Globalizatin, Central Asian Version

This is also a story written by Richard Frye, the scholar of Iranian studies I admire as mentioned in the last post.

At the end of summer 1976, on the way home, we went the same way we had traveled earlier in June, by boat across the Caspian to Baku, and both same Afghans were on the boat. They had been sullen and unwilling to talk but this time in surprise they laughed and talked to us, believing we were in the same business of trading as they. And what were they bringing to Moscow? They had started from northern Afghanistan with karakul furs which they brought to Tehran to sell. Then they bought panty-hose and luxuries for the Russian market, which they sold in Moscow, and bought industrial diamonds to bring to Germany.

Their next goal was Stuttgart where they sold the diamonds and bought Mercedes Benz cars which they drove to Tehran and sold them there, because of the great demand in Iran for that make of car. After their log trip back to Afghanistan they obtained more karakul skins and set out for the same journey. In the morning at the customs in Baku it was clear that the Afghans had an arrangement with the Azeri officials to expedite their passage. They were only following an age old tradition in that part of the world, to trade where the highest rewards were to be found, even if it meant long distances and much trouble...

So something like the Silk Road still exists! The Mercedes Road? Blood Diamonds in Farsi?

Salam Pax is back

Salam was the first of the Iraqi bloggers. All during the war he blogged in excellent English while keeping his real identity secret. He became famous, and then quit blogging for a try at journalism (IIRC). Now he is back, with a rather upbeat view of life in modern Iraq, in a new Salam Pax blog. It is worth checking out. Here's a small taste of one of his longer posts:

After an illness you don’t recover just like that.. your health comes back in stages and Iraq has been very ill for a long time. We are seeing the first signs of recovery with the improved security situation and I believe all Iraqis can be a little bit patient as long as the positive signs continue.

We’ll keep paying the power generator guy his monthly fees for a bit longer.. I just hope the government doesn’t take too long to get things back up and running.. summer with it’s 50 degrees heat is just a couple of months away.

El Santo in Iraq!

OMG. Isn't this the famous Mexican wrestler, now perched atop a humvee in Iraq overseeing the elections?

anyone check his documentation?

Iraq returns to normal!

Well, depending on what you mean by 'normal.'

This morning since I rode the bus early up the mountain to Boone I was only half-awake. I staggered to my favorite place to tank up on coffee - the Boone Baglery. Picked up the copy of USA Today laying on the bench - it's not like I'm actually going to pay for the darn thing. There, on the inside page was the following headline to a story:

July troop deaths in Iraq may be lowest of war. Top general: Violence near 'normal' levels.

Right below this story was the headline for the next story:

Suicide bombers kill more than 50. Al-Qaeda in Iraq 'is not defeated,' U.S. colonel says.

Glad the Surge has brought some clarity to the problem.


for how I spent my evening in Boone, go here and here.

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Why we attacked Iraq

Ever wonder why it was in our vital national interests to invade Iraq? Well, wonder no more. Here is one of the chief architects of that invasion explaining it all and pointing out that, in fact, it was a good idea after all.

It is, of course, not his fault that the people interviewing him clearly are stunned at his argument. Nor that 72% of the American people don't buy it either. And I for one do not believe that he is, as Josh Marshall claims, "the stupidest guy on earth."

That would be the guy who hired him.

Cheaping out on Iraq ... and our Vets

... one more time. Salon.com has the following news bit:

From the "This Can't Possibly Be True but It Is" Department, Steve Benen passes along news that the Department of Defense is demanding that Iraq war veterans pay back signing bonuses they received on the ground that they didn't stay in the service for as long their signing contracts required. Fair enough, you say? Of course -- except that some of these veterans can't serve out their contracts because of injuries they suffered in Iraq.

Pennsylvania Rep. Jason Altmire, a Democrat, is pushing legislation to rectify the problem, which was apparently uncovered by the Dole-Shalala Commission on Care for America's Returning Wounded Warriors. That's all well and good, but just one question: Did it really take a presidential commission -- rather than, say, a single conscientious employee at the Pentagon -- to say that this is a stupid practice that needs to be stopped?

But perhaps this really isn't true. Couldn't be.

Coalition of the Exiting

Last week our illustrious Decider-in-Chief said "We thank the 36 nations who have troops on the ground in Iraq and the many others who are helping that young democracy. "

36 nations? That seems like a lot to have 'troops on the ground.'

After all, the guy from Canada left months ago.

And the guy from Iceland is leaving 1 October. And he isn't really a soldier. Iceland doesn't have a military. He's a media rep for the Icelandic Crisis Response Unit.

