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The Ball Gunner ~ Snarky commentary on global military affairs

Archive for the 'Iraq' Category

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Iraq, NASA and the old Whubba-whubba returns

January 5th, 2009, 4:18 pm by jhogg

I’m normally pretty lean on bat packs to the hulking giants of the media field. But the Washington Post has an unusually well-done piece on Iraq.

Friday, January 2, 2009; Page A01
Washington Post Foreign Service
BAGHDAD — Maybe it was the only shot heard for days in a neighborhood once ordered by the cadence of gunfire. Perhaps it was the smiles at checkpoints and the shouts of Iraqi policemen navigating the always snarled traffic. “God’s mercy on your parents,” they beseeched. “God’s blessings on you.” Maybe it was the music box still playing “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” at a kiosk overflowing with Christmas tree decorations and heart-shaped red pillows.
For anyone returning to Baghdad after spending time here during its darkest days two years ago, when it was paralyzed by sectarian hatred and overrun by gunmen sowing despair, the conclusion seemed inescapable.
“The war has ended,” said Heidar al-Abboudi, a street merchant.
The war in Iraq is indeed over, at least the conflict as it was understood during its first five years: insurgency, communal cleansing, gangland turf battles and an anarchic, often futile quest to survive. In other words, civil war — though civil war was always too tidy a term for it. The entropy, for now at least, has run its course. So have many of the forces the United States so dangerously unleashed with its 2003 invasion, turning Iraq into an atomized, fractured land seized by a paroxysm of brutality. In that Iraq, the Americans were the final arbiter and, as a result, deprived anything they left behind of legitimacy.
________________________________________________________
Let me be (probably not) the first to say I’m am adamantly opposed to this:

Obama considers linking Defense Dept. with NASA

President-elect Barack Obama appears to be gearing up for a space race 2.0, this time with China.

Obama’s transition team is considering doing away with some of the barriers that separate the U.S. Department of Defense and NASA, according to Bloomberg.

Citing people who’ve discussed the idea with the Obama team, Bloomberg says they believe collaboration between the country’s civilian space agency and the military’s space program would speed up the time in which the U.S. is able to send people back to the moon.

The main–and very costly–goal is to build a rocket that can carry Orion, NASA’s next-generation spacecraft, to the International Space Station, the moon, and further out into the solar system. NASA has planned to use its new Ares I rocket for that purpose. Last year, it completed preliminary design review for the Ares rocket, which is slated to launch for the first time in 2015.

Which race, specifically, are we worried about losing with China? As I recall, the United States has a 40-year lead in the race to the moon. Do we think the Chinese will yank our flag from the soil and plunk their own down in its place?

As for combining NASA and DoD, I cannot think of any better example of what is commonly referred to as the “creeping militarization” of the nation. Are we a nation with a military or a military with a nation?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Whubba Whubba!

Now if we can get those old Huey’s flying again then I say its time we refit the Phantoms and get the U.S. a proper interceptor.

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Posted in: Air Force • Iraq • Uncategorized • not-so-hot ideas • old stuff • politics | Post a Comment »

Decent insight into Hamas and good news from Fallujah

December 30th, 2008, 10:52 am by jhogg

The Wa Po has an editorial that isn’t quite ENTIRELY wrong. I consider these developments encouraging, and hope for further improvment.

LIKE THE Lebanon war of 2006, Israel’s battle with Hamas in Gaza is producing a schism among Muslim states. Iran and its ally Hezbollah in Lebanon have joined Hamas’s Damascus-based leadership in calling for a new intifada, or uprising, against Israel — and also against the governments of Egypt and Jordan, which are accused of silently supporting Israel’s air attacks. Those governments, along with the West Bank Palestinian administration of President Mahmoud Abbas, have issued rote condemnations of Israel. But they have also accused Hamas of triggering the conflict by ending a ceasefire — and they have responded harshly to the Iranian camp, which has “practically declared war on Egypt,” as Cairo’s foreign minister angrily put it yesterday. Far from encouraging an uprising, Mr. Abbas’s police broke up demonstrations by West Bank Palestinians on Sunday. Egyptian security forces have forcibly prevented Palestinians from crossing the border from Gaza.

Israeli and U.S. officials see this divide as encouraging. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has frequently spoken of an emerging coalition of “mainstream” or “moderate” Arab states opposing Iran and its “extremist” allies. One problem with this analysis is that the split is more sectarian than ideological. Among those counted in the moderate camp is Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia, which shares Hamas’s fundamentalist creed. And among those joining in the unmitigated denunciations of Israel yesterday were the Shiite rulers of Iraq, including Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani.

It will be noted that it is correct, in part, because the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful, virile Ball Gunner said most of it, yesterday.

