Another assault on Fallujah? posted by Richard Seymour

U.S. and Iraqi forces are preparing another siege of Fallujah under the pretext of combating "terror", residents and officials say.

Located 69 km west of Baghdad, the city that suffered two devastating U.S. attacks in 2004 has watched security degrade over recent months.

"Ruling powers in the city fighting to gain full control seem willing to use the security collapse to accuse each other of either conspiracy (in lawlessness) or incapability of control," Sufian Ahmed, a lawyer and human rights activist in Fallujah told IPS.

"They suddenly changed their tone from saying that the city was the safest in Iraq to claiming that al-Qaeda is a serious threat. Fallujah residents know their so-called leaders are using security threats to terrify them for their own political interests."

Labels: 'surge', fallujah, iraq, iraqi resistance, US imperialism

Latest Iraqi Resistance Stats posted by Richard Seymour

The Brookings Institution provides regular updates on all statistics from Iraq in its 'Iraq Index'. It collates a range of different sources, and it isn't necessarily as authoritative as the official Department of Defense reports. However, it is more consistent in what data it presents and generally omits the Bush administration editorials. The latest report, dated 5 May 2008, is here. Here are some of the key results pertaining to resistance attacks (click to enlarge):








I already addressed the reported the issue of the 'surge' and its effects here and here. I noted that the main causes of a reduction in all kinds of attacks were: a) a brief cessation of the war between Sadr and Badr fighters; the near exhaustion of the sectarian war; b) Sadr's ceasefire; c) the co-opting of Sunni fighters in huge numbers. I also pointed out that the Bush administration had only succeeded in reducing the rate of anti-occupation violence by the precise amount that it had increased during the escalations in 2006-7. The statistics above more or less confirm this picture. (Gilbert Achcar, in an interesting discussion of the political background to the 'surge', also reinforces some of these points). They also suggest that US troop deaths fell to a very low rate in December 2007, and have been rising ever since (don't be misled by the drop at the end of the third chart, as that is the figure for the first four days in May). It is currently at a seven-month high. They confirm that the 'foreign fighter' contingent remains puny, about 2,000 at most - in a total insurgency that was estimated to be about 200,000 strong as early as January 2005, that is at most 1% of the total. As the US has been putting 'Iraqi security forces' in the frontline over the past couple of years - the strategy of 'Iraqification' - they are bearing the greater brunt of deaths. Those same 'Iraqi security forces' are, according to this report, carrying out a large number of the patrols - over half at some points, apparently. The pattern of 'Iraqification' has been maintained in Basra and Sadr City recently. The US is backing up said 'security forces' with air strikes that have contributed to the hundreds of deaths (this may actually be more bloody in the end than Fallujah). Partly because of this, the main cause of deaths among US troops is IEDs, rather than gun battles. Even with that in mind, the main gain of the 'surge' - a reduction in attacks on occupation troops - has been reversing for several months now. If the Sadrist militias have held out well enough to cause the government to want another truce, then the other expected gain - using a window of opportunity to smash the main anti-occupation forces - is unlikely to materialise.

Labels: 'surge', iraq, iraqi resistance, occupation, US imperialism

Turn off the lights: you don't want to see this. posted by Richard Seymour

As if it was necessary to dim the solar rays so that the Bush administration could carry on its massacres discreetly. What's the point, when you can simply seal off towns, bust them up, and then let a former green beret posing as a reporter follow you around as you point out evil-doers and evil-dones? From time to time, there is a glimmer of good news: the troops openly saying the war is 'unwinnable', for example; the all-too-late withdrawal of troops from Basra, for another. But, with Democrat complicity assured, and little sign as yet that the antiwar movement is going to emerge from that canopy under which all life withers and dies, the Bush administration is going for the kill. This report, based on media reports, says Iraqi death rates resulting from the war have doubled in the last year, probably in large part due to the 'surge'. Now, I think you may remember me pointing out that the death rate had, according to the Lancet survey, doubled every year since the occupation began. If that trend has indeed continued, then there have been 1.3m excess deaths as a result of the war as of two months ago. For all that, Bush is so absurdly confident that he provocatively raises comparisons with Vietnam, while Cheney pushes for aggression against Iran. He doesn't have to worry - it isn't as if anyone is going to impeach him for anything he's done. Hardly any of it is being reported, at any rate.

