that ‘al-Qaeda in Iraq’ had gained in some Sunni communities. In truth, the Sunni Awakening did little more than take advantage of US financial support so that the afore mentioned tribal leaders could consolidate power and work to regain the influence that they had lost.

Iraq remains the world’s most dangerous country. One in every six Iraqis is a refugee – that’s approximately 4.7 million people. Some have fled to other countries, some have fled to less dangerous parts of Iraq. Today, a suicide bomber blew herself up at a police gathering in Balad Ruz, killing 22 people and wounding 32 more. In Baghdad, two car bombs also exploded killing 12.

There are two fundamental lessons that the West has been gifted over the last 60 years, though has still failed to learn. The first is that ‘winning hearts and minds’ is nothing more than a catch phrase. The second is that throwing conventional force into an asymmetric fire does not produce results.

Under Secretary of Defense, Eric Edelman, said something interesting today during a congressional hearing on the Georgia-Russia conflict…

“The Department of Defense is sending an assessment team to Tbilisi later this week to help us begin to consider carefully Georgia’s legitimate needs and our response. After assessments of these needs, we will review how the United States will be able to support the reconstruction of Georgia’s economy, infrastructure, and armed forces”.

I’d like to ask Mr. Edelman, and his boss, what the view’s like with their heads up their asses? Because the last time that I checked they still had a nation to deal with whose infrastructure and economy they were directly responsible for destroying. In five years the only substantial reconstructive effort of real note has been that of the US embassy in Baghdad, the largest of its kind on earth – this while 2.2 million Iraqis are still displaced, power is still intermittent in various areas, line ups for fuel are so long that people sometimes spend the night in their cars just to get gas, the medical system is in shambles, abuse is rampant in Iraqi jails, citizens have to change the routes they use on a daily basis to get their kids to school so as to avoid kidnappings and carjacking, and a plethora of other problems.

But worry not displaced Georgians, the United States is at your disposal.

But my favourite quote from Edelman’s drivel is…

“Georgia, like any sovereign country, should have the ability to defend itself and to deter renewed aggression.”

Such as - just off the top of my head - Iran?

Edelman should have said “sovereign democratic country”. Then at least he would have properly stayed on message.

Being ‘gifted’ independence is a tricky thing. In some parts of the world more than others…

“Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki said Monday there would be no security agreement between the United States and Iraq without an unconditional timetable for withdrawal— a direct challenge to the Bush administration, which insists that the timing for troop departure would be based on conditions on the ground.

“No pact or an agreement should be set without being based on full sovereignty, national common interests, and no foreign soldier should remain on Iraqi land, and there should be a specific deadline and it should not be open,” Maliki told a meeting of tribal Sheikhs in Baghdad.

Maliki said that the United States and Iraq had agreed that all foreign troops would be off Iraqi soil by the end of 2011. “There is an agreement actually reached, reached between the two parties on a fixed date, which is the end of 2011, to end any foreign presence on Iraqi soil,” Maliki said.

But the White House disputed Maliki’s statement and made clear the two countries are still at odds over the terms of a U.S. withdrawal.

“Any decisions on troops will be based on conditions on the ground in Iraq ,” White House spokesman Tony Fratto said in Crawford, Tex. , where President Bush is vacationing. “That has always been our position. It continues to be our position.”

Fratto denied Maliki’s assertion that an agreement has been reached mandating that all foreign forces be out of Iraq by the end of 2011.”

Of course any future decisions will be based on conditions on the ground. And as long as foreign troops occupy the country you can bet that there’s going to be unrest on some level. It’s the ‘favourable’ catch 22.

The Russians can get the hell of out Georgia though. The Bush Administration can push Moscow’s buttons infinitum and we can label it justified. But as far as the Iraqis are concerned, well, demanding that foreign forces set a timetable for withdrawal isn’t in the cards. Their real estate is too valuable.

Funny how that works.

