Sic Semper Tyrannis

Colbert on Civil War

"National Security Adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie, meanwhile, traveled to the Shiite holy city of Najaf on Tuesday to meet with Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, the Shiite community's most revered spiritual leader. Al-Rubaie emerged to tell reporters "the way to forming the government is difficult and planted with political bombs. We ask the Iraqi people to be patient, and we expect forming the government will take a few months." "  Forbes

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Stephen Colbert of the "Colbert Report" is a new hero of mine.  Last night he said on his show that "people" should stop hyperventilating over the words "civil war" in connection with Iraq because "civil war" is spelled "exit strategy."  This is amusing no matter how grim the prospect.

For Rubaie to go to Sistani with his hat in his hand is confirmation for every Sunni in the world of the character of the emerging government in Iraq.

Nevertheless, I would urge "people" not to get their underwear in "a twist" just yet,  Iraqis are remarkably tough folk.  They are engaged in settling scores that are a thousand years old while re-distributing political and economic power in the only ways that are left to them in the situation that we inadvertently created.  The elections "thingy" does not work peacefully in the absence of an electorate that accepts its common identity across ethno-religious group boundaries.  There is no "Iraqi People" except in the minds of foreigners who do not understand the ethnography of Iraq or in the minds of Arabs who see what they want to see.

Rumsfeld or someone said that Democracy is a messy business.  This isn't democracy unless one thinks that bullets count more than votes in places like Iraq, but it IS a long term process of settling issues of power and wealth among the communities in Mesopotamia.

I have said for a long time now that Iraq was in a state of civil war.  Civil war does not = exit strategy for me.  We are where we are in Iraq as a result of our own foolish actions and misconceptions.  Yes.  Casualties are up.  Yes.  They may get even higher in numbers.  Does that mean that a final crisis is upon us?  No.  Iraqis would not accept that and I think that they would be right.

Can we walk away?  I have seen my country walk away from people who trusted it too many times.  If the "American People" want to walk away from those who have sided with us in Iraq. then we should start preparing for refugee re-settlement.  There will be no forgiveness for those who sided with us in a post US Iraq.

For my part, I will have nothing to do with abandoning them and I believe that US soldiers in Iraq would not want that either.

Pat Lang

http://www.forbes.com/home/feeds/ap/2006/02/28/ap2559659.html

We can do peace...

"In Islamic legal theory, normal relations between the Dar al-Islam (the Muslims) and the Dar al-Harb (others) were not peaceful, and there existed a state of latent or open hostilities which jurists nowadays call a state of war. Short intervals of peace were, however, permitted by divine legislation (Quran Sura VIII, 63; IX, 1 and others) and the Muslims could establish peaceful relationships with non-Muslims, individually and collectively, if such a peace was not inconsistent with the interests of the Muslims."  Encyclopedia of Islam under "Hudna"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Such truces were/are not longer than 10 years but they are renewable.  I posited this means to peace once at a discussion in Saudi Arabia and one of the hosts said that "sermons could be preached on that," to which I replied, "yes, but not by me." 

It should be remembered that in the 200 year (almost) history of the Crusader States in the Levant there were numerous truces (hudna) They were sometimes for five years, often for ten and sometimes were re-newed.  the Muslims were famous for strictly observing these truces as did the more enlightened rulers of the Crusader States.  Under the terms of the truce, commerce prospered, people visited each other, real life was possible.

One of the Muslim chroniclers of the period (Usama ibn Munqhid) has recorded his many visits to the Kingdom of Jerusalem.  This man, who was from Damascus would stay in the Jerusalem area with the Templars who made a place for him to pray in one of their churches.  Doesn't sound like the Templars in "Kingdom of Heaven?"  Well, I like the movie but the Templar thing was crapola.  Some will say that the comparison of that time and this is uselessly antiquarian.  Those that say that will be wrong.  For a great many of the Muslims, probably most, THEN is NOW.  All this rhetoric about "Crusaders" is not idle.  Americans tend to believe that history began about the time they individually were born.  "That's History" as a dismissive saying is unique to the United States and our view of our own place in human development.  The Muslims live in history.

So.  There can be peace for a time between the Muslims and the Israelis (the rest are not numerous enough to matter in this).  If the Israelis give up all their 1967 gains, allow a general "right of return" for millions of Palestinians, then Hamas government might contemplate a Hudna with them.