The number of US troops in Iraq is at an all-time high, and there are 180,000 mercenaries at work alongside them. We hear that their operations are only beginning. We hear that the US is very disappointed with the Maliki government, and that US officials are starting to worry that the Iraqis can't hack democracy. As usual, the racist assumptions are wheeled out in support of the claim. A senior Republican from the House Select Committee on Intelligence says that Iraqi culture simply doesn't prepare its people for self-government - and so the troops must stay indefinitely. (At least this accurately summarises US elite thinking: it is always more obscene when Bush pretends that it is the arguments of opponents of the war that Iraqis are unfit for self-government.) And meanwhile Iyad Allawi - the ruthless thug who oversaw the destruction of Fallujah - is putting himself forward as the solution, and is paying Washington lobbyists $300,000 to promote him (this is how the old 'exile' community used to do business, in fact, which is how Makiya and Chalabi ended up bonding with neocons and Christian fundamentalists).

So, anyway, with all this happening, will someone kindly answer the following: why should any military opposition to the US, even 'Al Qaeda', stop what they are doing? I don't wish to blur important distinctions, or imply that 'Al Qaeda' has a legitimate war, but consider Bush's remarks to the National Endowment for Democracy in October 2005:

Over the years, these extremists have used a litany of excuses for violence: Israeli presence on the West Bank or the U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia or the defeat of the Taliban or the crusades of a thousand years ago.

In fact, we're not facing a set of grievances that can be soothed and addressed. We're facing a radical ideology with unalterable objectives: to enslave whole nations and intimidate the world.

Set aside the fact that demoting the political aspects of an insurgency, and emphasising the allegedly irrational aspects is a classical technique of empire. This is a transparent case of projection: the reality is that the fanatical, adept, resourceful, devoted, imaginative and uncompromising servants of American power have for years used a litancy of excuses for violence. Their foes don't face a set of grievances that can be soothed or addressed. They intend to enslave whole nations and intimidate the world. No bribe, no soothing gesture, and no appeasement could compel them to stop. On Bush's logic, there is no reason for any group engaged in a war against the US to cease its activities, even if thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or into the millions of people are killed. Intransigence in the service of one's interests, however one chooses to moralise them, is evidently considered a virtue by American policy makers (hence, surely, the constant references to Frontier mythology and in particular to America's Last Stand). I realise that by saying this I don't add anything to mankind's sum of knowledge, but the United States government poses a far greater threat to what is called, without a trace of irony, civilisation, than any of its opponents, however unpleasant. Since this happens to be unambiguously the case, and understood worldwide if polls are any guide, the remaining supporters of the 'war on terror' in any of its aspects, have the unenviable distinction of being morally inferior by a very long shot to the supporters of 'Al Qaeda'.

Labels: 'surge', air war, escalation, iraq

Iraqi Resistance has its own 'surge' posted by Richard Seymour

A website recording Iraq Coalition Casualties marks a rapid rise in deaths and 'wounded in action' over the last two months, and the trend looks like it's continuing this month. The Washington Post today reports:

"It is very clear that the number of attacks against U.S. forces is up" and that they have grown more effective in Baghdad, especially in recent weeks, said Maj. Gen. James E. Simmons, deputy commander for operations in Iraq. At the same time, he said, attacks on Iraqi security forces have declined slightly, citing figures that compare the period of mid-February to mid-May to the preceding three months. "The attacks are being directed at us and not against other people," he said.

May, with 127 American fatalities, was the third-deadliest month for U.S. troops since the 2003 invasion. As in the conflict's two deadliest months for U.S. troops -- 137 died in November 2004 and 135 in April of that year -- the overarching cause of May's toll is the ongoing, large-scale U.S. military operations.

The death rates are up not only because the number of attacks against troops has risen, but also because of more sophisticated weapons (improved IEDs, largely) and organisation. Lt Gen Ricardo Sanchez, who led US troops into Iraq, now says the US can forget about winning.

Labels: 'surge', 'war on terror', coalition, iraqi resistance, occupation