Northman's Fury

Rather anti-climatic at this point, but of the people who deserve such a fate, he was certainly on the list. It would have been nice had he been tried for some of his big crimes, like the gassing and attempted genocide of Kurds. Of course, that kind of trial may have led to questions about where he got the gas and weapons in the first place.

Given the kangaroo court proceedings leading to the conviction, this looks like little more than victor's justice. They probably should have just put a bullet in him when the found his spider hole.

I've read a few articles over the last couple of days regarding the so-called plan to "surge" US forces in Iraq to accomplish some semblance of stability in Baghdad, which will then somehow magically transform the rest of the country into a peaceful, prosperous. pro-US utopia, after which it can began its magical effect of transforming the rest of the Middle East.



The first and probably best was by W. Patrick Lang and Ray McGovern from whom the title to this post is borrowed. Some excerpts:

A generation from now, our grandchildren will have difficulty writing history papers on this oxymoronic debate on how to surge/withdraw our troops into/from the quagmire in Iraq. Historians will have just as much trouble, especially those given to Tolstoy’s theory that history is ruled by an inexorable determinism in which the free choice of major historical figures plays a minimal role.

. . .

A “surge” of the size possible under current constraints on U.S. forces will not turn the tide in the guerrilla war. Reinforcement of Bagdad several thousand U.S. troops last summer simply brought on more violence. Those who believe still more troops will bring “victory” are living in a dangerous dream world and need to wake up.

Moreover, major reinforcement would commit the US Army and Marine Corps to decisive combat in which there are no more strategic reserves to be sent to the front. It will be a matter of win or die in the attempt. In that situation, everyone in uniform on the ground will commit every ounce of their being to a hope of “victory,” and few measures will be shrunk from.

Analogies come to mind: the Bulge, Stalingrad, the Battle of Algiers. It will be total war with all the likelihood of excesses and mass casualties that come with total war.

Fred Kaplan at Slate gave one of the most succinct summaries of the whole idea with this:

The upshot is that Kagan's surge involves more troops than the United States can readily mobilize and fewer troops than it needs for the kind of victory he has in mind.

That's it in a nutshell, particularly considering they aren't even talking about actual additional troops here. They don't have any. They'll just be sending some sooner than planned while keeping others there from going home. The US can't win with the troops they have and they can't even sustain a small increase for very long. As even Bush said, they're not winning and not losing. They're stale-mated, and Bush is hoping he can keep it that way until January 2009 when his successor can lose the war he can't win.

couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

Hey, why worry? It's not like anything is really happening that might make an actual strategy shift important. Sure it's taken over three and a half years to get to this point, but it doesn't mean they've learnt enough to make any decisions.

A situation that probably bears watching. I don’t have a complete understanding of the situation, but the broad basics are relatively clear. Somalia is predominantly Muslim, Ethiopia predominantly Christian, which matters to the US but is probably far less important in the region. The Bush administration likes to lump together everything Muslim into one big basket whether they’re actually related or not.

The Somali conflict is better understood as a tribal or ethnic one. The last paragraph alludes to the “Greater Somalia” movement, which is a large part of Ethiopia’s fear of the UIC. There is a good sized chunk of Ethiopia where the people are Somali. There has to be a not entirely unreasonable fear by the Ethiopian government that this area may decide to split off and join their cross-border brethren, much like Turkey fears a independent Kurdistan in Northern Iraq causing their own Kurdish population to (re)attempt a breakaway.

I have no idea how popular or widespread the whole pan-Somali movement is, but reading a bit of the history of the region gives some idea of the forces at work. At the centre of things is the Ogaden region in eastern Ethopia. Its people are mainly Somali Muslims. It was colonized by the British and after the Second World War, it was originally supposed to be joined with British and Italian Somaliland’s in a Greater Somalia. Instead, it was annexed by Ethiopia. Eritrea also found itself annexed by Ethiopia with the backing of Western powers, which led to a thirty year war of independence, and a couple of wars since.

Somalia fought two wars with Ethiopia trying to claim Ogaden as part of Somalia, and there is apparently still a separatist group fighting the Ethiopian government in the area.

The current fighting got going thanks to the US backing of a group of warlords opposed to the UIC. Current US complaints of parties violating arms embargoes when they sent equipment in themselves is a classic example of why people don’t trust the US anymore. When Somalis learned that foreigners were interfering with the conflict, they quickly moved to support the other side. As a result, the UIC quickly crushed the warlords in a few months of heavy fighting.

The US then shifted its backing to the virtually powerless, isolated, and internationally appointed and recognized transitional government, whose current survival depends almost entirely on support from Ethiopia, where, according to the Economist, the CIA is taking over large blocks in hotels to house their advisors to the Ethiopian government.

Whatever the sins of the Somali Islamists, the Ethiopian government is hardly any prize itself. Again from the Economist:

Mr Zenawi has turned Ethiopia into a police state. Many of the opposition are in prison on trumped-up charges carrying the death penalty. Tens of thousands of young Ethiopians were sent to prison camps after last year’s poll. A few still languish there; others have fled abroad. Several judges have defected, fearing for their safety.

The press has been crushed, foreign correspondents expelled and many journalists and editors put in jail. The government has hired foreign specialists to help it shut down dissident websites, tap telephones and track e-mails.

Ethiopia still has troops in Eritrea from their last border war, despite agreements that they were supposed to pull them out. Put everything together and a regional war begins to look likely.

The whole thing reeks of opportunism, at best, with a fair shake of much worse things, and I like a quote at the bottom of the BBC story:

Many Iranians must be wondering why they have the right to deny the Holocaust with impunity, but not to question their own leaders without risking jail, our correspondent says.

In recent months, newspapers have been closed, journalists jailed and students penalised for engaging in any sort of political activity in Iran.

It gives you a pretty good idea about just how much free speech actually means to the Iranian leadership. This is about “firing up the base” as they say, and nothing fires up a base constituency like the hatred of somebody else. The Israelis are basically the gays of the Middle East for the Arab regimes. (The gays themselves being the one thing both sides agree on.)

Anyway, the quote that I found to be quite an interesting one is this:

"Just as the USSR disappeared, soon the Zionist regime will disappear,"

Now I know that sounds bad, but once I got to thinking about it for awhile, I realized this may be an opportunity to solve the whole Arab-Israeli problem. Bear with me as I give you my simple (simplistic?) solution.

Many people have assumed that when Ahmadinejad calls for Israel to be "wiped off the map", he's talking about finishing what the Nazis started. However, when the USSR disappeared, it didn't take the people with it, it just dissolved the ruling government and the various territories under its control went their own ways under older names.

All the Israelis have to do is dissolve their government, leave the West Bank and Gaza to their own devices, and reform a new government and call themselves Judea.

The Palestinians get their own country, the Iranians and Arab leaders get to say Israel is "no more", and the Jewish people keep their homeland and military intact. Everybody gets what they say they want. Happy times all around.

Now I'll just sit back while they work out the details and wait for the Noble committee to give me a call.

Just how bad is your environmental record when an oil executive is scolding you about it?