Would that mean that the Palestinians under Hamas rule had decided to accept Israel as a permanent feature of life in the Middle East?  Not at all.  They would merely be waiting for the end of the truce to resume hostilities.  Would they observe the truce.  Yes.  they probably would.

Pat Lang

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060226/ap_on_re_mi_ea/israel_palestinians

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/usamah2.html

cfr.org interview on Iraq

The Council on Foreign Affairs folks talked to me today about the present inter-communal violence in Iraq.

Pat Lang

http://www.cfr.org/publication/9957/lang.html

The Long War

This briefing was sent to me by a concerned citizen.  So far as I know and by its markings it is completely unclassified and in the public domain.  It is not even marked "For Official Use Only" (FOUO).  Since it is so interesting and so likely to be the subject of fruitful debate by my colleagues at this place, I offer it for inspection.

Pat Lang

Download jcslongwar_vicedirectorforstratplansandpolicy_j5.ppt

Bush on Foxworthy

Now, no disrespect is intended to the office of the president or the commander in chief of the armed forces, so, cool your jets.

Pat Lang

http://www.wimp.com/bushcomedy

Review of "The Pink Panther"

Download the_pink_panther.doc

Alan Farrell

So, it Wasn't the End of History?

Francis Fukuyama.

People pay schools money to have this man teach their children? I wonder of he does the dog-paddle or the back stroke as he swims away from the ship?  His detailed account of the Left wing nature of the neocon movement is delightful.  You don't like the word Lefty?  Lang

"The roots of neoconservatism lie in a remarkable group of largely Jewish intellectuals who attended City College of New York (C.C.N.Y.) in the mid- to late 1930's and early 1940's, a group that included Irving Kristol, Daniel Bell, Irving Howe, Nathan Glazer and, a bit later, Daniel Patrick Moynihan."  Fukuyama

"It is not an accident that many in the C.C.N.Y. group started out as Trotskyites. Leon Trotsky was, of course, himself a Communist, but his supporters came to understand better than most people the utter cynicism and brutality of the Stalinist regime. The anti-Communist left, in contrast to the traditional American right, sympathized with the social and economic aims of Communism, but in the course of the 1930's and 1940's came to realize that "real existing socialism" had become a monstrosity of unintended consequences that completely undermined the idealistic goals it espoused. While not all of the C.C.N.Y. thinkers became neoconservatives, the danger of good intentions carried to extremes was a theme that would underlie the life work of many members of this group."  Fukuyama

I once had one of the leading theoreticians of the "movement" tell me that the "con" in "neocon" is the "con" part.  Translation:  They are not Conservative.  Conservatives in America believe in the limited utility of government, the importance of stopping government when it tries to run one's life and that Freedom has little to do with the Patriot Act. The religious right in America are no more conservative than the neocons.  They are merely right wing in a narrow minded and sectarian way.  Lang

"The End of History," in other words, presented a kind of Marxist argument for the existence of a long-term process of social evolution, but one that terminates in liberal democracy rather than communism. In the formulation of the scholar Ken Jowitt, the neoconservative position articulated by people like Kristol and Kagan was, by contrast, Leninist; they believed that history can be pushed along with the right application of power and will. Leninism was a tragedy in its Bolshevik version, and it has returned as farce when practiced by the United States. Neoconservatism, as both a political symbol and a body of thought, has evolved into something I can no longer support."  Fukuyama

Apparently, this is not exactly right.  I mean the part about "no longer support."  Fukuyama's solution for the mess that he and his pseudo-conservative Jacobin friends have gotten us all in is that the US should have much the same policy with regard to "friendly autocrats" but should be careful not to do anything that might further break up the China (dishes).  In other words, he has no solution for the mess that he and his pals made but is frightened by the result of their sophomoric meddling with the deepest forces in human nature and Middle Eastern history. Ah, I forgot.  History has no meaning for them because like all good little Utopians, the past is dead and only the future matters.  Lang

"Peace might emerge, sometime down the road, from a Palestine run by a formerly radical terrorist group that had been forced to deal with the realities of governing."  Fukuyama

