JOURNAL: Baghdad under Siege

The New York Times reports that Iraq's global guerrillas have begun a siege on the systems that support Baghdad.  Again, global guerrillas proves to be the best source of insight into this unfolding conflict. 

Insurgent attacks to disrupt Baghdad's supplies of crude oil, gasoline, heating oil, water and electricity have reached a degree of coordination and sophistication not seen before, Iraqi and American officials say.  The new pattern, they say, shows that the insurgents have a deep understanding of the complex network of pipelines, power cables and reservoirs feeding Baghdad, the Iraqi capital.

As anticipated by this author, the guerrilla's two-pronged campaign has put the government on the horns of a dilemma:

Sabah Kadhim, a senior official at the Iraqi Interior Ministry, said he believed the sabotage was part of a larger, two-faceted plan that included the terror operations that have killed so many Iraqis over the last two years.  The new pattern of sabotage, he said, lays the groundwork for chaos - a deeply resentful populace, the appearance of government ineffectuality, a halt to major business and industrial activities. The second side - the suicide bombings, assassinations and kidnappings - he said, is aimed in large measure at sowing discord among ethnic and religious groups.  "And I think they, honestly, stand a better chance with the first than the second," Mr. Kadhim said.

This is a classic global guerrilla urban takedown.  Swarms of attackers hit systempunkts to cause infrastructure meltdowns aimed at social disruption.  This global guerrilla neo-blitzkrieg will not be something the overstretched Iraqi government and US forces will be able to counter.  Good luck guys, you are going to need it. 

Comments

[Dimitar Vesselinov]

The Columbianization of Iraq

"Between the realm of the failed state and the functioning, if not always healthy, nation, there lies the semi-state. A semi-state can be defined as a state which does not reach its internationally recognized borders. Within its control it fulfills the basic requirement being the fact on the ground, however, there are significant regions which would have been called 'palitinates' in English legal theory circa 1400 - that is, regions were 'the king's writ doth not hold'. In our post-feudal world, the easy acceptance of this idea is harder to come by, and yet there are a number of states that have come to a relative stablity as semi states: Zaire, Columbia, Pakistan - states with organized counter-government apparatus that have effective control of territory, and some degree of recognition from the 'central government'.

The title of the post is intentionally Ironic, and perhaps Iranic as well - Columbia after all means peace. And that is what Iraq will be seeking above all else - enough peace to begin development and exploitation of the oil reserves - which are what this entire active of the Great Game is about."

In short, Iraq is about to Columbi-ize, and there is very little that will be done to stop it."

http://www.bopnews.com/archives/002872.html#2872

[Cardenio]

What I wonder sometimes is do they really want to ' handle this right ' ? With an on going insurgency, we have to stay there, it's just a matter of things not getting too expensive.

[Thinker]

The Los Angeles Times article, "Violence Trumps Rebuilding in Iraq" (February 21, 2005), which begins,

"Skyrocketing security costs have forced American officials here to slash about $1 billion from projects intended to rebuild Iraq's shattered infrastructure, dealing another blow to U.S. plans to pacify Iraq by improving basic services..."

and states:

"When Congress initially approved $18.4 billion in November 2003 to help rebuild Iraq, the majority of the money was intended to improve electrical and water systems, which had suffered from years of neglect during United Nations-imposed sanctions. But the reconstruction program has struggled to take off in the face of violent attacks, intimidation of workers and allegations of fraud.

"In the face of spiraling violence, reconstruction officials have shifted funds during the last few months to improve security. Now, the largest chunk of money, about $5 billion, pays for weapons, uniforms and other equipment to help Iraqi forces quell the insurgency."

essentially is a different way of looking at the same phenomonn as the New York Times Article.

[dialectic]

A convergence:

Cardenio asks, "What I wonder sometimes is do they really want to ' handle this right ' ? "

Next, Thinker points out that so-called "reconstruction funds" are being siphoned off to purchase military hardware to support "security" in Iraq.

And who calls all the shots (no pun intended) when it comes to WHICH military hardware is purchased, and from WHOM? Why the Pentagon, of course, acting on behalf of the US military-industrial complex.

