When the spring finally rolled around this year I was living in Toronto and I told myself to stay on the lookout and try to consciously process the moment when I noticed my first bee of the season.
Alas, the first bee I did see was dead. Lying on the floor near the door that lead out to my luxurious outdoor patio. So in a pique of sentimentality I picked it up, and pinned it by one of its little wings to a bulletin board just above my computer. And for the rest of the summer I would often look up from my desk and stare at it with a sense of both melancholy and doom. Hoping against hope that it wasn't a harbinger of something truly awful on its way.
There probably aren't many subjects about which I know less than bees or beekeeping, and as you may have guessed I hadn't even thought about the subject at all (absolutely, positively nothing) until I first began reading about Colony Collapse Disorder some time over the winter. So far be it for me to wax authoritatively in this area. And I certainly had no idea the degree to which bees are vital and necessary to the food chain. But apparently - they are.
And apparently its real. .
Over 2006 and 2007, depending on which reports you read, anywhere from a quarter to a third to a half to even 60 to 70 % of America's (most of what I have read concerns America, though it has been reported in Canada and Europe) commercial honeybee population has simply died off and disappeared and scientists are still at a loss as to the definitive reason why.
Apparently, my favourite theory that it is all the result of cell phone use isn't very credible. (If only it were that straightforward, there was a world back before wireless).
Others - parasites and/or pesticides. Global warming, or genetically modified crops.
What we can do for now is read. Often my solution to everything.
As is often the case I found the above cited Wikipedia entry on Colony Collapse Disorder to be quite informative and very well referenced.
The United States Department of Agriculture National Agriculture Library has this page linking to many articles on CCD.
This May 29 Salon Roundtable discussion with four beekeeper/scientist types is also valuable and gives much suggestion as to just how complex all of this might be.
Think sending cruise missiles hurtling down into Tehran is a good idea?
I don't think so either. I think bombing Iran could have incalculable potentially devastating consequences for both the region, the people and the U.S. forces in Iraq, and possibly for the other Western forces in Afghanistan, including the Canadians. It will escalate an already chaotic and tragic situation in that part of the world in ways that even the harshest critics of the Bush Administration can't foresee. I think its madness. I think its beyond stupid. And I have a hard time believing that even this crew would dare to pull such a bonehead move. I really do.
And yet, according to the latest much discussed Sy Hersh article in the October 8 issue of the New Yorker such a move is only one element of the new "reconceived" Iranian bombing campaign presently under consideration by the Bush Administration.
According to Hersh:
The focus of the plans had been a broad bombing attack, with targets including Iran’s known and suspected nuclear facilities and other military and infrastructure sites. Now the emphasis is on “surgical” strikes on Revolutionary Guard Corps facilities in Tehran and elsewhere, which, the Administration claims, have been the source of attacks on Americans in Iraq. What had been presented primarily as a counter-proliferation mission has been reconceived as counterterrorism.
The shift in targeting reflects three developments. First, the President and his senior advisers have concluded that their campaign to convince the American public that Iran poses an imminent nuclear threat has failed (unlike a similar campaign before the Iraq war), and that as a result there is not enough popular support for a major bombing campaign. The second development is that the White House has come to terms, in private, with the general consensus of the American intelligence community that Iran is at least five years away from obtaining a bomb. And, finally, there has been a growing recognition in Washington and throughout the Middle East that Iran is emerging as the geopolitical winner of the war in Iraq.
During a secure videoconference that took place early this summer, the President told Ryan Crocker, the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, that he was thinking of hitting Iranian targets across the border and that the British “were on board.”
So since I have been spending too much time reading about all this on the Internet, I feel it now behooves me to try and break it down.
So firstly, for the purposes of this post, with regards to the specifics elements and factors of this new reconception (Which means leaving the nuclear issue aside for the moment,as the Administration is said to have done.):
Just how did the Iranians "emerge the geopolitical winner of the war in Iraq"?
Of all the unintended consequences of the Iraq war, Iran's strategic victory is the most far-reaching. In establishing the border between the Ottoman Empire and the Persian Empire in 1639, the Treaty of Qasr-i-Shirin demarcated the boundary between Sunni-ruled lands and Shiite-ruled lands. For eight years of brutal warfare in the 1980s, Iran tried to breach that line but could not. (At the time, the Reagan administration supported Saddam Hussein precisely because it feared the strategic consequences of an Iraq dominated by Iran's allies.) The 2003 US invasion of Iraq accomplished what Khomeini's army could not. Today, the Shiite-controlled lands extend to the borders of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Bahrain, a Persian Gulf kingdom with a Shiite majority and a Sunni monarch, is most affected by these developments; but so is Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province, which is home to most of the kingdom's Shiites. (They may even be a majority in the province but this is unknown as Saudi Arabia has not dared to conduct a census.) The US Navy has its most important Persian Gulf base in Bahrain while most of Saudi Arabia's oil is under the Eastern Province.