What we’re witness now is the phenomenon Randy Newman referred to as “♫ BIIIIG HAAAAT NO CATTLE ♫” The various mid-East countries pumping their fists at each other. Iran could not prosecute a successful border war against the T-ball league military of Iraq, much less declare war on Egypt. Jordan has made a decades-long policy of tactical disentanglement with the region. Syria hasn’t enough wild hairs to look cross eyed as Israel and Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak has found a balance between stoking ignorant hatred with the Muslim brotherhood and making good dough with the Jewish brotherhood across the way.

Saudi Arabia, which is to moderate camp like the Detroit Lions are to the Super Bowl is not in the habit of making overt actions not blessed by the Powers That Be in D.C.

The Wa Po concludes with this assessment:

Yet, as in Lebanon, no decisive military victory is likely: Israel will not be able to topple Hamas unless it fully reoccupies Gaza, and it will probably not be able even to stop the rocket attacks on its cities without some kind of political settlement.

I’m going to conclude that this national-paper scouping Ball Gunner needs a raise.

_______________________________________________________________________

Good news from the NY Times in a world dreadfully short of it: The Marines are leaving a peaceful Fallujah:

FALLUJA, Iraq — In Falluja, a town that rises abruptly out of the vast Syrian Desert an hour west of Baghdad, nearly every building left standing has some sort of hole in it.

Mosques are without their minarets. Apartment walls have been peeled away by artillery shells. A family’s kitchen is full of tiny holes made by a fragmentary grenade.

Of all the places fighting has raged since the American invasion nearly six years ago, Falluja — the site of two major battles and the town where American security contractors were killed and their bodies hung from a local bridge — stands out as one of the bloodiest and most intractable.

This month, as the last American marines prepare to leave Camp Falluja, the sprawling base a few miles outside of town where many of the American troops who fought the two battles were stationed, Falluja has come to represent something unexpected: the hope that an Iraqi town once at the heart of the insurgency can become a model for peace without the United States military.

I’ve expressed doubt before about whether the Iraq military mission will be successful, and I think the utopian vision of Iraq as a western democracy is a castle with foundation firmly rooted in the clouds, but an Iraq that is stable and at least benign is vitally important for global security.

With the credit crunch likely spurning a period of retrenchment, a failure in Iraq would place the U.S. entering the new era already in retreat. Hope springs eternal that the U.S. will be able to pull off a successful withdrawal and let the nation continue its evolution; whatever happens after we leave is no longer on our hands. Rumblings from the President-Elect seem to be backpedaling on promises of a rapid withdrawal. This is, in my opinion, the worst possible decision. A time will soon be presented for us to leave Iraq gracefully, if we do not seize it then we will leave Iraq, regardless. There is gratitude in Iraq for our work, certainly, but Iraq is not Germany, they will not be content to house troops of a Christian nation on their soil indefinitely.

Let us see what the New Year brings. Onward, yon Ball Gunnerettes.

Posted in: Iraq • Israel • Marines • Palestine • counterinsurgency • politics • warfare • • • • • | 1 Comment »

U.S. forces will soon need approval from Al-Scalia to work

December 17th, 2008, 11:10 am by jhogg

It’s the great riddle of the times — the good guys are fighting non-states trying to create states. But you can’t create a state that’s going to step on the good guys toes. But once the foreign guys (us) get the state going, the domestic guys (them) won’t bite if the foreign guys just ignore it anyway.

U.S. worried about need for warrants in Iraq

By Kim Gamel - The Associated Press
Posted : Tuesday Dec 16, 2008 16:49:27 EST

MAHMOUDIYA, Iraq — U.S. soldiers preparing for raids study maps, examine photos of wanted men and check their weapons. Starting next month, they’ll have to go see a judge.

For nearly six years, American troops have been free under a U.N. mandate to search any home and detain anyone deemed a security risk.

All that changes next month, when the mandate expires and a U.S.-Iraqi security agreement takes effect. From then on, troops must obtain Iraqi warrants for searches and arrests — and U.S. officers say the requirement is one of the biggest headaches in complying with the new rules.

“It takes away the option of saying, ‘Hey, this guy just came into town and we want him and we want him now,”‘ said Capt. Tom Smith, a company commander on his second tour in Iraq. “For some of us who were here before, it feels a bit slow.”

U.S. troops are scrambling to learn the ins and outs of an Iraqi legal system with unfamiliar rules and procedures, a cumbersome bureaucracy and a shortage of judges after years of violence.