Ergo: gigantic amounts of money are being denied to Iraqi reconstructions projects, and instead are being recycled into the bank accounts of US weapons corporations.

So Cardenio's question arises anew;

"What I wonder sometimes is do they really want to ' handle this right ' ? "

A provisional answer might consider that, no, they don't want to 'handle this right.'

Or, to put it in the obverse; siphoning off the mega-bucks IS handling it right, seen from the perspective of the Pentagon, its US arms manufacturing constituency, and the Wall Street Investment banks on whose ultimate behalf the entire game is cycling 'round and 'round.

[Valdis]

The NYT article supports and confirms what John has been blogging for the last 12 months. But why no mention of John or the GG blog? Is that journalist aware of this blog? It basically writes the story for him...

[b]

@dialctic

The money is only one path to follow.

There is the security of Israel, there is the concept of "divide et impera" - push them into tribal fights (they didn´t even know about their tribes/religious devide before being pushed into it), kill their coherance and get their resources (oil, strategic position).

Two reading tips:

1. Oded Yinon - A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties written 1982

URL:
http://www.the7thfire.com/new_world_order/zionism/zionist_plan_for_the_middle_east.htm

"Every kind of inter-Arab confrontation will assist us in the short run and will shorten the way to the more important aim of breaking up Iraq into denominations as in Syria and in Lebanon. In Iraq, a division into provinces along ethnic/religious lines as in Syria during Ottoman times is possible. So, three (or more) states will exist around the three major cities: Basra, Baghdad and Mosul, and Shi'ite areas in the south will separate from the Sunni and Kurdish north. It is possible that the present Iranian-Iraqi confrontation will deepen this polarization"

2. Practice to Deceive - Chaos in the Middle East is not the Bush hawks' nightmare scenario--it's their plan.
By Josh Marshall 2003

URL: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/0304.marshall.html

It's the NeoCon plan; and from their view it is still operative.

(and no, I am not anti-semitic, though I may act against states that sees some kind of "religion" as their unnegotiable base. Now what states come to mind?)

[dialectic]

b wrote :

"The money is only one path to follow."

I am in complete agreement. My first post commented on the dimension of finance capital and its interests simply because I was replying the posts by Cardenio and Thinker. You are correct, of course, that the dynamic is MUCH more extensive than the mere generation of profits in the war-production sector of North American industry.

Nevertheless, I would suggest that the crisis in the world financial system is the key modulating element of the world-wide political-economic restructuring currently underway. I won't do more than suggest that fact, because I don't want to overly hijack the thread. I will only close this comment by adding: as Trotsky said that war is the engine of revolution, it can usefully be considered that the crisis in the production and reproduction of the social relations of extreme indebtedness (valorization crisis) is the engine of imperialist invasion.

b also wrote :

"Chaos in the Middle East is not the Bush hawks' nightmare scenario--it's their plan."

Precisely correct. "Chaos" is not a problem for the Bush hawks. Rather, it is the SOLUTION to what will otherwise be much worse, much more intractable problems. If the New World (fascist) Order falters, Enron-type disasters will hit deep into the top-most elite sectors - the top 2% - of the international finance-controller class; the people Chomsky refers to as "The Masters of Mankind.” It is for the personal gain of those people - and the major capital accumulations of which they are personifications - that the horror in the Middle East is being perpetrated.

[Fred Schoeneman]

John,

I agree with you that as long as the US and the Iraqi forces are fighting defensively, they'll lose. More to the point, they can't win: He who defends everywhere defends nowhere, and certainly this is nowhere more true than in the case of pipelines and infrastructure.

Which means we'll have to change the battlefield.

With the recent elections (and positive happenings in Egypt and Lebanon) we may have to change our way of thinking. What if the new battlefield isn't in the Iraqi pocketbook, but in the Iraqi mind? What if Western ideology (Democracy, free speech, ect) is now winning against Islamist ideology?

I've always believed that we have better ideas and better people supporting them. We may be putting them on the defensive, politically, so I'm holding onto my hope of victory.

f

[dialectic]

‘f’ wrote:

“I've always believed that we have better ideas and better people supporting them.”

