blogs

A mash note to the blogosphere
Simply put, blogs are the greatest breakthrough in popular journalism since Tom Paine broke onto the scene.
By Arianna Huffington

I've got a confession to make. I've got a big-time crush. I'm talking weak-in-the-knees infatuation. But it's not Brad or Orlando or Colin or any of the cinematic hunks du jour who have set my heart aflutter. No, it's Atrios and Kos and Josh Micah Marshall and Kausfiles and Kevin Drum and Wonkette. Bloggers all. Yes, when it comes to the blogosphere, I'm a regular cyberslut. And I don't care who knows it. Bring on the fines, Michael Powell! Although I've only recently stuck my toe in the fast-moving blogstream, I've been a fan -- and an advocate -- ever since bloggers took the Trent Lott/Strom Thurmond story, ran with it, and helped turn the smug Senate majority leaderinto the penitent former Senate majority leader, a bit of bloody political chum floating in a tank of hungry sharks. Simply put, blogs are the greatest breakthrough in popular journalism since Tom Paine broke onto the scene.

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  thanks to Eschaton

02:48 AM - link

iraq — vietnam on internet time

There a lot of links to Iraq in this post. Links to what is going on and, more important, links that try to answer why. But first I want to share three pictures that show what this is really about — people.

People dying...

people killing...

people terrified.

The picture of the three soldiers made me cry. They are as scared as anyone else. They are just kids. The don't belong where they are. They should not be doing what they are doing. They probably know that. May those that sent them there rot in a special hell. And may all those kids come home.

Here are some links to check on what is happening.

The Agonist

Juan Cole

Whiskey Bar

AntiWar.com

Senator Byrd's comments are a must read.

A Call for an Exit Door from Iraq
by Sen. Robert Byrd

During the past weekend, the death toll among America's military personnel in Iraq topped 600 – including as many as 20 American soldiers killed in one three-day period of fierce fighting. Many of the dead, most perhaps, were mere youngsters, just starting out on the great adventure of life. But before they could realize their dreams, they were called into battle by their Commander in Chief, a battle that we now know was predicated on faulty intelligence and wildly exaggerated claims of looming danger. As I watch events unfold in Iraq, I cannot help but be reminded of another battle at another place and another time that hurtled more than 600 soldiers into the maws of death because of a foolish decision on the part of their commander. The occasion was the Battle of Balaclava on October 25, 1864, during the Crimean War, a battle that was immortalized by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, in his poem, "The Charge of the Light Brigade." "Forward, the Light Brigade!" Was there a man dismay'd? Not tho' the soldier knew Someone had blunder'd: Their's not to make reply, Their's not to reason why, Their's but to do and die: Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. [...] When speaking of Iraq, the President maintains that his resolve is firm, and indeed the stakes for him are enormous. But the stakes are also enormous for the men and women who are serving in Iraq, and who are waiting and praying for the day that they will be able to return home to their families, their ranks painfully diminished but their mission fulfilled with honor and dignity. The President sent these men and women into Iraq, and it is his responsibility to develop a strategy to extricate them from that troubled country before their losses become intolerable. It is staggeringly clear that the Administration did not understand the consequences of invading Iraq a year ago, and it is staggeringly clear that the Administration has no effective plan to cope with the aftermath of the war and the functional collapse of Iraq. It is time – past time – for the President to remedy that omission and to level with the American people about the magnitude of mistakes made and lessons learned. America needs a roadmap out of Iraq, one that is orderly and astute, else more of our men and women in uniform will follow the fate of Tennyson's doomed Light Brigade.

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Here is what is happening...

Gunbattles Rage in Many Iraqi Cities on Wednesday

Urban warfare grips Iraq

US loses control of two cities
Up to 300 dead in Falluja
Three Japanese 'taken hostage'
Iraqi interior minister resigns

Battles rage from north to south
Dozens die in bomb and missile attack near mosque
Militia leader warns: Iraq will be new Vietnam
Blow to US as ayatollah fails to condemn uprising

US Bombs Fallujah Mosque; More Than 40 Worshippers Killed
Revolutionary violence engulfs Iraq

Mosques will be targeted: US

Here are some looks at the larger picture...

Fleeing Baghdad
I didn't want to leave the nation my country tore apart. But then came warnings that our house was targeted. A farewell portrait of a place on the edge of the abyss.

Hell in a handbasket

Steve Gilliard has been saying it for over a year. I have been saying it for as long. What's happening is not a surprise -- it was to be expected. It took Saddam nearly a million men under arms and brutal repressive tactics to keep the country under control. And even then, there was near perpetual insurgency against his rule. For the US to think they could control the country, as outside occupiers, with a shade over 100,000 troops (and, according to Rumsfeld, about a third of that at this point in the calendar) bordered on insanity. But as we have seen again and again in this administration, ideology trumps reality. And the reality on the ground is sickening. We are facing a well-armed, well-trained, and coordinated enemy. Remember -- we never defeated these guys in combat. The US bought off Republican Guard commanders sparing our troops heavy combat on the streets of Baghdad and elsewhere across the country.

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Volley and Thunder, Shot and Shell

It is clear that the rationalizations that worked the day before yesterday will not work today, nor on any day henceforward. The rapid deterioration of the situation in Iraq, the realization that we are up against an inflamed population whose ferocious hatred confounds us, and the fecklessness of our "leaders" in the face of this untoward consequence of our invasion follies all lead to the same conclusion John Burns dolefully expressed on PBS tonight: that we are, in effect, damned and doomed no matter what our course of action

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Shockwave:
Kut evacuated, Poll numbers hit

Tet broke the will of the political leadership in the US to pursue victory in Vietnam, at the same time it destroyed the credibility of the US political leadership in the eyes of a significant proportion of the population. Core to this was the contrast between rosy reports by the military, and clear images from the ground that the war was not going as well as had been stated. Similar mistakes are being made in Iraq, with the signs in the polls being that yesterday represented a measurable hit in the credibility of the executive branch that has staked its tenure on Iraq.

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Here are four pieces from The Asia Times. A good source for analysis.

