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UPDATES: July 26, 2005
Dear Friends and Colleagues,
Sometimes it takes a long time for the good ideas to filter up to those in power.
We have been saying for ages (or for almost four years) that you can't fight "the war on terrorism" because terrorism is not an adversary, it is a tactic used by an adversary. We have also been saying that addressing and alleviating the root causes that lead groups to use terrorist tactics will take more than military might.
Well, it sounds like someone finally listened. The New York Times reported today (July 26, 2005) that "U.S. Officials Retool Slogan for Terror War," noting that "in recent speeches and news conferences, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and the nation's senior military officer have spoken of 'a global struggle against violent extremism" rather than "the global war on terror,' which had been the catchphrase of choice."
Got it? Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism. G-SAVE. Global-SAVE. Nice acronym!!
The article goes on to say in that the eyes of administration officials, GWOT- or "global war on terrorism," "may have outlived its usefulness, because it focused attention solely, and incorrectly, on the military campaign."
Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the National Press Club on Monday that the threat should be defined as violent extremists, with the recognition that "terror is the method they use."
It is about time. Now their message is "retooled," how about they "retool" their methods?
In this update:
I. The War Hits Home, Again
II. Iraq: New Casualty Figures
III. Thou Shalt Not Ask Questions?
IV. U.S. Casualties
V. Bring The Troops Home
I. THE WAR HITS HOME, AGAIN
Despite President Bush's repeated assertions that we are fighting the terrorists in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere ''so we do not have to face them here at home," terrorist acts outside Iraq continue unabated.
In early July, fifty-six people were killed in London by four bombs set off in the transit system. The city was terrorized again two weeks later by four small explosions in subways. A suicide bombing at Egypt's Sharm el-Sheik resort killed more than 60 people on Saturday July 23. Now Americans- and people throughout the world- are wondering what will happen next. In the days following the London and Sharm el-Sheik attacks, New York City's Penn Station was evacuated because of a bomb threat, and five men were arrested on one of the city's double-decker tour bus after their "erratic behavior" worried tour directors.
But the war never left, did it? It was always ours and we have felt it-in the thousands of American dead and wounded, in the tens of thousands of the veterans returning traumatized and angry, in the budget cuts and the ramped up rhetoric. We have felt the war in the gap between the promised democratization project in Iraq and the reality of mounting civilian and military casualties.
But now, the fear of war has hit home - lurking on every subway platform, and hinted at in even the slightest departure from normal routines. This has put law enforcement authorities on dangerous, hair-trigger alert. For example, Jean Charles de Menezes, the 27 year old Brazilian immigrant who had nothing to do with the London bombings, was shot and killed by London police in part because he wore a heavy winter coat despite the summer heat. It is worth noting that the U.S. House of Representatives voted to make most elements of the Patriot Act permanent on the heels of the second wave of London explosions.
FIGHTING THEM THERE?
As the war gets closer, it seems time to put one of the central myths of the war on terrorism to rest once and for all. As Peter Bergen, a terrorism expert with the New America Foundation, notes, for administration officials to say, "we must fight them in Baghdad so we do not have to fight them in Boston implies there a finite number of people and if you pen them in Iraq, you can kill them all." It is not possible, and in fact, continues Bergen, "we increased the pool by what we did in Iraq."
Bergen is not alone in this assessment. There are a rash of sober documents underlining just that point- how the war on terrorism is being waged creates the conditions and the rationales for more terrorism.
The CIA says it. In their January 2005 "Mapping the Global Future," the Agency's National Intelligence Council found that the war in Iraq provides terrorists with "a training ground, a recruitment ground, an opportunity for enhancing technical skills." In short, the war is "the training ground for the next generation of 'professionalize' terrorists."
Analysts at an Israeli think tank studied the cases of 154 foreign Arab fighters who were killed after traveling to Iraq to participate in the insurgency. The picture they compile of a foreign insurgent is both surprising and disturbing. More than half the foreign fighters researchers collected information on were Saudis from "respected and well known tribes or families." Most of the Saudi fighters were "25-30 years old and married," and a number were "highly educated." According to analysts Reuven Paz, the Syrian, Kuwaiti and Jordanian fighters were also mostly "from wealthy or upper middle class families" and "the vast majority of those killed in Iraq had never taken part in any terrorist activity prior to their arrival in Iraq."