“Unfamiliar rules and procedures” just sounds like a less-awesome way of saying compromised and corrupt. Iraqi justice, like Saudi justice, Kuwaiti justice, et al is a lot more about who you know and who you’re paying versus what can be shown. All that bunk about justice being blind, a big freaking ball of trust to put in any system, has more holes in it than Saddam Hussein’s kids.

Iraq’s courts are just lousy, with the all makings of any court in a half-baked state, Colombia, Saudi Arabia, take your pick of lousy court having countries. That article may be two years old, but the pie-in-the-sky expansionist dream that we’ll be able to graft western legal systems into non-western societies is about to be put through the wringer-on-the-ground of practicality.

Bear in mind, this is the same courts that summarily booted out 20,000 random convicts, detainees awaiting trial and just plain old folks thrown in jail to rot because… well, just because. See, Sunnis and Shias can agree on some things - like undoing a few years of legal work in a flash. POOF!

My advice for commander’s on the ground is to familiarize yourself with the old fashioned world of greased-palms. Bribery in the third-world is a subtle affair. Show up with piles of cash and you’re going to get hurriedly shoved out the door. There is finesse to the art.

But back when the Ball Gunner was but a lad he traveled to South America with Ball Gunner Sr., who was the ship captain for a merchant line. The custom’s officials came and left shortly thereafter, their wealth increased by a few cartons of cigarettes and perhaps some mid-grade scotch or bourbon. The trade off being that the customs papers were cleared with little hassle. The alternative, high-and-mighty approach, is to send the customs officials packing and prepare for your ship to sit idle, while paying buckets in port fees, for a thorough customs inspection. This is what those with good sense refer to as “the cost of doing business.”

Well, my guess is that commanders are about to learn all about “the cost of doing business” in the Iraqi courts. Paltry offerings, smokes and cheap booze, keep a lid on rampant corruption that gets greasy and entangling real quick.

Of course, if we’re going to have success, the coalition will have to show Joe Iraqi that Al-Scalia and Bin-Ginsburg are in charge of Iraqi justice. Iraqi courts have to dispense Iraqi justice, at least on the surface. Of course, if Iraqi justice steps on the coalition mission, the strategic poo will hit the legitimacy fan.

Posted in: Army • Iraq • politics • • • | 4 Comments »

A quick news run down and a happy Turkey Day

November 26th, 2008, 8:33 am by jhogg

It appears that Robert Gates will continue on as Secretary of Defense. For our locay fly boys (and girls) this has one major implication (which will be revealed after the fold - HA!)

From the LA Times:

By Julian E. Barnes, Paul Richter and Christi Parsons
November 26, 2008
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has agreed to serve in President-elect Barack Obama’s Cabinet, advisors said Tuesday, setting up the unusual situation in which a wartime Pentagon chief remains to work under a president who has condemned the previous administration’s policies.

An official close to the Obama transition team said it was likely that Gates would be named Defense secretary when the president-elect begins to unveil his national security team in announcements expected next week.


A former government official who has advised the Obama transition said it was “99% certain” that Gates would remain as Defense secretary for about a year in the Obama administration.

“Nothing is definitive,” said the former official, who like others spoke on condition of anonymity when discussing transition plans. “But Gates did agree to stay on.”

Gates continuation is the likely final nail in the F-22 Raptor’s procurement coffin. Gates, who famously said, “We’re fighting two wars, in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the F-22 has not performed a single mission in either theater,” is not going to give the Air Force the funding it wants for the program, nor is he likely to bow down to a Congress hoping to score political points by requiring their purchase. The chances for a procurement boom, already slim under a democratic presidency, are all but evaporated.

Part 2:

The Ball Gunner is pleased to hear that Al Qaeda has abandoned an area it never had:

From the Wall Street Journal:

WASHINGTON — Pakistan has replaced Iraq as al Qaeda’s main focus, and the terror group has stepped up its efforts to destabilize the nuclear-armed South Asian nation, according to a senior U.S. military commander.

“Iraq is now a rear-guard action on the part of al Qaeda,” said Gen. James Conway, the head of the Marine Corps and a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in an interview. “They’ve changed their strategic focus not to Afghanistan but to Pakistan, because Pakistan is the closest place where you have the nexus of terrorism and nuclear weapons.”

Gen. Conway also offered a stark assessment of the Afghan situation, saying the Taliban has built a rudimentary command-and-control network that enables the group’s leadership to direct attacks across the country.

“They move troops around. They resupply. They provide money,” he said. “It’s effective and it’s real. It’s not just happenstance that these guys know where to go and what to do.”

It’s an uphill battle to beat these fires out. But as has been noted time and again, Al Qaeda in Iraq is hardly the enemy we so desperately want it to be.