One year on: From liberation to jihad

So this is the Bush administration-sponsored "free Iraq" people identify not only in the Sunni triangle but in the Shi'ite south: an occupying power maybe not formally occupying the country any more, but installed in 14 military bases and able to exercise full control on security, the economy and the whole infrastructure. In plain English: a US colony. This is the reason the mob in Fallujah rejoiced in the burning of those American bodies. This is the reason Sunnis and Shi'ites have for now united in anger. And this is the reason the "liberation" has finally turned into a jihad.

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The Shi'ite voice that will be heard

The coalition believes that arresting Muqtada will end the resistance. But arresting or killing him will make no difference. Muqtada is seeking martyrdom and has been seeking an apocalypse. The problem is not a single individual. The problem is the occupation, and this week things got much worse for the Iraqi people and their occupiers. In Iran before the revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini and his supporters condemned the hated Shah as Yazid, the murderer of Husein, the leader of the Shi'ites whom they mourned during Ashura. In Lebanon, the Shi'ite resistance called the Israeli occupier Yazid. During Ashura, banners in Karbala declared that America was the new Yazid. Other banners warned of Husein's revenge that would soon remove the Americans. Iraq's Shi'ites were expected by the planners of the war to rejoice at their liberation. The rejection of the Koran as the main source of the constitution began a process of alienation leading to the current fighting. But one must ask, how could the Americans be so stupid to provoke the Shi'ite majority three months before the planned handover of sovereignty back to the Iraqi people?

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Iraq revolt: Tactics of diversion

The substantive extent of the present gamble which the Bush administration appears to be undertaking cannot be exaggerated, providing a measure of the perceived severity of US political imperatives, or administration blindness. Providing commentary on Iraq's reality, Democratic senator Ted Kennedy just charged that Iraq is "Bush's Vietnam". But on October 28, former US national security adviser Zbigniew Brezinski provided what may be a more accurate analogy to another country, where France battled insurgents. Brezinski described a movie "which deals with a reality which is very similar to that we confront today in Baghdad ... The Battle For Algiers". In Algeria, the French lost, and some observers believe that France itself was nearly plunged into civil war because of it.

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When fear turns to anger

In the beginning of the occupation a taxi driver was asked what he thought of the events in Iraq. He looked away and started crying. Asked if somebody in his family had died, he replied: "We all died." Now taxi drivers talk only of the latest explosion, and how much they hate the Americans and want to kill them. One taxi driver drove by a mosque and saw Americans in the courtyard. "Look what they're doing!" he shouted hysterically, "they even enter inside mosques! They are dirty Jews, I swear if I had an RPG [rocket-propelled grenade] now I would shoot them!" Only the fools are optimistic in Iraq. If the Americans stay, more innocent Iraqis will be killed by them and more Iraqis will die fighting them. More American boys will die for nothing far away from home, where there is even talk of the draft being reinstated to compensate for a military stretched thin. Should the Americans withdraw, Iraqis will not rejoice for long before they turn on each other in the competition for power, but the American retreat will be viewed by radical Islam as a success akin to the Soviet retreat from Afghanistan in 1989, giving their movement a fillip in the "clash of civilizations", a theory with no basis made real thanks to Osama bin Laden and Bush. Americans should have learned on September 11 that they are not immune to the consequences of their government's irresponsibility.

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Report from Baghdad -- Opening the Gates of Hell

Shaykh Sadun al-Shemary, a former member of the Iraqi army who participated in the 1991 uprising and now a spokesman for the al-Sadr organization in Shuala, told me, "Things are exactly the same as in Saddam's time -- maybe worse." That is all you need to know about the occupation of Iraq.

[more]

Death of a Dream

Whether that's due to an irrational hatred of Jews and all their works, or understandable anguish over the suffering of the Palestinian people, is irrelevant, at least at the moment. Either way, it means the "wet" neocon strategy for making the Middle East safe for a Greater Israel though democratic liberation has been revealed as an utter failure. This leaves only the "dry" alternative of military force -- applied relentlessly and, when necessary, overwhelmingly. Somewhere in the background I think I can hear Ariel Sharon, muttering: "Hell, I could have told you that."

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The Twenty Minute President

But Iraq isn't the West Bank, and the Iraqi intifada isn't going to be put down by beating the crap out of a few unarmed demonstrators -- as the Marines found out yesterday. "Shutting them down" is probably going to require the U.S. military to deal out death and devastation on a fairly massive scale, to insurgent and civilian alike. If so, then it would seem the unforgiving minute has come and gone -- and we have not been forgiven. We may be over the edge of the cliff now, heading for the bottom, accelerating at 32 feet per second per second.

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Talking Points Memo

One might argue that that was a proper strategy. Sometimes a looming crisis needs to be brought to a head. But if that's so, we seem to have done little to prepare for the reaction. Where's the White House's strategy? Where is it now, three days later? All we seem to be hearing are hollow assertions of a vacant will. From the White House's advocates we hear logic puzzles about appeasement in which the fall-out from the president's screw ups become the prime argument for continuing to support them. At the critical moment the president has the toxic mix of the bulldog will of a Winston Churchill and the strategic insights and imagination of a Neville Chamberlain. He has no plan. And will without policy just equals death. The gap between the reality in Iraq and the White House's Potemkin village version of it is closing rapidly, like an upper and lower jaw about to shut tight. And the White House's penchant for denial is being squeezed between the two.

[more]

01:32 PM - link

prints

After all the despair coming from the Middle East, sometimes we need to take a break and go outside and remember it's spring.

tsuchiya koitsu

  thanks to plep

12:21 PM - link

iraq — vietnam on internet time

Sorry, but there is no eye candy today. I'm afraid the last few days have been focused on Iraq. If you haven't been focused on Iraq the last few days, you don't understand how serious the situation is. The occupation has been successful, and I use that term very loosely, because the Iraqis, by and large, have gone along with the program. If there is a tipping point and 26 million Iraqis decide that 150,000 foreign troops aren't going tell them how to run their lives anymore, well, there isn't much the foreigners, that's us, can do.

