by David Steven | Sep 4, 2007 | Middle East and North Africa, North America
Alex has written twice now about Barney Rubin’s speculation that a determined campaign to soften up American opinion for war on Iran is now underway.
Count me a tad sceptical – we’ve heard these warnings before – but it’s still worth being vigilant. Rubin wonders whether we’ll soon start hearing of ‘very grave Iranian provocations’. One way to increase the chance of this is to redefine what an Iranian provocation would look like.
Michael Ledeen, Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute and one of the biggest cheerleaders for aggressive confrontation with Iran, shows how it’s done…
One has to stipulate that “Iraqi terrorist” is a term rather more complicated than outfits like al-AP [like al-Jazeera – geddit?] seem to understand. Many Iraqis went to Iran during the Iran-Iraq war, where they were trained/indoctrinated by the mullahs for twenty-plus years. We’re talking about several million people, not a few cadres. Some of them, along with children, were sent into Iraq to fight us.
It’s very misleading to simply call them “Iraqis.” Maybe they—and their children even more so—should be called “Iranians of Iraqi origin,” or “Iranian agents” or some such.
by Alex Evans | Sep 4, 2007 | Middle East and North Africa, North America
Earlier this week, I published a post quoting my CIC colleague Barney Rubin, who’s picking up noise about Cheney’s office calling on allies to start rolling out a case for war against Iran this week. Barney’s just published a follow-up post:
On the morning of Thursday, August 30, someone who is a professional in handling information called me to recount a conversation from the previous Thursday or Friday (August 23 or 24). In this conversation, someone whose proximity to knowledge of such things is so great that I cannot identify him in any other way, told my interlocutor that President Bush would be inclined to accept suggestions for withdrawing some troops from Iraq and moving as many as possible into more secure bases, as a safeguard against reprisals in the event of a U.S. attack on Iran.
In today’s reports from Iraq (see for example the New York Times and the Washington Post) President Bush is quoted as saying, “If the kind of success we are now seeing here continues it will be possible to maintain the same level of security with fewer American forces.” The president made a point of visiting and lauding the progress in predominantly Sunni Anbar province, where the U.S. would be more secure from reprisals by Shi’a militias sympathetic to Iran. Anyone who follows political thinking in the Middle East will realize that throughout the region this will be interpreted as confirming a shift in U.S. strategy toward allying with Sunnis to encircle Iran.
by David Steven | Sep 4, 2007 | North America
Over at National Review’s The Corner, John Podhoretz links approvingly to a review of Brian De Palma’s new anti-war film: Redacted.
Redacted is, putting it mildly, not going down well on the right.
“How about a movie where Hollywood filmmakers take money from America’s enemies to undermine morale?” asks Glenn ‘Instapundit’ Reynolds. “It wouldn’t be any more dishonest than Brian de Palma’s latest.”
The film is based on an incident where “American soldiers took turns raping a 14-year-old Iraqi girl, and one of them put a bullet through her head after killing her parents and 5-year-old sister.”
The attack, led by a sociopath called Steven Green, was preplanned, and was long and gruesome:
Barker said the soldiers found the girl and her father outside their home. Spielman grabbed the girl while Green seized her father and took them into the house, Barker’s statement said, and Cortez and Barker followed them inside.
Green led the father, mother and younger sister into the bedroom and closed the door, while the teenage girl remained in the living room with the others, Barker’s statement said.
Cortez pushed the girl to the floor, lifted her dress and tore off her underwear while she struggled, Bierce said, citing Barker’s statement. Cortez appeared to rape her, then Barker tried to rape the girl, according to the statement.
Suddenly, the group heard gunshots, and Green came out of the bedroom holding an AK-47 rifle and declared: ‘”They’re all dead. I just killed them,'” according to the statement.
Green then raped the girl while Cortez held her down, Barker’s statement said. Green picked up the AK-47 and shot the girl once, paused, then shot her several more times, Bierce said, quoting Barker’s statement.
Barker said he poured fuel from a kerosene lamp on the girl’s body but did not say who set it on fire. The soldier’s statement did not say whether Howard or Spielman participated in the rape, Bierce said.
Another investigator, Gary Griesmyer, quoted Cortez as telling him that the teenage girl was weeping and speaking in Arabic and that Barker told her to “shut up.”
After the attack, the soldiers headed back to their post for a meal of grilled chicken wings.
Few have yet seen Redacted, so let’s leave arguments about its quality aside for a moment. Instead, ask why the film about the rape has received so much more attention on the right, than the crime itself. (more…)
by David Steven | Sep 3, 2007 | Climate and resource scarcity, North America
When a member of the Bush administration tried to persuade me that her boss was a ‘thought leader’ on climate change, my first thought was that I was being punk’d. But she was serious. And now Karl Rove has emerged from the White House bunker singing a similar song…
On energy, the environment, and climate change, he is developing a new paradigm. Emphasizing technology, increased energy-efficiency partnerships, and resource diversification, his policies are improving energy security and slowing the growth of greenhouse gases without economy-breaking mandates and regulation. The president who won criticism by rejecting the failed approach of Kyoto has implemented policies that enabled the United States to grow its economy by 3.1 percent and reduce the absolute amount of CO2 emissions (by 1.3 percent).
Rove is also refreshingly honest about how the American right plans to shape its Iraq/Afghanistan legacy. Let’s take it step by step:
Option 1: “History will render a favorable verdict if the outcome in the Middle East is similar to what America saw after World War II.” If a miracle happens, Dubya wins.
Option 2: “If the outcome there is like what happened in Vietnam after America abandoned our allies and the region descended into chaos, violence, and danger, history’s judgment will be harsh. History will see President Bush as right, and the opponents of his policy as mistaken — as George McGovern was in his time.” If the worst happens, it’s the liburals fault. Georgie wins again!
Whichever way:
President Bush will be viewed as a far-sighted leader who confronted the key test of the 21st century. He will be judged as a man of moral clarity who put America on wartime footing in the dangerous struggle against radical Islamic terrorism.
Well that’s alright then…
by Alex Evans | Aug 26, 2007 | Conflict and security
Unreal. On Thursday night’s Jon Stewart show in the US, one of the guests was Lt. Col. John Nagl – one of the leading US military experts on counter-insurgency and fourth generation warfare (link here). Following his appearance, the Counterinsurgency Field Manual – of which he’s a co-author – leapt into the top 100 books on Amazon. As John Robb on Global Guerrillas put it:
Wow, the Petraeus information operations media machine is amazing (and this is a great example). Nod of respect to the masterful way in which the Petraeus team has been able to influence the public’s perception of this war — the essence of which was a shift towards marketing the Iraq leadership as both competent and brilliant.
C.f. David Kilcullen doing the rounds of the blogosphere engaging the commentariat directly…