America's Iraq quagmire has given new life to Iran's Syrian ally, Bashir Assad. In 2003, the Syrian Baathist regime seemed an anachronism unable to survive the region's political and economic changes. Today, Assad appears firmly in control, having even recovered from the opprobrium of having his regime caught red-handed in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. In Lebanon, Hezbollah enjoys greatly enhanced stature for having held off the Israelis in the 2006 war. As Hezbollah's sponsor and source of arms, Iran now has an influence both in the Levant and in the Arab–Israeli conflict that it never before had.
The scale of the American miscalculation is striking. Before the Iraq war began, its neoconservative architects argued that conferring power on Iraq's Shiites would serve to undermine Iran because Iraq's Shiites, controlling the faith's two holiest cities, would, in the words of then Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, be "an independent source of authority for the Shia religion emerging in a country that is democratic and pro-Western." Further, they argued, Iran could never dominate Iraq, because the Iraqi Shiites are Arabs and the Iranian Shiites Persian. It was a theory that, unfortunately, had no connection to reality.
Iran's bond with the Iraqi Shiites goes far beyond the support Iran gave Shiite leaders in their struggle with Saddam Hussein. Decades of oppression have made their religious identity more important to Iraqi Shiites than their Arab ethnic identity. (Also, many Iraqi Shiites have Turcoman, Persian, or Kurdish ancestors.) While Sunnis identify with the Arab world, Iraqi Shiites identify with the Shiite world, and for many this means Iran.
There is also the legacy of February 15, 1991, when President George H.W. Bush called on the Iraqi people to rise up against Saddam Hussein. Two weeks later, the Shiites in southern Iraq did just that. When Saddam's Republican Guards moved south to crush the rebellion, President Bush went fishing and no help was given. Only Iran showed sympathy. Hundreds of thousands died and no Iraqi Shiite I know thinks this failure of US support was anything but intentional. In assessing the loyalty of the Iraqi Shiites before the war, the war's architects often stressed how Iraqi Shiite conscripts fought loyally for Iraq in the Iran–Iraq War. They never mentioned the 1991 betrayal. This was understandable: at the end of the 1991 war, Wolfowitz was the number-three man at the Pentagon, Dick Cheney was the defense secretary, and, of course, Bush's father was the president.
Iran and its Iraqi allies control, respectively, the Middle East's third- and second-largest oil reserves. Iran's influence now extends to the borders of the Saudi province that holds the world's largest oil reserves. President Bush has responded to these strategic changes wrought by his own policies by strongly supporting a pro-Iranian government in Baghdad and by arming and training the most pro-Iranian elements in the Iraqi military and police.
So this is the first element of what I find makes all this so nonsensical. It was the very policies of the Bush Administration that has facilitated Iran's emergence as the consensus 'winner of the Iraq War'. If the Administration wanted to weaken or hit the Iranians, as one would certainly imagine they did and do so desire given their rhetoric, why have they opened up all of these unprecedented strategic opportunities for Iran? Until I read convincing any evidence or argument otherwise I think we can safely that is was simply an unforseen consequence of a tragically flawed, ignorant and grossly mismanaged foreign policy misadventure. Often called now by many 'the biggest single foreign policy mistake' in the history of the United States.
As Galbraith writes in absolutely essential book The End of Iraq:
"Iran illustrates even better Bush's inability to think strategically.
Having decided to invade Iraq, a strategist would have considered the situation of Iran. Given that Iran funded (and in the case of the SCIRIC, created) Iraq's main Shiite parties, and considering that the Southern half of Iraq is Shiite, it was forseeable that Iran would have considerable influence in a post-Saddam Iraq. Even if Iran were a future target, a strategist might have anted to minimize Iran's opposition to American efforts in Iraq, at least until it consolidated his position in Iraq and was prepared to move against Iran.
Iran had more reasons to want Saddam gone than George W. Bush did. Saddam had attacked Iran, causing more than 500 000 dead in the Iran-Iraq War. Saddam had actually used chemical weapons on the Iranians, and Iran - not the United States - was the more likely target of any revived Iraqi WMD program. Iran's fellow Shiites would be the beneficiaries of democracy in Iraq, and Iran might well have cooperated with the United States in ensuring a quick military victory followed by a quick exit. Indeed, prior to the Axis of Evil speech, Iran was cooperating with the United States in Afghanistan, sharing intelligence on al-Queda, preventing fugitive al-Queda members from escaping through Iran, and giving the U.S. military permission to conduct search-and-rescue missions on Iranian territory for any American pilot downed in the Afghanistan war. The United States and Iran had a common foe in al-Queda and the Taliban, both of which waged war on the Shiites, whom they considered to be apostates. After the Axis of Evil speech, the Iranians ended their cooperation with the U.S. on Afghanistan, depriving the U.S. military of intelligence and assistance that could enable to better fight the war on terror.