That’s certainly a nice and comforting theory. Just one small problem: it doesn’t correlate with the facts as many, many people throughout the world see them. And there is little to no evidence that most people fail to agree that American ideology is “better” simply on the basis that they, themselves, are ‘blinded’ by a different ideology.

Rather, it seems clear that huge – and growing – numbers of people across the globe are starting to realize that the nice sounding words and concepts of American ideology are smokescreens for the increasingly naked and rapacious greed of US and British finance capital.

The promulgation of ideology – propaganda – is extremely expensive. The US neoCon elite has recognized that fact. While continuing to mouth the “freedom” meme to a small degree, they have concluded – sadly but unfortunately – that naked aggression is cheaper, and provides a superior return on investment.

For the US ruling class has never wanted anything like actual freedom, but instead has only wanted compliant, client regimes of repression. However, it was precisely the growing “inefficiency” of America’s beloved dictators that has crucially contributed to the world political/economic re-structuring known as the New World Order, or the American Imperium, if you prefer. From Manuel Noriega in Panama to pre-1990 Saddam himself, the US has installed, supported, and protected those who would crush the legitimate aspirations of their people. And why? To maximize the efficiency of corporate market policies, that’s why.

But before too long, the stability of dictators begins to ‘wobble.’ Stresses and tensions force them to initiate certain policies of self-preservation, which often have the effect of disturbing the internal stabilization programs so beloved by Wall Street (i.e., IMF-imposed “Structural Adjustment Programs,” etc.). Shortly thereafter, enter the U.S. Marine Corps.

So the “battlefield” referred to by f, above, has, essentially, next to nothing to do with “winning” Iraq over to freedom, but everything to do with enhancing the extraction of resources, and thus the accumulation of capital.

Inherently, the “battlefield” cannot be changed, nor can any significant resources be devoted to addressing the needs of the majority of the world’s population, because each and every known way of doing so cuts into – reduces – the accumulation of capital as such.

The Washington neoCons understand that even better than ‘critics’ such as myself. Their belief system tells them that it’s a loot-and-grab world, and so they are simply determined to do it. Fig leafs such as the rhetoric of ‘democracy’ still retain some small degree of effectiveness, especially for scamming US domestic opinion. Beyond that, however, ‘democracy’ is simply a sick joke in their hands.

[Fred Schoeneman]

Dear "Dialectic,"

I must commend your profligate use of "quotations." They are extremely "effective" in making your "point."

What I'm suggesting is that this war will be won or lost in the battlefield of public opinion -- both here in America and on the "Arab Street" -- and not just by the achievement or denial of certain limited tactical objectives. I find Mr. Robb's Global Guerilla framework to be useful within the larger discussion of how we will or will not win this war, but by no means a comprehensive one.

At any rate, while I'm sure we can agree to disagree about the value of western ideology as a force multiplier or whatever, I'll argue that for lack of a better alternative, it is doomed to succeed in the face of Mr. Bin Laden and Mr. Zarqawi's ideology which, though it may hold some kind of attraction for those interested in some nebulous version of the Caliphate, is popularly confused with beheadings, murder, thuggery, and a return to the stone age. Arabs may not like us and our Big Macs and our tiny American penises, but as we're seeing in Lebanon, Iran, and other places in the Middle East, they want some of our freedoms.

Every party needs a pooper, though, so drive on with a hardon.

f

[dialectic]

Well, “ f, ” I would have thought we might have been starting a dialogue, or even a debate, until you made the simply unfortunate and entirely unnecessary allusion in your last sentence. If that really was intended as a personal put-down of myself, then you ought to be ashamed. Frankly, although I obviously disagree with the points you made in your initial posting, I thought they – and you – were worthy of a reasoned response. I now wonder if I was correct in proceeding on the basis of that assumption.

Nonetheless I will respond to the points you brought up in your second posting, and in light of any reply you might make to what follows, it shall be determined whether or not you are willing – or capable – of refraining from casting aspersions.

But before I begin, allow me to add that I do not mind the cute little “jibe” you made about my tendency to “put” lots “of” words in “quotation marks.” Indeed, my fingers are prone to “wander” over the “the” right side of the “keyboard” too often. So point taken. Still, I shall not entirely cease my use of the “quote” technique, but may, hopefully, be inspired to reduce its frequency.