The question is: Are we at that tipping point? Our military has no equal when it comes to set piece battles and toppling governments. That is not what it is now up against. This misadventure has had its proponents and opponents use analogies to other wars. BushCo likes to hold up Pearl Harbor and WWII. Opponents have looked at how easy the world slid into a world war during WWI. Here is another war we can look at, as mentioned in a link below: the American Revolution. A people's war. And these people are heavily armed.

Israeli tactics aren't going to work against the Iraqis. Tanks aren't going to work against people willing to throw themselves under the tracks. How desperate and how stupid are our fearful leaders? How bad can this get? What happens if the Marines can't control Fallujah? What happens if the Coalition can't retake the holy city of Najaf? If this becomes a religious war, and the CPA seems to be doing everything it can to make it one, what chances do 150,000 coalition troops have? If this people's war pushes the CPA troops back into their enclaves, will our fearful leaders go nuclear? Don't forget that there were many at high levels pushing for a nuclear option in Vietnam. How bad can this get?

There is the potential for us to have to pull out of Iraq. How bad can that be? There seems to be an assumption that, if we should decide to leave, that we will just put all our troops on the first flight out. Or the last flight out.

This isn't Vietnam where we had years to draw down our troops. This is happening much faster. The Pentagon is going to meet force with force until the end. This is where Gordy Coale's Third Law of Political Dynamics (with all apologies to Newton) comes in: For every action there MUST be an equal and opposite reaction. At this point Iraqis are willing to let the coalition troops withdraw. Their goal is to get the troops out of the country. If the Pentagon escalates the violence to a high enough level, the Iraqis will no longer be willing to let the troops withdraw. If the Pentagon escalates to a total destruction mode, so will the Iraqis. How bad can it get?

So, what happens if the coalition troops are surrounded in their enclaves in a hostile country, with their supply lines cut off? Lets look at another war where this happened.

Death of an Army

How bad can it get? The US Army will take heavy casualties if it has to withdraw under fire — if it escalates to that point. How many casualties will it take to destroy the Army? I don't think it will take that many. This is a volunteer army. How many would stay in after a debacle like that? Or is the Army already mortally wounded? And what happens if there are no reenlistments, when this is over? What happens when the world finds out we don't have a functioning army? How bad can this get?

On this happy note, let's take a look at how well things are going.

Where is Raed ?

Dear US administration, Welcome to the next level. Please don't act surprised and what sort of timing is that it: planning to go on a huge attack on the west of Iraq and provoking a group you know very well (I pray to god you knew) that they are trouble makers.

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by Salam Pax

Teapots and Kettles...
by Riverbend

Now it seems we are almost literally reliving the first few days of occupation… I woke up to the sound of explosions and gunfire last night and for one terrible moment I thought someone had warped me back a whole year and we would have to relive this last year of our life over and over again… We haven't sent the kids to school for 3 days. The atmosphere is charged and the day before yesterday, Baghdad was quiet and empty, almost… the calm before the storm. The area of A'adhamiya in Baghdad is seeing street fighting: the resistance and Americans are fighting out in the streets and Al-Sadr city was bombed by the troops. They say that dozens were killed and others wounded. They're bringing them in to hospitals in the center of the city. Falloojeh has been cut off from the rest of Iraq for the last three days. It's terrible. They've been bombing it constantly and there are dozens dead. Yesterday they said that the only functioning hospital in the city was hit by the Americans and there's no where to take the wounded except a meager clinic that can hold up to 10 patients at a time. There are over a hundred wounded and dying and there's nowhere to bury the dead because the Americans control the area surrounding the only graveyard in Falloojeh; the bodies are beginning to decompose in the April heat. The troops won't let anyone out of Falloojeh and they won't let anyone into it either- the people are going to go hungry in a matter of days because most of the fresh produce is brought from outside of the city. We've been trying to call a friend who lives there for three days and we can't contact him. [...] This is crazy. This is supposed to be punishment for violence but it's only going to result in more bloodshed on both sides… people are outraged everywhere- Sunnis and Shi'a alike. This constant bombing is only going to make things worse for everyone. Why do Americans think that people in Baghdad or the south or north aren’t going care what happens in Falloojeh or Ramadi or Nassriyah or Najaf? Would Americans in New York disregard bombing and killing in California? And now Muqtada Al-Sadr's people are also fighting it out in parts of Baghdad and the south. If the situation weren't so frightening, it would almost be amusing to see Al-Hakeem and Bahr Ul Iloom describe Al-Sadr as an 'extremist' and a 'threat'. Muqtada Al-Sadr is no better and no worse than several extremists we have sitting on the Governing Council. He's just as willing to ingratiate himself to Bremer as Al-Hakeem and Bahr Ul Iloom. The only difference is that he wasn't given the opportunity, so now he's a revolutionary. Apparently, someone didn't give Bremer the memo about how when you pander to one extremist, you have to pander to them all. Hearing Abdul Aziz Al-Hakeem and Bahr Ul Iloom claim that Al-Sadr is a threat to security and stability brings about visions of the teapot and the kettle… Then Bremer makes an appearance on tv and says that armed militias will *not* be a part of the New Iraq… where has that declaration been the last 12 months while Badir's Brigade has been wreaking havoc all over the country? Why not just solve the problem of Al-Sadr's armed militia by having them join the police force and army, like the Bayshmarga and Badir's Brigade?! Al-Sadr's militia is old news. No one was bothering them while they were terrorizing civilians in the south. They wore badges, carried Klashnikovs and roamed the streets freely… now that they've become a threat to the 'Coalition', they suddenly become 'terrorists' and 'agitators'. [...] And as I blog this, all the mosques, Sunni and Shi’a alike, are calling for Jihad...