In the Axis of Evil speech, Bush not only offended the Iranians but also signaled that Iran might be America's next target after a successful campaign in Iraq. This gave the Iranians every incentive to make sure the United States did not succeed in Iraq. The president never understood how much influence Iran had in Iraq, or perhaps he didn't think it was important.".
Bingo. Bush 'didn't think' and 'never understood'.
So even now after over four years of worsening conflict in Iraq, what evidence is there that Bush is now showing signs of serious, more sober, more accurate, legitimate thought and understanding with regards to Iran? What's he going to get right this time?
And what of that Axis of Evil speech anyway? In the same book Galbraith has this to say:
The 'Axis of Evil' phrase caught the public imagination. David Frum, A Canadian working in the White House speechwriting office, let it be known that he had come up with this clever phrase. Apparently, he had inserted the phrase in the speech without it having been seen, much less cleared, by Secretary of State Colin Powell or anyone else professionally responsible for U.S. foreign policy. This ad hoc approach to national security has been characteristic of the Bush White House, which oddly has a reputation for being disciplined.
National Security strategy is most likely to be successful when there are clear goals, when objectives are prioritized taking into account the risks and resources required for a particular course of action, and when there is careful planning. The Bush speech, the process by which it was produced, and the actions that followed underscore the absence of a coherent strategy that has characterized the U.S. intervention in Iraq.".
So you would think these would be the last people you would want to lead an attack on Iran, if that is in fact what you wanted. But now its almost as if none of this has even happened. This unthinking, nonunderstanding cabal of incoherent Bush Administration strategists is poised to extend their mistakes even further. Perhaps in compensation? I don't know. I do know the Iraq War has become in many ways like television itself. Forever adrift in the everlasting present.
Which brings us to the justification for this present reconceived plan of attack on Iran now under consideration. The justification for this attack is the alleged attacks on American troops undertaken by Iranian proxies in Iraq.
The Bush Administration and all their media dittoheads it seems to me, are constructing their arguments with regard to all of this in < a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6992249.stm">the following way:
By first mentioning two elements in the same argument as if one thing follows another, as if the two things were connected and then when considered together it is surmised (obviously) that this all amounts to clear evidence of dastardly Iranian regime hell-bent on undermining the American effort in Iraq by attacking U.S. troops, as well as the Iraqi government itself.
(I do believe that it was Sergei Eisenstein who once said when theorizing on film, that the audience when shown one cut followed by another, automatically and naturally make a connection between the two.)
As predicted, this all really got rolling with the presentations of General Dave Petraeus and American Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker made their presentations to the U.S. Congress on September 11 and 12.
Petraeus himself asserted i "there is a serious Iranian effort to exercise malign influence through extremist militias" and there is "very clear" evidence of Iranian involvement in attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq.
Are these 'extremist (Shi'a) militias' to which Petreaus is referring the ones that make up the bulk of the Iraqi Army and Interior Ministry police themselves? A realighnment, as we have seen, brought about by the incompetent actions of the Bush Administration itself. (If your goal was in fact the opposite of the present reality, then that qualifies as definitive 'incompetence' - no?) As Galbraith (again) writes in the same above article:
When US forces ousted Saddam's regime from the south in early April 2003, the Badr Organization infiltrated from Iran to fill the void left by the Bush administration's failure to plan for security and governance in post-invasion Iraq.
In the months that followed, the US-run Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) appointed Badr Organization leaders to key positions in Iraq's American-created army and police. At the same time, L. Paul Bremer's CPA appointed party officials from the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) to be governors and serve on governorate councils throughout southern Iraq. SCIRI, recently renamed the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC), was founded at the Ayatollah Khomeini's direction in Tehran in 1982. The Badr Organization is the militia associated with SCIRI.
In the January 2005 elections, SCIRI became the most important component of Iraq's ruling Shiite coalition. In exchange for not taking the prime minister's slot, SCIRI won the right to name key ministers, including the minister of the interior. From that ministry, SCIRI placed Badr militiamen throughout Iraq's national police.
In short, George W. Bush had from the first facilitated the very event he warned would be a disastrous consequence of a US withdrawal from Iraq: the takeover of a large part of the country by an Iranian-backed militia. And while the President contrasts the promise of democracy in Iraq with the tyranny in Iran, there is now substantially more personal freedom in Iran than in southern Iraq.
You never really know, but probably not.
