Surge, a Façade for Changing Disgraced Policy
Mirza A. Beg
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Media Monitor Network Friday, July 25, 2008
http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/53190
The American Muslim Friday, July 25, 2008
http://www.theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/surge_a_facade_for_changing_disgraced_policy/0016446
Cross-Cultural Understanding, Tuesday, July 29, 2008
http://www.ccun.org/Opinion%20Editorials/2008/July/29%20o/Surge,%20a%20Facade%20for%20Changing%20Failing%20Bush%20Policy%20in%20Iraq%20By%20Mirza%20A.%20Beg.htm
After four years of obstinate refusal to increase troops, Bush takes credit for the surge. McCain, with some justification thumps his chest claiming fatherhood of the surge. Unfortunately most pundits in the media also parrot the bumper sticker chorus,” The surge is working.”
Yes, American casualties are down; even the Iraqi casualties are down, but there is more to it than the surge. Let us not follow the propaganda mill blindly again. Consider the reasons that are more important and relevant than the surge itself.
Bush policy from the start of the Iraq invasion in March 2003, up to the Republican defeat in the Congressional elections in November, 2006 was essentially as follows:
1- The level of troops in Iraq, about 130,000, is adequate. If the generals ask, more troops will be provided. The generals towed the line and did not question it publicly.
2. Insistence that the dismantling of the Iraqi military, as well as the civilian infrastructure, was the correct policy, after the fall of Saddam. New civilian infrastructure, police and military are being trained with selected loyal Iraqis.
3 - All the resistance in Iraq is by Al Qaida supporters on the Sunni side, and Iran is fomenting trouble on the Shia side. No recognition of nationalist sentiments.
4 - Never negotiate with the insurgents who have American blood on their hands.
Bush, Chaney and Rumsfeld stubbornly adhered to the above mantras while Iraq descended into chaos. American deaths rose to more that 100 per month, reaching 160 in some months. In the meantime, bombing of Iraqi government targets rose dramatically, claiming more than 1,000 Iraqi lives per month. This increased internal religious strife, sinking into civil war. Consequently, about 15% of Iraqi population is displaced. Two million Iraqis fled to neighboring countries and another two million are internally displaced - “ethnically-cleansed” to safer sectarian neighborhoods.
Sunnis and Shias who lived in mixed neighborhoods fled to the ghetto-like safety of walled segregated neighborhoods. The safety walls between the cleansed-sectarian neighborhoods were erected by the American occupation authority.
The American electorate stirred from slumber and defeated Bush cronies in the Congressional elections of November 2006. Bush was forced to fire Rumsfeld, “face of the Iraq war” as the Secretary of Defense. Robert Gates, the new secretary, took the job reluctantly, but found greater freedom with the backing of the new Congress. The long awaited bipartisan Baker–Hamilton report of December 2006, urbanely castigated the administration for doing everything wrong. Some of the important recommendations were that the administration should open a dialogue with the Iraqi resistance as well as the regional opposition and stop the torture and mistreatment of Iraqis.
Bush pretended to ignore the report, but quietly replaced the generals running the war in Iraq. Then with fanfare, he appointed General Petraeus, widely hailed for his humane and cooperative treatment of Kurds at the beginning of the war.
Reversing the largely discredited first three policies, the new policy, up front was to raise the troop strength from 130,000 to 165,000, popularly called the surge. But the violence remained unabated for the first few months of 2007, until General Petraeus, quietly reversed even the 4th bed-rock Bush policy of no quarter to those who killed Americans.
Petraeus recognized the obvious; the insurgency was not pro Al Qaida but nationalistic. He instituted a program, employing former insurgents fighting the Americans in the Sunni areas into provincial militia, particularly in the most dangerous Al Anbar province, west of Baghdad. The program pays $10 per day to about 100,000 of the militia, controlled by local sheiks, not the Shia-dominated Iraqi government. In the shattered economy of Iraq, $10 goes a long way. A total of $30 million per month is pittance compared to hemorrhaging of $12 billion per month.
Finally a sane use of 30 million dollars, in complete reversal of the Bush policy, because almost all the people in the militia supported the resistance against the US forces and undoubtedly quite a few have American blood on their hands. Some may say it is bribery; a surrender to the enemy by the unyielding Bush. But it is the main factor that brought down the violence drastically.
The second reason for the decline in violence is that cleansed sectarian neighborhoods separated by barriers are easy to patrol. It dampened the sectarian violence.