As Paz elaborated, most of the foreign fighters "had nothing to do with Al Qaeda before September 11 and have nothing to do with Al Qaeda today. I am not sure the American public is really aware of the enormous influence of the war in Iraq, not just on Islamists but the entire Arab world."
President Bush seems to be one of those unaware people. In a late June speech aimed at addressing decreasing support for the war in Iraq, President Bush made the connection between the insurgency in Iraq and Al Qaeda, saying "some of the violence you see in Iraq is being carried out by ruthless killers who are converging on Iraq to fight the advance of peace and freedom* Our military reports that we have killed or captured hundreds of foreign fighters in Iraq who have come from Saudi Arabia and Syria, Iran, Egypt, Sudan, Yemen, Libya and others. They are making common cause with criminal elements, Iraqi insurgents, and remnants of Saddam Hussein's regime who want to restore the old order."
But, foreign fighters are not the only ones carrying out attacks in Iraq. Anthony Cordesman, a former director of intelligence assessment in the Defense Department, notes that most intelligence estimates put foreign fighters at around 5% of the total. Cordesman sees this overemphasis on the foreign nature of the insurgency as a key flaw, arguing that while Bush "correctly referred to hundreds of foreign fighters, their horrifying extremism, and the very real threat they pose," he "totally failed to mention the thousands of native Iraqis that make up the core of the insurgency, [and] the fact we have only some 600 foreign detainees out a total of 14,000 [detainees]."
"Iraq's Evolving Insurgency," a report produced by Cordesman's Center for Strategic and International Studies, includes estimates of insurgent attacks between September 2003 and October 2004 categorized by target. It reveals that three-quarters of the attacks were on the occupation forces; the next most targeted group was the Iraqi police (4.8% of the attacks).
RESOURCES:
IRAQ'S EVOLVING INSURGENCY, by Anthony H. Cordesman, with Patrick Baetjer
Center for Strategic and International Studies, Working Draft: Updated as of May 19, 2005
Iraq New Terror Breeding Ground, by Dana Priest, Washington Post, January 14, 2005
ARAB VOLUNTEERS KILLED IN IRAQ: AN ANALYSIS, by Reuven Paz, PRISM Series of Global Jihad, March 2005
Study Cites Seeds of Terror in Iraq: War Radicalized Most, Probes Find, by Bryan Bender, Sunday, July 17, 2005, The Boston Globe
The Wrong War, by Peter Bergen, Mother Jones, July 1, 2004
II. IRAQ: NEW CASUALTY FIGURES
Even as the casualties of the war on terrorism spread to the United Kingdom and Egypt, independent researchers have released new figures for civilian casualties in Iraq. The Oxford Research Group and Iraq Body Count collaborated on a DOSSIER OF CIVILIAN CASUALTIES, finding that 24,865 Iraqi civilians were killed between March 2003 and March 2005.
During that two-year period, U.S. and coalition forces were responsible for 37% of the deaths, another 36% of deaths were the result of criminal violence. Insurgent attacks were responsible for just 9% of the deaths, but the researchers added that all indications point towards a long-term trend of increased insurgent attacks.
And increasing they are* The Los Angeles Times reported on July 23rd that senior defense officials expect that violent suicide and roadside bombings will continue at a rate of 65 daily - nearly 500 a week. The officials, outlining the U.S.-led coalition's latest intelligence assessment of security in Iraq, predict that the rebel forces are banking on a coalition withdrawal that will allow them to eventually take power once support for the Iraqi government wanes.
reports.iraqbodycount.org
III. THOU SHALT NOT ASK QUESTIONS?
And, as an amusing aside (if there can be such a thing when we are talking about civilian casualties) Russell Mokhiber, a muck-raking reporter and thorn in the side of White House spokesman Scott McLellan (and Ari Fleischer's before him) asked the following question at a Feb. 1, 2005 White House Press Briefing.