‘f’ wrote :

“I find Mr. Robb's Global Guerilla framework to be useful within the larger discussion of how we will or will not win this war, but by no means a comprehensive one.”

I too find John Robb’s Global Guerilla (GG) framework, as you put it – or Thesis, as I prefer to call it – useful as one of the important analytic tools for comprehending the modern world system. However, its context is essentially tactical, or delimited in scope, and consequently calls for continual ‘upgrading’ relative to the larger cycles in force on the current world-historical stage. Thus, to take one such cycle, the GG Thesis has no relevance, in my opinion, if abstracted from the international circuits of finance capital. The entire Iraq adventure, for example, is inexplicable without taking reference to the valorization and liquidity crunches taking place on a regular basis in the energy trading sector. Similarly, the GG Thesis, in my view, calls for consistent application to matters associated with the world-wide overhang of U.S. indebtedness, and the degree to which vulnerabilities relative to U.S. central bank exposure to attacks on the value of the U.S. dollar constitute what John Robb calls “systempunkts,” or ‘points of vulnerability.’ The GG Thesis can expand our understanding of those issues, but has very little use outside, or abstracted from, such contexts.

So I don’t think the GG Thesis is very useful at all “within the larger discussion of how we will or will not win this war.” Although it appears to have been formulated for the purpose of understanding the new conditions of prosecuting wars – both tactically as well as strategically – it manifestly falls flat in that intention, for the “winning” of wars, considered in a limited sense, is itself a concept lacking in meaning unless extended outward into the sphere of the world-wide economic re-structuring – “globalization” – rapidly proceeding in every corner of the globe.

Case in point: the unrest, or guerilla war, currently developing in Southern Thailand. The GG Thesis explains nothing unless we consider the massive infusion of global investment capital that is pouring into that region.

But if we consider that the conditions “on the ground” in Southern Thailand are intrinsically connected to valorization pressures currently unfolding on Wall Street and the City of London, then all of a sudden, I suggest, the field becomes explicable as an instance of the interconnected cycle of resistance to imperialism, at which point the GG Thesis starts to explain a lot.

By now it may have become clear where we disagree in a wider sense. You appear to speak of “the war” as being a viable. or at any rate, legitimate, enterprise. In contrast, my position is that the war on “terrorism” is intrinsically illegitimate. There is, in fact, no war on terrorism, but only a massive repositioning of world capital flows which utilize terrorist methods to accentuate cycles of accumulation. The U.S. has intervened in scores of regions since the end of WWII in support of “stable investment climates” for its industrial and finance capital interests. What is called “terrorism” by the U.S. imperialist propaganda system is, essentially, resistance by autonomous people against the colonization and decimation of their cultures and lands by western capital. To be sure, those movements of resistance are frequently hijacked by retrograde elements; e.g., religious fundamentalism of the al Quaeda type, or ideological fanaticism of the Pol Pot type. Nevertheless, the root of the problem of lack of stability and a humane world-wide social order lies not in forms of resistance to economic predation, but rather in the motives and actions of the aggressor element – namely, the capitalist drive to conquer and dominate resources and as yet untapped pools of cheap labor.

Thus, my view is that what you refer to as “this war” has, and will continue to have, next to nothing to do with the “battlefield of public opinion,” whether “here in America” or on the “Arab Street.” Granted that propaganda can and does galvanize material forces. But such ‘galvanization’ is at best a secondary manifestation. The primary, driving engine of the war is the world-wide drive of capital into every sector of human life. THAT is the prime moving element in the world system today, and struggles over what is euphemistically called the “battle-space of hearts and minds” constitutes a rapidly dissolving fig leaf for naked aggression. The neoCons do not care – and can not care – about public opinion in the “Arab Street” or anywhere else, but only about breaking the back, and breaking the will, of the man (and woman) in the Arab Street. Fallujah showed that loud and clear.

You wrote:

“I'll argue that for lack of a better alternative, it [western ideology] is doomed to succeed in the face of Mr. Bin Laden and Mr. Zarqawi's ideology.”