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The Second Front: Multi-City Sadrist Uprising Continues

The difficulty the United States and its allies are having in regaining control of the major cities of the Shiite south is breathtaking in its implications. There is little doubt that they can prevail eventually in a military sense. But if the Sadrist uprising were a minor affair of a few thousand ragtag militiamen, it is difficult to understand how they could survive the onslaught of 150,000 well-armed and well-trained European and North American troops for more than a day. Rather, it is clear that urban crowds are supporting the uprising in some numbers. Even when the Coalition puts the uprising down, it may well incur the wrath of many persons who had earlier viewed it with favor. And if the US cannot control Iraq now, when it has its hands directly on all the levers of power, how will it do so in the coming year, as it loses its grip on those levers? The tired CPA refrain that lots of schools have been painted and the markets are bustling is shockingly inept even as propaganda. I lived in Beirut in the early years of the civil war there. I'd like to report that people shop during wars and heavy civil disturbances. The economy does not disappear in such situations. It is just that the value of currency drops, foreign investment dries up, and hoarding is widespread. People rush out to buy stocks in case there are curfews. Bustling bazaars mean nothing in themelves--they have to be interpreted in context. But major fighting in most Shiiite urban areas is unambiguous in its significance. It means that the Bush administration rule of Iraq is FUBAR. It seems inevitable to me that the US military will pursue a war to the death with the Army of the Mahdi, the Sadrist movement, and Muqtada al-Sadr himself. They will of course win this struggle on the surface and in the short term, because of their massive firepower. But the Sadrists will simply go underground and mount a longterm guerrilla insurgency similar to that in the Sunni areas. The United States has managed to create a failed state, similar to Somalia and Haiti, in Iraq. Let's look at the major battles on Tuesday:

[more]

W's Iraq debacle unfolds

Baghdad Sunnis, Shi'ites unite

  thanks to Information Clearing House

Bloodbath a bad omen for coalition forces
by Robert Fisk

Reaping the Whirlwind
Iraq on the Brink of Anarchy
by Robert Fisk

US general Abizaid considers sending more troops to Iraq : CNN

  thanks to The Agonist

Coalition forces fight a losing battle to win the peace
With each twist of the spiral, it becomes more difficult to be optimistic for the future

The battle the US wants to provoke
by Naomi Klein in Baghdad

Uprising in Iraq could derail Bush
As US forces suffer another bloody day, Republicans turn on president

Christopher Layne: Deeper into the abyss

  thanks to Antiwar.com

Iraq: The “People’s War” is Just Beginning

  thanks to Antiwar.com

Pentagon delays U.S. troops' trip home

  thanks to BuzzFlash

Helping Bob...
...uncover Victoria's Secret
A Blogger's History of the Iraqi Occupation
by Mike Golby

"...a wave of anti-American rage so intense that it now extends not only to US troops, occupation officials and their contractors but also to foreign journalists, aid workers, their translators and pretty much anyone else associated with the Americans." Yeah, chew on that one. I wonder why? Mind you, anybody but the Americans can see these things. Just the other day, after the mercenary grill, I predicted the arrival of the cavalry. Today, some 1,200 Marines and two battalions of Iraqi security personnel are poised to enter Fallujah. The fool Bremer's declared al-Sadr an outlaw, American tanks have been squashing Iraqis in Baghdad, and Apache helicopters are hitting police stations and government buildings occupied by al-Sadr supporters. Actually, on TV it all looks rather good. It reminds me of the mid-80s in South Africa. Watching crowds of AK-wielding zealots always stirs the armchair warrior in me. In the context of the violence confronting them, these Iraqi resistance fighters epitomize Democracy in Action. The Yanks say "Yes" with big guns; and Iraqis say "No" with big bombs. I prefer hyenas myself but, either way, it's a win-win situation. Blackwater Democracy has arrived. Like Victoria's Secret. Gad, imagine coming home to a couple of these after a hard day on the battlefield. Bremer should pack his bags tonight and catch the early morning flight to Tel Aviv; leaving the troops behind to be slaughtered, of course. Democracy must, when all is said, done, signed, sealed and delivered by June 30, be sustainable.

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The Thousand-Yard Stare

Now, we Kossacks support the troops, and I knew that this was not the place for politics. These soldiers are pawns, and of course they do not set policy. As much as I wanted them to get drunk and bash their Commander-in-Chief, I just couldn't disrespect them like that. Throughout the course of the night, I'd find myself chatting with each of them. I'd offer my hand and thank them for their service. I'd ask them what it was like over there (a unanimous "fucked up") and then I'd wish them luck. Now, you can say that they asked for it. You can say that no one forced them to join. But really, those recruiting commercials make it look pretty fun for your average hormone-addled boy, and when they hand you your diploma and a bowl of soup at commencement, you've gotta start thinking about all of your options. By the time last call was signaled by the flashing lights, I'd heard some pretty scary shit. I'd also come to know them well enough that they no longer averted their eyes as though afraid I'd come upon a dark secret. Now they looked at me. Or, well... through me, somewhat. I thought of the stories I'd read about Viet Nam, and I thought about the thousand-yard stare. I don't know if this was the same look or not, but I can tell you this for sure, something inside of each of them was very, very dead. Something was taken away... forever. They suddenly didn't look so very young anymore, though for the life of me, I couldn't picture them carrying rifles as they walked the streets of Baghdad. It may have been the beer talking, or maybe I thought they might get some very minor, fleeting satisfaction from it, but as we shook hands one last time, I told them that they had done some good over there. This was met with spontaneous laughter, and their leader shook his head and told me that no one had done any good over there... that nothing good had happened... that it was all bad. I tried to smile along with them, but couldn't, so I wished them luck. "Thanks," he added. "We're gonna need it, 'cause we're going back in four months." Good luck, guys.

[more]

09:50 AM - link

iraq — vietnam on internet time

My first reaction is that I can't believe the CPA would be so stupid to do this. Then I remember who we are dealing with. We are screwed. Here is the entire post from Juan Cole.

