Diyala becomes "unpacified"

For about six months now, we've heard so much "good news" about Diyala. According to the U.S. military, it's "pacified".
It seems that it's not pacified.

So now that we've created a parallel army in Iraq that isn't answerable to the Iraqi government, will anyone start to ask how this helps the Iraqi Government control their own country? No, because it's all about Al-Qaeda, apparently. We are only making the inevitable Iraqi war between Shia and Sunni worse.

16 killed in suicide blast in Iraq
Ali al-Tuwajri
Fri, 07 Dec 2007

A woman suicide bomber killed 16 people on Friday when she blew herself up in the office of a group fighting al-Qaeda in central Iraq, days after the jihadi group warned of a new bombing campaign.

The attack was the second by a female suicide bomber in less than two weeks after a similar assault on 27 November targeting a US foot patrol in the Diyala provincial capital of Baquba killed one Iraqi and wounded seven US soldiers.

It came just hours after a leader of another anti-Qaeda front and five of his bodyguards were killed in a gun attack near the northern city of Mosul on Thursday night.

Friday's blast, which shook the town of Muqdadiyah, 100 kilometres north of Baghdad, near Baquba, killed at least 16 people and wounded 27, police and medical officials said.

"The explosion was caused when a female suicide bomber detonated her vest in the office of the local Awakening group," said Baquba police officer Lieutenant Colonel Najim al-Soumaidaie, referring to a group of local Sunni Arabs who have taken up arms against al-Qaeda in Diyala.

Of those killed, 10 were from the Awakening group while 15 members of the group were among the wounded, a security official said.

Thursday night's attack targeted a prominent tribal leader who headed an Awakening group near Mosul, police said.

"Unidentified gunmen attacked sheikh Jabbar al-Jarba's convoy, killing him and five of his guards," said Brigadier General Mohammed al-Waggaa, a police officer in Mosul, 370 kilometres north of Baghdad.

The attack occurred between Mosul and the town of Rabia, about 120 kilometres west of Mosul, he said.

Al-Sahwa or Awakening groups have sprung up across Iraq, comprising mainly Sunni tribal leaders who have accepted money from the US military - on average about 300 dollars a month - in return for confronting al-Qaeda militants who attack civilians.

On Tuesday, the leader of an al-Qaeda-linked group warned in an Internet audio message of renewed attacks in Iraq and announced the formation of a new brigade.

Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, leader of the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq, said a new brigade called Al-Siddiq Brigades had been formed to fight every "apostate and traitor".

Baghdadi warned of a bombing campaign that will continue until 29 January 2008.

"This attack involves bombings aimed at the 'apostates' and members of the Awakening Councils," he said. The term apostates is usually used to refer to Iraqi security forces.

The US military dismisses Baghdadi as a "fictional character."

"The whole notion behind this character is to try to put an Iraqi face to an Al-Qaeda organisation. It is essentially a virtual organisation," Major General Kevin Bergner told a news conference this week.

US military officials claim that al-Qaeda fighters have been migrating to northern areas of Iraq after being chased out of safe havens in Baghdad and other volatile regions.

The militant group has, however, managed to maintain its threat in Diyala province where - despite military assaults - suicide attacks are still a regular occurrence.

Diyala has been a stronghold of al-Qaeda for years. The former head of the group, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was killed in a US air strike in the province last year.

In another incident on Friday, a crude pipeline in oil-rich northern Iraq was set ablaze after being bombed by militants, oil ministry spokesman Assem Jihad said.

Repairs at the site near Al-Fatah, 120 kilometres west of Kirkuk, were expected to be completed within a day and crude exports would not be affected, he said.

Car bomb kills 10 in central Iraq
A car bomb killed 10 people on Friday in a town north of Baquba in Iraq's restive Diyala province, police official Major Ibrahim Hassan said. The attack came hours after a woman suicide bomber killed 16 people and wounded 27 in the town of Muqdadiyah near Baquba, and follows a warning by al-Qaeda that it has unleashed a new bombing campaign across the country.

