The Weekly Standard's Michael Goldfarb attacks my analysis for Inter Press Service of the administration's "proxy war" argument in Iraq, which points out that Gen. Petraeus's Congressional testimony last week embraced the official line that Iran is using its elite "Quds force" in Iraq to mold the Shiites into a proxy force to fight U.S. troops, only to contradict it later by saying that that the Quds force had been withdrawn from Iraq.
Goldfarb insists that the full text of Petraeus's answer "directly contradicts" my analysis and that actually supported the official propaganda line.
Really? Here's the text of the entire question and answer in question, as published by the Standard:
REP. HUNTER: Just one final question. You have mentioned -- and we're all familiar with -- Ambassador Crocker's team and their meetings with the Iranians. You mentioned early on that -- both of you, I believe -- that military equipment -- that deadly military equipment continues to flow from Iran. Has that flow increased or decreased since your meetings?GEN. PETRAEUS: We believe that it has increased, at least based on the number of explosively formed projectile attacks, in particular, and to a lesser degree, rocket attacks. It's tough to tell how long it takes to get it all the way into the pipeline. There was a brief drop-off for a couple of weeks , but it appears that that is increasing. And we do not see a sign of that abating, nor do we see signs of the training or other activity, although the Qods Force itself -- we believe, by [and] large, those individuals have been pulled out of the country, as have the Lebanese Hezbollah trainers that were being used to augment that activity.
You can see that Goldfarb has a problem trying to defend the integrity of the "proxy war" line in the face of this answer. Petraeus gave an essentially ambiguous answer to the question of whether there has been an increase in military equipment flowing into Iraq ("It's tough to tell how long it takes to get it all way into the pipeline") and then noted that the Shiite militia have launched more EFP and rocket attacks.
But that fact obviously has no bearing on the "proxy war" argument. That argument turns on the deployment of Quds force personnel in Iraq and their interacting with the Shiite militias who are supposed to be whipped into shape to be the Iraqi Hezbollah. Here's Petraeus's formulation of the argument, as found on page 5 of his prepared statement: "It is increasingly apparent to both coalition and Iraqi leaders that Iran, through the use of the Quds 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."
So Petraeus's statement that "those individuals have been pulled out of the country" dealt a serious blow to the credibility of the whole "proxy war" argument.
Even before this Petraeus statement, some evidence had seeped through cracks of the propaganda system to indicate that the whole idea that the Quds force has been feverishly working with Shiite militias to kill Americans was a falsehood. Despite the fact that the U.S. military command has arrested and interrogated a number of alleged leaders of the Iraqi network that is alleged to have been created by the Quds force, it has not captured or even identified a single Iranian official in Iraq who has been working on the transfer of weapons to them. On July 6, Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, commander of U.S. operations south of Baghdad, admitted to reporters, in answer to a question, that his troops had not captured "anybody that we can tie to Iran".
And in another unreported revelation, U.S. command spokesman Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner let slip in answering a question during a briefing on July 2 that the Iranians had left the training of Shiite militias in Iraq to Hezbollah, because Hezbollah could "do things that perhaps they didn't want to have to do themselves in terms of interacting directly with special groups [emphasis added]".
So contrary to the proxy war line, the Quds force has been avoiding direct relations with the Shiite forces they are supposed to be turning into an Iranian catspaw. Apparently Iran is not so stupid as to offer the Bush administration an excuse to carry out a bombing attack against it.
Other propaganda themes on Iraq advanced by Petraeus in recent months may have helped the Bush administration's political position, but the proxy war theme is in serious trouble, and the squirming at the Weekly Standard over my article may be seen as one indicator of its distress.
Is Petraeus not arming Sunnis to fight persons he deems "bad guys"? If that isn't fighting a proxy (civil) war, then what is it?
A question, though. The Iran/shaped charge thing keeps coming up. I thought the crux regarding those charges, as used in IEDs, was the know-how, not the place of assembly. If that's so, then what matters is knowledge, not physical hand-offs. Can someone elucidate?
