Dec 14, 2006
By Sherwood Ross
WASHINGTON, D.C. --- The Army and Marine Corps tomorrow (Dec. 15th) will release a new counterinsurgency field manual that notes how insurgents use the media “to magnify the effects of their actions” and which suggests ways to defeat those efforts.
The manual is already in use in Afghanistan where U.S. units are employing the new tactics against Taliban forces that have started to mount large operations in the Pashto-speaking south, according to a reliable article in an American magazine.
Australian-born Lt.-Col. David Kilcullen, currently working at a high-level counterterrorism post in the U.S. State Department, is quoted as describing the Taliban as essentially an “armed propaganda organization.”
“They switch between guerrilla activity and terrorist activity as they need to, in order to maintain the political momentum, and it’s all about an information operation that generates the perception of an unstoppable, growing insurgency,” Kilcullen told
reporter George Packer of “The New Yorker.”(December 18)
Kilkullen said when insurgents ambush a U.S. convoy in Iraq it’s because “they want spectacular media footage of a burning Humvee.” He adds, “It’s now fundamentally an information fight. The enemy gets that, and we don’t yet get that, and I think that’s why we’re losing.” He said, “If bin Laden didn’t have access to global media, satellite communications, and the Internet, he’d just be a cranky guy in a cave.”
One of the questions raised by Packer’s article, “Knowing The Enemy,” is whether the U.S. can shift its heavy reliance on military operations to community support efforts and inform civilian populations about them. That time may have already come and gone.
The new field manual asserts, “…by focusing on efforts to secure the safety and support of the local populace, and through a concerted effort to truly function as learning organizations, the Army and Marine Corps can defeat their insurgent enemies.”
The struggle in the Middle East increasingly appears to be an information battle to win public opinion. An Afghan villager, for example, has access to the Internet, e-mail, satellite phone, and text messaging and these tools are thought to be more easily exploited by insurgents than the Afghan government.
“In the information war, America and its allies are barely competing,” Packer writes, because they are not the primary strategy but used to publicize military victories and no one in the battlefield areas hears the message. At times, the U.S. has relied on radio to get across a message that would spread quicker by floating rumors in Iraqi coffee shops.
The emphasis on military response does little to win friends in Islam, Packer writes. He quotes Frederick Barton, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank: “Hard power is not the way we’re going to make an impression.”
In Pakistan, Barton says, the U.S. since 2002 has spent $6-billion shoring up the Pakistani military and billions more on intelligence-gathering yet it has spent less than a billion dollars on aid for education and economic development in a country where Islamist madrassas and joblessness contribute to the radicalization of young people.”
James Kuner, acting deputy of the U.S. Agency for International Development and a former Marine told The New Yorker that in Iraq and Afghanistan “the civilian agencies have received 1.4% of the total money,” whereas classical counterinsurgency doctrine says that 80% of the effort should be nonmilitary.”
Packer asserts, “There is little organized American effort to rebut the jihadist conspiracy theories that circulate daily among the Muslims living in populous countries such as Indonesia , Pakistan , and Nigeria .”
Bruce Hoffman, of Georgetown University , believes the U.S. must help foreign governments flood the Internet with persuasively youthful Web sites presenting anti-jihadist messages yet without leaving American fingerprints. He said jihadists have posted 5,000 Web sites that react swiftly and imaginatively to events. Adds Kilcullen, “We’ve got to co-opt or assist people who have a counter-message. And we might need to consider creating or supporting the creation of rival organizations.”
“You’ve got to be quiet about it,” Kilcullen said. “You don’t go in there like a missionary.” The idea is to offer an alternative to individuals to walk a road other than jihad.
The Pentagon currently is recruiting social scientists to serve in a new project called “Cultural Operations Research Human Terrain”. The plan calls for sending five-person “human terrain” teams into Iraq and Afghanistan with combat brigades to serve as cultural advisers. The first teams are planning to leave next spring.
Such teams might prevent repeat of U.S. strategic miscalculations made to date. One was described by Montgomery McFate writing in “Joint Force Quarterly”: “Once the Sunni Ba’thists lost their prestigious jobs, were humiliated in the conflict, and got frozen out through Ba’thification, the tribal network became the backbone of the insurgency. The tribal insurgency is a direct result of our misunderstanding the Iraqi culture.”
All of which makes you wonder, can the Bush White House get anything right? Anything?
Sherwood Ross is an American reporter who covers military and political affairs. Reach him at sherwoodr1@yahoo.com
Thursday, December 14, 2006
One War We Can Still Win?
Center Strategic & Int’l Studies: One War We Can Still Win
AUTHOR: Anthony H. Cordesman - SourceWatch is employed by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
SOME KEY POINTS
NO one can return from visiting the front in Afghanistan without realizing there is a very real risk that the United States and NATO will lose this war. Popular support for the United States and NATO teams has been strong and can be rebuilt.
The United States’ and NATO’s focus on democracy and the political process in Kabul — rather than on the quality of governance and on services — has left many areas angry and open to hostile influence. As one Afghan deputy minister put it to me during my trip: “Now we are all corrupt. Until we change and serve the people, we will fail.”
At one police unit, policemen were sometimes not paid at all, leaving them no choice but to extort a living.
The United States has grossly underfinanced such economic aid efforts and left far too much of the country without visible aid activity. The maps of actual and proposed projects covers only a small part of the country. Even a short visit to some of the districts in the southeast, near the border with Pakistan, suggests that most areas have not seen any progress.
State Department plans call for a $2.3 billion program, but unless at least $1.1 billion comes immediately, aid will lag far behind need next year. The United States team has made an urgent request for $5.9 billion in extra money this fiscal year, which probably underestimates immediate need.
At least such programs are cheap by the standards of aid to Iraq. The projects needed are simple ones that Afghans can largely carry out themselves: roads and water, and to a lesser degree schools and medical services. They need emergency aid to meet local needs and win hearts and minds.
And United States military forces are too small to do the job - it needs at least two more infantry battalions, and increases in Special Forces.
NATO must exercise effective central command; it cannot win with politically constrained forces, and it must pressure the stand-aside countries to join the fight.
The good news is that there is a new realism in the United States and NATO effort.
--------------------------------------------
NO one can return from visiting the front in Afghanistan without realizing there is a very real risk that the United States and NATO will lose their war with Al Qaeda, the Taliban and the other Islamist movements fighting the Afghan government.
STATE OF SECURITY
Declassified intelligence made available during my recent trip there showed that major Al Qaeda, Taliban, Haqqani Network and Hezb-i-Islami sanctuaries exist in Pakistan, and that the areas they operate in, within Afghanistan have increased fourfold over the last year.