Arrest Warrant for Muqtada al-Sadr

Dan Senor in a briefing in Baghdad on Monday revealed that an arrest warrant had been issued months ago "by an Iraqi judge" and implied that it would now be served. US television cable news is doing its best to obscure the real issues here. 1. They keep asking where Muqtada is and calling him a "fugitive." Muqtada announced that he is in his father's mosque in Kufa, and there is no reason to doubt this. He hasn't fled and his whereabouts are well known. 2. Talking heads both from Iraq and from the ranks of the US retired officers keep attempting to maintain that Muqtada's movement is small and marginal. One speaker claimed that Muqtada has only 10,000 men. In fact that is the size of his formal militia. Muqtada's movement is like the layers of an onion. You have 10,000 militiamen. But then you have tens of thousands of cadres able to mobilize neighborhoods. Then you have hundreds of thousands of Sadrists, followers of Muqtada and other heirs of Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr. Then you have maybe 5 million Shiite theocrats who sympathize with Muqtada's goals and rhetoric, about a third of the Shiite community. The Sadrists will now try to shift everything so that the 5 million become followers, the hundreds of thousands become cadres, and the tens of thousands become militiamen. 3. That an "Iraqi judge" issued a warrant is just misdirection. The Coalition Provisional Authority appointed the judges, who are not independent actors. The CPA clearly decided if and when such a warrant would actually be used. For some reason the CPA decided to move against Muqtada on Saturday, provoking his reaction. Since we now know there was a warrant for his arrest, it is not even clear that it was an over-reaction. If the CPA was going to arrest him and execute him for murder, what would he have to lose by demonstrating that he would not go quietly? Journalists kept asking me today why Muqtada chose to act now, why he didn't just wait for the Americans to leave. The answer is that the CPA had clearly targetted him, and forced his hand.

[more]

Cleric: Iraq's Sadr Turns Down Elders' Peace Appeal

Radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has turned down an appeal by Iraq's powerful Shi'ite Muslim establishment to renounce violence, a leading cleric said Monday.

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Here is a comment from Sean-Paul, at The Agonist, that puts this uprising in perspective.

"If the brewing unrest gets out of hand, it could derail the planned transfer of sovereignty on June 30, but more importantly, it could make the U.S. position in Iraq untenable. Coalition forces cannot simultaneously deal with the Sunni insurgency and a Shiite uprising." via Stratfor Chew on that for a while. If, and it is still an if at this point, the Shi'ites do rise up, Operation Iraqi Freedom becomes completely untenable. Our entire position in the Middle East gets rolled up because there is no objective way our military can deal with it. How is the Bush Administration going to respond to that? You think politics are nasty now in Washington. Just wait. This ain't over yet.

03:14 PM - link

iraq — vietnam on internet time

It appears the excrement is now hitting the whirling device. The Shiites have been biding their time. Some seem to have stopped biding. If they all stop biding, its game, set, and match. Fuck!

The best place to keep up on this is Juan Cole. No doubt.

Shiite Clashes in with Coalition in Najaf Baghdad: Phase II of the Anti-Occupation Struggle Begins
Nine Coalition Troops Killed, Dozens wounded in Confronting Uprising

The always tense relationship between the Sadrist movement among Iraqi Shiites and the US and its Coalition partners has taken a dramatic turn for the worse. Perhaps a third of Iraqi Shiites are sympathetic to the radical, Khomeini-like ideology of Sadrism, and some analysts with long experience in Iraq put it at 50%. Earlier Muqtada Al-Sadr, the movement leader, had called on his forces to avoid violence against Coalition forces. As of Saturday and Sunday, he appeared to have feared that the Coalition meant permanently to exclude his group from power, and had decided to launch an uprising. This uprising involved taking over police stations in Kufa, Najaf, Baghdad and possibly elsehwere. The Sadrist militia now controls Kufa, according to the New York Times, and probably controls much of Sadr City or the slums of East Baghdad, as well, though it has been expelled from the police stations it had occupied there. Muqtada seemed to back off later on Sunday, calling on his followers to cease fighting, and vowing to protest by withdrawing to his mosque for a lengthy retreat with his followers. It is too soon to tell if this retreat (in both senses) will satisfy the Bush administration, or whether they will now feel impelled to arrest Muqtada. If they do, it seems likely to me that it will cause no end of trouble in coming months.

[more]

Muqtada Under Siege, US Helicopters Patrol Skies above East Baghdad
Sistani calls for calm

Muqtada's words before he went into retreat in his mosque: "Make your enemy afraid, for it is impossible to remain quiet about their moral offenses; otherwise we have arrived at consequences that will not be praiseworthy. I am with you, and shall not forsake you to face hardships alone. I fear for you, for no benefit will come from demonstrations. Your enemy loves terrorism, and despises peoples, and all Arabs, and muzzles opinions. I beg you not to resort to demonstrations, for they have become nothing but burned paper. It is necessary to resort to other measures, which you take in your own provinces. As for me, I am with you, and I hope I will be able to join you and then we shall ascend into exalted heavens. I will go into an inviolable retreat in Kufa. Help me by whatever you are pleased to do in your provinces. " The bit about going into a retreat (i`tis.am) and hoping to join his followers later so that they could ascend to the heavens shows an apocalyptic imagination at work. The US is facing another Waco, and what we know is that military sorts of force are the worst way to deal with apocalyptic groups like the Branch Dravidians and the Sadrists. That approach only confirms their conviction that the forces of this world are attempting to prevent them from attaining paradise.

[more]

From Riverbend...

Riots, Star Gazing and Cricket Choirs...

These last couple of weeks have been somewhat depressing for most people. You know how sometimes you look back at the past year and think to yourself, “What was I doing last year, on this same day?” Well we’ve been playing that game constantly lately. What was I doing last year, this very moment? I was listening for the sirens, listening for the planes and listening to the bombs fall. Now we just listen for the explosions- it’s not the same thing. I haven’t been sleeping very well either. I’ve been having disturbing dreams lately... Dreams of being stuck under rubble or feeling the earth shudder beneath me as the windows rattle ominously. I know it has to do with the fact that every day we relive a little bit of the war- on television, on the radio, on the internet. I’m seeing some of the images for the very first time because we didn’t have electricity last year during the war and it really is painful. It’s hard to believe that we lived through so much...

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Billmon also has good coverage and comments...

