Antiwar.com Blog

Three Iraqi police stations and one police academy in Basra have been attacked by five simultaneous car bombs, killing over 60 people and wounding at least 200.

British soldiers attempting to get to the sites of the explosions were reportedly stoned by the crowds.

You might remember that turning on American soldiers and Western journalists was also the response of the crowds after the massive Najaf bombings.

Inevitably, after one of these bombings, journalists will write that the Iraqis were angry at the “lack of security” and blame the occupation for this. It is true that Iraqis blame Americans for a lack of security, but their anger is now directed at the occupation itself for preventing Iraqis from providing their own security. The violence in Iraq today is mostly committed by the Iraqis intent on dislodging the occupation and the occupation’s violent responses. I think the occupation had a brief period of time just after the invasion to prove themselves capable of providing security rather than being an impediment, but that time is long past.

It is widely recognized now that the disbanding of the Iraqi army and the overzealous de-Baathification policies of the American-imported exile Iraqis, Chalabi in particular, and the American neocons guaranteed that chaos far too great for the too-few American soldiers to handle would ensue. This chaos created an atmosphere of distrust toward the occupation in ordinary Iraqis and those Iraqis most virulently opposed to the occupation were and are more easily able to use violence to accelerate the process of total estrangement between the Iraqi population and the occupation.

The occupiers have been herded into untenable positions. They must use severe repression and excessive firepower to maintain their tenuous grip on those portions of territory still in their control because they neither understand the culture well enough to craft a suitable political response and because they don’t have enough troops to effectively prevent the rebels from operating freely. This situation creates the downward spiral of violence that will spark further bloodbaths like the Marine assault and siege on the town of Fallujah, which only furthers the goals of the rebellion. Fallujah has been sufficient to turn most Iraqis who were neutral about the occupation against the Americans, to the extent that the rebels are now able to cripple and at times completely cut off the occupation supply lines. They will undoubtedly continue and intensify their efforts at this successful project.

The Basra attacks indicate that the rebels are now going to add the last semi-peaceful area to the general rebellion. The British have already acknowledged that it is not possible for them to hold Basra if the locals turn against them. The British generals have also spoken out about their disgust and alarm at the counterproductive and inhumane tactics and racist, arrogant attitudes of the Americans. The British contingent will place the blame for the unrest in Basrah squarely on the Americans for mishandling and inflaming the Najaf and Fallujah crises. It will be interesting to see how the situation with the British develops because the military appears to be breaking with the politicians and Blair, who are still uttering irrelevancies about staying the course, firm resolve and a united coalition despite the evidence to the contrary.

Before consenting to join the Americans in the initial invasion of Iraq, he British military insisted on guarantees that they would not be prosecuted for an illegal invasion before they consented to budge from Kuwait at the beginning. During the invasion, troop placement plans were hastily redrawn when unacceptable numbers of British soldiers were killed by “cowboy” Americans.

Since the numerous “friendly fire” deaths during the invasion, the British have kept their troops strictly separated from the Americans and lately, this physical distance has turned into a tactical and philosophical distance such that the Brits are actually denouncing American tactics and attitudes and publicly discussing the fact that they have been shut out of any strategy decisions and are forced to deal with the results of brutal American tactics of repression with which they disagree. The horrific bombings in Basra are just what the Brits were dreading would happen. What will their response be?

Just because I’m a nice guy, I’ll give this kid a link. Here’s a snippet regarding my column on Monday:

Normally, I ignore the disgusting rants of fools like Bargainer, given the extremist nature of his website and his fellow authors. However, since he’s singled this blog out for special inclusion in a racist diatribe, I thought I’d ask Bargainer a question in return: How do you sleep at night?

If even four of you click on this link, you’ll quadruple his daily traffic! Go help the kid out!

Beware: His stated policy for comments is as follows:

If you: (1) use profanity, (2) get overly abusive with other commenters or me (at my discretion), or (3) launch into some paranoid schizophrenic “Bush Lied, People Died” rant, I will delete your tirade and insert an extremely embarassing piece of my own, while attributing it to you.

I fully expect that by the time you read the post, he will have replaced my comment with some racist cant. Just for the record, however, my original comment read as follows: Continue reading “Laugh of the Day”

Mordechai Vanunu was released from Israeli prison today, where he was greeted by hundreds of Israelis gathered to wish him a speedy death and to express their regrets that he hadn’t been killed at Auschwitz.