Petreaus is almost certainly referring to The Mahdi Army, and its assorted militias loyal to renowned cleric and Iraqi political power broker Moqtada Al Sadr, with whom the U.S. military engaged in direct combat in the spring of 2004. The man who recently withdrew all his democratically elected Parlimentarians from the governing coalition in Baghdad. They are most prevalent in Southern Iraq and in the area of Baghdad known as Sadr City. Recently in these areas there has been an upturn in 'inter-ethnic/Shi'a on Shi'a' violence' with the Mahdi Army and the Badr Brigades (SIIC) fighting each other for control. But even then, perhaps not. Even in the midst of all this the interests of Iran and the U.S are not necessarily in conflict. As Galbraith explains towards the end of the same above article:
Overall, however, Iran has no interest in the success of the Mahdi Army. Moqtada al-Sadr has made Iraqi nationalism his political platform. He has attacked the SIIC for its pro-Iranian leanings and challenged Iraq's most important religious figure, Ayatollah Sistani, himself an Iranian citizen. Asked about charges that Iran was organizing Iraqi insurgents, Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told the Financial Times on May 10, "The whole idea is unreasonable. Why should we do that? Why should we undermine a government in Iraq that we support more than anybody else?"
The United States cannot now undo President Bush's strategic gift to Iran. But importantly, the most pro-Iranian Shiite political party is the one least hostile to the United States. In the battle now underway between the SIIC and Moqtada al-Sadr for control of southern Iraq and of the central government in Baghdad, the United States and Iran are on the same side.
When the actual details of the charge are finally asserted the argument made is as follows:
The Americans are claiming that the Qods force - a branch of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards has been providing both training and materials in the manufacture, dissemination and proliferation of the EFP's or Explosively Formed Penetrators, or Projectiles (I've heard both words used) in Iraq - the latest manifestation of IED's, or Improvised Explosive Devices - weapons which have had a devastating impact upon the occupying U.S forces.
And there is no question that IED's and EFP's are devastating. And completely terrifying. Real, definite terrorism. Which doesn't mean they're not logical. And even if you - as a soldier or civilian in Iraq - are lucky enough to escape actually experiencing their actual effects, the paranoia alone must be enough to drive you crazy. But as this recent Washington Post series makes clear, IED's are now unquestionably the definitive weapon of this war:
(M)ore than 81,000 IED attacks have occurred in Iraq, including 25,000 so far this year, according to U.S. military sources. The war has indeed metastasized into something "completely different," a conflict in which the roadside bomb in its many variants -- including "suicide, vehicle-borne" -- has become the signature weapon in Iraq and Afghanistan, as iconic as the machine gun in World War I or the laser-guided "smart bomb" in the Persian Gulf War of 1991.
IEDs have caused nearly two-thirds of the 3,100 American combat deaths in Iraq, and an even higher proportion of battle wounds. This year alone, through mid-July, they have also resulted in an estimated 11,000 Iraqi civilian casualties and more than 600 deaths among Iraqi security forces. To the extent that the United States is not winning militarily in Iraq, the roadside bomb, which as of Sept. 22 had killed or wounded 21,200 Americans, is both a proximate cause and a metaphor for the miscalculation and improvisation that have characterized the war.
81 000. 81 000 IED attacks. And that's the official number.
The series quotes many 'experts' who consistently assert that the only way to make a dent in such numbers is to go after 'the networks' which are manufacturing and proliferating these weapons. A strategy they call "left of boom" (the title of the series) - which means "disrupting insurgent cells before bombs are built and planted.". (as opposed to "right of boom" - which is "mitigating the effects of a bomb blast with heavier armour, studier vehicle and better trauma care.".)
This seems logical enough, until you begin at least a cursory examination of the details involved. i.e. There are weapons and explosives all over the Iraq. And so any exercise in assigning to them origin and/or intent is immediately fraught and highly dubious. From the same article:
The entire country was one big ammo dump," Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates would observe this past March. "It's just a huge, huge problem."
The problem was also huge in 2003. Yet U.S. strategists, who before the invasion failed to anticipate an insurgency, also drafted no comprehensive plans for securing thousands of munitions caches, now estimated to have held at least 650,000 tons and perhaps more than 1 million tons of explosives. "There's more ammunition in Iraq than any place I've ever been in my life, and it's not securable," Gen. John P. Abizaid told the Senate Appropriations Committee shortly after taking over U.S. Central Command in July 2003. "I wish I could tell you that we had it all under control. We don't."
And into this this sea of weapons and left over weapons and potential weapons, come not only new weapons but just so many insurgent groups with so many different and often competing agendas, and then combine that with American Intelligence so demonstrably incompetent in the best case scenario, and outright deceptive in the worst, who can prove who placed what explosive where and when?
