Iraq
There is a separate post dedicated to the 2003-2011 American war in Iraq.
This post is dedicated to other issues dealing with Iraq.
by Michael Scheuer
non-intervention.com, 2014-06-13
The media’s frenzy over the Sunni mujahedin advance toward Baghdad
is a stark reminder to all Americans of the dire costs exacted from them
by the U.S. government’s unnecessary interventions in the affairs of other countries and peoples.
Today’s stories from Iraq underline the total waste flowing from the 2003 U.S. intervention in Iraq,
the costs of which exceed $1 trillion, 5,000 dead U.S. service personnel,
many more thousands of soldiers and Marines wounded and maimed,
and an unending and apparently un-endable war with the Muslim world.
It was easy, from the start, to see where U.S. intervention in Iraq would lead.
Even a dumbass like myself correctly predicted the mess we are now seeing there
in the substance of several books published between 2002 and 2011.
Such predictions were not rocket science,
a little knowledge of human nature and history
were all a person needed to know that today’s events were all but inevitable.
[Amen!
One can only have contempt for
the ownership and management of the Washington Post,
that did so much to sell America and Americans on the "need" for that war.
Too bad their op-ed page has not included many entries on this subject from Mr. Scheuer.
His learned views would have been a tonic to the war-mongering
coming from the Post's editorial board
and from such as its columnists the Kagans (e.g.).
Meanwhile, the Post editorial board continues to advocate further involvement in Iraq and the Mideast:
Editorial on 2014-06-11: "The Middle East’s mounting danger".
Now back to the words of Mr. Scheuer:]
...
What to do now? First, stay out of Iraq completely and utterly. To re-intervene would cost more American money and lives, and it would drive-up oil prices even faster. It also would amount not only to the United States again intervening in an oil-rich Muslim country, but intervening in a Sunni-Shia religious war on the side of the Shia, who are fiercely hated by the overwhelmingly Sunni Islamic world. Since the Obama administration — like its predecessor — would not intend to win or finally settle anything if it re-intervenes, the Sunni mujahedin will prevail; their victory will be seen by most Muslims as the Islamists’ defeating the United States In Iraq for a second time; and that victory will reinforce bin Laden’s promise that no nation-state can defeat the mujahedin if God finds their efforts worthy, which He seems to have done in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Second, the national government must act to defend the United States here at home in North America by getting the hell out of the way. Because Obama and his fellow environmental ideologues have done nothing since 2008 to move the United States toward energy self-sufficiency — all successful efforts on energy have been private sector-led — Americans are going to have to tighten their belts and ride out the higher gas prices that are coming because of events in Iraq. But, now, the XL Pipeline must be immediately started, and permits for drilling on Federal on- and off-shore lands must be issued as quickly as possible. Energy self-reliance is still years off but now is the time force Obama and his lieutenants act for the first time as American patriots, rather than elite professors who regard Americans as laboratory animals upon whom they can conduct their social, economic, environmental, and interventionist experiments to see how much tax they can pay and how much pain they can stand.
Third, Americans must look sharp and finally see that the Republican and Democratic interventionists — they are majorities in both parties — are killing the United States economically and politically; are earning us nearly innumerable enemies; and are involving us willy-nilly in unnecessary wars to protect, with American blood and money, the interests of countries from Eastern Europe to the Middle East to Sub-Saharan Africa, countries where a change in government or even their demise would have no quantifiable impact on the genuine national security concerns of the United States.
The truth is that since the end of the Soviet Union, unrelenting bipartisan U.S. interventionism under the two Bushes, Clinton, and Obama has earned America only defeat, hatred, death, limb-less soldiers and Marines, bankruptcy, and diminished national security. History will show that Dr. Ron Paul was right about the nation-killing costs of foreign intervention score at every step of the way. Perhaps the current disaster in Iraq will show whether his Senator-son is a chip of the old block and eager to defend America, or an acquiescent interventionist willing to tack in any direction necessary to have a shot at the presidency.
by Patrick Lang
Sic Semper Tyrannis, 2016-04-17
[I disapprove of Lang's use of the term "Borg".
To me, that avoids a close look at who is really driving American policy these days:
the group-that-must-not-be-named,
via their combination of economic, media and political strength.
But anyhow, the rest of his remarks seem quite appropriate to me.
Here they are:]
I just checked the political news from Baghdad. This mess has not improved in the last couple of days. As H. Rap Brown would have "sayed" in the sixties, "the chickens has come home to roost."
In 2015 I compared the effects of Borgist R2P/Ziocon/neoliberal actions to the ancient Hindu notion of Shiva, Lord of Destruction. The link is below.
The combination of US and other forces that destroyed Iraq's social order and government created a kind of atomism in a society that had many disparate and mutually exclusive factions, tribes, sects, etc. The Borgist collective believed that these groups could be united in an election driven process in which an enthusiasm for purple thumbs would overcome personal and factional interest. The post colonial construct called "Iraq" had been held together since its creation by force and coercion while it festered or fermented (take your pick) in its progress of evolving towards something like internal coherence. We destroyed that and believed that the artificialities of western political institutions could reconcile the mutually hostile elements. Babak observed here that such post-colonial countries eventually shed their Western accretions and are revealed once again in the guise of the beast within. He is correct.
Well, pilgrims, if Iraq's "government" founders the US/Obamanite position in Iraq will crash to the ground with it. pl
This post is dedicated to other issues dealing with Iraq.