"Scott, last night, in an amicus brief filed before the U.S. Supreme Court, the Justice Department came down in favor of displaying the Ten Commandments at courthouses and statehouses around the country. My question is - does the President believe in Commandment Number Six - thou shalt not kill - as it applies to the U.S. invasion of Iraq?"
Scott McClellan: Go ahead, next question.
IV. U.S. CASUALTIES
On July 25th, the New York Times reported that official U.S. casualty figures have reached 1,768. One of the latest to be killed was nineteen-year-old LaVena L. Johnson, from Florissant, Missouri.
LaVena was an Army weapons supply manager who would have turned 20 on July 27th. Instead she died on July 19th, of what the military is calling a "non-combat-related" death as a result of "self-inflicted injuries," but they are not terming it a "suicide." The St. Louis Post says that the military is continuing to investigate the cause of death.
In high school, LaVena got straight As and played the violin. She joined the Army because she wanted to travel. Her father told the Post Dispatch, "You're talking about a beautiful young lady who one day talks to her mother on the phone and everything's fine, and the next day I've got the military showing up at my door step." The "welcome home" banner the family hung for her Christmas visit still hangs in the living room.
V. BRING THE TROOPS HOME
It is more than a slogan. It is a plan. The White House and the Pentagon might not have firm plans for troop withdrawal from Iraq, but at least two groups outside the beltway do*
WIN WITHOUT WAR, a national coalition of progressive organizations, is supporting a gradual withdrawal of troops according to a negotiated timetable, modified military operations and deployments, and a goal of the complete withdrawal by the end of 2005 as mandated by the UN Security Council authorization of foreign troops in Iraq. They lay out three steps the United States should take immediately*
1. The Administration should commit to a withdrawal of U.S. and allied forces under its command by the time the UN mandate expires. The current UN resolution provides for expiration of the mandate for foreign forces to coincide with elections planned for December 2005, following the negotiation of a new and permanent constitution.
2. The Administration should sign a "status of forces agreement" with the newly elected government, with clear lines of operational command and control, coordination with Iraqi authorities and a timetable for withdrawal. Such a timetable is a central plank of United Iraqi Alliance, the coalition that dominates the newly elected legislature. It is critical if the newly elected government is to have the credibility and support it needs to govern.
3. The Administration should re-deploy troops away from highly visible or provocative positions and should modify its operations. The military's priority should be to protect civilians, not to destroy insurgents. To implement this shift in priorities, the military should strictly limit operations that endanger civilians and should modify procedures governing arrests, treatment of prisoners and home searches.
Their plan for "Phased Withdrawal of U.S. Military Forces," and a longer position paper are online at www.winwithoutwarus.org
In 400 DAYS AND OUT, the Project for Defense Alternatives offers a "Strategy for Resolving the Iraq Impasse."
The key to enabling total US troop withdrawal from Iraq, asserts author Carl Conetta, is achieving a political accord with Sunni leaders at all levels and with Iraq's neighbors - especially Syria and Iran.
Once this goal is met, a lowering of the level of conflict inside Iraq would limit active and passive support for the insurgency, inside and outside the country, allowing the United States to shift resources to training Iraqi soldiers and police and to developing a withdrawal time line.
This detailed plan adopts a "no pain, no gain" maxim, positing that in order to achieve political accord, the U.S. and coalition leaders have to sanction self-governance in Sunni areas, guarantee certain levels of representation for these areas in the national assembly, end de-Baathification measures and offer amnesty for most indigenous insurgents and former Baathists, and that the United States has to de-escalate its tensions with Syria and Iran on a range of issues.
Noting this is not an overnight plan, Conetta outlines 400 days of activity to lay the ground work for troop withdrawal and long term security.
Executive summary
1. Introduction: to break the vicious cycle
2. Withdrawal is not enough: how most disengagement proposals fall short
3. How the occupation went wrong
4. A strategy for resolving the Iraq impasse: essential elements
5. Conclusion
400 DAYS AND OUT: A Strategy For Resolving The Iraq Impasse, by Carl Conetta, The Project for Defense Alternatives, July 19 2005
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