Tag Archives: Iraq

Political Rants

Iraq 3.0.

Despite the occasional bleat that no one wants war and that we are not seeking conflict in the Gulf, the United States continues to move closer and closer to some kind of clash with Iran. Administration officials are blaming the Iranian government for attacks against tankers owned by nations who still do business with Iran, citing non-existent evidence of sabotage by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard – evidence contradicted by the owners of the Japanese ship that was attacked. Right wing blowhards like Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas are advocating for strikes against Iran, and this is treated as a serious policy proposal. Various spokespeople for the administration’s ever-emerging policy even raised the possibility of the U.S. providing naval escorts for commercial ships in the Gulf, modeling it on the tanker war phase of the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.

Who says I'm blowing smoke out of my ass? It's the ship, damn it, the ship!

This last bit fascinated me. It’s so unusual for our leaders to even mention the Iran-Iraq war, I suspect largely because we had a dog in that fight … and the dog was named Saddam Hussein. (Also, one of the ships we sent to the Gulf on that particular mission was the U.S.S. Vincennes, which on July 3, 1988 shot down Iran Air flight 655, killing all 290 passengers on board, 60 of whom were children.) If this is the mark of a successful policy to be imitated, god help us. Few Americans will recall that Saddam Hussein started that war, in 1980, using chemical weapons liberally against the Iranians – weapons whose primary components were purchased from (West) Germany, I believe. One of the principal outcomes of the Iran-Iraq war was the invasion of Kuwait, subsequent Gulf War, then the 12-year strangulation and ultimate invasion of Iraq by the U.S.

This is to say that war can sometimes sound a lot simpler than it actually turns out to be. People like Mike Pompeo and John Bolton, of course, are driven by ideology and really don’t care if their war with Iran turns out to be a disaster. But aside from the very crucial questions of whether the policy is right or legal, I think it’s fair to say that this administration’s deliberate push from functional diplomacy to the brink of armed conflict is reckless and potentially catastrophic, given the current state of international affairs. We are desperately in need of action on the ensuing climate crisis, and these nutjobs are driving us into another pointless war, damn the consequences.

I strongly suggest you contact your congressional representatives and urge them to oppose this policy. The switchboard is 202-224-3121. You may also want to use the Stance app, which is very easy to use when phoning your house member and senators. Right now, it’s our best chance at heading off this madness.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Uniformly unjust.

Our president – who should really think twice before putting on that tux (one word, Mr. President: cumberbund) has been contemplating a pre-emptive pardon for former Navy Seal Edward R. Gallagher, who faces court martial for premeditated murder, attempted murder, obstruction of justice, and more. Gallagher’s fellow Seals have called him out for some pretty heinous acts, including stabbing to death a young ISIS fighter who was in custody, wounded, and basically helpless, then parading the body in photos and conducting a re-enlistment ceremony over it. For Trump, of course, this makes Gallagher a hero, because he fits the First Man-baby’s warped notion of toughness – I expect nothing more from the likes of him.

Gallagher has another defender in congressman and Iraq war veteran Duncan Hunter, who sees nothing wrong in killing people in custody and using old men, young girls, etc. for target practice. Hunter’s position is basically that Gallagher’s crimes are no different from what he, Hunter, did in Fallujah, where he credibly claims to have killed hundreds of civilians. Of course, the military leadership disagrees – there is a thing called the Uniform Code of Military Justice and, more generally, accepted laws and norms of warfare, and for a variety of reasons the generals want to keep good order and discipline in the ranks. Granted, the laws of war tend to be loose enough to drive a tank through, but they do exist and they exist for specific reasons having to do with maintaining good order and discipline and perpetuating the myth that our mission is always the betterment of the peoples we invade and subdue. (Abusive practices also open our own captured service members to similar abuses.)

Our instrument in the levant

Strangely, Hunter almost stumbles onto an uncomfortable truth here. In a certain respect, there isn’t a lot of difference between firing artillery rounds into civilian neighborhoods in Fallujah and shooting civilians like turkeys in Syria. Both are predictable outcomes of the criminal decision to send our massive military into these countries in the first place. That decision is not made by the service members who fight the wars – it is ultimately made by us. Nowadays almost no one wants to own the war in Iraq (aside from crackpots like Bolton), but by not restraining our own government from proceeding with it back in 2003, we are all responsible for what has resulted from that decision. Hunter and Gallagher were the instruments of that policy, and as such, in a sense are less culpable than we are … or, as citizens themselves, certainly no more so. With respect to killing young prisoners in cold blood, Gallagher probably bears a higher level of responsibility than someone just mechanically pulling the lanyard, trigger, or whatever to destroy a distant “enemy”.

It’s hard for me to argue with Gallagher’s prosecution. But if justice were to be served, we should all be up there with him.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Like old times.

I don’t know if it was at the start of this week or at the end of last week, but at some point recently I wondered aloud what became of the Trump administration’s coup plan in Venezuela. It seemed to have fizzled rather badly, despite their best efforts … but then this week it sprang back to life like Frankenstein’s monster. Washington’s hand-picked maximum leader of that unfortunate country, Juan Guaido, appeared in a cell-phone video surrounded by what appears to be a handful of soldiers, declaring himself president once again. This is, of course, not a coup, we’re told, because officials of the United States government have decided that Guaido is the legitimate president of Venezuela. Nothing screams freedom more than leaders selected by the regional hegemon.

Worse than neocons. Old-school imperialists.

Naturally, our execrable National Security Advisor John Bolton and our equally fragrant Secretary of State Michael Pompeo are behaving as if whatever they say randomly just has to be true. Pompeo claimed to CNN that Maduro had a plane ready to fly to Havana, but was talked out of it by the Russians. This doesn’t appear to be anything near the truth, it will surprise you to hear. Let’s just say these gentlemen have some serious credibility issues. As ham-fisted as they are, though, it’s hard to overstate the pressure that the United States can apply to a country like Venezuela. We basically control the international financial system, and Caracas has been cut off from the banking, loans, etc., since Trump applied sanctions in 2017. They are making the economy scream, as Nixon/Kissinger did with Chile in 1973, and this could bring the roof down eventually. (See the Center for Economic and Policy Research paper on these sanctions for more.)

We know from the Iraq debacle, and other comparable debacles before and since, that craven policy makers like Bolton, Pompeo, and Elliott Abrams can break a country in half, if we let them. What they’re not so good at is putting it back together (not that possessing that particular skill would make it in any way a worthy enterprise). There’s a better than fair chance that they will succeed in crushing the Maduro government, but very likely that will not be the end of it. Venezuela may be plunged into a bloody civil conflict that could last for years, perhaps decades. Not that such an outcome would be any skin off of Bolton’s ample nose, nor Abrams’. They’ve come through their previous disasters without a scratch. That’s more than I can say for their targets.

The only thing that can stop them is us. We need to raise our voices on this now, before it’s too late.

luv u,

jp