And no, I am not making any of this up for effect. Ti's true.

The "Decider" can't decide who decided

Or at least that seems to be the case for El Prez and the disbanding of the Iraqi army, now regarded as the single greatest blunder of the American occupation of Iraq. In an interview with biographer Robert Draper reported by the NYT Bush said “This group-think of ‘we all sat around and decided’ — there’s only one person that can decide, and that’s the president.” That's reassuring - it shows El Prez taking full responsibility for his policies, right or wrong. The "buck stops here" sort of attitude Americans like so much.

Then the effect is destroyed by this:

Mr. Bush acknowledged one major failing of the early occupation of Iraq when he said of disbanding the Saddam Hussein-era military, “The policy was to keep the army intact; didn’t happen.”

But when Mr. Draper pointed out that Mr. Bush’s former Iraq administrator, L. Paul Bremer III, had gone ahead and forced the army’s dissolution and then asked Mr. Bush how he reacted to that, Mr. Bush said, “Yeah, I can’t remember, I’m sure I said, ‘This is the policy, what happened?’ ”

Keeping the army intact was the policy, but someone decided on their own to break that policy, and Bush "can't remember?" I have to admit that I have become inured to tales of the Bush admin's incompetancy but this set me back on my heels. I don't know much about administration, but I am pretty sure that if any subordinate of mine directly contravened my stated policy I would have his head on a platter.

And I would remember it.

Iraq: how we got to where we are

The next question should perhaps be: Where exactly are we? "Too soon to tell," as Zhou Enlai famously said about the impact of the French Revolution on Communist China. Nevertheless, knowing how we arrived somewhere can sometimes help reveal where that somewhere is.

This one is a new one on me, but it sounds about right. As my father, once personnel director for that big port city in the south, could tell you, its all about picking the right people.

Alas.

Dan Simmons is back with a modest proposal

... actually, several modest proposals on how to deal with the situation in Iraq. A very good question, and Simmons is a smart and talented guy when not whiffing too much testosterone or bile. I discovered his latest essay while reading Michael Toten's blog "Middle East Journal." I think I have linked to it before and it is worth checking out, though it may depress the hell out of you. Here's what he has to say about Simmon's essay:

It isn’t possible for anyone to agree that all four options are good ones. They’re contradictory (and absurd) on purpose. But the whole thing is a delightful and thought-provoking out-of-the-box read by a clearly intelligent person.

Personally, I wouldn't go that far, but it is certainly worth a read. Some of you may remember my long series of posts on his "Century War" last year. I don't think I have the energy to do that with this essay, but read it and see what you think.

For me, I'll ponder it for a few days.

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Iraq: another defeatist liberal

Here it is, another Senator who thinks we are losing in Iraq and ought to start withdrawing. Must be one of those defeatist liberals we hear so much about.

The Bushies and Competence

The last post was about a problem that while infuriating if you are the one experiencing it is not a matter of life or death. The republic will go on even if my little niece's summer is ruined.

But what about the way we treat our soldiers returning from the Iraq war? Surely, if there were any place the Bush administration might be expected to take pains, it would be with medical care for our veterans.

You already know the answer of course. Congress slashed funds for head wounds and conditions at the Walter Reed Hospital, mere blocks from El Prez' house and the Army's showcase was shown to be... well, let's just say less than optimal. You can check here for my take on another problem last year before the bad news hit. And here. And for some real rage inducing giggles, here.

But what happens when your wounds are not physical and do not show? Then, apparently the government simply cheaps out and denies that you are wounded. Josh Marshall give a synopsis of a new Washington Porst article detailing the VA's conduct. Here's a bit about one of soldiers who helped capture Saddam Hussein:

One VA psychologist diagnosed Cruz with post-traumatic stress disorder. His condition was labeled "severe and chronic." In a letter supporting his request for PTSD-related disability pay, the psychologist wrote that Cruz was "in need of major help" and that he had provided "more than enough evidence" to back up his PTSD claim. His combat experiences, the letter said, "have been well documented."

None of that seemed to matter when his case reached VA disability evaluators. They turned him down flat, ruling that he deserved no compensation because his psychological problems existed before he joined the Army. They also said that Cruz had not proved he was ever in combat. "The available evidence is insufficient to confirm that you actually engaged in combat," his rejection letter stated.

So we send them into combat, and then deny that they have been in combat. And besides, they were probably crazy to start with. We don't need to spend any money on them! Make no mistake about it: it is a question of money. From Day One the admin has tried to fight this war on the cheap. We have been ... "thrifty"... with everything except blood.

