From The Register comes this story of a man from Murmansk who bet his wife in a poker game, and lost:
In a heartwarming twist which disproves once-and-for-all the old “lucky at cards, unlucky at love” proverb, Tatiana started a relationship with Brodov and subsequently married him.
She enthused: “Sergey was a very handsome, charming man and I am very happy with him, even if he did ‘win’ me in a poker game.”
The Badger finds a different story, in one of the Middle East news sources he regularly monitors, about what happened near the Iraqi city of Najaf this past Sunday, which the New York Times, among other mainstream media, is asserting was a nipped-in-the-bud planned attack on one of the most sacred sites in Shia Islam.
This is where the messianic followers of Ahmad al-Hassan had their colony, according to Azzaman and others, but according to this account the trigger-event had nothing to do with them, rather with a group from the Hawatim tribe, passing through the area, or trying to, in order to participate in the Ashura processions in Najaf. Trigger-happy persons initiated an exchange of fire at an Iraqi army checkpoint, which was then joined in by another tribe, the Khazail, which lives in the area. American helicopters appeared, dropping leaflets warning the “terrorists” they were about to bomb the area.
. . .
This provides an interesting explanation of the Azzaman statement this morning, to the effect that the Ahmad al-Hasan’s messianic group had settled in an area that was not submissive to either the SCIRI or the Dawa parties. Thus there were three groups involved, all of them no doubt regarded by the SCIRI/Dawa Najaf authorities as enemies: A tribe passing through and challenged at a checkpoint, a resident tribe, and the messianic group itself. And since SCIRI/Dawa are the core of the Baghdad government, it is easy to imagine all of these groups being targets of the central government forces too.
Which only adds to the urgency of the question: Where is the actual evidence that any of these groups posed any actual danger, apart from self-serving statements by the Najaf and Baghdad authorities. Or was this more like a massacre, premeditated or accidental?
I’ve added a new link; it’s to The Spy Who Billed Me, aka R. J. Hillhouse. You’ll see it over on the left, under the “National Security” category. She’s not very specific in her “About” profile but then in her business I guess that’s no surprise. I’ve been following it for several months now and found it informative and well written. It seems to be aimed mainly at members of her community, but it’s a voice that deserves to be heard by a wider audience, including those of us who are out here in Flyoverland and decades past whatever formal national service we may have performed.
The impetus for getting around to linking to TSWBM was a post today that is an exceptionally thoughtful and nuanced rumination on the changes going on in her field of intelligence and special operations, and what she sees as her blog’s role in the process. Here are a few excerpts:
This blog is the only one covering how warfare, both overt and covert, is changing. And all of us who are close to these shifts realize that these changes are fundamental and permanent–the War on Terror is a revolution in how America fights her enemies. As I put it in the tagline of my forthcoming novel OUTSOURCED: soldiers are spies; spies are soldiers and more and more of them are outsourced.
There are journalists in the mainstream media who cover pieces of this revolution, but no one seems to grasp the full picture and there are parts of it where I will only paint in very broad strokes–or in the safety of fiction. The few who understand large parts of the phenomenon seem to have their own political agendas. I realize some may criticize me for writing about this at all, but, since we are a free, open and democratic society, this will be written about and it should be. National security is not being compromised here. When national security is involved, I’m very careful in the blog to write only about issues and events that have appeared in open sources. And frankly, the tangos don’t care where a trigger-puller’s paycheck is coming from.
. . .
I walk a very fine line with this blog, but it’s one I believe in. Here’s just one example. I have no problem goosing PMCs [Private Military Contractors] when they do something stupid or criticizing when their behavior is irresponsible. However, I also understand that by bringing former members of the SPECWAR community back into service, PMCs have helped save lives in an overextended military. When the Los Angeles Times published an irresponsible article alleging that contract soldiers had helped with an Iraqi jailbreak, I wrote about it, defending contractors.