Indeed, a great many unhappy trends have picked up speed lately (the first 11 months of 2005 to 116 in the first 11 months of 2006.):
suicide attacks: rose from 18 to 116
direct fire attacks: rose from 1,347 to 3,824
IED attackss: from 530 to 1,297
other attacks: from 269 to 479.
attacks on Afghan forces: from 713 to 2,892,
attacks on coalition forces: from 919 to 2,496 and
attacks on Afghan officials: rose 2.5 times
Only the extensive use of American air power and intelligence assets has allowed the United States to win this year’s battles in the east.
In the south, Britain has been unable to prevent a major increase in the Taliban’s presence.
STATE OF POPULAR OPINION
The challenges in Afghanistan, however, are very different from those in Iraq. Popular support for the United States and NATO teams has been strong and can be rebuilt. The present United States aid efforts are largely sound and well managed, and they can make immediate and effective use of more money. [SEE: US Inspector General: Afghan Police Corrupt and Dysfunctional (NY Times)]
The Islamist threat is weak, but it is growing in strength — political as well as military. The Afghan government will take years to become effective, reduce corruption to acceptable levels and replace a narcotics-based economy. As one Afghan deputy minister put it to me during my trip: “Now we are all corrupt. Until we change and serve the people, we will fail.” [SEE: Taliban fill void left by Kabul corruption (Houston Chronicle) ]
STATE OF DEVELOPMENT
No matter what the outside world does, Afghans, the United States team and NATO representatives all agree that change will take time. The present central government is at least two or three years away from providing the presence and services Afghans desperately need. The United States’ and NATO’s focus on democracy and the political process in Kabul — rather than on the quality of governance and on services — has left many areas angry and open to hostile influence. Afghanistan is going to need large amounts of military and economic aid, much of it managed from the outside in ways that ensure it actually gets to Afghans, particularly in the areas where the threat is greatest. [SEE: Action Against Hunger: 5 yrs after the Taliban – what about Afghanis? ]
This means the United States needs to make major increases in its economic aid, as do its NATO allies. These increases need to be made immediately if new projects and meaningful actions are to begin in the field by the end of winter, when the Islamists typically launch new offensives. [SEE: UN Racing to Supply Food Before Snowfall ]
At least such programs are cheap by the standards of aid to Iraq. The projects needed are simple ones that Afghans can largely carry out themselves. People need roads and water, and to a lesser degree schools and medical services. They need emergency aid to meet local needs and win hearts and minds.
The maps of actual and proposed projects make it clear that while progress is real, it covers only a small part of the country. Even a short visit to some of the districts in the southeast, near the border with Pakistan, suggests that most areas have not seen any progress.
Drought adds to the problem, much of the old irrigation system has collapsed, and roads are little more than paths. The central government cannot offer hope, and local officials and the police cannot compete with drug loans and income.
The United States has grossly underfinanced such economic aid efforts and left far too much of the country without visible aid activity. State Department plans call for a $2.3 billion program, but unless at least $1.1 billion comes immediately, aid will lag far behind need next year.
Additionally, a generous five-year aid plan from both the United States and its NATO allies is needed for continuity and effectiveness. The United States is carrying far too much of the burden, and NATO allies, particularly France, Germany, Italy and Spain, are falling short: major aid increases are needed from each.
HUMPTY-DUMPTY SYNDROME: MORE GUNS & MORE BOOTS
And United States military forces are too small to do the job. Competing demands in Iraq have led to a military climate where American troops plan for what they can get, not what they need. The 10th Mountain Division, which is responsible for eastern Afghanistan, has asked for one more infantry brigade. This badly understates need, even if new Polish forces help in the east. The United States must be able to hold and build as well as win — it needs at least two more infantry battalions, and increases in Special Forces. These increases are tiny by comparison with American forces in Iraq, but they can make all the difference.
The NATO allies must provide stronger and better-equipped forces that will join the fight and go where they are most needed. The British fight well but have only 50 to 75 percent of the forces they need. Canadians, Danes, Estonians, Dutch and Romanians are in the fight. The Poles lack adequate equipment but are willing to fight. France, Italy, Germany, Spain and Turkey are not allowed to fight because of political constraints and rules of engagement. Only French Special Forces have played any role in combat and they depart in January. NATO must exercise effective central command; it cannot win with politically constrained forces, and it must pressure the stand-aside countries to join the fight. [SEE: NATO Summit – EU Suspends US Dreams ]
Finally, the United States and NATO have repeated the same mistakes that were made in Iraq in developing effective Afghan Army and police forces, rushing unready forces into combat. The manning of key Afghan army battalions is sometimes below 25 percent and the police units are often unpaid. Corruption and pay problems are still endemic, equipment and facilities inadequate. Overall financing has been about 20 percent of the real-world requirement, and talks with Afghan and NATO officials made it brutally clear that the Germans wasted years trying to create a conventional police force rather than the mix of paramilitary and local police forces Afghanistan really needs.
A PROGNOSIS
The good news is that there is a new realism in the United States and NATO effort. The planning, training and much of the necessary base has been built up during the last year. There are effective plans in place, along with the NATO and American staffs to help put them into effect. [SEE: UK Military Chiefs: CIA is undermining British war effort ]
The bad news is the same crippling lack of resources that affect every part of the United States and NATO efforts also affect the development of the Afghan Army and police. [SEE: US Inspector General: Afghan Police Corrupt and Dysfunctional (NY Times)]
It was obvious during a visit to one older Afghan Army battalion that it had less than a quarter of its authorized manpower, and only one man in five was expected to re-enlist. At one police unit, although policemen were supposed to be paid quarterly, they were sometimes not paid at all, leaving them no choice but to extort a living. (In one case, the officer in charge of pay didn’t even fill out forms because he had been passed over for promotion because of his ethnicity.)
The United States team has made an urgent request for $5.9 billion in extra money this fiscal year, which probably underestimates immediate need and in any event must be followed by an integrated long-term economic aid plan. There is no time for the administration and Congress to quibble or play budget games.
And, once again, the NATO countries must make major increases in aid as well.
In Iraq, the failure of the United States and the allies to honestly assess problems in the field, be realistic about needs, create effective long-term aid and force-development plans, and emphasize governance over services may well have brought defeat.
The United States and its allies cannot afford to lose two wars. If they do not act now, they will.
Most European capitals are targets for our air force
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Mordechai Vanunu is claiming that the ongoing restrictions on his freedom – including prohibition from even talking to reporters – are as a result of his having revealed that Israel has the bomb, something which the Prime Minister of Israel has now confirmed. The confirmation was not a mistake, but is a veiled threat to the rest of the world, particularly Europe (see also here or here, and here). The intentional ambiguity over the issue had been destroyed – no doubt in Zionist minds as part of a Baker-directed American Establishment ‘anti-Semitic’ plot – by Robert Gates, and the Israeli strategists had to fall back on Plan B, which is to try to make the most of the threat.