This is the best part really.  This "scholar" has not learned a damned thing about Islam, Muslims, human nature and can't read the newspapers evidently.  I guess he hasn't read Lang's Rules of Epistemology or "Pie in the Sky."  Oh well, I don't suppose that readers of the New York Times magazine will be more than 75% of those who even know who he is.  Lang

Pat Lang

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/19/magazine/neo.html

More "Good News"

"The insurgency increasingly is dominated by a few large groups with sophisticated communications. It no longer is a scattered, erratic, chaotic phenomenon. Groups are well organised, produce regular publications, react rapidly to political developments and appear surprisingly centralised.
There has been gradual convergence around more unified practices and discourse, and predominantly Sunni Arab identity. A year ago groups appeared divided over practices and ideology but most debates have been settled through convergence around Sunni Islamic jurisprudence and Sunni Arab grievances. For now virtually all adhere publicly to a blend of Salafism and patriotism."  ICG Paper below.

Download icg_report_of_interest.txt

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Sunni Islamic Jurisprudence?"  I must admit that I did not expect that differences among the insurgents would be settled on the basis of Sharia.  Iraqi Arab Muslims are overwhelmingly observant of the Hanafi law code and practise while the Kurds are mostly Shafa'i in inclination.  The foreign fighters are Maliki if North African, the Saudis are Hanbali.  Others can be whatver is prevalent "back home."

Does this mean much?  No, because the four Mathahib (schools) recognise each other as "orthodox."  The Shia live in another legal and religious "world."

The increasing religiosity and consolidation of the Sunni Arab insurgent groups is very bad news.  It is predictable that if the war goes on long enough these groups will be unified under a "national" command.  That is what happened in Indochina long ago and I predict that it will happen in Iraq.

Pat Lang

"Deja Vu all over again?"

Download Document.pdf

I was sent this pair of "Army Times" articles by a friend now serving in the military advisory effort in Iraq.  These stories give a good picture of what is happening on the ground country wide.  I have advocated this kind of approach for several years and so am happy to see it progressing.

I do have a few comments on the "understanding" expressed in the stories of what the analogous situation was like in South Viet Nam.

It will be interesting to see if the country (Iraq) can pull itself together enough to sustain what they are building. I would say that the outcome in that area is still in doubt.

As for VN, Anthony Cordesmann (a brilliant scholar) doesn't really know anything about the war there except what he has read, which is a lot. In fact, the early advisory efforts in that country failed because the communist army (NVA) that had defeated the French at Dien Bien Phu, was brought to the South to deal with increasing SVN capability. This was in 1964. All of a sudden in that year, Special Forces (SF) led irregulars and the half trained Army of the Republic of Viet Nam (ARVN) found themselves facing regimental sized units of highly skilled regulars under the command of men who had defeated a major European army ten years before. Before that happened they had been fighting the guerrillas of the local Viet Cong.

Incidentally, the ARVN was never trained by SF. There was a Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) in country from start to finish who did that. The unit advisers with ARVN units all belonged to the MAAG.

SF trained tribals and villagers in the boondocks to try to organize what amounted to counter-guerrillas at the village level. This also failed because the camps that were the bases for that activity were under continual pressure and frequent assault by the NVA. The villages could not be organized because the SF and their men were engaged in Ranger type light infantry operations rather than in doing counterinsurgency work among the people of the countryside. SF led Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) troops were, in effect, a separate army which fought the NVA in the vast woods and mountains of Indochina.

US Maneuver units attempted to destroy the NVA in the major battles of 1965-1967. This produced a lot of big fights but not much movement because the enemy always brought forward more men from North Vietnam to make up their losses.

A reversion to counterinsurgency occurred in 1967 with the creation of CORDS.

The MAAG continued to supply all the advisers to the very end.  It was claimed there (in Vietnam), as well, that service as an adviser counted as much in one's career as service in a US unit. This proved not to be true.

Pat Lang

Democracy run Amok?