The monger sect likes to claim these arguments are mere semantics, which demonstrates only that they wield a keen judo grip on ignorance. Iraq’s long history of secular government has made the majority of Iraqis particularly poorly suited for the Salafist Islam espoused by the Osama Bin Ladin (may demons eat his flesh) and the structure of Al Qaeda (may demons eat their flesh, too). We need to get this through our head; if we can’t identify who we are fighting we surely won’t be able to beat them.

Finally:

Happy Thanksgiving!

Posted in: Al qaeda • F-22 • Iraq • Marines • Pakistan • Pentagon • counterinsurgency • defense spending • not-so-hot ideas • politics • • • • • | Post a Comment »

The crucial moment for Iraq

November 14th, 2008, 2:57 pm by jhogg

Things are looking dangerously poor for the Status of Forces Agreement in Iraq.

BAGHDAD – Iraq’s two most powerful Shiite clerics on Friday challenged the government’s planned security pact with the United States, undercutting efforts to reach a deal before the U.N. mandate for American troops in Iraq expires Dec. 31.

Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr renewed threats to unleash his militia fighters to attack U.S. forces unless they leave Iraq immediately, and Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani vowed to intervene if he concludes the proposed agreement governing the presence of U.S. forces infringes on national sovereignty.

Iraqi officials have said they will seek a renewal of the U.N. Security Council’s mandate if the pact, which would allow American troops to stay in Iraq through 2011, is not passed by parliament by year’s end.

Not only has the ever-growing pain in our rear bit Muqtada Al Sadr come out against the arrangement, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has shouted his opposition, too. This coalescing of the moderate and radical Shia in Iraq under one opinion is nothing good for the coalition forces. The balance of power that consisted of Al Sadr’s radical forces vs al-Sistani’s moderates kept things moving forward in a slow, but steady, direction. If the Shia as a whole wrinkle their collective noses at the SOFA then we’re in for a spin.

The other side of this, is that the paralysis of the Shia has meant the Sunni have expanded their power. The Sons (and daughters) of Iraq were intended to be folded back into the country at large. As it turns out, the government has found it easier to keep buying them off.

For “Sons of Iraq,” being paid in U.S. dollars is becoming a thing of the past. Members of the armed civilian groups, credited with helping to curb violence in Iraq, received their pay from the Iraqi government for the first time this week.

The Iraqi government took over the “Sons of Iraq” program from the U.S. on Oct. 1. But only now are the Iraq security forces taking over from U.S. troops the task of paying the members, in Iraqi dinars.

Maybe its just my Ball Gunnie sense tingling, but does anyone else think elevating a sectarian militia to legitimate status is a cockamamie idea? As the Sunni militias grow in political power, it seems they will inevitably begin to demand more from the Shia government. If the Shia government denies their demands then the militias have the power and ability to destabilize sizable portions of the nation. Militias and governments do not play well together. Just ask the Pakistanis how it’s working in the tribal areas.

What the coalition, in specific the U.S., is likely finding is that ideological leaders, al-Sadr and al-Sistani, are a lot more difficult to manipulate than politicians. What it means in the long-term is yet to be figured out. There’s no telling what deals might be cut to keep operations in the clear before the deadline expires. I doubt if the deadline passed that anyone from CENTCOM on up would tell the boys to call it a mission and sleep it off in the FOBs until it’s time to come home. But it could greatly change the nature of the game.

Primarily, it gives the signal that the Shia, the majority of Iraq, are ready for us to go, and to go now. The idea of using Iraq as a base of operations in the Middle East, long unrealistic, has now become a chimera. The U.S. excursion into Syria, launched from Iraq, was widely denounced. Iraq is simply unwilling to be the top rope for the U.S.’ pro-wrestling style atomic elbows, for obvious reasons.

Second, if the Kurds get a wild hair during the power vacuum and make a break for full autonomy the whole region could get sucked into hell.

Admittedly, some of the Iraq demands for the SOFA were simply unworkable from the start. Man will walk on Pluto before the U.S. would allow an American troop to be tried in an Iraqi court, everyone in the Iraqi government knows that. This leads me to believe that these negotiations might have been loaded from the onset.

The U.S. better be preparing to do something else to enact its Middle East peace policy. The current administration’s efforts might unravel before the new guy even plops himself down in the office. As I’ve been saying for some time, if the situation deteriorates there is no political will for a second “Surge.” Any attempts to build support for it could torpedo the shaky support for ongoing operations in Afghanistan. If the U.S. objectives in both nations are left unfulfilled our nation’s credibility will likely never recover. Unfortunately, their failure or success may already be determined and out of our hands.