The Unforgiving Minute

So, thanks in part to the dueling paranoias of Jerry Bremer and Moqtada al-Sadr, the crisis everyone has been dreading has finally arrived. The next few days could very well be the most critical since the fall of Baghdad. Bremer, and his masters in Washington, now have to make some very quick, very momentous decisions. Should they accept the gauntlet that Sadr has thrown down, and try to crush the revolt with brute force? Or should they back down, and let their Shi'a partners-of-convenience try to stabilize the situation? Should the transfer of nominal sovereignty be delayed, or would that further inflame the Shi'a street and cause all the delicately negotiated compromises on and with the Governing Council to fall apart? Shi'a Iraq also has choices to make -- choices which are, if anything, even more profound than the ones facing the masters of war in Washington. If the masses side with Sadr, our erstwhile Shi'a allies will have little choice but to move to the sidelines -- or even worse, join the rebellion. On the other hand, if the Shi'a majority rejects his appeal, Sadr will either have to flee into exile, die fighting, or accept imprisonment and the destruction of his movement. At best, the latter alternatives would still leave the Coalition caught between a violent, destabilized Shi'a south and an enraged, ungovernable Sunni center. At worst, the former scenario -- in which the Shi'a masses and the other Shi'a militias join in the fighting -- could produce news photos and video footage that make Fallujah look like a high school prom. In war, military historians sometimes talk about the "unforgiving minute" -- the moment when a battle is either won or lost, when every decision is potentially the deciding one, and bad decisions can't be made good later. I've got a feeling we've reached the unforgiving minute in the Iraq occupation -- both for the coalition and for the country's Shi'a majority.

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Remember Fallujah? With everything else going on it appears we can't leave well enough alone.

U.S., Iraqi soldiers surround Fallujah

Hundreds of U.S. and Iraqi troops in tanks, trucks and other vehicles surrounded the turbulent city of Fallujah on Monday ahead of a major operation against insurgents following the grisly slayings of four American security contractors last week.

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Billmon again...

Fallujah Follies

You'd think that with all hell breaking loose in the supposedly pacified parts of Iraq, Centcom would have better things to do with its time than staging the purely symbolic punishment of a single rebellious city. Because unless the Marines have suddenly developed the absolute ruthlessness of a Saddam or an Assad -- or even a Sharon -- this little demonstration of "claws and teeth" isn't likely to impress the natives very much. They're too familiar with the genuine article.

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Update 11:25 AM:

Now they want to arrest Moqtada al-Sadr. Good luck!

US faces Iraqi revolt
Warrant issued for Shia cleric
US seals off Falluja
Worst unrest since Saddam fell

An Iraqi judge has issued an arrest warrant for the Shia leader blamed for violent demonstrations against coalition control, it was announced today. [...] Of Mr Sadr, Mr Bremer said: "He is attempting to establish his authority in the place of the legitimate authority. We will not tolerate this ... We will reassert the law and order that the Iraqi people expect." In a statement read out in a mosque in Kufa, near Najaf, where he is staging a sit-in with supporters, Mr Sadr said: "I'm accused by one of the leaders of evil, Bremer, of being an outlaw ... if that means breaking the law of the American tyranny and its filthy constitution, I'm proud of that and that is why I'm in revolt."

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Impossible situation, Part II

A martyred Sadr is the last thing the occupation needs. A jailed Sadr is the second-last thing the US needs. A renegade Sadr is the third-last thing the US needs. Again, there is no good option. But we already knew that before Bush went in. It took the chickenhawks a little longer to figure it out. You don't hear the Neocons talk about a pro-Israel Iraqi democracy any more.

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10:29 AM - link

photography

Achim Pohl – Photojournalism

Pashupatinath-Temple, Nepal

  thanks to Conscientious

09:54 AM - link

have gun, will travel

The four "civilians" that were killed at Fallujah were hardly civilians. They were mercenaries hired by the Department of Defense. This is more than worrisome. Here are several posts looking at this. The potential for really bad things to come of this are way too great.

Contractors in Iraq: the convergence
by Helena Cobban

This use by the U.S. military of private U.S. contractors for security duty in Iraq is something fairly new and very unsettling in international affairs and international law. I mean, how weird is it that Paul Bremer, who's the top representative of the U.S. military's top civil-affairs unit, gets protected by contract soldiers, not by the U.S. military itself? What is the status of all these guys under the Geneva Conventions? They are not acting directly in the military chain of command. Does that make them "unlawful combatants", I wonder? Or, if taken prisoner, would they be considered to be regular POWs? Anyway, I learned from ABC News tonight that there are around 15,000 of them there in Iraq now. Many more fighters than even the Brits have in Iraq!

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This is a very good look at this travesty.

Iraq: The Secret Policeman's Other Ball

I started this post -- concerning the role of private military companies and mercenaries in Iraq yesterday. But I was so shocked at what I was finding that I had to sleep on it before I could continue.

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Shine a light from Body and Soul

And Kos has first hand experience with mercenaries...

Mercenaries, war, and my childhood

Unlike the vast majority of people in this country, I actually grew up in a war zone. I witnessed communist guerillas execute students accused of being government collaborators. I was 8 years old, and I remember stepping over a dead body, warm blood flowing from a fresh wound. Dodging bullets while at market. I lived in the midsts of hate the likes of which most of you will never understand (Clinton and Bush hatred is nothing compared to that generated when people kill each other for politics or race or nationality). There's no way I could ever describe the ways this experience colors my worldview. Back to Iraq, our men and women in uniform are there under orders, trying to make the best of an impossible situation. The war is not their fault, and I will always defend their honor and bravery to the end of my days. But the mercenary is a whole different deal. They willingly enter a war zone, and do so because of the paycheck. They're not there for humanitarian reasons (I doubt they'd donate half their paycheck to the Red Cross or whatever). They're there because the money is DAMN good. They answer to no one except their CEO. They are dangerous, hence international efforts (however fruitless they may be) to ban their use. So not only was I wrong to say I felt nothing over their deaths, I was lying. I felt way too much. Nobody deserves to die. But in the greater scheme of things, there are a lot of greater tragedies going on in Iraq (51 last month, plus countless civilians and Iraqi police). That those tragedies are essentially ignored these days is, ultimately, the greatest tragedy of all.

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And here come the bad things...