This goes beyond incompetency, beyond stupidity. It is criminal.

What I read on Amazon today

Sometimes reading the mini-reviews on Amazon is depressing, sometimes infuriating and sometimes funny. Take this paragraph from "Clear Thinker" (sic) savaging George Packer's The Assassin's Gate: America in Iraq. Mr Thinker is clearly in support of the war and wrote his review almost exactly a year ago.

First, it is yesterday's book. Written before three overwhelmingly successful elections in Iraq, a constitution, an elected government, the death of Zarqawi and vast overall progress on a number of fronts, it attempts to draw final conclusions too early. Even Zarqawi described Al-Qaeda's current situation in Iraq as "bleak". The author seems to be not aware of the substantial losses in the early days of wars from WWII to the Revolutionary War. War is messy, mistakes are made, battles and men are lost. The poorly-educated (militarily) Packer has probably never heard of Von Moltke or of his well-known dictum that "No plan survives contact with the enemy. Therefore no plan of operations extends with any certainty beyond the first contact with the main hostile force."* Things take time, and the author has shown panic at too early a stage and lost his perspective of that fact. He is a short-term weak thinker, and war is a long-term business for strong determined men.

Somehow his critique has not withstood the test of time.


*apparently von Moltke did not mean you shouldn't at least have a plan.


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Chritopher Hitchens and Iraq

Hitchens has always been a hard left bomb thrower, wanting to try Henry Kissinger for war crimes for example. Yet he has been a staunch proponent for the invasion of Iraq and for the War on Terror. There have been various explanations for this from the puzzled Left, mostly ad hominem explanations - the insidious effects of alcoholism, premature senility, greed for the money and power that is supposed to come to Lefties who go over to the Dark Side, or general moral turpitude and sheer evil. Take your pick.

I always thought it was because he had gone into the Kurdish region in 1991 and had a chance to see the effects of Saddam's regime first hand. It left his mind ravaged and determined him to uphold the Kurds at almost all cost. Here is his account from his latest letter from Kurdistan in Vanity Fair:

In the town of Halabja, which has now earned its gruesome place in history, I met people whose hideous wounds from chemical bombardment were still suppurating. The city of Qala Diza had been thoroughly dynamited and bulldozed, and looked like an irretrievable wreck. Much of the area's lavish tree cover had been deforested: the bare plains were dotted with forbidding concrete barracks into which Kurds had been forcibly "relocated" or (a more accurate word) "concentrated." Nearly 200,000 people had been slaughtered, and millions more deported: huddling in ruins or packed into fetid camps on the Turkish and Iranian frontiers. To turn a spade was to risk uncovering a mass grave.

Then he makes a confession:

I was among those who thought and believed and argued that this example could, and should, be extended to the rest of the country; the cause became a consuming thing in my life. To describe the resulting shambles as a disappointment or a failure or even a defeat would be the weakest statement I could possibly make: it feels more like a sick, choking nightmare of betrayal from which there can be no awakening. Yet Kurdistan continues to demonstrate how things could have been different, and it isn't a place from which the West can simply walk away.

I certainly empathize with the whole letter and especially agree with the last point. To see what Kurdistan has accomplished is to see what could have been, and may actually be at some point. Thus it is difficult to sign on to the "Get out now" agenda. It is almost as difficult to be satisfied with "set a timetable and then get out" plan. But another two years of more of the same, with little hope of progress, is simply not an option.

How did we get into such a box, and what can we do about it? Both questions will make for some interesting history.

Bush is not going to be able to walk away from his responsibility for this, though the full responsibility lies much wider. It is an indictment of the whole American political class and much of the media. What this all means will be a broader political change than simply ushering a few Rupubs out and welcoming a few new Demos.


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What did they say and when did they say it - Iraq version

Don't you sometimes have a vague memory of the stipendiary punditry bloviating about the war over the last four years and consistently being wrong? But then when you catch the same guys talking now, they seems so reasonable? Willing to admit a few errors in judgement, while still insisting that their judgement now is 20/20 is the American public would just continue to show common sense by listening to them? Your memory must be playing tricks on you.

Check out Tom Tomorrow's retrospective right here.

Our Officer Corps

Most Americans, I think, ignore the officer corps of the army. We just don't think of them when we imagine our democratic institutions. But we should, for many reasons.