At the same time I admit that some PMCs make me a bit uneasy. There are large issues of accountability with these corporations that have to be openly addressed. And as you know far better than I, some PMCs are more accountable than others. As a society, we have to figure out a way to live with them. I also have major issues with the pay differentials–those in uniform deserve better. And then there’s the whole issue of how one company in particular has treated some of the families of contractors KIA.
I for one am looking forward to reading Outsourced. Enjoy.
Here’s the link to Firedoglake’s summary of today’s action at the Libby trial. It’s done by Jeralyn Merritt instead of Christy, who’s apparently back home in West Virginia being a Mommy this week. Jeralyn is also an experienced criminal lawyer.
Two items caught my eye, both in Jeralyn’s summary and in the parts of the trial during which I followed the live blogging today. First, Ari Fleischer was firm in his assertion that he was told by name of Joe Wilson’s wife status as a CIA agent several days before Libby claims he was first told of that information by Tim Russert of NBC News. Very damaging to Libby. Also David Addington, the then Counsel to the Vce President and supposed legal brain behind behind Cheney’s (and in consequence Bush’s) sweeping assertions of executive powers, testified that somewhere between July 6 and 14, 2003, Libby asked him if the president could order material declassified and also whether or not there would be a paper trail at the CIA if an employee’s spouse traveled out of the country. (In the early 1980s Addington had worked at the Agency.) Again this was damaging since the date of this conversation was prior to Libby’s self-alleged learning of Valerie Plame’s name and status.
One element of Addington’s testimony was very curious. He said that during the conversation Libby gestured with his hands for Addington to keep his voice down, even though they were alone in the office with the door closed. Aside from the damaging fact that this seems to indicate that Libby knew he was dealing with sensitive information, might it also indicate that there are again taping systems in the Bush-Cheney White House like there were in the days of Nixon and LBJ?
If there were a prize awarded for the wisdom-per-word ratio for all the bloviating about the Iraq War, retired General William Odom’s prepared testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on January 18 would win hands down. As regular readers of this blog know, my practice is to pass along a few quotes that’s both long enough to embody an essence of the link but also brief enough to be a tease for more. In this case the temptation is to quote in-line the whole thing. But I’ll try not to.
Here are the four major realities that define that context:
1. Confusion about war aims and US interests. The president stated three war aims clearly and repeatedly:* the destruction of Iraqi WMD;
* the overthrow of Saddam Hussein; and
* the creation of a liberal democratic Iraq.. . .
And is it in the US interest to continue pursuing the third? Or is it time to redefine our aims? And, concomitantly, to redefine what constitutes victory?
2. The war has served primarily the interests of Iran and al-Qaeda, not American interests.
. . .
3. On the international level, the war has effectively paralyzed the United States militarily and strategically, denying it any prospect of revising its strategy toward an attainable goal.. . .
4. Overthrowing the Iraqi regime in 2003 insured that the country would fragment into at least three groups; Sunnis, Shi’ites, and Kurds. In other words, the invasion made it inevitable that a civil war would be required to create a new central government able to control all of Iraq. Yet a civil war does not insure it. No faction may win the struggle. A lengthy stalemate, or a permanent breakup of the country is possible. The invasion also insured that outside countries and groups would become involved. Al-Qaeda and Iran are the most conspicuous participants so far, Turkey and Syria less so. If some of the wealthy oil-producing countries on the Arabian Peninsula are not already involved, they are most likely to support with resources any force in Iraq that opposes Iranian influence.. . .
Let me now turn to key aspects of the president’s revised approach to the war, as well as several other proposals.
. . .
Just for purposes of analysis, let us suppose we had unlimited numbers of US troops to deploy in Iraq. Would that change my assessment? In principle, if two or three million troops were deployed there with the latitude to annihilate all resistance without much attention to collateral civilian casualties and human rights, order might well be temporarily reestablished under a reign of US terror. The problem we would then face is that we would be opposed not only by 26 million Iraqis but also by millions of Arabs and Iranians surrounding Iraq, peoples angered by our treatment of Muslims and Arabs. These outsiders are already involved to some degree in the internal war in Iraq, and any increase of US forces is likely to be exceeded by additional outside support for insurgents.. . .