Posted in: Army • CENTCOM • Iraq • counterinsurgency • politics • warfare • • • • | Post a Comment »

More fallout from the Syria attack

October 29th, 2008, 11:28 am by jhogg

It doesn’t come as much of a shock that Iraq doesn’t want to become the base from which the U.S. pummels the rest of the Mid East. In the wake of the U.S.’ cross-border raid into Syria, the Iraq government has wedged what will surely be another controversial provision in the already controversial Status of Forces Agreement - that the U.S. cannot use Iraq as a launch pad for attacks against neighbors.

From the AP (via Yahoo news)

Iraq outlines changes it wants in pact with US

BAGHDAD – Iraq wants a security agreement with the U.S. to include a clear ban on U.S. troops using Iraqi territory to attack Iraq’s neighbors, the government spokesman said Wednesday, three days after a dramatic U.S. raid on Syria.

Also Wednesday, the country’s most influential Shiite cleric expressed concerned that Iraqi sovereignty be protected in the pact. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani wields vast influence among the Shiite majority and his explicit opposition could scuttle the deal.

Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said the ban was among four proposed amendments to the draft agreement approved by the Cabinet this week and forwarded to the U.S.

White House press secretary Dana Perino said U.S. negotiators in Iraq are closely reviewing the new amendments from the Iraqis to see if they are acceptable to the administration.

I have little doubt that the new amendments are completely and totally unacceptable to the administration. The purpose of securing Iraq has long been billed as creating a stepping stone against other belligerents in the region — primarily Iran.

The new amendments would represent a colossal failure of the war’s objectives by tying the U.S. to Iraq. Those who think the U.S. could sign and then simply renege when it became opportune lack any reasonable understanding of foreign policy. Were we to do so, every nation, organization and alliance with a treaty with the U.S. would view that treaty as worthless.

It’s pointless to speculate at this point, but no one in the Middle East is looking to be the launchpad from which the U.S. attacks its neighbors. I would not be surprised if Turkey is the next nation to slap restrictions on U.S. operations originating from its soil.

The price for this attack will be steep, possibly steeper than was anticipated. We can only hope it was worth it to kill a logistics expert.

Posted in: Al qaeda • Iraq • Syria • politics • warfare • • • • | 1 Comment »

The Syria attack - the Ball Gunner’s take UPDATE - target confirmed

October 28th, 2008, 11:04 am by jhogg

The U.S. strategy of alienating anyone and everyone in the Middle East while trying to build a friendly country took a turn for the weird over the weekend when the military crossed over into Syria, ostensibly to chase down Al Qaeda or to send a warning (free registration required.) From what I’ve been able to put together, the attacks wacked eight people and there are rumors floating around that at least two people were uncerimoniously hauled off.

What we’re left with is sifting through the rubble and the propaganda to find out what exactly happened down there. U.S. public relations folks are doing their standard routing of maintaining everyone killed was, if not another Hitler, at least a Pol Pot. The Syrian’s story is that it was a construction site full of people simply going about their day. http://gulf2000.columbia.edu/images/maps/IraqProvincial_2005_lg.jpg

Of course, the multi-headed Hydra of U.S. operations has too many mouths to keep everything straight. Last Friday, Maj. Gen. (Marine) John Kelly, the guy responsible for Anbar province, told U.S. News and World Reports “that Syria has become ‘a sanctuary’ for [Al Qaeda in Iraq."] When asked whether the Syrian border presented a problem for operations in the area, his reponse was, “We don’t go across the border, for sure.”

For your viewing amusement, Anbar is that big ole’ yellow triangle looking thing on the west edge of the map. The big gray smudge along the western border is Syria. To the north of Anbar is the festive Ninawa province, home of Mosul, which is not doing so hot right now, either.

On a side note, and just a quick reminder on how bloody old civilizations in this part of the world are: there’s no “W” sound in Arabic, so whenever you see a “W” what you need to be saying is “V.” (EDIT: See below - there actually is a “W” sound in Arabic. Nevertheless, Ninawa IS the archeologically accepted location of ancient Ninevah - Ah well, Ball Gunner’s can’t be right all the time.) So when you see Ninawa, what you need to be saying is “Nin-eh-vah” as in Nineveh, as in the place in the Bible where Jonah was headed when he decided to skip out and allegedly spent some time in intestinal confinement. So bear it in mind that we’re dealing with places so old that they’re more easily remembered by ancient myth than modern association. And not some sissy “I cannot tell a lie” myth, either, but some good old timey Godly smiting and “you’re going to sit your behind in that fish and think about what you’ve done” sort of mythology.