But nonetheless, subsequent to the Petreaus/Crocker testimony, (one following the other) there then emerged the Lieberman-Kyl Amendment - A "Sense" (their word) of the United States Senate that comes perilously close to an outright declaration of war with Iran. It can be seen in its initial, original form here - Download kyllieberman_amendment.pdf. And its worth reading. Its certainly worth keeping. For it states the following:
"(2) that it is a vital national interest of the United States to prevent the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran from turning Shi'a militia extremists in Iraq into a Hezbollah-like force that could serve its interest inside Iraq, including by overwhelming, subverting, or co-opting institutions of the legitimate Government of Iraq;
(3) that it should be the policy of the United States to combat, contain, and roll back the violent activities and destabilizing influence inside Iraq of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, its foreign facilitators such as Lebanese Hezbollah, and its indigenous Iraqi proxies;
(4) to support the prudent and calibrated use of all instruments of United States national power in Iraq, including diplomatic, economic, intelligence, and military instruments , in support of the policy described in paragraph (3) with respect to the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxies;
(5) that the United States should designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guards as a foreign terrorist organization under section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act and place the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on the lists of Specifically Designated Global Terrorists, as established under International Emergency Economic Powers Act and initiated under Executive Order 13224;
I emboldened sections (3) and (4) not just to point out their original existence, and thus emphasize the direction in which some people (most notably in this case Senators Kyl and Lieberman) are attempting to move the U.S. government but also to illustrate just how arbitrary and sensitive all of this actually is within the debate amongst American policy makers, since these two sections ultimately had to be removed from the Amendment in order to "mollify its critics" so the Amendment could pass a vote in Senate - approved overwhelmingly 76-22. The text of the final Amendment can be read here.
I have read this strange and elliptical document a couple of times now, curious as to whether this might actually be the Gulf of Tonkin style Resolution that provides the legislative authority for extending the war to Iran. And in my reading two elements stand out.
Firstly, obviously, Section (5) has remained, and so thus the U.S. Senate has now designated the Islamic Revolutionary Guards of Iran a "terrorist organization', and if you remember the Bush Doctrine it (and he) has always asserted as a matter of policy no difference between "terrorists" and the "states which harbor them". So that could be justification enough.
But secondly,what I find curious about the document is its almost weird presumptions and resolve that its case has been solidly made and the connections have been shown, when what it really asserts, in my reading, is just further ambiguity. Again just because one highly, still alleged fact, is written to follow another doesn't make them both true. And it certainly, given the stakes, doesn't make the case for extending the war into Iran. And I find it stunning and terrifying that this could literally be the actual legal authorization for further war. Its surreptitious nature is far worse than the now infamous Colin Powell presentation before the UN Security Council in 2003.
As to its justifications of its "sense" that Iran is now supporting attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq, the Amendment states the opinions given in both the The Report of the Independent Commission of the Security Forces of IraqDownload isf.pdf
and The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) of 2007 as well as that same testimony given by both General Petreaus and Ambassador Crocker before the Congress on Septembers 10th and 11th. It quotes General Petreaus saying that they have interviewed a man by the name of Qais Khazali, whom they captured in March and whom they now link to the "kidnapping and murder of five American soldiers in January in Karbala.
According to this article from CNN this is what happened during the incident in question:
In the January 20 attack, nine to 12 gunmen, wearing "American-looking uniforms" and carrying "U.S.-type weapons," passed easily through checkpoints in sport utility vehicles before opening fire on American soldiers inside a government compound in Karbala, according to the U.S. military.
One U.S. soldier was killed and three others wounded in a hand-grenade blast. After the attack, the insurgents drove off with four U.S. soldiers, the military said.
Iraqi police found abandoned vehicles and equipment near the Iraqi town of Al-Mahawil. Three soldiers were dead at the scene, and a fourth one died en route to a hospital.
As to how this involves Qais Khazali the article states the following:
"Over the past several days, coalition forces in Basra and Hilla captured Qais Khazali, his brother Laith Khazali and several other members of the Khazali network," the U.S. military said in a statement Thursday.
The military said the network is "directly connected" to the killings in Karbala, a Shiite city south of Baghdad.
Qais Khazali was known as a spokesman for Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's political movement in 2004 in Baghdad's Sadr City, but it is not clear whether he is still involved with al-Sadr's movement.
Al-Sadr's Mehdi Army, a Shiite militia, is suspected of heavy involvement in Iraq's sectarian violence.
Two Mehdi Army commanders told The Associated Press that Khazali had split with al-Sadr and leads 3,000 fighters of his own with financing from Iran.
Khazali has not been seen in public since late 2004, the AP reported.
U.S. officials have been tight-lipped about the arrests. The military has not disclosed evidence linking the Khazali network to the Karbala attack, but one official called it "significant."
A source close to the al-Sadr movement said the arrests occurred Wednesday.
A U.S. official said the Khazali brothers were suspected of being part of a network using weapons known as explosively formed projectiles or penetrators. Bush administration officials have alleged that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's Quds Force have provided these munitions to Shiite groups in Iraq.
As if any of this couldn't possibly get any more murky, you will notice in the above sections of the article that I italicized the 9 to 12 gunmen involved in the January 20 incident in Karbala were said to be wearing 'American-looking uniforms' and using 'U.S. style weapons' and that this is all the word of the U.S. military and the military 'has not disclosed evidence linking the Khazali network to the Karbala attack', though it is alleged to be 'significant'. And what they are stating here is true, then this group isn't even Mahdi Army, but a Mahdi Army splinter group.