"The notion, popular in Washington over the past few years, that American programs and efforts can help build a third alternative to both current governments and Islamists is simply a delusion."  Talhami

"But in this historic moment Islamists remain the most well-organized alternative to governments, a situation that is unlikely to change soon. And current governments are not popular."  Talhami

"This leaves U.S. foreign policy with limited choices. Full electoral democracy in the Middle East will inevitably lead to domination by Islamist groups, leaving the United States to either continue a confrontational approach, with high and dangerous costs for both sides, or to find a way to engage them -- something that has yet to be fully considered. Given this, skepticism about the real aims of these groups should be balanced by openness to the possibility that their aims once they are in power could differ from their aims as opposition groups."  Talhami

"If we are not willing to engage, there is only one alternative: to rethink the policy of accelerated electoral democracy and focus on a more incremental approach of institutional and economic reform of existing governments. There is no realistic third party that's likely to emerge anytime soon."  Talhami

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Talhami is a thoughtful man and a subtle apologist for all thing Arab.  Nevertheless, he now evidently feels compelled to recognize the evident political disaster that is approaching because of a naive and utopian belief that the mechanism of elections is powerful enough to release the people of the Middle East from the "burden" of millennia of tradition and culture.

In this OPED Talhami explains to the uninformed that there are no viable secular democratic and western oriented political forces in the Middle East anymore.  In the 20th Century there was the possibility of the development of such forces but the parties and leaders all failed, defeated by the same recidivist forces that have for centuries blocked a renewal of creative theological thinking in Islam.

What are left are the oligarchs (usually military) and the Islamists (sometimes military).  These two groups are the effective contestants for power in nearly all these countries.  The evidence so far in Egypt, Palestine, Iraq, and Lebanon all points to the accuracy of Talhami's findings.

Talhami's conclusions?

-Either accept the idea of Islamist governments, or

-Take a step back and return to the idea of incremental development toward standards of government that we are comfortable with in the West.

I think that adoption of the first option would be foolish.  "the possibility that their aims once they are in power could differ from their aims as opposition groups"  I see no evidence, anywhere, that groups fundamentally change their beliefs or behavior once they achieve power.  If anything, the opposite is true since opposition groups believe themselves to be empowered by the experience of power.

Islamist groups want one basic thing and that is to create Shariah states.  They may have to proceed slowly in doing this, but that is what they want and strive for.  All else is tactics.

Pat Lang

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/16/AR2006021601576.html

"Brave Rifles at Tel Afar" - Part 2

"Coat of Arms of the 3rd Cavalry Regiment"

"Ultimately, 1,400 police officers were recruited, about 60 percent of whom were Sunni Arabs, many of them from elsewhere in Iraq. In addition, the city has about 2,000 Iraqi troops, and a working city council and an activist mayor. A few feet from where the city council meets is a new Joint Operations Center, set up to collect intelligence tips and act on them. The Army officer running the center, Lt. Saythala Phonexayphoua, said he has been surprised by the amount of "actionable intelligence" troops receive.

Phonexayphoua noted: "We get cell phone calls -- 'There's an insurgent planting an IED.' "

Last summer, there were about six insurgent attacks in the area each day. Now there is about one, according to U.S. military intelligence."  Washpost

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hallelujah!!  Someone gets it!  McMasters should be jumped a couple of grades to major general.  "Always reward success," Napoleon said.  Always!  Colonel McMasters is a man deeply learned in history.  History is a much neglected thing these days in the US Army.  Let us hope that he does not suffer for his learning.

Pat Lang

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/15/AR2006021502586.html

http://www.carson.army.mil/UNITS/3RD%20ACR/main%20pages/HOMEPAGE.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3rd_Armored_Cavalry_Regiment

One for All, and All for Themselves

"A comparison of force structures in 2001 and 2005 showed countries such as Britain, Canada, France, Italy, Poland, Spain and Germany cut their active-duty forces, according to statistics compiled by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies. At the same time, the United States increased its ranks from 1.37 million to 1.42 million.
    More telling is the share of each countries' gross domestic product (GDP) that is devoted to defense expenditures. The U.S. share has gone from 3 percent to 3.7 percent since September 11, 2001, while other NATO nations collectively have dipped from 2.02 percent to 1.8 percent, according to the Pentagon. Twelve years ago, NATO, excluding the United States, devoted 2.5 percent of GDP to defense. "  Washtimes

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Whoa!  This is unacceptable.  Either we are all in this effort against Islamic extremism or we are not.  For the UK to profess a commitment to our joint plans while decreasing both the number of people in its armed forces AND the percentage of GDP devoted to this cause is a travesty.