2014
2014-06-13-Scheuer-let-iraq-disintegrate-america-must-not-re-intervene
Let Iraq disintegrate, America must not re-interveneby Michael Scheuer
non-intervention.com, 2014-06-13
The media’s frenzy over the Sunni mujahedin advance toward Baghdad
is a stark reminder to all Americans of the dire costs exacted from them
by the U.S. government’s unnecessary interventions in the affairs of other countries and peoples.
Today’s stories from Iraq underline the total waste flowing from the 2003 U.S. intervention in Iraq,
the costs of which exceed $1 trillion, 5,000 dead U.S. service personnel,
many more thousands of soldiers and Marines wounded and maimed,
and an unending and apparently un-endable war with the Muslim world.
It was easy, from the start, to see where U.S. intervention in Iraq would lead.
Even a dumbass like myself correctly predicted the mess we are now seeing there
in the substance of several books published between 2002 and 2011.
Such predictions were not rocket science,
a little knowledge of human nature and history
were all a person needed to know that today’s events were all but inevitable.
[Amen!
One can only have contempt for
the ownership and management of the Washington Post,
that did so much to sell America and Americans on the "need" for that war.
Too bad their op-ed page has not included many entries on this subject from Mr. Scheuer.
His learned views would have been a tonic to the war-mongering
coming from the Post's editorial board
and from such as its columnists the Kagans (e.g.).
Meanwhile, the Post editorial board continues to advocate further involvement in Iraq and the Mideast:
Editorial on 2014-06-11: "The Middle East’s mounting danger".
Now back to the words of Mr. Scheuer:]
...
What to do now? First, stay out of Iraq completely and utterly. To re-intervene would cost more American money and lives, and it would drive-up oil prices even faster. It also would amount not only to the United States again intervening in an oil-rich Muslim country, but intervening in a Sunni-Shia religious war on the side of the Shia, who are fiercely hated by the overwhelmingly Sunni Islamic world. Since the Obama administration — like its predecessor — would not intend to win or finally settle anything if it re-intervenes, the Sunni mujahedin will prevail; their victory will be seen by most Muslims as the Islamists’ defeating the United States In Iraq for a second time; and that victory will reinforce bin Laden’s promise that no nation-state can defeat the mujahedin if God finds their efforts worthy, which He seems to have done in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Second, the national government must act to defend the United States here at home in North America by getting the hell out of the way. Because Obama and his fellow environmental ideologues have done nothing since 2008 to move the United States toward energy self-sufficiency — all successful efforts on energy have been private sector-led — Americans are going to have to tighten their belts and ride out the higher gas prices that are coming because of events in Iraq. But, now, the XL Pipeline must be immediately started, and permits for drilling on Federal on- and off-shore lands must be issued as quickly as possible. Energy self-reliance is still years off but now is the time force Obama and his lieutenants act for the first time as American patriots, rather than elite professors who regard Americans as laboratory animals upon whom they can conduct their social, economic, environmental, and interventionist experiments to see how much tax they can pay and how much pain they can stand.
Third, Americans must look sharp and finally see that the Republican and Democratic interventionists — they are majorities in both parties — are killing the United States economically and politically; are earning us nearly innumerable enemies; and are involving us willy-nilly in unnecessary wars to protect, with American blood and money, the interests of countries from Eastern Europe to the Middle East to Sub-Saharan Africa, countries where a change in government or even their demise would have no quantifiable impact on the genuine national security concerns of the United States.
The truth is that since the end of the Soviet Union, unrelenting bipartisan U.S. interventionism under the two Bushes, Clinton, and Obama has earned America only defeat, hatred, death, limb-less soldiers and Marines, bankruptcy, and diminished national security. History will show that Dr. Ron Paul was right about the nation-killing costs of foreign intervention score at every step of the way. Perhaps the current disaster in Iraq will show whether his Senator-son is a chip of the old block and eager to defend America, or an acquiescent interventionist willing to tack in any direction necessary to have a shot at the presidency.
2016
2016-04-17-Lang-Iraq-government-collapse-likely
"Iraq Government Collapse Likely..." ISWby Patrick Lang
Sic Semper Tyrannis, 2016-04-17
[I disapprove of Lang's use of the term "Borg".
To me, that avoids a close look at who is really driving American policy these days:
the group-that-must-not-be-named,
via their combination of economic, media and political strength.
But anyhow, the rest of his remarks seem quite appropriate to me.
Here they are:]
I just checked the political news from Baghdad. This mess has not improved in the last couple of days. As H. Rap Brown would have "sayed" in the sixties, "the chickens has come home to roost."
In 2015 I compared the effects of Borgist R2P/Ziocon/neoliberal actions to the ancient Hindu notion of Shiva, Lord of Destruction. The link is below.
The combination of US and other forces that destroyed Iraq's social order and government created a kind of atomism in a society that had many disparate and mutually exclusive factions, tribes, sects, etc. The Borgist collective believed that these groups could be united in an election driven process in which an enthusiasm for purple thumbs would overcome personal and factional interest. The post colonial construct called "Iraq" had been held together since its creation by force and coercion while it festered or fermented (take your pick) in its progress of evolving towards something like internal coherence. We destroyed that and believed that the artificialities of western political institutions could reconcile the mutually hostile elements. Babak observed here that such post-colonial countries eventually shed their Western accretions and are revealed once again in the guise of the beast within. He is correct.
Well, pilgrims, if Iraq's "government" founders the US/Obamanite position in Iraq will crash to the ground with it. pl
Labels: Iraq
posted by KHarbaugh at 19:00
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