It does state in section (9) of the Kyl-Lieberman Amendment that:
"
(9) General Petraeus stated on September 12 2007, with respect to evidence of the complicity of Iran in the murder of members of the Armed Forces of the United States in Iraq, that '(t)he evidence is very, very clear. We captured it when we captured Qais Khazali, the Lebanese Hezbollah deputy commander, and others, and it's in black and white ... We interrogated these individuals. We have on tape ... Qais Khazali himself. When asked, could you have done what you have done with Iranian support, he literaly throws up his hand and laughs and says, of course not ... So they told us about the amounts of money that they have received. They told us about the training that they received. They told us about the ammunition and sophisticated weaponry and all of that they received.'.".
No doubt Qais Khazali as was asked about those 'American-looking' uniforms and 'U.S. style weapons' that they must have 'received from some where but General Petraeus neglects to mention that answer since it would definitely prove embarrassing for everyone. However black market or 'official' they were obtained the possibilities are endless and would just prove to muddy the black and white case that the Administration is attempting to construct here.
Section (10) of the Amendment extends this further:
"(10) General Petraeus further stated on September 14, 2007 that '{w}hat we have got is evidence. This is not intelligence. This is evidence, off computers that we captured, documents and so forth ... In one case, a 22 page document that lays out the planning, reconnaissance, rehearsal, conduct, and aftermath of the operation conducted that resulted in the death of five of our soldiers in Karbala back in January.".
I do think it is important that Petraeus has now officially made the distinction between 'intelligence' and 'evidence'. And to my knowledge this 22 page document has yet to made public. Nor have I been able to discover the identity of this man said to be 'Deputy Commander of Lebanese Hezbollah'.
But on this level we could also note that General Petraeus did also have this to say in his testimony on September 12:
"In the past six months we have also targeted Shia militia extremists, capturing a number of senior leaders and fighters, as well as the deputy commander of Lebanese Hezbollah Department 2800, the organization created to support the training, arming, funding, and, in some cases, direction of the militia extremists by the Iranian Republican Guard Corps' Qods Force. These elements have assassinated and kidnapped Iraqi governmental leaders, killed and wounded our soldiers with advanced explosive devices provided by Iran, and indiscriminately rocketed civilians in the International Zone and elsewhere. It is increasingly apparent to both Coalition and Iraqi leaders that Iran, through the use of the Qods Force, seeks to turn the Iraqi Special Groups into a Hezbollah-like force to serve its interests and fight a proxy war against the Iraqi state and coalition forces in Iraq."
What, in the name of Allah, is "Department 2800"? There ain't no such creature on God's green earth. I can find no reference to it anywhere: not in the standard studies of Hezbollah, not on the Internets, not anywhere. The only other reference to this mysterious organization, aside from the testimony of Petraeus, is on the Web site of Veterans for Freedom, a pro-administration front group that exists as a prop for their leader, the square-jawed Pete Hegseth, to appear on television as a counterweight to VoteVets.
In other words, they just make stuff up.
(though in fairness, I too did the Google search and came up with this, which admittedly isn't much, dated September 20, who ever they are and for whatever its worth.)
Excuse me? Could this actually be? That they would actually just make this up and insert it into the testimony because after all what do any of us actually know about it? Department 2800? Anyone? Bueller? After its not like they haven't done it before. And even before that. What does any of this really mean? And again, particularly in light of the inevitable consequences that are going to flow from the response to this that they are now proposing.
For whatever its worth, it turns out that for his testimony General Petreaus was not actually sworn in, something that has gone almost unnoticed, though for testimony before a Congressional Committee it is certainly most unusual.
As for any public airing of the actual specific evidence of this still alleged 'Iranian involvement in the attacks on U.S. troops' - as far I know there has never been anything put forward beyond what was provided in the now infamous, highly dubious-bordering-on-the-pathetic 'Pentagon briefing in Baghdad' of Febuary 11, 2007 - the sad, surreptitious nature of which is summed quite succinctly in this article from the Conspiracy Times (don't mind the name, and look to the substance):
How bad the February 11 Iran briefing was, is highlighted by the somewhat underreported facts that this “press conference” was one where cameras were not allowed to film and no statements were allowed to be recorded. The attending journalists furthermore had to agree the identity of the three briefing officers had to remain anonymous. There was hence no accountability whatsoever, there was 100% plausible deniability from a legal perspective and once again there was a media overeager to report “as is”, without providing the context and the likelihood they were being used to instill fear and fall for lies.
One commentator wondered what would have happened if Adlai Stevenson had gotten up at the United Nations during the Cuban Missile Crisis and, rather than showing detailed U-2 photographs of missile emplacements, had simply announced, "Ladies and gentleman, some Cuban guy we talked to said the Russians are putting missiles in Cuba." Weapons of Soldier Destruction?For the Associated Press, The New York Times, the BBC, Reuters and others to agree beforehand to the condition that none of the three US officials taking part could not be named or even described closely has made a mockery of such press conferences. The anonymous briefings, so well-practiced in the corridors of Washington and London, have now mushroomed into parody, in which they are now used within the context of war.