Vanunu makes an excellent point: if Israel doesn’t grant him his full freedom, shouldn’t it put Olmert in jail for at least the length of Vanunu’s sentence?
Eaton Vance manager: Markets poised for upset
Tue Dec 12, 2006 12:51 PM ET
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Financial markets are vulnerable to a significant correction in the next 12 months that might be triggered by an event in the derivatives markets, a well-known municipal bond manager said on Tuesday.
"I will be very surprised if we don't get an accident in the next months," Thomas Metzold, who invests roughly $4.5 billion in the Eaton Vance National Municipals Fund, told the Reuters Investment Outlook Summit in New York.
"Whether it is in the credit default swap market or a leveraged buyout scenario, there is going to be a major default and all this liquidity that is out there can dry up pretty quickly," Metzold said.
Looking back to 1998 when hedge fund Long Term Capital Management collapsed, Metzold said the biggest problem was that LTCM had so much exposure to counterparties that none of them knew how much the others had. "And it all came tumbling," he said.
Even though lenders have become stricter since the LTCM debacle, Metzold said trillions of dollars of counterparty risk still exist "that no one really has their hands around."
In the swaps market, positions are often traded so frequently that the party that is ultimately responsible for the underlying risk is not always immediately known.
Although the fixed-income market may look "perfect on the surface," Metzold worried that "underneath it is boiling." Metzold, who has been investing in fixed-income securities for more than two decades, said he has a more bearish outlook than many of his competitors as he worries in particular that the dollar will continue to fall, foreign buyers will lose their taste for U.S. fixed-income securities, and eventually the situation will become a "snowball rolling down hill."
One of the biggest problems may be that investors no longer worry about risk, Metzold said. "I can't believe I haven't seen an editorial cartoon that shows a tombstone with the name 'risk,' rest in peace, because risk is dead," Metzold said.
"People don't believe they can lose money anymore," he added.
Israeli court cites security fears to justify land grab
By Agence France Presse (AFP)
Thursday, December 14, 2006
JERUSALEM: Israel's Supreme Court Wednesday rejected an appeal by Palestinians over the route of the separation barrier in the suburbs of occupied East Jerusalem, court sources said.
Residents of Al-Ram had appealed the proposed route of the barrier, which will leave their West Bank town cut off from East Jerusalem. The justices rejected the appeal, saying the route did not violate "the balance between security concerns" and rights of Palestinian residents with Israeli ID cards.
"Defending Jerusalem from terrorist infiltrations constitutes a vital security interest," said the ruling.
It marked the latest in a series of rulings by the highest court on appeals against the planned route of the massive barrier of electric fencing, barbed wire and concrete wall that snakes across the occupied West Bank.
The Palestinians condemn the wall as an attempt to grab land and undermine the viability of their promised future state.
In October the high court rejected another petition lodged by Palestinian villagers saying a section of the barrier incorporating the Israeli West Bank settlements of Immanuel, Karnei Shomron and Maale Shomrom encroached on Palestinian land in northern West Bank.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb
The court ruled that Israeli security concerns were primary to losses endured by the plaintiffs and determined no alternative route other than the one outlined by the Israeli Army.
In June, the court ordered the state to dismantle a 5-kilometer section of the barrier in the northern West Bank following an appeal from two Palestinian villages.
The International Court of Justice issued a nonbinding ruling in 2004 that parts of the barrier in the West Bank are illegal and should be removed.
The UN humanitarian affairs coordinator's office says three-quarters of the barrier lies in the West Bank, while only 145 kilometers follows the "Green Line" separating Israel and the Palestinian territory. - AFP
Thursday, December 14, 2006
JERUSALEM: Israel's Supreme Court Wednesday rejected an appeal by Palestinians over the route of the separation barrier in the suburbs of occupied East Jerusalem, court sources said.
Residents of Al-Ram had appealed the proposed route of the barrier, which will leave their West Bank town cut off from East Jerusalem. The justices rejected the appeal, saying the route did not violate "the balance between security concerns" and rights of Palestinian residents with Israeli ID cards.
"Defending Jerusalem from terrorist infiltrations constitutes a vital security interest," said the ruling.
It marked the latest in a series of rulings by the highest court on appeals against the planned route of the massive barrier of electric fencing, barbed wire and concrete wall that snakes across the occupied West Bank.
The Palestinians condemn the wall as an attempt to grab land and undermine the viability of their promised future state.
In October the high court rejected another petition lodged by Palestinian villagers saying a section of the barrier incorporating the Israeli West Bank settlements of Immanuel, Karnei Shomron and Maale Shomrom encroached on Palestinian land in northern West Bank.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb
The court ruled that Israeli security concerns were primary to losses endured by the plaintiffs and determined no alternative route other than the one outlined by the Israeli Army.
In June, the court ordered the state to dismantle a 5-kilometer section of the barrier in the northern West Bank following an appeal from two Palestinian villages.
The International Court of Justice issued a nonbinding ruling in 2004 that parts of the barrier in the West Bank are illegal and should be removed.
The UN humanitarian affairs coordinator's office says three-quarters of the barrier lies in the West Bank, while only 145 kilometers follows the "Green Line" separating Israel and the Palestinian territory. - AFP
IAEA says Israel's nuclear status none of its concern
IAEA only worries about weapons that don't exist, see?
---
13/12/2006 16:24 VIENNA, December 13 (RIA Novosti) - The UN nuclear watchdog said Wednesday it will not respond to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's remark implying that Israel has nuclear weapons, something the Jewish state has never officially admitted.
In an interview with the SAT-2 television channel ahead of his visit to Germany Monday, Olmert said: "Iran openly, explicitly and publicly threatens to wipe Israel off the map. Can you say that this is on the same level, when you aspire to have nuclear weapons, as America, France, Israel, Russia?"
The remark, made against the backdrop of an Iran-hosted conference on the Holocaust, was widely interpreted as confirming Israel's nuclear power status, but Olmert's aides later dismissed that reading as unfounded.
Independent analysts have said Israel holds between 80 and 200 nuclear warheads, and may be the world's sixth-largest nuclear power, but Israeli authorities have never confirmed nor denied possessing a nuclear arsenal.
Israel and the West suspect Iran of pursuing a nuclear weapons program, and Olmert's hint was probably intended to deter the Islamic Republic from using its potential nuclear capability against Israel, some have argued.
Many analysts believe, however, that public confirmation of Israel's assumed nuclear status could trigger an arms race across the Middle East, undermining the global non-proliferation regime.