Vanunu says he will continue to campaign against Israel’s nuclear policy of “ambiguity” and that “My message to all the world is open the Dimona reactor for inspections.”

Iraq’s Shi’a community is in the ascendency after decades of Baathist suppression, and whether this bodes well or bodes ill for the future remains to be seen. Is there really as much animosity between the two Islamic sects as we have been led to believe? Is civil war inevitable, or is that being used merely as a justification for America’s continued presence in the country?

When asked about the difference between Sunnis and Shiites, most people gave a similar answer: Mako farq, or there is no difference. There have been many intermarriages between families from both sects.

“It is Saddam who worked constantly to create divisions between the two sects by benefiting Sunnis and appointing them in high-ranking posts,” said Hamid al-Mukhtar, a writer who was detained and tortured in 1999 by the former regime.

From the Daily Star (Lebanon): Shiites emerge from shadows of Iraq’s Baathist regime

According to Canadian military reporter Scott Taylor (“NATO in Kosovo, a place of divided goals” – The Halifax Herald Limited, Monday, April 19, 2004), various units among Kosovo’s NATO occupiers reacted quite differently to the March 17-19 pogrom.
For example, German troops offered no resistance to Albanian rioters, to the great disgust of their fellow peacekeepers:

“If Georgian troops were stationed there we would have defended this holy site,” said a young corporal from Tiblisi. “We understand the importance of such things. The Germans, on the other hand, are only intent on maintaining friendly relations with the local Albanians.”
Swedish troops, on the other hand, seem full of fight:

“My platoon suffered 14 wounded outside the village of Caglovica,” said Cpl. Anderson of the Swedish battalion. “While the incident took us by complete surprise, we are now looking forward to Round 2 with these Albanians – it will definitely be payback time.”

Czech troops also fought the Albanians, and don’t hesitate to give them a piece of their mind:

At the NATO checkpoint on the administrative boundary between Serbia and Kosovo, members of the Czech battalion now routinely flash Albanian motorists the three extended fingers hand-sign that symbolize Serbian nationalism. In response to these deliberate provocations, Albanian drivers draw a finger across their throats at the Czech troops.

And then there’s the British… Continue reading “Pogrom divides Kosovo occupiers”

US General calls Fallujah a “rat’s nest.”

“We went in because we had to to find the perpetrators and what we found was a huge rat’s nest that is still festering today. It needs to be dealt with,” he told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

All right. It’s time to call BS on this Fallujah farce. This so-called “truce” is unilateral. The “civic leaders” supposedly undertaking the thankless task of communicating to the rebels the American demand that they lay down their arms – and that is the one and only demand the Americans have left, they’ve already caved on everything else – are likely nobodies. Anyone who thinks the rebels are going to comply needs to lay off the Kool-Aid.

All signs point to the fact that the Americans were fought to a standstill at Fallujah. They made a big mistake trying to lay siege to Fallujah because now their supply lines are cut and they’re the ones under siege while rebel forces move at will to conduct ambushes on the highways, mortar the prison at Abu Grahib and attack the Marines who claim to be “shutting down the Syrian border.” That’s a joke.

The Marines at Fallujah and Ramadi are rationing MRE’s. There hasn’t been a supply convoy for over a week.

Today, even Rumsfeld is admitting that the truce talks are a farce:

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says there’s only a ”remote” possibility that negotiations will bring peace to Fallujah, Iraq.

Rumsfeld says he never rules anything out. And Joint Chief Vice Chairman Peter Pace says talks among U-S military leaders, Iraqi Governing Council members and Fallujah’s town elders will continue as long as they’re fruitful.

But Rumsfeld says the problem is that the people wreaking havoc on Fallujah aren’t involved in the negotiations. He says former Iraqi intelligence officials, Republican Guardsmen and foreign terrorists are inside the city but aren’t part of the talks.

Pace says U-S troops are holding back to allow politicians to try diplomacy in Fallujah. But he says the Marines are poised to go back on the offensive if talks fail.

The only way they’re “going back on the offensive” is by bringing in massive airpower. The rebels have had a week to reinforce their positions and bring in more fighters, and you can bet they’ve been doing just that. The Marine position has deteriorated because of lack of supplies. They’re going to have to make a move soon and it is likely going to be one of the worst bloodbaths of the invasion because IF they go on the offensive again they’re going to bomb Fallujah to rubble from carrier-based aircraft.