But fast forward a millenia or seven and things still aren’t making a whole lot of sense. For starters, if the Syria is really serving as a launch pad for beturbaned mustache twiddlers then it’s apparently news to “U.S. Officials,” and surely “officials” must include at least a few military, who recently reported that a whopping 20 people per month were coming across the Syrian border. Now, I haven’t seen the immigration numbers recently, but I’m going out on a limb and saying if the Syria-Iraq border is SO porous that 20 people sneak across per month that we probably should be sending every U.S. Border Patrol agent to Syria for whatever sort of high-speed hardcore training they’re getting out there.

Second, it goes without saying that, absent the commies, Al Qaeda is the best boogeymen we’ve got around. They caught us napping back in 2001 and slugged us so hard that the country’s collective ears are still ringing. But just about everything I’ve read comes to the conclusion that AQI is mostly a rabble-rouser in Iraq, despite the “officials” protestations to the contrary.

Andrew Tilghman’s article in Washington Monthly titled The Myth of AQI was one of the first serious swipes at the notion of AQI running the show. The definitive work is the Congressional Research Service report Al Qaeda in Iraq: Assessment and Outside Links. The CRS states what I’ve long argued, that Iraqis aren’t particularly predisposed to the sort of nutjob Islam proposed by Al Qaeda. Saddam Hussein’s rule, for all its many flaws, was rather secular, meaning all the crazy Wahabbi Islam stuff across the border in Saudi Arabia never made an appearance (largely because fundamental Islam was a threat to the secular dictatorship.) And even before Hussein, Iraq’s rule under the British and the half dozen monarchs and military coups all had a secular flavor. Long story short, trying to introduce the bongo version of Islam that Osama Bin Ladin wants to shoehorn onto the world in Iraq would be like trying to introduce 16th century Puritanism into modern day San Francisco.

The same more or less holds true in Syria. In fact, if anyone has shown the world that it simply does not tolerate Islamic extremism it would be the Syrians. Back in 1982 when the Muslim Brotherhood got uppity and decided to seize the city of Hama, the Syrian government surrounded the city, shelled it into oblivion for three weeks, and by some accounts pumped tge few remaining buildings where the insurgents were hiding full of poison gas. The survivors found in the city were more or less assumed to be sympathizers and tortured or summarily executed. To this day the Hama Massacre is held as the gold standard of how to send a message. To this day, if you’re wondering around Syria and you pipe up with, “I love me some Allah” you’d better follow that with a quick, “But I love me some President-for-life al-Assad even more.” Besides, the ruling duo look more like flashy East Europeans than Islamist theocrats, and Mrs. al-Assad certainly is easy on the Ball Gunner’s eyes.

I’m not saying the Syrians are all sunshine and lollypops. The Syrians have been some of the best funders of Hezbollah for a variety of political reasons. But that’s crazy Islam in someone else’s country. Big difference.

What this brings us back to, is what in the world was the cross border raid all about. The notion that there was some AQI schmuck hiding out in Syria is certainly plausible. But that doesn’t explain the sort of urgency that justifies an international incident. Maj. Gen. Kelly said that Syria is where foreign Al Qaeda fighters are flowing in from, but even the blowhards from the Weekly Standard say that foreign fighters make up only about 10% of AQI. At this point I’m not entirely ready to discount the entire Pentagon having gone crazy or some loco attempt to pull of some Hollywood style snatch and grab.

For all we know at this point someone made the supreme strategic error of giving a Lieutenant the map and now we’re playing cover your backside. But one safe bet, the U.S. can’t possibly hope to pull together an agreement with Iraq if every neighbor on the block, Sunni, Shia and other, is leaning on Iraq to give the the U.S. the boot.

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UPDATE:

Alright, Long War Journal is saying that Al Qaeda leader Abu Ghadiya was the target of the raid. The excitement isn’t catching.

US strike in Syria “decapitated” al Qaeda’s facilitation network

The identity of Ghadiya and several members of his senior staff have been known since February 2008 when the US Treasury identified Ghadiya, his brother, and his two cousins as members of the network. The US Treasury department publicly designated Ghadiya, his brother, Akram Turki Hishan Al Mazidih, and his two cousins, Ghazy Fezza Hishan Al Mazidih and Saddah Jaylut Al Marsumis as senior members of al Qaeda’s foreign facilitation network.

Ghadiya, whose real name is Badran Turki Hishan Al Mazidih, was an Iraqi from Mosul. He was working as an al Qaeda logistics coordinator in Syria since 2004, when he was appointed to the position by Abu Musab al Zarqawi. After Zarqawi’s death, he “took orders directly, or through a deputy” from Abu Ayyub al Masri, al Qaeda’s current leader in Iraq.