Pat Lang

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20060215-124602-1890r.htm

"Look Before You Shoot"

I am a Life member of the National Rifle Association.  My grandfather gave me my first firearm when I was thirteen.  Then he sold me (cheap) a deer rifle a year or so later.  That might have been me in the picture with him or one of my uncles.  My father, like many soldiers, disliked guns and did not object to hunting but had no interest in it.  I have hunted upland birds (ruffed grouse and pheasants), wild boar in Turkey, white tail and mule deer ail over America, rabbits, etc.  I never hunted duck or geese.  I do not know why I did not.  The great duck hunting stories in Hemingway sure do make it sound attractive.

I don't hunt anymore.  I have not for many years.  I just lost interest in it.  I still have firearms and like to shoot on a range.  At the moment I do not have a shotgun but have owned them in 410, 20 and 12 gauge.  The Cheney hunting accident puzzles me. 

These are quail, apparently.  I never hunted any of these.  They are quite small birds and do not look anything like the shootee in this incident. 

I was taught and have taught that when you are in the field with a loaded weapon aiming to shoot and kill something, you are supposed to see the target before you fire.  This is a basic rule of the whole "deal."  Up in Maine, when I was a kid, the hunting fraternity (everybody) would occasionally identify some local (rarely) or flat-lander from New Jersey (often) or Massachusetts (ptui!) who did what was called "sound shooting."  In other words, this cretin would shoot at sounds in the woods without seeing what it might be.  Such people were shunned as beneath the notice of ordinary folk of sound mind.

This is what it is supposed to be, folks.  "Hunters in the Snow," with dogs.  Without the dogs it loses a lot.   

I have been trying to re-construct the "geography" of this "engagement" in my head.  The VP's office is not helping with this and I wonder why.  Apparently three hunters were advancing in a line:  left to right  Shootee - VP - US Ambassador to Switzerland.  The Shootee dropped out of the line to pick up a bird BEHIND the line.  Instead of stopping to wait for him the line kept moving, focused on the birds in the grass in front of them.  This left the space on the VP's left empty.  He did not notice this?  The shootee approached the line from the rear, BEHIND the VP?  A covey of these little critters flew (apparently at the line of shooters) and the VP pivoted to his left (?) tracking the bird and fired, hitting the shootee who was either behind him or outside his peripheral vision to the left and rear (?) 

Download be_vewy.doc

To me that sounds like he fired on instinct without seeing the target.  Hunters and soldiers are supposed to have better "situational awareness" than that.  What was this, a "reconnaissance by fire?"

Range?  What was the size of the shot?  Number 5s? number 7s?  For a pellet to be inside the shootee's rib cage and at least up against his heart, the range must have been pretty short.

Don't kid yourself folks, the shootee is in serious shape.  At his age, the eventual result of this trauma is unpredictable.  Let us hope for the best.

Pat Lang

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20060214-111127-7044r.htm

"Take that hammer..."

"and knock yourself on the head..."  Saddam Hussein to the chief judge, 14 February, 2006.  I am sure that it is even funnier in Arabic.

Someone said a while back that it was not a good idea to try this man.  He is "making monkeys" out of the court and the new Iraqi government.  He looks strong, looks humorous and is defiant and all the talk about what a coward he is does not "play" in the Arab World.  He does not look afraid at all.   His legend is growing by the day.

They are now in the second part of a ten part trial.  The government is trying to bring witnesses who can and will establish his personal responsibility for the massacre almost thirty years ago of a hundred and fifty odd Shia in a village where someone tried to assassinate him. 

They are having tough time doing that.  1-It has been a long time.  2-Those who are still "his people" are having lapses of memory and 3- Those who were never "his people" and would like to see him shot are frightened (with good reason) of the consequences for them an their families of testifying against him.

It would be embarrassing to not have enough evidence to finish the trial "satisfactorily."

Let's stop.  Let's say that he is an EPW, that his army never surrendered (it did not) and so he is still at war with us.  He was/is constitutionally commander in chief.  Then we can hold him without trial for the rest of the war (whenever that might be).

Cynical?  The alternative is to let him go on like this.  Bad idea.

Pat Lang

http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=10606

"A Loaf of Bread, A Jug of Wine" etc.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/iran/nuke.htm

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/iran/missile.htm

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"..And Thou Beside Me In the Wilderness."  Omar Khayyam was always an odd Persian but I think he would have serious problems living with many of his present countrymen.  He was a scientist and mathematician as well as a poet, but his skepticism would not have been appreciated in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

What are we to make of Iran's nuclear intentions and capabilities?  Courtesy of my Alexandria neighbor, John E. Pike and the "Daily Telegraph" we have the materials shown above.