Sergei Markov of Russia's Public Chamber, for one, believes that Israel's going public about its nuclear arsenal would come as no revelation, and is unlikely to entail any sanctions on the part of the UN nuclear watchdog, but that it could represent a serious setback for non-proliferation.
"This may lead to a further softening of the nuclear non-proliferation regime, which, unfortunately, would be a very dangerous development indeed," Markov told RIA Novosti.
Iran and other regional foes of Israel have repeatedly accused the West of double standards in trying to prevent them from acquiring nuclear capabilities while turning a blind eye to Israel's alleged arsenal.
The Iraq Study Group Study Group
Dec 14, 2006
By Zbignew Zingh
The Iraq Study Group Study Group (ISGSG), a shadowy organization of indeterminate number (to wit, this author and those who frequent this web site) was created to reflect and comment on the better known Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group (ISG). The ISGSG has now released its own report. President Bush, upon reviewing an advance copy of the ISGSG's white paper mumbled something to the effect that it was “very interesting” before filing it in the same cylindrical file with the Baker-Hamilton report.
Once stripped of its tepid criticisms, the Baker-Hamilton ISG report looks like an attempt to stuff the evil genie of Mr. Bush's policies back into the bottle of a more subtle Bismarck-Metternich style of empire. Mr. Baker and his groupies clearly are nostalgic for the day when his class of people could achieve dominance while keeping up the pretenses of goodness and democracy for public consumption. They recoil from the blunt, naked aggression of the Bush Administration which Mr. Baker et. al. equate with the boorish behavior of crass amateurs and thugs. Baker et. al. prefer the more nuanced, more subtle exercise of power, like the true aristocrats they are, who keep their white gloves clean while the blood is spilled off-stage and out-of-sight by covert military operations.
Notwithstanding its atavistic longing for a less messy empire, the Baker ISG should be congratulated for concluding (as so many of us hoi polloi concluded several years ago) that the Bush Administration foreign policy has been an unmitigated disaster. In fact, Mr. Bush has done such a swell job enervating the American military, undermining the dollar as the world's reserve currency, eviscerating the economy and totally demythologizing the mythology of America that one might conclude that W is the last century Kremlin's ultimate deep mole. And since we have mentioned the Kremlin, the Baker “old guard” undoubtedly sees the specter of déjà vu haunting an arrogant BushAmerica that is emulating the old Soviet empire's meltdown while permitting South America to escape from neoliberalism's orbit.
Although we of the The Iraq Study Group Study Group ultimately found little that was novel or insightful in the ISG report, we congratulate Mr. Baker and his colleagues for exposing definite fault lines within the international ruling cabal. For days after the release of the Baker-Hamilton report it was very pleasing to read conservative political pundits dissing Mr. Baker's ISG as “muddled”, irresponsible and unbalanced. Indeed, one such conservative columnist castigated the public disclosure of the Baker-Hamilton report that, in the esteemed pundit's opinion, should have been kept absolutely secret and accessible only to the inner circle of policymakers -- quite consistent, of course, with aristocratic notions of “democracy” and government transparency.
Dissension within the ownership class?
We take it as a given that the so-called “left” is not monolithic. Although most of its constituents generally want “change”, the quality, degree, nature and means of attaining that change leads to disorientation (such as backing the Democratic Party of the Status Quo as the perpetual lesser of two evils). The left's inherent disunity, caused as much by a lack of historical perspective, the absence of a unifying theoretical vision, as well as by government infiltration, co-option and misdirection, is often mischaracterized by eternal optimists as a political “strength”. Although non-hierarchical, leaderless, multi-strategy movements can be profound and resilient, political discordance is a weakness. The peace movement's inefficacy proves itself in a century-long succession of failed efforts to stop the beginning of one new war after another. It is the hubris of well-meaning American peace activists (most of whose hearts are in the right place even though their vision might be myopic) that they do not appreciate how an endless succession of invisible, economically insignificant, officially-sanctioned “weekend” demonstrations along with endless letters to tone deaf editors, interminable law suits creeping ineffectively toward a conservative Supreme Court, and email petitions to privately owned legislators are not the primary engines of fundamental social or political change.
Alas, America's disgust with the Iraq War (as manifest in the November electoral unsaddling of the Republican House and Senate) was based less on the immorality of the enterprise and more on the ineptitude of its execution. Americans, like the rest of the world, hate losers, and, as experience shows, people quickly sour on athletes, sports teams, coaches, presidents, congressmen and political parties when they fail to deliver the goods.
The terrible truth is that but for the Iraqi people's determination and willingness to bleed to free their land of occupation (much like the determination showed by the Vietnamese people during their bloody war of independence), the peace movement would have gained no traction in the United States; for it is the dead and horribly maimed American soldiers, wreaked upon us by the Iraqis themselves, who gave our sickened nation and the peace movement the impetus to tell Congress to change, not stay the course. It was not the surfeit of lies or torture that undid the Republican Congress; rather, America's citizens would have readily feted their petroleum conquering troops, dishonesty, torture and unconstitutionality notwithstanding, had only they been able to grab the prize as easily and as cheaply as we have ripped off everyone else in Africa, Asia, North and South America in the past. The salutary result of the November 2006 election, regardless of motivation, was that the electorate registered a strong disgust for the status quo, which disgust is also shared by the Baker-Hamiltons of the right-wing world, ergo their “report” to the President.
However, fortunately for what is “left” of us, the Baker-Hamilton ISG demonstrated that the “right” is also no more monolithic than the “left.” Like the “left,” the “right” also suffers from a lack of historical perspective and the absence of a unifying theoretical vision (other than the capitalist mantra of screw everyone else before they screw you).
The ownership class worldwide rarely concerns itself with such trivial notions as “nationality”, and those who have power and wealth -- regardless of race, religion, citizenship or ethnicity -- easily identify, support and associate with one another no matter what passports they bear. Nevertheless, the center of gravity of that ownership class lies indubitably in the United States, if for no other reason than here lies control over that final arbiter of power: overwhelming military might and nuclear weapons.
Thus, political and economic control of the United States is essential to the maintenance of a certain world order, and therein lie the fissure lines highlighted by Mr. Baker's ISG. To maintain that control in a world increasingly destabilized by dramatic and impending climate change and diminishing resources of all kinds (including, and especially, hydrocarbon fuel stocks), the ownership class in America joined a marriage of convenience, a ménage a trois, between the Old Power represented by Mr. Baker, the so-called Neoconservatives and the Christian Right. Luckily for us all, this is a loveless marriage and they are likely to eat their own children.
Who is the Iraq Study Group? Its chair is James Baker, former Secretary of State under Bush I, Secretary of the Treasury under Ronald Reagan, partner at the Baker Botts law firm (attorneys for the government of Saudi Arabia), past campaign chair for Presidents Ford, Reagan and Bush, and senior counsel to the Carlyle Group. Mr. Baker is the finest representative of that class of skilled “enablers” who facilitate the aims of those who own nearly everything.