A logistics coordinator. So… we just killed a supply sergeant? Not to belittle the effort, the Long War Journal is a credible source and paints this guy as a high level logistics agent. But this seems like a poor target to alienate Syria for. If we push the Syrians to overt support for Al Qaeda then a high level logistics coordinator will be the least of our worries.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Syria has taken an unsurpising move and frozen diplomatic relations with the U.S. The extent of this has yet to be felt, but I’m willing to wager Ball Gunner bucks that Hezbollah leaders are already licking their chops and anticipating a financing increase.

Posted in: Al qaeda • Iraq • Syria • not-so-hot ideas • politics • terrorism • • • • • • | 4 Comments »

The huge, mega, major, über event no one is talking about

October 1st, 2008, 9:54 am by jhogg

Anyone who pays attention knows that today the Sunni-backed Awakening Councils were handed over to the primarily Shia goverment of Iraq. The jist, of course, is that in the nation of snoozers no one is paying attention to anything.

The provided link is to an Agence France-Presse story. If you head to CNN, Fox News or MSNBC there isn’t the first lick about Iraq anywhere to be found. Presumably the stuff about reality TV shows and celebrity gossip trump major international policy, or at least they do here. If you go to the BBC Web site you at least can find something near the bottom.

This is all circumspect in modern age. “The surge worked” is the mantra and that’s that, why are we still talking about it? If you’ve got at least a functioning brain stem, which automatically excludes a good 90% of the nation, you can probably riddle out that saying “the surge worked” at this point is kind of like saying “the house is built” when the first shipment of lumber arrives. What happens in the next few days and weeks will be the first and only indication of whether we have cobbled together a workable system. If things sour then it will not only sound the last hurrah for U.S. policy in the region but will likely bury the Republican Party alive in the November election. The American public has been sold on the inevitable victory and has boxed up their belongings ready to move in. If we arrive to find our new reality built on a rotton structure the “awakening” here will be neither gentle nor pleasant. Needless to say, with a growing and souring campaign in Afghanistan the political will to recommit in Iraq is nonexistent.

The other possibility (and anything is possible on this cracked planet) is that the Awakening Councils will either be absorbed by the new government or reintegrate peacefully into society. This could either be a genuine transformation or an intentional effort to keep the lid on the pot for a bit longer. The nature of American politics is that if Iraq fell apart on Jan. 21 it will immediately be blamed on the guy still trying to work his crease into the executive chair. If the change is genuine and sparks a new era for Middle Eastern political processes then President George W. Bush will indeed laugh all the way to his best-selling memoirs.

I’m not in any way prepared to pick one limb on this gargantuan tree and stake my claim. There are simply too many possibilities and too many players and too many things that could go right or go wrong. But the apathy and ignorance of American citizens is truly appalling. Blaming the media is like blaming Wal-Mart for stocking shoddy stuff. Media outlets give people what they want; gossip, no news about yet another bailout attempt and pictures of Kim Kardashian’s gigantic butt. The fact is, denizens of the Republic either do not care or are enmeshed in the belief that all is well and there is nothing further to report.

For the dozen or so actually interested in the future of American policy in the Middle East, the next few days and weeks certainly will be worth watching.

Posted in: Iraq • media • not-so-hot ideas • politics • warfare • • • | Post a Comment »

Iraq, Georgia, Pakistan, TOO MUCH! TOO MUCH!

September 2nd, 2008, 9:21 am by jhogg

The Ball Gunner spent last week with too much to do and too many fragrant options sizzling on the international buffet to even know where to begin. No point in pining over missed blogging opportunities, it’s a new week promising to be every bit as juicy as the last.

Big news over Labor Day was the apparent completion of the now you see it now you don’t Anbar handoff.

Finally passing the buck on Anbar is a huge PR move for the coalition force, and it’s been an elusive objective for a number of reasons.The big plan is to pass control of the U.S.-funded Sunni militias to the largely Shia Iraqi government. What the Iraqi government does with these militias will be the real meterstick of the Iraqi states progress. The underlying conflicts of the Suni militias being shoved aside by the Shia bureaucrats does not appear to be resolved, and Iraq will not have the patience to bribe these militas into compliance as the U.S. has done. A bunch of angry, disenfranchised, young men with guns does not a stable government make. If the Awakening Councils aren’t given something to do, they’ll make their own work and choose their own bad guys.

The stress test is about to begin for the legacy of both the Iraq War and it’s darling General Petraeus. If Anbar comes apart again it will be a tremendous stretch of U.S. political and military will to reengage. A good number of military and political reputations have been staked on the Surge, and the Ball Gunner has long argued that the endless bickering of “It worked!” “No it didn’t!” “Nuh-uh!” “Yuh-huh!” is wasted breath. We planted the seeds, but planting seeds and harvesting the fruit are two completely seperate actions each dependent on a different set of circumstances.