Shahab-6?  10,000 kilometers in range?  "Two to three years" to weaponization?"  If this is true, then Iran would hold English cities at risk.  When?  No one really knows how long that would take.  Three years?  Five years" Ten years?  Nobody knows really?  The Mullahs probably do not know.

Would they use the weapons?  This is actually rather unimportant.  As a consequence of Iranian nuclear weapons, the playing field would be leveled to a remarkable degree.  T. Friedman would begin to be right about something in his vision of the future.  Could we still crush Iran?  Certainly, but it would probably not come to that.  Rather, we would experience a marked diminution of US influence and leverage in the region, and an upsurge in the general willingness of crazies around the world to believe that we are weaker.  A perception of weakness on the part of one's enemies is a dangerous thing.  Saudi Arabia, Egypt and other "emerging" countries would feel encouraged or threatened (choose your term) into taking similar paths.  Would this danger drive these countries further into our arms?  It is impossible to say, but with my usual pessimism I fear the worst.

Obviously, diplomacy and persuasion should be played out to the end, but the reactions of the Iranian government thus far are not encouraging.

People will say that this is all "cooked up" by the neocons and Bushies.  I do not think that is true.

Pat Lang

Farell on Civic Virtue

Download comment_aff.doc

Having spent my undergraduate years soaking in the documents of which Alan speaks here I can only say that they gave context to life.  Pat Lang

The NIO Speaks

Paul Pillar was the National Intelligence Officer for the Middle East during the period when the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq was written, staffed across the Intelligence Community and approved as the ground truth of the US government.  That was in October, 2002.  He was supposedly in charge of that process as the member of the National Intelligence Council responsible.

He is now retired and has written an article for "Foreign Affairs" in which he says 1- that there was no evidence that Iraq had nuclear weapons and that Iraq was in no way close to possessing a nuclear weapon at the time the NIE was written.  2- That the supposed Iraq-Al-Qaida connection was fabricated and non-existing. 3- That the Bush administration was not informed by the work of the Intelligence Community.  Rather they used products of the IC to justify strategic decisions already taken.  4- That contrary to the conclusions of the Senator Roberts led Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, analyst were pressured subtly but strongly to produce desired conclusions with regard to this subject.

You can access his article below, and if you wish you can access my article on much the same subject which was written in early 2004 and published in Middle East Policy in Autumn of that same year.

Pat Lang

http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20060301faessay85202/paul-r-pillar/intelligence-policy-and-the-war-in-iraq.html

Summary:  During the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, writes the intelligence community's former senior analyst for the Middle East, the Bush administration disregarded the community's expertise, politicized the intelligence process, and selected unrepresentative raw intelligence to make its public case.

http://www.mepc.org/public_asp/journal_vol11/0406_lang.asp

Review of "Maid in Manhattan"

Download maid_in_manhattan.doc

Review by Alan Farrell

"Muhammad Worshiping at the Kaaba

For those who think that portrayal of the Prophet might be limited to the Shia, this Ottoman miniature of the 16th Century AD/CE is undoubtedly Sunni.

Pat Lang

The Prophet en Route to Heaven

Folks, amid all the news of the destruction of unsuspecting (and surprised) Scandinavians' consulates and threats of mayhem to be unleashed upon the kuffar (the non-Muslim rest of us) I offer the opinion that the notion that Muhammad's likeness can not be made is baloney.

To the left you may observe a Persian (therefore Shia) painting dated 1550 AD (CE if you prefer) which depicts the Prophet himself mounted on Burak (magical beast) en route to Paradise for a one night visit.  This visit is reputed to have begun in Jerusalem at the site of the Dome of the Rock.  This is the same rock on which various other events took place in the Old Testament and from which Gabriel will sound his trumpet at THE END, or at least that is what Cole Porter wrote.

Outrage is a sometimes thing.

Pat Lang

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060206/ap_on_re_mi_ea/prophet_drawings

How Widespread is Infiltration?