Anyway, the Iraq war has had a number of unintended consequences, one of which is a growing split between the younger mid-ranks of the officer corps and the generals. Today Lt Col Paul Yingling, a combat leader who has proven his worth in Iraq, publishes a critique of the generals in Armed Forces Journal. There is an article about it in today's WaPo which you can read. Here's a taste of Yingling's conclusions:

"After going into Iraq with too few troops and no coherent plan for postwar stabilization, America's general officer corps did not accurately portray the intensity of the insurgency to the American public," he writes. "For reasons that are not yet clear, America's general officer corps underestimated the strength of the enemy, overestimated the capabilities of Iraq's government and security forces and failed to provide Congress with an accurate assessment of security conditions in Iraq."

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Tenet's Tell All?

George Tenet, former director of the CIA, is about to come out with his memoirs telling his side of the story of the run-up to the Iraq war. Should be fun, at least if he attempts to be honestly informative. A forecast of this appears in today's Washington Post. Here is what it is expecting:

... Tenet is not going to get too many Christmas cards from Vice President Cheney's office after they read "At the Center of the Storm." Folks from down the river at the Pentagon, including former deputy secretary of defense Paul Wolfowitz-- a guy who's already going through a rough patch -- and former defense undersecretary Douglas Feith, might also get some heartburn.

Former secretary of state Colin Powell comes out fine. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who was President Bush's key adviser in engineering the Iraq invasion, doesn't come out so fine. Not fine at all.

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Unlike a lot of political memoirs this one might be worth reading no matter how self-serving it may be.

A Baghdad Dispatch

Fouad Ajami has published his latest update on the war in Iraq in today's Washington Post. Ajami is a professor at Johns Hopkins and is author of The Foreigner's Gift: The Americans, the Arabs, and the Iraqis in Iraq. I greatly admire his work and his personal insights into the Middle East since he is a Shia from Lebanon who has long lived and worked in the US. When he talks and writes of 'us' and 'we' he invariably means 'us' Americans.

I do not know what to make of his political judgement. He is, to some extent, a prose poet of Shia triumphalism and it worries me that he is a close friend of the Chalabis. Still, his prospective on the situation is almost unique. If I understand his dispatch, the civil war for Iraq has just been fought, and the Shia have won. The US should not pull out, but allow the moderate Shia to forge some type of compromise with the more realistic Sunni who can accept no longer being in charge. Ajami's writings on Iraq always seem to me to be laced with an inexpressible sadness, but this dispatch ends on an upbeat note, perhaps too upbeat at this late date. Please see for yourself.

The crackdown on the Mahdi Army that the new American commander, Gen. David Petraeus, has launched has the backing of the ruling Shia coalition. Iraqi police and army units have taken to the field against elements of the Mahdi army. In recent days, in the southern city of Diwaniyya, American and Iraqi forces have together battled the forces of Moqtada al-Sadr. To the extent that the Shia now see Iraq as their own country, their tolerance for mayhem and chaos has receded. Sadr may damn the American occupiers, but ordinary Shia men and women know that the liberty that came their way had been a gift of the Americans.

The young men of little education--earnest displaced villagers with the ways of the countryside showing through their features and dialect and shiny suits--who guarded me through Baghdad, spoke of old errors, and of the joy and dignity of this new order. Children and nephews and younger brothers of men lost to the terror of the Baath, they are done with the old servitude. They behold the Americans keeping the peace of their troubled land with undisguised gratitude. It hasn't been always brilliant, this campaign waged in Iraq. But its mistakes can never smother its honor, and no apology for it is due the Arab autocrats who had averted their gaze from Iraq's long night of terror under the Baath.

Iraq: Hope, or 'light at the end of the tunnel'

As a Viet Nam era person (I volunteered for the war before I dodged the draft - long story) I am innately suspicious of government talk along the lines of 'light at the end of the tunnel.' Sometimes it's a train.

Nevertheless, there is some moderately encouraging news coming out of Iraq and especially in Anbar province. I listened to Gen. Petreaus last night on the 'News Hour' while he tried to explain just what was going on when John McCain visited the market in Baghdad. It wasn't entirely convincing, but I believe he is right to say there has been an improvement. McCain certainly is not as delusional as some commentators are painting him at the moment.

But I think it is Anbar that is more telling. As this 'dispatch' in the WSJ shows, tribal chiefs are beginning to co-operate with Iraqi and American forces against Al Qaeda. Partly this is because that after having a taste of rule by fanatics, the central government doesn't seem so bad, partly because the government and the Americans have been careful to offer them some inducements. But mainly I think it means that the Sunni chiefs in Anbar have made a rational and informed judgement that their future lies with a unified Iraq, one that owes them a debt for what they assume will be a 'victory' of sorts.

We'll see. But I sure hope this bears fruit.

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