The co-chair of the ISG, Lee Hamilton, is a retired senior congressman who has presided over many interesting organizations including the 911 Commission, the CIA and Homeland Security Advisory Council, and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. While serving on the committee investigating the unlawful Iran-Contra Weapons scandal, Mr. Hamilton chose not to seek impeachment for either Ronald Reagan or George H. Bush. Mr. Hamilton is a true conciliator who has no qualms sacrificing truth on the alter of consensus building.
Other members of the ISG include:
Lawrence Eagleburger, assistant to National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger during the Nixon presidency, a careerist in the “State Department”, and someone who is noted for rather controversial stints as ambassador to the former Yugoslavia and the International Commission on Holocaust Era Insurance Claims;
Edwin Meese, Yale University graduate, past Attorney General under Ronald Reagan, murky involvement with the Iran-Contra affair, Fellow of the Heritage and the Discovery Institute (the folks who advocate for “intelligent design” as an alternative theory of evolution);
Vernon Jordan, friend of both John Kerry and Bill Clinton, a past president of the National Urban League, noteworthy as a director of the investment bank Lazard Freres, who either sits, or has sat on, the board of directors of American Express, Dow Jones, Revlon, Corning, RJR Nabisco, and Xerox.
William Perry, a high tech specialist with a PhD. D. in mathematics; Bill Clinton's Secretary of Defense; currently serves on the Board of Directors of Los Alamos National Laboratory and co-directs the “Preventive Defense Project at the Stanford University Center for International Security and Cooperation”;
Alan Simpson, former U.S. Senator from Wyoming and Senate Republican Whip for ten years; friend of Bush I and fellow Wyoming political prodigy, Dick Cheney.
Charles Robb, former conservative Democratic Governor and Senator of Virginia, past chair of the Iraq Intelligence Commission, co-founder of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), married Lynda Bird Johnson, successfully dodged at least one sex and one drug related scandal, voted (as a Democrat) for the Supreme Court appointment of Clarence Thomas and for Newt Gingrich's Contract for America, past member of the Trilateral Commission and current member of George Bush's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board.
Leon Panetta, initially a moderate Republican who served in the Nixon Administration, Panetta later became counsel for the NAACP; then, as a Democrat, was elected for nine terms as U.S. Congressman; Bill Clinton's Director of OMB and, later, Chief of Staff; Director and Founder of the Panetta Institute for Public Policy.
Sandra Day O'Connor, first woman on the U.S. Supreme Court (appointed by Ronald Reagan), wanted to retire during a Republican administration that could appoint her successor and was reportedly upset in 2000 when she heard, prior to the Supreme Court's intercession halting the Florida recount, that Al Gore had been elected instead of George Bush.
Two other people had been appointed to the ISG, but they resigned before it issued its report: the cantankerous presidential aspirant and former NYC Mayor Rudi Giuliani, of 911 era fame/notoriety and self-idolizing Super Hero Crime Fighter; and Robert Gates, former Director of the CIA under Bush I and just appointed as Bush II's Secretary of Defense.
Mr. Baker's Study Group is, indeed, “blue ribbon” and “blue blood.” This is a very elite little circle that tends to associate with or serve the interests of power and money. The core of the ISG (that is, its Republican majority) have rubbed shoulders with or served clients like Saudi princes, Carlyle Group types, the European old guard, investment moguls, oil men, men of high finance, the cream of Club Society. The other members of the ISG are compromisers concerned more with preserving institutions than ideals. The core ISG are pragmatists; they do not care what nation beats up on which other nation, who lives or dies, so long as, at the end of the day, they, the institutions they represent, or their clients have benefited and come out ahead. They currently work, or have worked in the past, with the new royals, the 21st Century Bourbons and Hapsburgs, the robber barons of our time.
That is why the Baker ISG plan does not contemplate completely withdrawing American soldiers, but drawing them down slightly and consolidating the remainder in supposedly impregnable fortresses from which military power over the entire region can be exercised. Consistent with the ISG members' own government experiences from the last decades of the 20th Century, the Baker plan does not rule out an El Salvador “solution” -- a bloody, U.S. induced civil war that will cause Muslim to kill Muslim for decades, and thus forestall the evolution of a strong Shi'a regime in Iraq -- the nightmare of the House of Saud, the House of Mubarak, the House of Jordan's King Abdullah, and of Bahrain, Kuwait, Pakistan, Algeria and all other western supported autocracies.
The pragmatic, economic perspective of the Baker ISG is also manifest in its emphasis on, once and for all, privatizing Iraq's petroleum reserves and serving them up to the western oil cartel to sell and distribute as it sees fit. In other words, the Baker ISG plan calls for seizing the ultimate prize that has eluded the Bush Administration. Mr. Baker's clients, the Saudis, also approve this plan because they, like the other despotic clans propped up by the U.S. in that part of the world, will not tolerate the creation of a new Shi'a competitor that could dwarf Saudi Arabia's own oil production and world economic significance.
The Neoconservatives, by contrast, are clearly concerned with rearranging the Middle East map, primarily as it benefits Israel. These people are not as well heeled as is Mr. Baker's society. These are the folks whose primary interest is the complete dismantling of “dangerous” states like Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Iran, the nations of the Saudi peninsula and of North Africa having been already neutered. They do not want to talk to Iran or Syria about anything, except total capitulation. They wish the United States to remain engaged in literal confrontation with Arabs and Muslims everywhere because they want Americans to share with Israel a “comradeship of enmity” against a “hostile” Middle East, i.e., the enemy of my enemies is my friend. Although the Neoconservatives, too, lay claim to Iraqi oil, their primary objective is security for Greater Israel, no matter what the cost to anyone else. The Neoconservatives consider a strong Israel as essential to the projection of American power in the Middle East, and a perpetual confrontation of America with the Muslim world as essential to preserving a strong Israel.
If anything, the message of the November election to the Neoconservatives is that their agenda is in jeopardy because the Baker brand of geopolitics shares interests with the Saudis and with other regional Arab autocrats. Mr. Baker and his clients care less for Greater Israel than they do for the maintenance of their own clans' dominance and power. Several Neoconservatives have been shown the exit door during the preceding year, which probably adds a sense of urgency to their mission, as expressed by the stridency of their reactions to the ISG report.