On a broader front, it does not seem all in Iraq is going according to plan. Nouri al Maliki is showing himself to be a cunning politician in a tough environment. The U.S. came in and did the dirty work of getting him into power. The trade-off was supposed to be using Iraqi hinterlands for a permanent military presence. Al-Maliki now has snatched the permanent base chips off the table.

Via the NY Times

“It is not possible for any agreement to conclude unless it is on the basis of full sovereignty and the national interest, and that no foreign soldiers remain in Iraqi soil after a defined time ceiling,” Mr. Maliki said in a speech to Shiite tribal leaders in Baghdad’s Green Zone. 

The architects of this plan are doing everything in their power to spin this into something managable. They are claiming that Al-Maliki really means “no troops in the cities” or “no groups larger than a brigade,” but in the English spoken by the Ball Gunner, “no foreign soldiers” is a rather unambiguous statement.

Al-Maliki is now proving himself to be more of a leader than the U.S. bargained for. The U.S. cannot backpedal on a withdrawal now that talks have been held without appearing a blatent occupier, and Al-Maliki is rolling out a hardline stance by throwing out the existing Iraqi negotiators and installing his own. It is a safe bet that they are securing Al-Maliki’s future as head of Iraq, in addition to a troop drawdown .

A lot of shoes are fixing to drop. The infrastructure built by the Surge is getting its first load test, the U.S. is finding itself with an increasingly surly Iraqi president and ethnic tensions in key areas are still sizzling.

It is too early to tell what will end up where. But the worst-case scenario of an authoritarian, Shia-led Iraq allying with Iran is now a very clear possibility. If and when this happens it will represent a cataclysmic failure of U.S. interests and efforts in the region.

PS - I’m getting caught up with old work and so will be back to blogging, soon. Look for more on Georgia and Russia tomorrow.

Posted in: Iraq • politics • warfare | 3 Comments »

Wrong on Iraq… again

August 7th, 2008, 8:24 am by jhogg

The American Enterprise Institute  has a puff piece titled “Iraq: Why we are winning” wherein the standard and incorrect arguments are put forth:

1) That we beat the Sunni extremists

2) That we beat the Sunni insurgency

3) That we beat the Shia extremists

4) That the Iraq security forces are improving

One wonders who writes these things and how much they get paid. But these points are simplistic and easily dismissed.

1) By all accounts the extremists defeated themselves, the Iraqis are not now and historically has not been prone to religious extremism.

2) The Sunni insurgency was defeated by bribing the insurgents and then arming them as the Sons of Iraq, Awakening Councils or whatever. A move that a good number of people have predicted will explode in the coalition faces once the bribes dry up.

3) If we beat the Shia, someone obviously forgot to let them know. The Desert Fox has proved a capable and cunning tactician with a penchant for politics. If we push the Shia into a corner or disregarding Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, we will learn precisely how non-defeated the Shia are.

4) By most accounts, yes. I’ll give them 1 out of 4.

But even if we were to go line-by-line to disassemble the puff and nonsense, we still would be faced with the same conclusion that the report ignores; the same fundamental problem that we have created and are unable to solve in Iraq.

There is no Iraqi state

Al-Maliki may have been ordained as the nominal head of the Iraqi state. But it is a state that no one disputes dances to the beat of the coalition forces drum, with Washington, D.C., conducting the band. If the coalition troops vanished from Iraq tomorrow at sunrise it is a safe gamble that there would be a new head of Iraq and a different government by sunset. This point is largely, though unintentionally, conceded by AEI in their own report.

The political reality that enables me to make the claim that I just did about winning and achieving our objectives arises from several things. Congress and the administration browbeat the Maliki government into a national legislative patch, the so-called benchmarks. We insisted on eighteen benchmarks that the Iraqis had to accomplish. The rationale was that by forcing national legislation, political reconciliation with the Sunnis would occur.

So the path to success was in getting Al-Maliki to do what Washington wanted. Of course! It stands to reason that an executive from the upper class enclave of New Haven, Connecticut, the sheltered graduate students at the State Department and the dweebs and dorks in Congress have a better grasp on how to run Iraq than Nouri Al-Maliki, an Iraqi.

It is not to say that success in Iraq is impossible or possible at this point. The U.S. has embroiled itself in long war, a fact that AEI seems glibly ignorant of, and defeat is still well within our grasp. This, of course, does not compute. As the preface to the article begins:

General Jack Keane spoke at an AEI conference, stating flatly that we are winning in Iraq and that the momentum is irreversible

I would caution General Keane against statements proclaiming inevitable. History has a way of turning inevitable successes into resounding failures.

Posted in: Iraq • not-so-hot ideas • politics • warfare | 1 Comment »

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