The third reason is patience. With Bush limping towards the end of his term, Iraqi Sunnis and Shias are waiting him out for the new government in the US. They feel that with his diminished power for misadventures it is better to wait than fight.
It is not the surge by itself that is working. The addition of 30,000 troops has marginally helped, but the real reason is the changed Sunni attitude, because of the reversal of the US policy from suppression to paying the Sunnis and supporting them in local autonomy against the central government of Prime Minister Maliki, whom Bush gave unquestioning support. No wonder Maliki now insists on a time-table for American withdrawal.
Bush and McCain keep repeating the simplistic deceit about the surge, and the media keeps reporting it. Occasionally voices are raised challenging it, but they do not make the front pages or the lead story on the network news.
The claim that the surge is working is akin to saying that sun rises because the rooster crows. Eight years ago, I would not have believed that a significant number of voters can be so duped, but after the two Bush terms I know they can be. We as a people were willingly duped at the start of the war. The question is, have we and the media learned the lesson of the duplicity of this administration or will we continue to be duped.
Mirza A. Beg can be contacted at mab64@yahoo.com and at http://mirzasmusings.blogspot.com/
Monday, July 28, 2008
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Karadzic Arrested 08-07-22
Karadzic, the Serbian Butcher of Bosnia, Arrested
Mirza A. Beg
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Pine Magazine, Tuesday, July 22, 2008
http://www.pine-magazine.com/maincat.php?category_id=2
Media Monitors Network, Tuesday, July 22, 2008
http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/53127
The American Muslim, Tuesday, July 22, 2008
http://www.theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/karadzic_the_serbian_butcher_of_bosnia_arrested/0016437
The arrest of Radovan Karadzic, the leader and one of the main architects of Serbian atrocities and genocide against the Bosnian Muslims and Catholic Croats is not only good news, but much needed victory for the cause of justice. He, as the civilian leader, along with Ratko Mladic, the military leader of the Serb forces, was the main culprit in the civil war in Bosnia from 1991 to 1996. They rained death and destruction on Sarajevo and directed the genocide in Bosnia that killed more than 200,000 Bosnians and Croats. They were indicted for their crimes against humanity by the international court of justice at The Hague and have eluded arrest for the last thirteen years.
As children, we are taught and fortunately we believe that evil does not pay and justice triumphs in the end. It is an uplifting message to imbibe. It gives us an ideal to aspire for, rooted in the purity of innocence. Perhaps that early implant of idealism is what keeps the world from spinning completely out of control and falling irredeemably into chaos.
Unfortunately, as adults we come face to face with the reality, leading to disillusionment. We sadly come to realize that tyrants, exploiters and killers are only occasionally brought to justice to face deserved punishment. Most tyrants not only thrive, but are even celebrated; especially when they are supported by a sectarian populace. If they live long enough and mellow with age, their sectarian good deeds help cover up their terrible crimes.
The best known extreme examples are Hitler who came to a well deserved ignominious end, but Stalin was celebrated until his natural death by his beleaguered countrymen. History is full of such pairs. In modern times many horrible killers and dictators retired and found refuge in other countries to live and die in isolated luxury. Tyranny by stronger countries on weaker countries is often celebrated in the hallowed name of patriotism and nationalism by the strong.
Occasionally when tyrants, killers and genocide perpetrators are caught and brought to the bar of slow grinding sporadic justice, a modicum of humanity is reclaimed, a few tears are wiped and it rekindles hope.
Often tyrants are replaced by other tyrants, or even unintended tyranny of war of hubris, such as the fate of Saddam Hussein. Many dictators and evil systems fall to leaders full of promise who adapt the same methods, once in power, as in the case of Idi Amin of Uganda and Mugabe of Zimbabwe. Unfortunately most major countries have been guilty of selective violations of human rights of beleaguered minorities; there are many current examples of such ongoing conflicts.
After the unprecedented carnage of the WW II, the stunned world came to its senses to establish a world-wide organization, The United Nations (UN), to be a world assembly where a consensus could be reached, so that such carnages could be avoided for a better future.
Though the UN has been immensely successful through its many agencies in helping the poverty-stricken peoples of the word, unfortunately it has failed in its primary purpose of outlawing wars and carnage. The main impediments are the five major powers, the victors of the WW II; Great Britain, France, the United States, China and now Russia in place of the Soviet Union. They reserved for them-selves the power of veto, the right to individually kill any resolution in the Security Council, the executive arm for world peace in the UN. Thus many regional wars and even genocides have continued, in which either the powers them-selves were engaged or it involved their client states.