The third member of the political marriage of convenience is the so-called Christian Right. Disdained as loonies by its two other political bedfellows, the Christian Right is, indeed, crazy. The Christian Right has no blue blood at all and it does not play well with either the Baker crowd or the Neoconservatives. It literally seeks to establish a Christian theocracy, not only in the United States but everywhere on earth. Its peculiarly twisted version of muscular Christianity most closely resembles the Christianity of the Crusades or of the Spanish Conquistadors... or, for that matter, radical Islam. The ownership class and the Neoconservatives thinly camouflage their disgust for the Christian Right, a group they believe is both ignorant and insane, but which they must tolerate solely because (until such time as electronic vote fraud can be perfected) they have (at least until November 2006) provided the margin of votes necessary to solidify the political power of the other two. The two camps of Israeli zealots -- ultraconservative Christians and Neoconservatives -- can barely conceal their mutual loathing while each imagines ascending to its respective gated paradise (national or divine) while treading on the body of the other.
A fourth group, not formally sleeping with the oddly-married trio but hovering all around them like a jealous lover, is the American security establishment. This group encompasses both the Pentagon and the CIA, who fancy themselves the ultimate protectors of American culture and sovereignty (as defined by themselves, of course). Since its creation at the beginning of the Cold War, the CIA has operated fast and loose with government controls, as the peculiar circumstances of the Bay of Pigs, the Kennedy assassinations and the Iran-Contra affair attest. The CIA underwent a palace coup of sorts upon the inauguration of George W. Bush as its senior analysts were booted out to be replaced with Administration toadies. The “professionals” who remain in Langley, and those who were tossed into the street, hold no fondness for the current Administration and itch for the opportunity to take it down a notch.
The American military brass, like professional military men in every country, absolutely loathe civilians and their “weaknesses.” They despise even more the arm chair generals like Mr. Rumsfeld who have squandered military assets in pursuit of a rearranged “Muddle East.” The generals are every bit as crazy as the Christian Right, but these folks are also armed. Their hubris is symbolized in the U.S. by the Oliver North types, of Iran Contra notoriety, and abroad by the unlamented dictator created by Henry Kissinger, Augusto Pinochet of Chile. As a class, the Pentagon crowd has been aching to avenge the loss of the Vietnam War and now they have another military fiasco to redeem, as well. As people know who have spent any time around career military officers, these folks are bitterly convinced that “they” and “their soldiers” suffer, fight and die while the “civilians” reap the profits. This combination of disgruntlement and ultimate power is toxic, and even though the United States has not yet experienced a military coup d'etat, it is the fear of an unbridled military which caused many founders of the original United States to inveigh against creating a standing, professional army.
All these factions -- the Baker old guard, the Neoconservatives, the Christian Right and the Security Establishment -- are now vying for control as the Bush Administration sinks deeper into failure. Although some of their goals are similar, nothing sharpens fratricidal tendencies like a lifeboat too small to hold everyone aboard the sinking ship.
The ISG report, tepid though it is, is a sign of the widening differences among these groups. Already, the Christian conservatives chafe at the too few bones they believe were thrown to them during the Bush years, and the Bushmen mutter derisory comments about their religious bedmates' mental equilibrium. The military is sullen and prone to leak embarrassing news. The Neocons try to salvage their new map of the Muddle East in Israel's image, while Baker & Co., perhaps pining for the simpler, despotic days of Their Man, Saddam Hussein, try to rebuild Humpty Dumpty status quo ante bellum.
We in the Iraq Study Group Study Group profoundly regret that these squabbling lovers have inflicted such horror and misery on the world. But if the ISG report augers correctly, this squabbling could soon end up with a political separation. We look forward to an ugly divorce.
Zbignew Zingh can be reached at Zbig@ersarts.com. This article is CopyLeft, and free to distribute, reprint, repost, sing at a recital, spray paint, scribble in a toilet stall, etc. to your heart’s content, with proper author citation. Find out more about Copyleft and read other great articles at: www.ersarts.com.
By Zbignew Zingh
The Iraq Study Group Study Group (ISGSG), a shadowy organization of indeterminate number (to wit, this author and those who frequent this web site) was created to reflect and comment on the better known Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group (ISG). The ISGSG has now released its own report. President Bush, upon reviewing an advance copy of the ISGSG's white paper mumbled something to the effect that it was “very interesting” before filing it in the same cylindrical file with the Baker-Hamilton report.
Once stripped of its tepid criticisms, the Baker-Hamilton ISG report looks like an attempt to stuff the evil genie of Mr. Bush's policies back into the bottle of a more subtle Bismarck-Metternich style of empire. Mr. Baker and his groupies clearly are nostalgic for the day when his class of people could achieve dominance while keeping up the pretenses of goodness and democracy for public consumption. They recoil from the blunt, naked aggression of the Bush Administration which Mr. Baker et. al. equate with the boorish behavior of crass amateurs and thugs. Baker et. al. prefer the more nuanced, more subtle exercise of power, like the true aristocrats they are, who keep their white gloves clean while the blood is spilled off-stage and out-of-sight by covert military operations.
Notwithstanding its atavistic longing for a less messy empire, the Baker ISG should be congratulated for concluding (as so many of us hoi polloi concluded several years ago) that the Bush Administration foreign policy has been an unmitigated disaster. In fact, Mr. Bush has done such a swell job enervating the American military, undermining the dollar as the world's reserve currency, eviscerating the economy and totally demythologizing the mythology of America that one might conclude that W is the last century Kremlin's ultimate deep mole. And since we have mentioned the Kremlin, the Baker “old guard” undoubtedly sees the specter of déjà vu haunting an arrogant BushAmerica that is emulating the old Soviet empire's meltdown while permitting South America to escape from neoliberalism's orbit.
Although we of the The Iraq Study Group Study Group ultimately found little that was novel or insightful in the ISG report, we congratulate Mr. Baker and his colleagues for exposing definite fault lines within the international ruling cabal. For days after the release of the Baker-Hamilton report it was very pleasing to read conservative political pundits dissing Mr. Baker's ISG as “muddled”, irresponsible and unbalanced. Indeed, one such conservative columnist castigated the public disclosure of the Baker-Hamilton report that, in the esteemed pundit's opinion, should have been kept absolutely secret and accessible only to the inner circle of policymakers -- quite consistent, of course, with aristocratic notions of “democracy” and government transparency.
Dissension within the ownership class?
We take it as a given that the so-called “left” is not monolithic. Although most of its constituents generally want “change”, the quality, degree, nature and means of attaining that change leads to disorientation (such as backing the Democratic Party of the Status Quo as the perpetual lesser of two evils). The left's inherent disunity, caused as much by a lack of historical perspective, the absence of a unifying theoretical vision, as well as by government infiltration, co-option and misdirection, is often mischaracterized by eternal optimists as a political “strength”. Although non-hierarchical, leaderless, multi-strategy movements can be profound and resilient, political discordance is a weakness. The peace movement's inefficacy proves itself in a century-long succession of failed efforts to stop the beginning of one new war after another. It is the hubris of well-meaning American peace activists (most of whose hearts are in the right place even though their vision might be myopic) that they do not appreciate how an endless succession of invisible, economically insignificant, officially-sanctioned “weekend” demonstrations along with endless letters to tone deaf editors, interminable law suits creeping ineffectively toward a conservative Supreme Court, and email petitions to privately owned legislators are not the primary engines of fundamental social or political change.