"On Saturday, the director of a major oil storage plant near Kirkuk was arrested with other employees and several local police officials, and charged with helping to orchestrate a mortar attack on the plant on Thursday, a Northern Oil Company employee said. The attack resulted in devastating pipeline fires and a shutdown of all oil operations in the area, said the employee, who was granted anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter."  NY Times

*************************************************************************************************

"Ali Allawi, Iraq's finance minister, estimated that insurgents reap 40 percent to 50 percent of all oil-smuggling profits in the country. Offering an example of how illicit oil products are kept flowing on the black market, he said that the insurgency had infiltrated senior management positions at the major northern refinery in Baiji and routinely terrorized truck drivers there. This allows the insurgents and their confederates to tap the pipeline, empty the trucks and sell the oil or gas themselves."  NY Times

*************************************************************************************************

"An Iraqi Army battalion commander Mr. Juburi hired was arrested recently and accused of organizing insurgent attacks on the pipeline, said a high-ranking Iraqi official who is close to the investigation. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the indictment"  NY Times

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Friends on the ground in Iraq indicate to me that they believe that some Iraqi government personnel (police and internal security) at roadside road blocks are "tipping off" or cueing insurgents for command detonated IEDs farther along the roadway.  What are these roadblocks?  All over the Arab World the governments instinctively put up checkpoints (roadblocks) which are a crude form of population and movement control.  Their presence is truly ubiquitous and Iraq is no exception.

On top of that suspicion we now have this tale of infiltration of the oil industry by the insurgents.  The question of the funding of the insurgency arises often.  How much of the rebellion is funded externally is usually the crux of the matter. 

If this situation is correctly depicted, then the issue of external funding is unimportant.  The whole insurgency can easily be funded out the oil industry.  Any additional monies out of the Arabian Peninsula, Egypt  or elsewhere is just frosting on the cake.

Infiltration on this scale is a very bad indicator for the future.

Pat Lang

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/05/international/middleeast/05corrupt.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&th&emc=th

Hizballah Returns to Parliament

"Wary of Western involvement in the campaign, the demand prompted Hezbollah and Amal's five ministers to suspend their participation in the Government for almost two months.

Although largely precipitated by differences over international involvement in local affairs, the stand-off soon morphed into national issues, and the ministers refused to return until the Government provided assurances it officially viewed Hezbollah as a resistance group and not a militia, thereby placing it outside the scope of Resolution 1559. The impasse ended on Thursday, when Prime Minister Fouad Siniora told the Beirut parliament: "We have never called, and will never call, the resistance by any name other than the resistance." He did not use the word militia. "  The Australian

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It seems that the Franco-American effort to use UN Resolution 1559 as a weapon against the Baathi government of Syria has hit a snag in the river.  As I have opined here before, there is an ongoing struggle between Iran and Saudi Arabia for the "position" of "protector" and hegemon in Syria.  Saudi Arabia was aligned with the French and Americans against Bashar, his family and friends, until Bashar offered them his feudal loyalty in return for protection from the "foreigners."  The new Saudi message to the Bush Administration was then delivered in several ways.  The message was that Bashar's government should be left alone and not pushed any farther and that the Shia Hizballah allies of Bashar's government should not be forced to disarm.

Why would they press for that?

Hizballah and the Syrian Baath are allies of Iran.  How better to incline them toward Saudi Arabia than to speak up for them before the "throne of power?"

Fouad Siniora, the prime minister of Lebanon is a long term fixture in the Hariri family "apparat" in Lebanon.  He was Rafik Hariri's Finance Minister among other things.  He is widely understood to be a "stand in" for the Hariri influence in the country, and is, in fact, a member of their political bloc.  The Hariri bloc is closely aligned with Saudi Arabia.

Now Siniora has made commitments that seem to block the prosecution of suspects in the Hariri murder who were Syria's friends.  He did this by dropping his demand for an international tribunal to try the culprits. He has also said that Hizballah is a "national resistance movement" which by definition will not be required to disarm.

Looks like a "clean sweep" for the Franco-American policy in the Levant.  Score: 0

Pat Lang

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/printpage/0,5942,18048514,00.html

"The Apprentice" A Book Review

Download the_apprentice.doc

Download the_apprentice.pdf

And here for your literary improvement and daily dose of Kultur we present  Alan Farrell's review of Lewis Libby novel of esoteric crapola.

Pat Lang