It is a strategic error of monumental proportions to view the war as confined to Iraq. Yet this is the implicit assumption on which the president’s new strategy is based.
. . .
Training the Iraqi military and police force has been proposed repeatedly as a way to bring stability to Iraq and allow US forces to withdraw. Recently, new variants, such as embedding US troops within Iraqi units, have been offered. The Iraq Study Group made much of this technique. I know of no historical precedent to suggest that any of them will succeed. The problem is not the competency of Iraqi forces. It is political consolidation and gaining the troops’ loyalties to the government and their commanders as opposed to their loyalties to sectarian leaders, clans, families, and relatives. For what political authority are Iraqi soldiers and police willing to risk their lives? To the American command? What if American forces depart? Won’t they be called traitors for supporting the invaders and occupiers? Will they trust in a Shi’ite-dominated government and ministry of interior, which is engaged in assassinations of Sunnis? Sunni Arabs and Kurds would be foolish to do so, although financial desperation has driven many to risk it.
. . .
A shortage of funds has not been the cause of failed reconstruction efforts in Iraq. Administrative capacity to use funds effectively was and remains the primary obstacle.
. . .
Such wars are about “who will rule,” and who will rule depends on “who can tax” and build an effective state apparatus down to the village level.
The taxation issue is not even on the agenda of US programs for Iraq. Nor was it a central focus in Vietnam, El Salvador, the Philippines, and most other cases of US-backed governments embroiled in internal wars. Where US funding has been amply provided to those governments, the recipient regime has treated those monies as its tax base while failing to create an indigenous tax base. In my own study of three counterinsurgency cases, and from my experience in Vietnam, I discovered that the regimes that received the least US direct fiscal support had the most success against the insurgents. Providing funding and forces to give an embattled regime more “time” to gain adequate strength is like asking a drunk to drink more whiskey in order to sober up.
. . .
This is the crux of the dilemma facing all such internal wars. I make this assertion not only based on my own study, but also in light of considerable literature that demonstrates that the single best index of the strength of any state is its ability to collect direct taxes, not export-import tax or indirect taxes. The latter two are relatively easy to collect by comparison, requiring much weaker state institutions.
I find these last observations provocative, not least because they raise the issue of what the anti-tax fanatics on the far right (Grover Norquist, you know who you are) are doing to the social glue that holds our own country together.
A despondent Minnesota Marine veteran of the Iraq war from south central Minnesota called the St. Cloud VA hospital asking to be admitted to psych ward for protection from himself, but was told there were 26 ahead of him on the waiting list. Four days later he took his own life.
From the Associated Press, h/t to Prometheus6:
BAGHDAD Contrary to U.S. military statements, four U.S. soldiers did not die repelling a sneak attack at the governor’s office in the Shiite holy city of Karbala last week. New information obtained by The Associated Press shows they were abducted and found dead or dying as far as 25 miles away.
The brazen assault 50 miles south of Baghdad was launched Jan. 20 by a group of nine to 12 militants. They traveled in black GMC Suburban vehicles - the type used by U.S. government convoys, had American weapons, wore new U.S. military combat fatigues and spoke English.
In a written statement, the U.S. command reported at the time that five soldiers were killed while “repelling the attack.” Two senior U.S. military officials as well as Iraqi officials now say three of them were found dead and one mortally wounded in locations as far as 25 miles east of the governor’s office.
It’s hard to say which is the more troubling. Is it the emergence of a new abduction/execution tactic? The fact that the insurgents were able to obtain American uniforms, weapons and even official-looking vehicles? The fact that someone along the chain of command apparently lied about the nature of the engagement? Or the fact, noted in an E&P update at the end of the piece, that American military authorities were clueless to the fact that any soldiers were missing even as reports of the atrocity were coming in.
