6 US Soldiers Wounded, 22 Iraqis Killed in Holy City Fighting
by Juan Cole

My own view is that Muqtada has now won politically and morally. He keeps throwing Abu Ghuraib in the faces of the Americans. He had his men take refuge in Najaf and Karbala because he knew only two outcomes were possible. Either the Americans would back off and cease trying to destroy him, out of fear of fighting in the holy cities and alienating the Shiites. Or they would come in after Muqtada and his militia, in which case the Americans would probably turn the Shiites in general against themselves. The latter is now happening. The Americans will be left with a handful of ambitious collaborators at the top, but the masses won't be with them. And in Iraq, unlike the US, the masses matter. The US political elite is used to being able to discount American urban ghettos as politically a cipher. What they don't realize is that in third world countries the urban poor are a key political actor and resource, and wise rulers go out of their way not to anger them.

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Brutality in the gulag: what for?
by Helena Cobban

This morning, Bill the spouse and I were speculating about what the point of all the officially sanctioned brutality in Abu Ghraib prison was. Once we accept that this was no "furtive", rogue operation, we have to understand that someone in the military chain of command--most likely the Military Intel command-- was actually, under very difficult operational circumstances, devoting quite a lot of manpower and other resources to running these sessions of organized brutality. This, in a situation where manpower is stretched incredibly thin. Plus, by the accounts of some of the front-line perpetrators, they were given the cameras by superiors and instructed to take the photos and videos. So what was it all in aid of?

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Here is an excellent discussion of the Geneva Conventions...

On brutality in war
Helena Cobban

Meanwhile, the US, in whose detention facilities unknown numbers of people have met their deaths, some number of them apparently at the end of processes of what can only be called torture, has absolutely no leg to stand on as it tries to protest such behavior. This is why, incidentally, many people in the uniformed military--people considerably higher up the chain of command than Lynndie England-- understand that it is in the interests of their own soldiers (many of whom are currently deployed in very far-flung places, in worryingly small numbers) that the norms embedded in the Geneva and Hague Conventions be as widely respected and applied as possible. General Antonio Taguba is not some kind of outlier on this issue; he represents a long-term body of very serious opinion in the U.S. Army... Among all the many laws of war, of particular relevance in Iraq are the 4th of the Hague Conventions of 1907, the one relating to the Law of War on Land, and the third and fourth Geneva Conventions-- the ones relating to the treatment of prisoners of war and to the treatment of the civil population of a territory under military occupation. The United States is, it perhaps needs to be restated, a full party to all these Conventions.

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Pentagon Admits Iraq Methods Violated Geneva Rules

Sen. Jack Reed asked Pace if a foreign nation held a U.S. Marine in a cell, naked with a bag over his head, squatting with his arms uplifted for 45 minutes, would that be a good interrogation technique or a Geneva Convention violation. "I would describe is as a violation, sir," replied Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "As I read Gen. Sanchez's guidance, precisely that behavior could have been employed in Iraq," said Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat. Reed later asked Wolfowitz a similar question. Wolfowitz initially tried to sidestep it, but eventually replied, "What you've described to me sounds, to me, like a violation of the Geneva Convention."

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Let us not forget the lather that Americans whipped themselves into at the beginning of the war when the Iraqis held US soldiers captive and showed them on video. "It's against the Geneva Conventions!" they yelled. Let us not forget that those American captives were not hooded and were fully clothed. They were not raped nor were they tortued. And Americans have the gall to accuse Iraqis of being barbarians. Also let us not forget that violations of the Geneva Conventions are war crimes.

Bush's Waterloo?
Plan to Get Out Now or Face a Disastrous Defeat

The disastrous course of America's war in Iraq has created a new task for the Great General Staff, in the form of more contingency planning. America needs to make sure it has a plan in the file for a fighting withdrawal from Iraq. It is still possible the end may not come this way. We may still manage a shaky hand-off to a U.N.-designated Iraqi government, and that government might last long enough for us to withdraw with some shreds of dignity. George W. might awake some morning a new man, announce he was swindled, sack the neo-cons and bring in someone like Marine Corps General Tony Zinni, who opposed the war all along, to handle our disengagement. The Archangel Michael might appear over Mecca and convert all the Mohammedans to Christianity. But the growing probability is that we will be driven out of Iraq by a general uprising, an intifada in which every American will be the target of every Iraqi and our boys (and, in America's Neo-Model Army, girls) will have to fight their way out in a scene like that which faced Gordon in the Sudan. It is not a pleasant prospect. It means thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of American and "coalition" casualties, many times more Iraqi casualties, and one of history's more memorable defeats, right up there with Syracuse, Waterloo and Stalingrad. The after-shocks will be severe, as regimes tumble from Pakistan through the Persian Gulf and Egypt to Britian and America itself. You can look forward to seeing the Dow at 3000, if not 300.

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The pro-war crowd is finally waking up from their hypnotic trance. Bush has lost even Friedman.

Dancing Alone
by Thomas Friedman

I admit, I'm a little slow. Because I tried to think about something as deadly serious as Iraq, and the post- 9/11 world, in a nonpartisan fashion — as Joe Biden, John McCain and Dick Lugar did — I assumed the Bush officials were doing the same. I was wrong. They were always so slow to change course because confronting their mistakes didn't just involve confronting reality, but their own politics. Why, in the face of rampant looting in the war's aftermath, which dug us into such a deep and costly hole, wouldn't Mr. Rumsfeld put more troops into Iraq? Politics. First of all, Rummy wanted to crush once and for all the Powell doctrine, which says you fight a war like this only with overwhelming force. I know this is hard to believe, but the Pentagon crew hated Colin Powell, and wanted to see him humiliated 10 times more than Saddam. Second, Rummy wanted to prove to all those U.S. generals whose Army he was intent on downsizing that a small, mobile, high-tech force was all you needed today to take over a country. Third, the White House always knew this was a war of choice — its choice — so it made sure that average Americans never had to pay any price or bear any burden. Thus, it couldn't call up too many reservists, let alone have a draft. Yes, there was a contradiction between the Bush war on taxes and the Bush war on terrorism. But it was resolved: the Bush team decided to lower taxes rather than raise troop levels.

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