Come they told me, pa rum pum pum pum
A born again King to see, pa rum pum pum pum
Our greatest treasures we bring, pa rum pum pum pum
To lay wasted by our King, pa rum pum pum pum,
rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum,
So shame on him, pa rum pum pum pum,
When we come.
Little baby, pa rum pum pum pum
We are sad boys too, pa rum pum pum pum
But he had war to bring, pa rum pum pum pum
He's unfit to be King, pa rum pum pum pum,
rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum,
He still plays for you, pa rum pum pum pum,
On his war drum?
People nodded, pa rum pum pum pum
The warhawks and sheep kept time, pa rum pum pum pum
And he played his war drum loud for them, pa rum pum pum pum
He played his fear drum loud for them, pa rum pum pum pum,
rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum,
Now we shrug in horror at him, pa rum pum pum pum
King George's war drum.
pa rum pum pum pum
pa rum pum pum pum
pa rum pum pum pum
pa rum pum pum pum
Iran war pum pum pum
pa rum pum pum pum
pa rum pum pum pum
pa rum pum pum pum
pa rum pum pum pum
repeat...
If war crimes isn't enough to make people willing to stand up to the neo-con artists, how about someone just arresting them for conspiracy to commit murder?
GW, Cheney and their cronies answer to no one, least of all the milling peons of the common American citizenry.
Unfortunately, though, you work for one, and that's the great curse of being a General. You have to look this hapless, criminal nitwit squarely in the eye, stand ramrod straight and say, "Sir! Yes sir!" because, like it or not, he is your Commanding Officer. You have to do what he says to the best of your ability.
You can see it on this General's face, just as you have seen it on the face of a great many other commanders who have since chosen a quiet and honorable retirement. It's a helluva way to end your career.
I still vividly remember Gen. Colin Powell. One helluva General, so I'm told, good in the field and good to his men. Became Secretary of State, tried to do a good job there, stuck with it. Only spoke his mind once. Has such a sense of duty, obviously, that he will probably continue to keep his thoughts to himself. As if he really needed to speak up, because everyone else is thinking those same thoughts without any need for prompting...
Helluva way to end your career. Sir.
Believe it or not, you can have an arsenal of ten thousand nuclear bombs and still be swiftly "put down and put out." If the USA permits itself to continue to be seen as the world's most threatening and uncontrollable rogue-nation, eventually it will discover for itself just what happens to rogues.
And I am quite certain that the American people do not want that; that they never wanted that. You see, it's one thing to buy a flag or to stick a yellow-ribbon decal on the bumper of your car ... quite another thing to watch the troop-trains roll by with your son, or daughter, or even your own self(!) on it. {If you're anywhere between the ages of 18 and 42, by the way, male or female, you can "go." The legislation is already in the House.}
What we have here, ladies and gentlemen, is a cabal of criminals spread throughout all three branches of our government: something that the Founders did not think could realistically happen. They gave us the Impeachment Clause and expected us to use it for its intended purpose.
The real problem here, of course, is "good ol' do-re-mi." War is big business, and there's not a man or woman in DC or its surrounds that is not by now thoroughly corrupted by its golden (or, black and oily) touch.
And it's going to come down to this: do we actually "throw these b*stards out" and prosecute them ... or do we lose our beloved country?
They expect us to take them at their word despite the well documented failures, false claims and outright lies they told leading up to the Iraq invasion.
Pre-emptively attacking another nation on false evidence is a war crime. If the neocon media blitz doesn't convince Americans about a clear and present danger as they did with Iraq, their legal defense that "everybody believed Iran was a threat" won't protect them from prosecution.
Protection from the American justice system is paramount for these ideologues. They do not fear the Hague, but won't risk prosecution here.
Every statement and claim they make must by viewed skeptically. Media reports must be scrutinized for the tactics used in the run up to the war in Iraq. Complacency by Congress must not be tolerated.
Not up on all the lingo yet. Sorry
Will come back later
thanx, pwm
It's a group of moderate/conservative Dems. There're members in Congress, but it's not a congressional group, I don't think. Harold Ford, Jr (TN) is the president.