The UN also created the International Court of Justice, headquartered at The Hague in the Netherlands, to be the impartial arm of justice for those who had no other recourse. The most powerful country, the United States refused to join it. Therefore, the International Court of Justice works only when the less powerful tyrants are defeated and caught.
Nevertheless, the arrest of Radovan Karadzic after thirteen years of eluding half-hearted attempts by the Serbian and the UN peace-keepers is a small victory for the ideals that we were raised on, and it keeps the flickering flame of justice alive.
Mirza A. Beg can be contacted at mab64@yahoo.com .
Mirza A. Beg
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Pine Magazine, Tuesday, July 22, 2008
http://www.pine-magazine.com/maincat.php?category_id=2
Media Monitors Network, Tuesday, July 22, 2008
http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/53127
The American Muslim, Tuesday, July 22, 2008
http://www.theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/karadzic_the_serbian_butcher_of_bosnia_arrested/0016437
The arrest of Radovan Karadzic, the leader and one of the main architects of Serbian atrocities and genocide against the Bosnian Muslims and Catholic Croats is not only good news, but much needed victory for the cause of justice. He, as the civilian leader, along with Ratko Mladic, the military leader of the Serb forces, was the main culprit in the civil war in Bosnia from 1991 to 1996. They rained death and destruction on Sarajevo and directed the genocide in Bosnia that killed more than 200,000 Bosnians and Croats. They were indicted for their crimes against humanity by the international court of justice at The Hague and have eluded arrest for the last thirteen years.
As children, we are taught and fortunately we believe that evil does not pay and justice triumphs in the end. It is an uplifting message to imbibe. It gives us an ideal to aspire for, rooted in the purity of innocence. Perhaps that early implant of idealism is what keeps the world from spinning completely out of control and falling irredeemably into chaos.
Unfortunately, as adults we come face to face with the reality, leading to disillusionment. We sadly come to realize that tyrants, exploiters and killers are only occasionally brought to justice to face deserved punishment. Most tyrants not only thrive, but are even celebrated; especially when they are supported by a sectarian populace. If they live long enough and mellow with age, their sectarian good deeds help cover up their terrible crimes.
The best known extreme examples are Hitler who came to a well deserved ignominious end, but Stalin was celebrated until his natural death by his beleaguered countrymen. History is full of such pairs. In modern times many horrible killers and dictators retired and found refuge in other countries to live and die in isolated luxury. Tyranny by stronger countries on weaker countries is often celebrated in the hallowed name of patriotism and nationalism by the strong.
Occasionally when tyrants, killers and genocide perpetrators are caught and brought to the bar of slow grinding sporadic justice, a modicum of humanity is reclaimed, a few tears are wiped and it rekindles hope.
Often tyrants are replaced by other tyrants, or even unintended tyranny of war of hubris, such as the fate of Saddam Hussein. Many dictators and evil systems fall to leaders full of promise who adapt the same methods, once in power, as in the case of Idi Amin of Uganda and Mugabe of Zimbabwe. Unfortunately most major countries have been guilty of selective violations of human rights of beleaguered minorities; there are many current examples of such ongoing conflicts.
After the unprecedented carnage of the WW II, the stunned world came to its senses to establish a world-wide organization, The United Nations (UN), to be a world assembly where a consensus could be reached, so that such carnages could be avoided for a better future.
Though the UN has been immensely successful through its many agencies in helping the poverty-stricken peoples of the word, unfortunately it has failed in its primary purpose of outlawing wars and carnage. The main impediments are the five major powers, the victors of the WW II; Great Britain, France, the United States, China and now Russia in place of the Soviet Union. They reserved for them-selves the power of veto, the right to individually kill any resolution in the Security Council, the executive arm for world peace in the UN. Thus many regional wars and even genocides have continued, in which either the powers them-selves were engaged or it involved their client states.
The UN also created the International Court of Justice, headquartered at The Hague in the Netherlands, to be the impartial arm of justice for those who had no other recourse. The most powerful country, the United States refused to join it. Therefore, the International Court of Justice works only when the less powerful tyrants are defeated and caught.
Nevertheless, the arrest of Radovan Karadzic after thirteen years of eluding half-hearted attempts by the Serbian and the UN peace-keepers is a small victory for the ideals that we were raised on, and it keeps the flickering flame of justice alive.
Mirza A. Beg can be contacted at mab64@yahoo.com .
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