In 2003 the United States invaded Iraq. The Bush Administration employed blatant falsehoods regarding Iraq’s WMD program and links between the regime of Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda, the latter of which is still believed by a great many Americans (there is ample television footage of almost every senior member of the administration employing outright falsehoods during the run up to the war). In truth, the decision to invade Iraq was made shortly following 9/11, with only the when and why left to be engineered. In the end, and despite popular belief to the contrary, the US led invasion of the country was not sanctioned by the United Nations, and was, in truth, in direct contravention of international law. The administration’s proverbial sleeve ace was that Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator and that the American public had a far better and clearer recollection of US military action taken against his regime than US assistance to it. This would be why it was effortless for pro-war pundits to evoke the gassing of Halabja as justification for Hussein’s removal while completely ignoring the fact that President Reagan vetoed a Congressional resolution passed soon after the incident calling for all US aid to Iraq to be immediately suspended. Of course, time passed, the incident died down in the press, and US aid continued unabated.

The Bush Administration, having adopted the Wolfowitz Doctrine as its official foreign policy platform in the aftermath of 9/11, initiated with the invasion Iraq what no other US administration had ever attempted – the establishment of a permanent US military footprint in the region. Of course, Iraq doesn’t geographically border the United States, but being that the United States has been the world’s lone super power since the end of the Cold War the truth is that every nation on earth does border America’s sphere of influence. US national security interests span the globe, not merely the Western hemisphere, making the Middle East as relevant as Mexico. The Wolfowitz Doctrine was written as a guidance to unabashedly capitalize on a singular world power reality, and that is precisely what the Bush Administration has endeavored to do in the wake of 9/11.

For reasons of national security, the United States invaded a foreign country, affected regime change, and has militarily occupied it for five years. In that time there have been war crimes committed, over 2 million people have been displaced, and most likely well over 100,000 Iraqi civilians killed. That said, the US is still able to condemn the Russians for their recent actions without batting an eye. Even more, they’ve largely won the PR battle on Georgia’s behalf.

Russian history in the 20th Century is, in many ways, replete with absolutes. The horror of the purges, the seizure of Eastern Europe following the Second World War, and so forth. These things are absolutes because a dictatorially corrupted political ideology was in place that could be easily seen for what it was. The same cannot be said of Western plutocracies, who, while adorned with chevrons marking their unquestionable right, conducted business in private with the same cold, ruthless, and unforgiving resolve. That reality has produced publics that have ultimately only lived half of the modern story of their nations, and ones that have, for the most part, unquestionably adhered to the designs of their plutocratic infrastructures.

Abraham Lincoln wrote something rather telling in August of 1855 in a letter to Joshua Speed, something rather prophetic with regards to the slow diminishment of the democratic principle that would continue unabated after his death…

“As a nation, we began by declaring that “all men are created equal.” We now practically read it “all men are created equal, except negroes.” When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read “all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.” When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty - to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy”

The perfect machine. Life lived during days of never ending summer with winter cloaked, knife in hand, doing business out of sight. This is who we are. Never mind our defense. We are never wrong. We are only sometimes mistaken.

The soonest I am able to get Casey in to see the vet is tomorrow morning. Things haven’t gotten any better. He can barely walk, licks his feet incessantly, and is lethargic. Roy called me last night and was worried that at some point Casey might have walked through antifreeze or some sort of fertilizer, so I immediately washed his feet, which caused him to yelp. I’m quite concerned to be honest.

Speaking To Yourself In Public

I went and got a coffee this morning and while I was standing in line I glanced over and read the headline on the front of the Globe & Mail (which was actually last Saturday’s edition - “Canada Takes Notes From Failed Soviet War”.

I then blurted out at a rather noticeably embarrassing volume - “you mean we’re leaving?”

I then returned home and looked up the article. It begins with the following…

“The Canadian military has been studying the Soviet debacle in Afghanistan for clues on how to prevent similar mistakes as NATO tries to beat back a persistent insurgency and ready the country’s weak but pro-Western government to assume greater control.

It began a research project in 2006, a year in which fighting intensified for Canada in the war against the Taliban.”

So let me get this straight. We’ve been involved in Afghanistan since 2001 – Joint Task Force 2 was the first operational combat unit in Afghanistan – and it’s taken this long for the geniuses in Ottawa to actually comparatively research the Soviet-Afghan conflict?

The article goes on…

“The project was undertaken … for the purpose of determining whether this history offered any lessons to be learned for the Canadian Forces,” an executive summary of some of the research said.”

On April 8th of last year I wrote an entry regarding the death of six Canadian soldiers in combat operations in Afghanistan. In that entry I made the following comment…

“This morning my first reaction to this news was to FedEx history books to General Hillier, Mr. O’Connor, and the Prime Minister.”

