Antiwar.com Blog

What ever happened to the fly-paper theory of invading Iraq? I was wondering about that before the Madrid bombing, but it seems an even more pertinent question now.

“The surest way to avoid attacks on our own people is to engage the enemy where he lives and plans,” Bush said. “We are fighting that enemy in Iraq and Afghanistan today so that we do not meet him again on our own streets, in our own cities.”

“This is what I would call a terrorist magnet where America, being present here in Iraq, creates a target of opportunity if you will,” General Sanchez told CNN.

“But this is exactly where we want to fight them; we want to fight them here, we prepared for them,” Lt. Gen. Sanchez said. “And this will prevent the American people from having to go through other attacks back in the United States.”

Mr. Bremer avoided answering whether the Bush administration set Iraq as a deliberate trap to capture terrorists, although he previously has stated that it is “better to fight it here than to fight it somewhere else, like the United States.”

Would any WarBots like to explain why the “terrorist magnet” in Iraq failed in the case of the Madrid bombings? The Spanish government apparently relied on your assurances that invading and occupying Iraq would assure them that they wouldn’t have to “fight the terrorists” at home. So, is that working, or what? Is Iraq the “main front in the War on Terror” still? If “fighting terrorists in Iraq” was such a brilliant idea, why are so many warfloggers writing things like this:

When the next bomb goes off–perhaps this time in Poland–the families of the dead should blame the people in Spain who voted to run from terrorists and cower before them instead of standing strong against them.
[…]
Let there be no mistake or misunderstanding about this – the vote in Spain absolutely guarantees there will be a major attack, here, in the States, prior to the November election.

Not only will Islamic fundamentalists run wild all over Europe killing and creating mayhem, they will activate groups here and their attacks will be specifically carried out to alter the outcome of the election. They want George W. Bush out of office. He is their biggest threat. Perhaps, he is their only threat.

The pattern is now set in stone. The machine is in motion and it is unlikely anything can stop it. There will be a massive attack here, somewhere, with many casualties and the opposition will blame President Bush for the attack. Count on it.

“The surest way to avoid attacks on our own people is to engage the enemy where he lives and plans…….” Spain?

Just asking. I really don’t expect the neocons and hawks in the US government to break their perfect record of stonewalling every question and never admitting they were wrong about anything.

Alan at SoutherlyBuster has added up the gains and losses by each party:

1. PSOE +39
2. PP -35
3. CiU (Catalan centre-right) 10 -5
4. ERC (Catalan leftists) 8 +7
5. EAJ-PNV (Basque moderates) 7 deputies, -0
6. IU (left-socialist) 5 deputies -4
7. CC (Canarian centrists, would have entered a coalition with the PP) 3 -1
8. BNG (Galician socialists) 2 deputies -1
9. CHA (Aragonese regionalists) 1 deputy, -0
10. EA (Basque separatists) 1 deputy -0
11. Na-Bai, 1 deputy -0

All parties, except ERC, EAJ-PNV and the single-member groups, have lost deputies to the PSOE. This is a very broad victory.

That is confirmed when you look at the regions. The PSOE won a majority of deputies in 3 regions, half the deputies in another 7, and minorities in 8. The 8 regions where the PSOE has a minority include the tiny exclaves of Melilla and Ceuta with only 1 seat each.

See this Hesiod post for a survey of the WarBlogger reactions.

As I mentioned Thursday, the extradition of two Croatian generals to the Hague Inquisition has occasioned comments in the media about how Serbia now needs to arrest and extradite its own “indictees” in order to remain in the Empire’s good graces. In the words of Associated Press, “The country risks losing badly needed financial support from the United States and the European Union if it fails to bring suspects to justice.”
The sort of “justice” the Inquisition metes out aside, what exactly does Serbia stand to lose? Continue reading “Losing what, exactly?”

Stirling Newberry has a great post analysing the effect of the internet and cellphone on the Spanish election today.

What happened was that evidence came to light that the PP had been told on Thursday, just after the bombings, that Morrrocan extremists, linked to Al Qaeda had claimed responsiblity. A television station was told that a video tape could be found in a public trash bin. The news exploded across Spain – not just through normal channels – but on through the informal channels of email. Protesters sprung up everywhere – the same cat call lines used against PP politicians in different cities.

The internet allowed the public to “break the news” – cut through the attempts to fog the issue, and once it was clear that they had been lied to, strike back. Within moments of the bombing – black ribbons appeared everywhere on internet sites – and on doors, lapels. They were on web cams and even in chat rooms. There was, instantly, a communalization of grief.

But this same electric ability of community to form did not, as some thought, lead to a rallying behind the leadership – but quite the contrary, as the BBC Reports:

At the peace marches and at “spontaneous” protests outside PP headquarters in Madrid on Saturday, thousands demanded “Who was it? Tell us the truth” and held up banners warning “Don’t play with the dead”.