A trusted friend of Helena Cobban has passed along to her a copy of an explosive email allegedly sent by retired General Barry McCaffrey to the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. She’s not 100% sure of the provenience and is looking into ways to verify its authenticity. Here is a link to her post, which includes the email’s text in entirety as well as her introductory comments and highlight quotes. Here are his closing paragraphs:
So—I remain committed to supporting those in uniform, believe strongly that we must provide Iraq the resources to achieve our objectives, I am hopeful that we can turn this around, and grateful that Gen Petreus and Amb Crocker will take up the banner from Abizaid/Casey and Khalilzad. ( John Abizaid has been a national treasure who understood this whole thing from the start.)
I will maintain an objective, non-partisan focus on the struggle and publicly argue for issues which I believe will help. I am not running for public office. However, I think that the execution of the initial operation in both Iraq and Afghanistan — and the subsequent egregious bad judgment, arrogance, and micro-management of this war by Rumsfeld and team —so f’d it up that we were put in a terrible situation from the start. It did not need to be this way.
If we and the Iraqi government cannot achieve stability and a military US withdrawal in the coming very few years…the region and US interests are going to be severely menaced for the next 10 years or more. The Mid-East is vital to our international interests…Vietnam was not.
Feel free to share this email. See you as I come in and out of the war zones.
Barry
If I learn from Helena Cobban or some other reputable source, such as a public statement from McCaffrey himself, that this not authentic I will so post.
If you want something beyond the MSM coverage of the Libby Trial, Firedoglake is the place to go. Guest blogger Marcie Wheeler is live-blogging the play-by-play, with several frequently-updated posts a day organized by witness. Marcie normally blogs as Emptywheel at The Next Hurrah, where her coverage of the Plame affair has been unmatched since the scandal emerged three and a half years ago. She has compiled the essence of this work into a book being published this month entitled Anatomy of Deceit: How the Bush Administration Used the Media to Sell the Iraq War and Out a Spy.
For comprehensive but less exhaustive coverage don’t miss the after-action reports that FDL regular Christy Hardin Smith writes late on each trial day. Although she’s now on the mommy track, in former lives Hardin Smith had criminal law experience as both prosecution and defense attorney. For those of you in catch-up mode, her first two summary posts are here (Tuesday, January 23) and here (Wednesday, January 24).
As long as I’m linking to some of Christy’s past posts, here’s one to a piece named Why This Matters that she did in October, 2005, around the time the Libby indictment came down. It is the most comprehensive description I’ve seen about how and why the outing of Valerie Plame was and continues to be so damaging to our national security.
The unreconstructed admirer of the Prussian throne, William Lind, seeks wisdom from its last occupant but is instead handed off to the Privado (prime minister) to Phillip IV:
“That parallel is an interesting one,” Olivares replied. “After all, the Enterprise of England was undertaken as a way to attain a decision in the Netherlands. Just as you attacked Iraq because you could not get at Osama, so we sent the Invincible Armada against England because we could not get at the Dutch rebels, especially the Sea Beggars. Compare what your President Bush has said about the War on Terror to what the Jesuit Ribadeneyra said about the Armada:
Every conceivable pretext for a just and holy war is to be found in this campaign. . .This is a defensive, not an offensive, war; . . . one in which we are defending the high reputation of our King and lord, and of our nation; defending, too, the land and property of all the kingdoms of Spain, and simultaneously our peace, tranquility and repose.
Unfortunately, neither our enterprise nor yours met with success.”
. . .
“There is another parallel, I think,” Olivares added. “Our Kings Philip III and Philip IV were, to be diplomatic about it, not quite in the same class as Charles V or Philip II. Your President Bush reminds me a great deal of Philip III. He is not, I think, the fullest oil jar on the estancia.”
. . .
“Was Philip IV really an improvement over Philip III? In the end, a systemic crisis such as I faced then and you face now requires a change of dynasty. That came, eventually, for Spain, but too late.”