What I want to know is this – what special breed of moron commits soldiers to combat operations in a regional engagement wherein the inhabitants of that region have a storied past of successfully resisting and repelling much larger and stronger foreign forces without actually first doing our soldiers the service of due diligence with regards to historical military precedents?

I’ll not blame the Tories; they weren’t in power when we initially committed our troops, though they didn’t exactly vote against it either. But being that they are now in power I will hold them accountable for their actions, especially the extension of this country’s mission in Afghanistan.

“…for the purpose of determining whether this history offered any lessons to be learned…”

Are you kidding me? Who did the Department Of National Defence outsource this to, a grade 9 socials class?

According to today’s Independent, the United States has agreed to end the legal immunity enjoyed by private contractors from Iraqi law as a condition within the agreement that is currently being negotiated between the US and Iraq.

Despite this caveat, I am still against the agreement currently being negotiated as it would still allow the United States the use of 58 different bases in Iraq, the ability to carry out military operations without Iraqi government authority, and the continued legal immunity enjoyed by US military personnel.

There are also other questions that have to be asked. First, will the removal of legal immunity for contractors be retroactive so that past transgressions can be prosecuted? And, secondly, will it apply to those in the direct employ of the US State Department?

It should come as absolutely no surprise to anyone that the government of Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has assured the Iranian government that Iraq will not allow any part of its territory to be used as a staging area for any military strike against Iran. Maliki, who is visiting Tehran, discussed the issue with Iran’s Foreign Minister and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Iran’s primary concern is, of course, the current negotiations occurring between the United States and the Iraqi government with regards to the future of US forces in Iraq. As it stands now, the United States is pushing for the existence, or continued existence, of permanently garrisoned military facilities (even though that has been a US objective from day one), the ability to conduct military operations without requiring authorization from the Iraqi government, and, of course, continued immunity for all American personnel, be they in the military or private contractors, from Iraqi law. In effect, the United States, through its current occupational position, is intent on limiting Iraqi sovereignty. In truth, accord or not, they will most likely do whatever they please no matter Iraqi objections. That, of course, will only lead to the growth of anti-occupational sentiment amongst Iraqi’s Shi’ite majority and help bolster the political influence of Muqtada al-Sadr and others.

The reality is, like it or not, that Iran and Iraq must, in the future, enjoy stable relations. It is, in fact, quintessential for Iraqi economic development and security. But as long as Iraq remains a nation occupied by a military force that is ultimately commanded by a man that views Iran as a threat and does nothing to curtail Israeli threats of military action, then Iraq will remain a nation in turmoil. The only option available the Bush Administration at this late hour is to strike Iran, or support an operation to covertly remove its government, in hopes of installing a friendly regime that would create a pro-Western Iraqi-Iranian axis. The nuclear question, of course, ties into this, as it provides context with which to view the Iranians as a threat. Thus, it has been made the primary issue with regards to confronting Iran.

After decimating Fallujah, what better way to further denigrate the Sunni Muslim population than by handing out coins featuring…

Side One: Where will you spend eternity?

Side Two: For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. John 3:16.

That’s precisely what some Marines at the Western entrance to the city have been doing.

Numerous Marines posted at the Western entrance to the city have been distributing the coins to residents entering through the checkpoint, thrusting them into their hands. Fearing what might happen if they don’t accept them, most residents have accepted them without question, but the message that such an activity promotes has angered many of the city’s residents, forcing local commanders to investigate the matter.

To some this might not seem all that big a deal. After all, Christian missionaries do it on a daily basis throughout the world in nations where other religions are predominant. But given what befell the city of Fallujah as a result of operations Vigilant Resolve and Phantom Fury, you would think that something of this nature would be viewed as completely out of the question.

It is estimated that some 6,000 Iraqis died during the US assaults on Fallujah, displacing hundreds of thousands more. It also rendered much of the city damaged, destroying an estimated 10,000 homes and damaging two thirds of the city’s remaining buildings. The First and Second battles of Fallujah were the heavies urban military encounters since the Battle of Huế in Vietnam in 1968, according to the US military. To this day, residents must produce identification cards before being allowed to enter the city.

Ah, glorious liberation.

Remarks made recently by Dr. Dahlia Wasfi at the Iraq Forum (via YouTube)…