The Times afterwards made some effort to explain itself, stating "During the briefing, that the senior United States military officials were repeatedly pressed on why they insisted on anonymity in such an important matter affecting the security of American and Iraqi troops." The following morning, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman asked "Why wasn’t any official willing to take personal responsibility for the reliability of alleged evidence of Iranian mischief, as opposed to being an anonymous source? If the evidence is solid enough to bear close scrutiny, why were all cameras and recording devices, including cellphones, banned from yesterday’s Baghdad briefing?" Worse is that the three specialists were not even introduced with their exact job description; they could literally be a toilet janitor. The New York Times' James Glanz, attending the briefing, noted: "Today’s presentation of evidence is bound to generate skepticism […]."
One of the few outlets to break their “oath of allegiance” was an Iraqi news service, Voices of Iraq, who claimed that one of the three speakers was Major General William Caldwell, who is actually the official government spokesman for the US led Multi-National Force in Iraq. Why would an official spokesman require anonymity – other than legal plausible deniability?
The article goes on further to the evidence itself:
So what was “the evidence”? The reporters present noted that "On two tables in a briefing room in Baghdad, military officials laid out tubular rocket propelled grenades, football-shaped mortars, a cylindrical EFP, and about 40 tail fins of exploded mortars, which they say are manufactured in Iran – just a 'smattering' of the examples they have found in Iraq, said the defense analyst. Iran is the only country in the region that produces these weapons, the officials said."
Only Powerpoint presentations were made available for reporters to present “the evidence” to the world and hence no independent verification can be made of this evidence.
Gareth Porter goes further into this evidence, or non-evidence in his article Debunking the Neocons' Iran War Measure": "The main argument made in the February 11, 2007 briefing for an Iranian official role in providing EFPs to Shiite militias -- the allegation that only Iran had the capability to manufacture EFPs or components for EFPs that can penetrate U.S. armor - was quickly proven to be untrue.", he writes, before providing several points to back this up:
* As early as mid-2005, U.S. military intelligence officials had already concluding that they believe the technology for making such armor-penetrating bombs was "spreading among a variety of insurgent groups," obviously including Sunni insurgents with no ties to Iran or Hezbollah. At least one insurgent cell in Baghdad was already "attempting to make the charges locally."
* Israeli intelligence reported that Hamas guerrillas manufactured high grade EFPs during 2006 which were used in attacks on Israeli Defense Forces in four separate incidents in September and November 2006. The shaped charges penetrated eight inches of steel armor.
* Senior military officials in Baghdad told a reporter days after the February 11 briefing that U.S. forces had been finding an "increasing number of advanced roadside bombs being not just assembled but manufactured in machine shops." One official was quoted as saying that the impact of those Iraqi-machined EFPs on armored vehicles "isn't as clean but they are almost as effective" as the EFPs being imported.
* Journalist Andrew Cockburn reported in February that in November 2006 U.S. troops raiding a Baghdad machine shop had discovered a pile of copper discs "stamped out as part of what was clearly an ongoing order."
* Maj. Marty Weber, the explosives expert who was one of the three briefers in the February 11 briefing, admitted in an interview with The New York Times less than two weeks later that "You can never be certain" that the cooper discs for the EFPs could not be manufactured with the required precision in Iraq.
* U.S. troops found a cache of components, including concave copper discs, for making EFPs in February 2007, in which the PVC tubes of varying widths appeared to have come from the open market, raising the likelihood that the liners were being manufactured locally so that they would be the right size to fit the discs.
* Another bomb-making factory discovered by U.S. troops in late February was reported to have forced U.S. officials to "reassess their belief that such bombs were being built in Iran and smuggled fully assembled into Iraq."
As you can see there is nothing definitive linking the government of Iran with any of this activity. Certainly nothing that would constitute (dare I say it) a smoking gun - and thus a casas belli. Certainly as I see it. All I can discern is evidence of spreading insurgent activity across Iraq and across various sections of the Middle East. Certainly from Lebanon to Afghanistan. Of course different insurgent groups are going to learn from the "success" of each other. Given the situation that seems natural enough. There was no such thing as suicide bombing in Afghanistan after all, before the War in Iraq. And this situation, as I see it, is being exacerbated, perhaps even caused by the American occupation, not mitigated by it.
But despite all of this, let's for a moment take Petreaus, Bush, Cheney, and the supporters of military action against Iran at their word. Let's say that elements within the Iranian regime are in fact supporting this so-called 'terrorist activity' against American troops in Iraq through the Qods force of the Revolutionary Guards, most manifestly through the use of EFP's. What does this prove? What does this illustrate?
It proves that within all the other conflicts and agendas presently being battled out in Iraq we can now add a low intensity conflict between the Americans and the Iranians, most probably through the various proxies of their respective military intelligence services. Is this really so shocking and/or surprising to anyone? Given the context is this really as nefarious as supporters of military action against Iran make it out to be?