Alas, America's disgust with the Iraq War (as manifest in the November electoral unsaddling of the Republican House and Senate) was based less on the immorality of the enterprise and more on the ineptitude of its execution. Americans, like the rest of the world, hate losers, and, as experience shows, people quickly sour on athletes, sports teams, coaches, presidents, congressmen and political parties when they fail to deliver the goods.
The terrible truth is that but for the Iraqi people's determination and willingness to bleed to free their land of occupation (much like the determination showed by the Vietnamese people during their bloody war of independence), the peace movement would have gained no traction in the United States; for it is the dead and horribly maimed American soldiers, wreaked upon us by the Iraqis themselves, who gave our sickened nation and the peace movement the impetus to tell Congress to change, not stay the course. It was not the surfeit of lies or torture that undid the Republican Congress; rather, America's citizens would have readily feted their petroleum conquering troops, dishonesty, torture and unconstitutionality notwithstanding, had only they been able to grab the prize as easily and as cheaply as we have ripped off everyone else in Africa, Asia, North and South America in the past. The salutary result of the November 2006 election, regardless of motivation, was that the electorate registered a strong disgust for the status quo, which disgust is also shared by the Baker-Hamiltons of the right-wing world, ergo their “report” to the President.
However, fortunately for what is “left” of us, the Baker-Hamilton ISG demonstrated that the “right” is also no more monolithic than the “left.” Like the “left,” the “right” also suffers from a lack of historical perspective and the absence of a unifying theoretical vision (other than the capitalist mantra of screw everyone else before they screw you).
The ownership class worldwide rarely concerns itself with such trivial notions as “nationality”, and those who have power and wealth -- regardless of race, religion, citizenship or ethnicity -- easily identify, support and associate with one another no matter what passports they bear. Nevertheless, the center of gravity of that ownership class lies indubitably in the United States, if for no other reason than here lies control over that final arbiter of power: overwhelming military might and nuclear weapons.
Thus, political and economic control of the United States is essential to the maintenance of a certain world order, and therein lie the fissure lines highlighted by Mr. Baker's ISG. To maintain that control in a world increasingly destabilized by dramatic and impending climate change and diminishing resources of all kinds (including, and especially, hydrocarbon fuel stocks), the ownership class in America joined a marriage of convenience, a ménage a trois, between the Old Power represented by Mr. Baker, the so-called Neoconservatives and the Christian Right. Luckily for us all, this is a loveless marriage and they are likely to eat their own children.
Who is the Iraq Study Group? Its chair is James Baker, former Secretary of State under Bush I, Secretary of the Treasury under Ronald Reagan, partner at the Baker Botts law firm (attorneys for the government of Saudi Arabia), past campaign chair for Presidents Ford, Reagan and Bush, and senior counsel to the Carlyle Group. Mr. Baker is the finest representative of that class of skilled “enablers” who facilitate the aims of those who own nearly everything.
The co-chair of the ISG, Lee Hamilton, is a retired senior congressman who has presided over many interesting organizations including the 911 Commission, the CIA and Homeland Security Advisory Council, and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. While serving on the committee investigating the unlawful Iran-Contra Weapons scandal, Mr. Hamilton chose not to seek impeachment for either Ronald Reagan or George H. Bush. Mr. Hamilton is a true conciliator who has no qualms sacrificing truth on the alter of consensus building.
Other members of the ISG include:
Lawrence Eagleburger, assistant to National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger during the Nixon presidency, a careerist in the “State Department”, and someone who is noted for rather controversial stints as ambassador to the former Yugoslavia and the International Commission on Holocaust Era Insurance Claims;
Edwin Meese, Yale University graduate, past Attorney General under Ronald Reagan, murky involvement with the Iran-Contra affair, Fellow of the Heritage and the Discovery Institute (the folks who advocate for “intelligent design” as an alternative theory of evolution);
Vernon Jordan, friend of both John Kerry and Bill Clinton, a past president of the National Urban League, noteworthy as a director of the investment bank Lazard Freres, who either sits, or has sat on, the board of directors of American Express, Dow Jones, Revlon, Corning, RJR Nabisco, and Xerox.
William Perry, a high tech specialist with a PhD. D. in mathematics; Bill Clinton's Secretary of Defense; currently serves on the Board of Directors of Los Alamos National Laboratory and co-directs the “Preventive Defense Project at the Stanford University Center for International Security and Cooperation”;
Alan Simpson, former U.S. Senator from Wyoming and Senate Republican Whip for ten years; friend of Bush I and fellow Wyoming political prodigy, Dick Cheney.
Charles Robb, former conservative Democratic Governor and Senator of Virginia, past chair of the Iraq Intelligence Commission, co-founder of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), married Lynda Bird Johnson, successfully dodged at least one sex and one drug related scandal, voted (as a Democrat) for the Supreme Court appointment of Clarence Thomas and for Newt Gingrich's Contract for America, past member of the Trilateral Commission and current member of George Bush's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board.
Leon Panetta, initially a moderate Republican who served in the Nixon Administration, Panetta later became counsel for the NAACP; then, as a Democrat, was elected for nine terms as U.S. Congressman; Bill Clinton's Director of OMB and, later, Chief of Staff; Director and Founder of the Panetta Institute for Public Policy.
Sandra Day O'Connor, first woman on the U.S. Supreme Court (appointed by Ronald Reagan), wanted to retire during a Republican administration that could appoint her successor and was reportedly upset in 2000 when she heard, prior to the Supreme Court's intercession halting the Florida recount, that Al Gore had been elected instead of George Bush.
Two other people had been appointed to the ISG, but they resigned before it issued its report: the cantankerous presidential aspirant and former NYC Mayor Rudi Giuliani, of 911 era fame/notoriety and self-idolizing Super Hero Crime Fighter; and Robert Gates, former Director of the CIA under Bush I and just appointed as Bush II's Secretary of Defense.
Mr. Baker's Study Group is, indeed, “blue ribbon” and “blue blood.” This is a very elite little circle that tends to associate with or serve the interests of power and money. The core of the ISG (that is, its Republican majority) have rubbed shoulders with or served clients like Saudi princes, Carlyle Group types, the European old guard, investment moguls, oil men, men of high finance, the cream of Club Society. The other members of the ISG are compromisers concerned more with preserving institutions than ideals. The core ISG are pragmatists; they do not care what nation beats up on which other nation, who lives or dies, so long as, at the end of the day, they, the institutions they represent, or their clients have benefited and come out ahead. They currently work, or have worked in the past, with the new royals, the 21st Century Bourbons and Hapsburgs, the robber barons of our time.