Those two murderous bastards and their putative ‘ideology’ have absolutely nothing to do with the core, driving element of the “war” on terrorism. Pretending that they are the actual enemy of peace and a humane world system is as fallacious as pretending that the original, motivating cause of the invasion and conquest of Iraq was to rid the world of weapons of mass destruction.

I keep forgetting; how many metric tons of weapons of mass destruction have been pulled out of Iraq?

Mr. ‘f,’ I don’t know anybody who actually, sincerely falls for the bin Laden/Zarqawi bogyman scam anymore. As horrible as the acts of those two criminals are (including that other criminal, Saddam), their crimes disappear into virtual nothingness when compared to the slaughter perpetrated against the people of Iraq ever since 1991.

I would suggest, in opposition to the simplistic formula that the enemies of western ideology are types such as bin Laden and Zarqawi, that western ideology is, itself, the central enemy of peace and justice. Because what is blithely referred to as ‘western ideology’ has long since been hijacked by the capitalist forces of rapacious expropriation. Notwithstanding its ‘democratic, free-market’ façade, the actions of western ideology belie its mask. Not “freedom” is being exported, but cruise missiles, high-tech torture devices, and ‘smart’ bombs.

You wrote:

“ . . . as we're seeing in Lebanon, Iran, and other places in the Middle East, they want some of our freedoms.”

Here I will partly agree. It is true that in places like Iran they want freedom. I am entirely in support of more freedom for those people; LOTS more. Ideally, the human species will get rid of ALL its Ayatollah’s. Not only its Islamist Ayatollahs, but also its Christian Ayatollahs (pastors, ministers, priests), its Jewish Ayatollahs (rabbis), etc. etc.

But for every people chafing under the yoke of brutal and retrograde feudal-type regimes, there are, I will aver, ten times more being crushed under the regime of wage-slavery known as the “free” world market. So it’s not “our” freedoms that are wanted by most people, but freedom completely. Ask the people of Egypt, or Jordan, America’s friends and brilliant practitioners of torture, if they are free living in what are officially considered in Washington as “outposts of liberty.” I would suggest that if anyone was truly in favor of freedom, they would join the movement against the IMF Structural-Adjustment-Programs like, yesterday.

Did I cover it all?

Have you found any snide insinuations in this response, comparable to that last sentence in your post?

I don’t think you can find any, for there are none.

Have a nice day, ‘f.’

[bobmarley]

This site scanned by fbi! I visit http://www.terrorism.unlimited.to and they scan my computer and call me!

[b]

“ . . . as we're seeing in Lebanon, Iran, and other places in the Middle East, they want some of our freedoms.”

Oh, you "own" freedoms. It is your freedoms, it is the U.S.'s freedoms and they want some of it.

So how much are they willing to pay you for your freedoms?
/sarcasm

"they want some of our freedoms" shows the misconception of some U.S. thinking. People will define and take what they value as their freedoms. No need to give your freedoms (delivered by F-16s?).
The Vietnamese did so, and the Iraqis will do so too.

[Fred Schoeneman]

Dialectic,

I don't think there's much evidence to support the idea of a labor/owner class struggle in the Middle East. And that's what your argument boils down to. Because the truth is that the Arabs don't have to work, all they have to do is figure out a way to equitably distribute their oil revenues fairly among themselves for the next fifty years, until it all goes dry, after which time they (hopefully) will continue to educate themselves and become players in the information economy. Or something like that. The Egyptian Fellahin are not the lumpenproletariat, and the Marxist Leninist framework is not really pertinent to the Middle East -- if it was ever pertinent anywhere in the world.

Western liberal values -- which I'll define as a free press, freedom of religion, separation of church and state, representative democracy, and Internet pornography -- represent the best hope of mankind. The United States represents the expeditionary wing of those values. Sure, people get hurt here, but a lot more of them thrive.

Another thing is that religion isn't the enemy. And for a Rabbi to be an Ayatollah, or for a priest to be an Ayatollah, there needs to be church or synagogue control of the state, which doesn't exist in the west. And though Israel has official linkages with Judaism (obviously) the people who run the governement there are basically secular -- unlike the real Ayatollah.

Anyways, good luck.

[Fred Schoeneman]

Dear B,

That's not the argument that I made. Take your Ritalin.

f