Bodyguards in Iraq turn to 'massive firepower' after attack

American bodyguards in Iraq want to strengthen their weaponry with hand grenades and high-powered machineguns after four private security consultants were murdered in Fallujah last week. Only coalition soldiers are allowed to carry explosives under existing regulations, leaving up to 20,000 civilian contractors working as guards outgunned by insurgents with rocket-propelled grenades and belt-fed machineguns. The Coalition Provisional Authority is horrified by the contractors' plans to flout the rules, believing that such action could lead to a serious escalation in violence as the June deadline approaches for power to be transferred to the Iraqis. On Saturday, however, Malcolm Nance, a former adviser to the CIA and the U.S. National Security Agency who has spent 10 months in Iraq supervising security for businesses and charities, warned that firms would "go heavy" to prevent a repeat of last week's murders.

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09:44 AM - link

billboard art

Billboards of the Past

  thanks to The Cartoonist

09:17 AM - link

The key word is 'bizonal'

Talks between Turkish and Greek leaders on the reunification of Cyprus are on a tight schedule, just the way it's taught in conflict resolution courses. Rule No. 1: Set a hard and fast deadline, to create the sense of urgency and the concern over missing a chance that won't return. The local leaders are prompted by a sense of extreme urgency: If they don't reach an agreement within a month, Greece and Turkey - the "guarantor nations" - will intervene. And if that doesn't help either, Kofi Annan, secretary-general of the United Nations, will put his plan to unite the island to a referendum to be held within the two Cypriot communities on April 21. [...] The key word here is "bizonal," with the borders between the Turkish and Greek zones (after certain changes) left open, and all fences, walls and obstacles removed. The comparison between Cyprus and the situation here almost begs to be made: What is the difference between the physical and geopolitical separation here and the two-nation federation in Cyprus? How is it that international peace-seekers mobilize the prospect of membership in the European Union to achieve unification in Cyprus, and here they offer membership in the European Union to Israel as an incentive for dividing the land into two states? Are not the values in the Annan Plan of a common home, recognition of separate identities and the obligation to prevent the tragic past from ever repeating itself, applicable in Israel/Palestine, with only the separation fence serving as a symbol of the refusal to dream of a "bizonal" partnership? There may be a message in the fact that the enlightened world (after Bosnia and Northern Ireland) is united again around a plan that negates fences and ethnic separation, and resolves to create a federated structure as a solution to intercommunal conflict. And don't tell us that the Turkish-Greek conflict is less serious than the Israeli-Palestinian one.

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Twilight zone / Social studies lesson
By Gideon Levy

A holiday excursion to the hidden side of the Land of Israel - the ruins of lost villages in the Galilee - led by a guide from Hurfish. Look at this prickly pear plant. It's covering a mound of stones. This mound of stones was once a house, or a shed, or a sheep pen, or a school, or a stone fence. Once - until 56 years ago, a generation and a half ago - not that long ago. The cactus separated the houses and one lot from another, a living fence that is now also the only monument to the life that once was here. Take a look at the grove of pines around the prickly pear as well. Beneath it there was once a village. All of its 405 houses were destroyed in one day in 1948 and its 2,350 inhabitants scattered all over. No one ever told us about this. The pines were planted right afterward by the Jewish National Fund, to which we contributed in our childhood, every Friday, in order to cover the ruins, to cover the possibility of return and maybe also a little of the shame and the guilt.

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Bush to reassure PM: Israel won't have to retreat to Green Line

The United States will assure Israel that it will not have to withdraw to the Green Line in a future permanent settlement with the Palestinians.

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Hmmm. I thought future negotiations would be between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Apparently not. I wonder how the Palestinians feel about this? I wonder if the entire Arab world knows this? And they wonder why they hate us.

This is an interesting interview with the late Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. It's written by Amira Hass who wrote Drinking the Sea at Gaza: Days and Nights in a Land Under Siege. Amira's book is a must read.

Balance of pain
By Amira Hass

Don't you think that a struggle along the lines of the one conducted by Gandhi in India would bring you more achievements? "Are those with the weapons, who occupy my land, the ones who will order me to abandon my weapon and decide for me what means I am obliged and entitled to adopt in order to struggle? The Palestinian people has reached this situation because of its suffering, because all the doors of the future have been closed to them. If I plant flowers, I am barred from exporting them. If I want to import cheap cement, the Israelis don't allow it. We must look for the cause in order to deal with the problem." But it's also necessary to examine the means of struggle, isn't it? "That is also a question for the Israelis, for whom everything is permitted. Tanks, planes, all the military and economic means. Did they use humane means but were stopped by someone? Is the occupation humane or aggressive?" How do you see the future of the Palestinian children, those who are now 8 years old? "Our people is suffering from Israeli aggression and force. The Israelis are using the height of the strength they possess. But I emphasize that the future, in the long term, will be on the side of the Palestinian people."

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Three Generals, One Martyr
by Uri Avnery

  thanks to Aron's Israel Peace Weblog

New documentary takes Israeli-Palestinian conflict coverage to task

09:07 AM - link

photography

In pictures: Remembering the genocide

To commemorate the 10th anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda photo-journalist Nick Danziger visited the country with the BBC's Panorama team: These pictures and the individuals will haunt me forever. I cannot imagine what it must be like for the victims. Flora Mukampore says she lay unconscious for weeks under dead bodies until some children found her. Here, she stands in between two of her dead sister's children. Seventeen members of her family were killed in the genocide.

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08:27 AM - link

the new big kid on the block

This is another sign that the American First crowd is more than a little out of touch with reality. It doesn't pay to piss off the big guy. If they could only figure out who the big guy is.

Euro Brash
Why George W. Bush takes orders from Pascal Lamy.