That is why the Baker ISG plan does not contemplate completely withdrawing American soldiers, but drawing them down slightly and consolidating the remainder in supposedly impregnable fortresses from which military power over the entire region can be exercised. Consistent with the ISG members' own government experiences from the last decades of the 20th Century, the Baker plan does not rule out an El Salvador “solution” -- a bloody, U.S. induced civil war that will cause Muslim to kill Muslim for decades, and thus forestall the evolution of a strong Shi'a regime in Iraq -- the nightmare of the House of Saud, the House of Mubarak, the House of Jordan's King Abdullah, and of Bahrain, Kuwait, Pakistan, Algeria and all other western supported autocracies.
The pragmatic, economic perspective of the Baker ISG is also manifest in its emphasis on, once and for all, privatizing Iraq's petroleum reserves and serving them up to the western oil cartel to sell and distribute as it sees fit. In other words, the Baker ISG plan calls for seizing the ultimate prize that has eluded the Bush Administration. Mr. Baker's clients, the Saudis, also approve this plan because they, like the other despotic clans propped up by the U.S. in that part of the world, will not tolerate the creation of a new Shi'a competitor that could dwarf Saudi Arabia's own oil production and world economic significance.
The Neoconservatives, by contrast, are clearly concerned with rearranging the Middle East map, primarily as it benefits Israel. These people are not as well heeled as is Mr. Baker's society. These are the folks whose primary interest is the complete dismantling of “dangerous” states like Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Iran, the nations of the Saudi peninsula and of North Africa having been already neutered. They do not want to talk to Iran or Syria about anything, except total capitulation. They wish the United States to remain engaged in literal confrontation with Arabs and Muslims everywhere because they want Americans to share with Israel a “comradeship of enmity” against a “hostile” Middle East, i.e., the enemy of my enemies is my friend. Although the Neoconservatives, too, lay claim to Iraqi oil, their primary objective is security for Greater Israel, no matter what the cost to anyone else. The Neoconservatives consider a strong Israel as essential to the projection of American power in the Middle East, and a perpetual confrontation of America with the Muslim world as essential to preserving a strong Israel.
If anything, the message of the November election to the Neoconservatives is that their agenda is in jeopardy because the Baker brand of geopolitics shares interests with the Saudis and with other regional Arab autocrats. Mr. Baker and his clients care less for Greater Israel than they do for the maintenance of their own clans' dominance and power. Several Neoconservatives have been shown the exit door during the preceding year, which probably adds a sense of urgency to their mission, as expressed by the stridency of their reactions to the ISG report.
The third member of the political marriage of convenience is the so-called Christian Right. Disdained as loonies by its two other political bedfellows, the Christian Right is, indeed, crazy. The Christian Right has no blue blood at all and it does not play well with either the Baker crowd or the Neoconservatives. It literally seeks to establish a Christian theocracy, not only in the United States but everywhere on earth. Its peculiarly twisted version of muscular Christianity most closely resembles the Christianity of the Crusades or of the Spanish Conquistadors... or, for that matter, radical Islam. The ownership class and the Neoconservatives thinly camouflage their disgust for the Christian Right, a group they believe is both ignorant and insane, but which they must tolerate solely because (until such time as electronic vote fraud can be perfected) they have (at least until November 2006) provided the margin of votes necessary to solidify the political power of the other two. The two camps of Israeli zealots -- ultraconservative Christians and Neoconservatives -- can barely conceal their mutual loathing while each imagines ascending to its respective gated paradise (national or divine) while treading on the body of the other.
A fourth group, not formally sleeping with the oddly-married trio but hovering all around them like a jealous lover, is the American security establishment. This group encompasses both the Pentagon and the CIA, who fancy themselves the ultimate protectors of American culture and sovereignty (as defined by themselves, of course). Since its creation at the beginning of the Cold War, the CIA has operated fast and loose with government controls, as the peculiar circumstances of the Bay of Pigs, the Kennedy assassinations and the Iran-Contra affair attest. The CIA underwent a palace coup of sorts upon the inauguration of George W. Bush as its senior analysts were booted out to be replaced with Administration toadies. The “professionals” who remain in Langley, and those who were tossed into the street, hold no fondness for the current Administration and itch for the opportunity to take it down a notch.
The American military brass, like professional military men in every country, absolutely loathe civilians and their “weaknesses.” They despise even more the arm chair generals like Mr. Rumsfeld who have squandered military assets in pursuit of a rearranged “Muddle East.” The generals are every bit as crazy as the Christian Right, but these folks are also armed. Their hubris is symbolized in the U.S. by the Oliver North types, of Iran Contra notoriety, and abroad by the unlamented dictator created by Henry Kissinger, Augusto Pinochet of Chile. As a class, the Pentagon crowd has been aching to avenge the loss of the Vietnam War and now they have another military fiasco to redeem, as well. As people know who have spent any time around career military officers, these folks are bitterly convinced that “they” and “their soldiers” suffer, fight and die while the “civilians” reap the profits. This combination of disgruntlement and ultimate power is toxic, and even though the United States has not yet experienced a military coup d'etat, it is the fear of an unbridled military which caused many founders of the original United States to inveigh against creating a standing, professional army.
All these factions -- the Baker old guard, the Neoconservatives, the Christian Right and the Security Establishment -- are now vying for control as the Bush Administration sinks deeper into failure. Although some of their goals are similar, nothing sharpens fratricidal tendencies like a lifeboat too small to hold everyone aboard the sinking ship.
The ISG report, tepid though it is, is a sign of the widening differences among these groups. Already, the Christian conservatives chafe at the too few bones they believe were thrown to them during the Bush years, and the Bushmen mutter derisory comments about their religious bedmates' mental equilibrium. The military is sullen and prone to leak embarrassing news. The Neocons try to salvage their new map of the Muddle East in Israel's image, while Baker & Co., perhaps pining for the simpler, despotic days of Their Man, Saddam Hussein, try to rebuild Humpty Dumpty status quo ante bellum.
We in the Iraq Study Group Study Group profoundly regret that these squabbling lovers have inflicted such horror and misery on the world. But if the ISG report augers correctly, this squabbling could soon end up with a political separation. We look forward to an ugly divorce.
Zbignew Zingh can be reached at Zbig@ersarts.com. This article is CopyLeft, and free to distribute, reprint, repost, sing at a recital, spray paint, scribble in a toilet stall, etc. to your heart’s content, with proper author citation. Find out more about Copyleft and read other great articles at: www.ersarts.com.
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