And notes that the demonstrations, while not called by any organization, are not exactly “spontaneous” either. The technological revolution of dissemination of information, married to the “flash mob” cellphone revolution has wrought an opposition forming, even though the major political opposition party – the PSOE – has not lead or attacked the government directly.

“Quienes Fueron?” Asked one demonstrator’s sign. Internet chatter centered around a round up of supsects – and then yesterday Europa Press broke the news that one of the Morrocans arrested was linked to the 911 plot and bin Laden. Retuers quoted an anti-terrorism expert saying that Al Qaeda struck because of the participation in the “War on Terrorism”. Spain’s anger exploded.

The government had bet that it could simply delay a few days, collect the mandate, and then, when it was too late, admit the truth. Or that if the truth would leak out, that the response would take to long to organize.

This is not what happened. Instead, the personal communication revolution brought on by the internet and ubiquitous cellphones – made it so that the public was acting as fast as the government. The government found itself under constant pressure, with demonstrators seemingly as well informed as the ministers they heckled. An aggressive press pushed the government, the government, while it tried to fleisch its party line, released information in a timely fashion – the bureaucracy undercutting the political appointees’ attempts to spin the story.

Read the rest…..

This is similar to the phenomenom that happened February 15, 2003 when millions worldwide marched against the Iraq invasion. The internet throws an unpredictable new ingredient into the political stew, and at least for the moment, the politicians don’t know how to deal with it.

With 85% of the vote in:

El PSOE gana las elecciones, con el 85%
de los votos escrutados (164 escaños)

PP has 148

David Woods of the Patriot News asks, “Are there limits to American might? If so, are we reaching them?”

Consider:

• The Iraq invasion caught the Pentagon so short of military cargo planes that it had to hire Russian aircraft to ferry tanks and other materiel. “We had exhausted all of our resources,” said Mark Voorhis, a spokesman for the U.S. Air Mobility Command at Scott Air Force Base, Ill. The United States chartered Russian AN-124 aircraft for 79 missions at a cost of $28.9 million in 2003, and is still chartering them.
• The Army wore out 9,000 heavy weapons and vehicles that need fixing and renovating — “a huge task” for which “we do not have the funds,” Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker recently told Congress. If another conflict breaks out, the equipment won’t be available.
• The Navy is so short of money it’s requiring pilots to fly simulators rather than real jets to practice carrier landings, according to Vice Adm. Charles W. Moore Jr., deputy chief of naval operations for fleet readiness. To keep aging ships and aircraft going costs $3 billion more every year, but the budget for new ships is down 13 percent.
• Adjusted for inflation, the cost of military personnel, pushed by tripling health care expenses, rose 16 percent over the past decade. Competing with the private sector to attract and keep good people, the Pentagon offers re-enlistment bonuses as high as $40,000; already, average annual military compensation has reached $99,000 in cash and benefits.
• To handle new missions, the Army is recruiting 30,000 soldiers and hiring 20,000 civilians to free up troops for combat jobs. Still, it is short of infantrymen. Specialists in high demand for the war on terrorism, they make up only 4 percent of military personnel. “We’re trying to defend the empire with a force about the size of the New York City police department,” said retired Army Maj. Gen. Robert H. Scales Jr., former commandant of the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle.

The Iraq invasion was badly planned and what inadequate planning was done so irreparably crippled by unrealistic expectations of the situation the American military would be facing that not only is the military stretched to the breaking point in terms of soldiers, but the policies implemented to deal with the shortage of troops are terrible morale-busters like Stop-Loss. Adding to the demoralization of the troops is a serious shortage of equipment and chaotic resupply, but the real back-breaker is knowing that there is no relief in sight. Presently, the troops which originally invaded Iraq are being told that they are next up to go back.

When looking at the shabby situation for resupply of the American troops, keep in mind that the only relief for American troops that the Bush administration has indicated might be forthcoming is the hasty hustling into service of thousands of Iraqi security troops and the “New Iraqi Army.” Left unexplained is the question of how, if the American military is so badly undersupplied, the Iraqis will be equipped.

The contract for equipping the Iraqi troops has been handled in the same incompetent and corrupt manner as the great bulk of Iraq contract fiascos. First, the contract was awarded to a buddy of Ahmad Chalabi’s who was clearly incapable of handling it. When the companies passed over for this crony contract cried foul, the contract was “investigated” and reassigned. This means even more time and money wasted, and Iraqi police forces, already a favored target for attack by guerillas, are sitting ducks with their inadequate weapons and vehicles.

In light of these egregious failures, the continued sabre-rattling by the pro-war neocon hawks in the Bush administration can be dismissed as so much empty rhetoric. The American military has been used and abused to the point that it is struggling to cover current commitments, making new invasions extremely unlikely, regardless of the belligerent declarations issuing from the neocon hawk nests.