Pascal Lamy, the European Union Trade Commissioner, is a 57-year-old Frenchman, a graduate of Paris' elite Ecole Nationale d'Administration, and a longtime member of the French Socialist Party. He smokes cheroots, works tirelessly on behalf of France and Europe, and his aggressive--some would say ruthless--personal style has earned him the nickname "Exocet," after a French-built missile. He is not exactly George W. Bush's or Tom DeLay's kind of guy. In late February, Lamy paid a visit to Washington to meet with senior members of Congress and delivered an audacious demand: If Congress did not eliminate a large tax break for American exporters by March 1, the European Union would slap $4 billion in retaliatory trade sanctions against the United States. When it comes to taxes, President Bush hasn't been swayed by angry Democrats, a burgeoning federal deficit, worried economists, a stagnant job market, or moderates of his own party. But faced with Lamy's threat, he caved. A few days after the Exocet's visit, the president called upon Congress to quickly bring America's tax code in line with the E.U. Commissioner's demands. House Speaker Dennis Hastert summed up his reaction to the pressured legislative changes at an earlier news conference: "My gut feeling about this is we fought a revolution 230 years ago to stop Europeans from telling us how we have to tax in this country, and it puts the hair up on the back of my neck that we have to consider this at all. But we have to do it."

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  thanks to Bad Attitudes

08:19 AM - link

music

A Piano Is Born, Needing Practice

Over 10 months, it had been shaped, spray-painted, polished, worked on, tuned and worked on some more. In three minutes on its last day at the Steinway & Sons factory in Queens, grand piano No. K0862 got a new identity. It became No. 565700 when a worker named Davendra Viran stenciled that number onto its cast-iron plate, a few inches above the keyboard, the 565,700th Steinway ever made. A couple hours later, after bouncing over the Queensboro Bridge in a truck, it got another new identity. Steinway had chosen No. 565700 to be one of the 300 or so grands in its concert fleet, a bank of pianos the company lends out for concerts, recitals, recording sessions and television programs. Steinway assigns those pianos yet another number, beginning with the letter C, for concert. So No. 565700 became CD-60 - the D stands for the model - after it was dropped off at Steinway's store in Manhattan. Not in the first-floor showroom, with the wide window looking out on West 57th Street, but in the basement. Among pianists, the Steinway basement is a storied destination, one that confers status. There, beneath fluorescent lights that hum and steam pipes that hiss, is what may be Steinway's most important asset, a roomful of long black pianos (except for the long white one that went to Billy Joel for a recording project some years ago). Their almost identical looks belie the basement's importance: every one of the pianos there is different. And everyone from Moriz Rosenthal -one of the last pupils of Liszt - to Glenn Gould to Mitsuko Uchida to Alfred Brendel has gone there to pick the perfect one to play.

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08:03 AM - link

co-president cheney

'The Wizard of Oz Letter'
Bush pulls back the curtain on who really runs the White House

This was the week the curtain got pulled back on the Bush presidency. In exchange for allowing Condoleezza Rice to testify under oath, President Bush gets to bring along his vice president when he appears privately before the commission. A top Republican strategist dubbed the legal document striking the unusual deal “the Wizard of Oz letter” because it strips away the myth that Bush is in charge. Until now, it’s been all speculation about Vice President Cheney’s influence. With the revelation of the tandem testimony, nobody with a straight face can deny Cheney is a co-president or worse, the puppeteer who pulls Bush’s strings. Aside from being fodder for the late-night comics, the arrangement confirms Bush’s inability to articulate anything without a script--or a tutor by his side. There’s a reason lawyers don’t take testimony in groups. The whole idea is to get individual recollections and then compare stories to uncover contradictions. Try thinking about it this way: can anyone imagine Bush’s father in a similar situation bringing his vice president? (For those who need a refresher course, the elder Bush was a rocket scientist compared to his son, and the vice president was Dan Quayle.)

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  thanks to Angry Bear

01:13 AM - link

pretty paper

All things to do with Paper Marbling

Paper marbling is a mono-printing technique where colours are deposited onto a gelatinous size. By using a stylus, rakes and combs the pattern is made on the surface of the size. Paper treated with alum is then carefully laid onto the surface of the size. A few seconds later, the paper is removed from the size and the pattern is transferred onto the paper. The surface of the size is then skimmed with a strip of paper to remove the remaining colours. The process is repeated for the next pattern. Each pattern made is therefore unique.

  thanks to DANGEROUSMETA!

Marbling Start Page

01:07 AM - link

empire

Sean-Paul finally got his review of The Sorrows of Empire up. I've mentioned this book before. I will keep mentioning it until everyone has read it. So stop resisting. It's too important.

Sorrows Of Empire

I’ve been struggling for several days trying to find a suitable introduction to Chalmers Johnson’s new book “The Sorrows Of Empire”. Every time I sit down to write about the book I find myself either distracted or disgusted. The book is that hard to read. There is nothing pleasant or easy about it. Take, for example, his first sentence: “As distinct from other peoples on this earth, most Americans don’t recognize—or do not want to recognize—that the United States dominates the world through its military power.” One could write a thousand words of exegesis on that sentence alone. Now imagine what the next 312 pages were like, for Johnson tells us everything we never wanted to know about our country. I almost threw the book across the room several times. "No, that's a crock," I found myself mumbling. Then I would go to the endnotes (yeah, I'm a nerd that way) and Johnson would be citing a DOD memo or some other unimpeachable source. Strangely, I found the book more of an emotional challenge than a factual one. Reading it I felt like a visit to a cruel psychotherapist who proceeds to point out every character flaw of my personality. I realized about halfway through the book that I had to pause and listen carefully to that deep, instinctive feeling we all have when we know the truth. A wise man once said: "The truth will set you free." He forgot to add, "it ain't easy." No one likes to look into a mirror like this, yet we must.

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12:57 AM - link

fixie fork

I finished painting the front fork for the fixie project.

The fork crown is somewhat ornate so the burnisher helped force the masking tape down and then I trimmed it with the xacto knife.

I have a couple of eye hooks in the ceiling that are used to hang the fork. I will use the same setup to paint the frame.

I sprayed two coats of Ace Hardware's finest rattle-can red around 30 minutes apart.

I pulled all the tape off after about 30 minutes. Viola!

The front fork. The black is Rustoleum rattle-can semi-gloss black enamel. The frame will be painted the same way — semi-gloss black with glossy red on the frame lugs, bottom bracket shell, and dropouts. There is still a lot of sanding to do on the frame. It's wonderful physical therapy.

12:48 AM - link