Yes its brutal. But the whole situation is brutal. And don't pretend for a moment that the brutality isn't flowing both ways. It even has its own logic. Though its rarely discussed in the American MSM we do know that Bush has authorized covert action against Iran. And we know that the Americans are supporting the MEK. It was one of things that Ahmadinejad mentioned in his recent speech at Columbia University.
So is it really so surprising that Iranians are responding in kind? We have already read in the above Galbraith passages about how the Iran began to reassess its relationship with the U.S. after the revealed iinentions inherent in the Axis of Evil speech. If they are engaging in these alleged activities it is because of the conditions created by the Bush Administration, and in response to the threats of the Bush Administration.
The Kyl-Leiberman Amendment quotes Ahmedinejad as stating on "(7) August 28, 2007 with respect to the United States presence in Iraq, that '{t}he political power of the occupiers is collapsing rapidly. Soon we will see a huge power vacum in the region. Of course we are prepared to fill it.".
Again, aside from being true, is this really such a shocking diabolical thing for them to say? And aside from having 'the added virtue of being true' is it not in fact logical? Rational. Strategic. We've have already gone over the myriad of ways that the Iranian government are cooperating with Iraqi government, military and police. The Iranians can't help but live next door - why wouldn't they want to help stabilize the situation, something the Americans are obviously having a difficult time with? Who doesn't think they wouldn't be better positioned? And perversely, given the history and the legacy of the Iran-Iraq War is it not ultimately healthier for regional security and stability that these two once ardent enemies (both of them Shi'a) are now actually cooperating with each other and no longer fighting? And if it was the American actions that brought them why aren't they celebrating and patting themselves on the back for that achievement?
The answer, of course, is because the Iranians are and must remain the enemy.
And that as a practical matter, of all these minor details then are largely irrelevant.
And the implications of this will be the subject Cruise Missiles into Tehran? (2)
I have not posted for some time and I do apologize for my recent absence. Various work and personal considerations have kept me away. I am presently working on a play that just won't give, I am doing some preliminary editing and research on a film about Afghanistan, as well as some peripheral involvement attempting to stop some morons who want to ruin a perfectly wonderful section of Shawnigan Lake, British Columbia by putting up a go-kart/motocross track in exactly the wrong area. (my apologies to my legions of motocross readers, deal with it).
I am working on some longer posts, however - one on Iran, one on the recent events on Burma, and another on some of the recent Senlis Council reports on the Canadian mission in Afghanistan, as well as some long-awaited tuberculosis material and I hope to have those up soon.
In the meantime perhaps some of you would like to check out two other global health issue blogs that have made themselves known to me through a couple of kind e-mails from their editors.
The first is Technology, Health & Development edited by the indefatigable Aman Bhandari. Aman's blog is self-described as "dedicated to global health solutions and issues with slight bias towards technology", and if you go and check it out I think you will find it quite extensive. Thanks to T,H&D's post yesterday I am now aware of the new student global health blog over at the Lancet site - The Lancet Student.
As Aman himself writes:
The Lancet now has two sites/blogs dedicated to global health. For those outside the public health/medical realm, The Lancet is one of the top journals in these fields. Their blog on the main site has not really been updated on a regular basis, so for that reason alone, another site is a welcome change. This site, focused on students, already has some youthful energy. The Lancet Student has been up for the past couple of months and they are going forward full force and really trying to create a campaign of change. They are working hard to develop a community and the site seems to have a lot of potential that I am excited about because they seem to be setting up an ecosystem to draw more attention to global health issues by energizing a passionate student base. The entry of such a major player, voice and authority using web-based interaction (primarily blogging in this case) in the global health field is long overdue. Ever since I started this blog I have felt that even a simple and dedicated site by a major organization could go light years further than an individual could alone (such as the THD blog). Keep an eye on them as the evolve:
“The LancetStudent.com is a beta site for medical students from around the world and in keeping with The Lancet, it has a strong focus on global health.”
Well said Aman. And well done. I admire your dedication and I look forward to further exploration of your blog in the months ahead.
The other blog is Gates Keepers, sent to me by someone identifying them self only as gate keeper. This blog describes itself as "Civil Society Voices on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation", and judging by this post I do believe that they are independent, and not actually of the The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundations.
Thanks gate keeper. Stand steadfast and we will stand with you.
As you will notice both blogs are now a part of my link list, as well as The Lancet Student.
I myself have to get back to some serious global health blogging in the near future.
But I need you all to know: That I cherish all my readers. Please understand that.
I am still learning. Still finding my way and my voice.
FURTHERMORE:
Here's a fascinating article on deforestation in the Congo from The Nation entitled - The Fight to Save Congo's Forests by Christian Parenti & Laura Hanna that makes for a good depressing read. Often the best kind.
If only I could just blame George Bush. Or Osama. 