AFP

Billions evaporate in Iraqi corruption

Ah, yes, Diyala. The shining star of neocons, the proof that Bush can "win" in Iraq and that all we need are more bullets and air strikes to bring Bush's dreams to fruition.

$7 billion disappeared in the first year of the occupation. All of those neocons cheering about Bush hanging tough on "pork" should be asking where it went. But that's okay; it went to "making us safer" somehow.

Diyala is also the place where senior police commanders create hundreds of false names of policemen under their command, while collecting the salaries of all of these false officers. How does this make us safer? How does this help stabilise Iraq? If you ask these questions, however, you are a traitor, a socialist, and you don't "want us to win". Paying for imaginary police officers in a foreign country is money well spent, in the view of Republicans, but actually making disability payments to wounded and traumatised vets is just "wasteful".

Republicans who vote against rebuilding the bridge in Minnesota that collapsed in early August (it's pork, you know), are apparently okay with forking over the cash for contractors in Iraq to pay bribes and not even complete the work they were paid for.

As multiple billions seep away into government officals' pockets, Republicans brag about the "stunning success" in a country that barely fuctions. Nobody looks at where the money is going and what is actually being done with it. It's all secret, but incompetent investigators whose primary qualifications are contributions to Republican candidates are on the job, studiously ignoring the problems and vigourously shrugging their shoulders in a patriotic manner. Let's not look too close, okay? The system is working, so let's look at how many kids might be going to the doctor on our dime. That's the real scandal, and the GOP is on it.

story from IPS

IRAQ: Corruption Adds to Baquba's Problems
By Ahmed Ali*

BAQUBA, Nov 15 (IPS) - Facing violence, unemployment and poverty, the capital city of Iraq's volatile Diyala province now finds itself confronting also corruption.

This follows the failed promises of reform, reconstruction and rehabilitation at the beginning of the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Billions of dollars of U.S. and Iraqi funds were set aside for rebuilding Iraq, ruined by four years of occupation, 12 years of sanctions, and 30 years of dictatorship. There is little to show for these vast amounts of aid money.

The infrastructure is clearly worse on all measurable levels than it was pre- invasion.

Under the Coalition Provisional Authority, more than 7 billion dollars went "missing" in the first year of occupation alone. Now Iraqi authorities are blamed for adding to the corruption.

Contractors in Baquba told IPS they believe the governor's office is directly involved in the corruption.

"I'm not quite sure about the governor (Ra'ad Hameed al-Mula Jowad al- Tamimi) himself," the owner of a security contracts company, speaking on condition of anonymity, told IPS. "What is certain is that his protection group plays a big role in taking the money using his name."

"In contrast to all the contractors, a large number of projects go to the governor's nephew," contractor Abu Ahmed told IPS. "This contractor often tries to influence the monitoring committee to sign his invoice even if it is inconsistent with the specifications of the job."

Payments for roads and bridges have been made even when the job was badly done or left incomplete, he said.

Companies and contractors submit their bids to the government committee. The committee as a whole is then supposed to examine the tenders according to the terms announced. But in Diyala province, contractors say the committee divides the projects among its members.

"Every committee member takes a number of projects, and makes deals with contractors," co-owner of the al-Khadra company for general contractors, who did not wish to give his name, told IPS. "If the contractor does not pay them a bribe, he won't get the contract."

The usual rate, he said, is 10 percent of the value of the contract to be paid to the one who awards it. The company owner said he had seen this process first-hand.

"Imagine, in a project of one million dollars, the contractor should pay 100,000 dollars to be awarded the project to begin with," he added.

Governor al-Tamimi was nearly killed Sep. 27 by a suicide bomber outside a mosque in Shifta village nearby Baquba. He was injured, but 24 people were killed, and 37 others wounded.

A city official told IPS that a senior member of the department of planning in the governor's office has been accused of blackmailing contractors, "and his name is on the list of the minister's council for investigation."

Abu Shaima, who has worked for some of the companies that have been awarded contracts, said there are four contact persons "in the north" who make deals with contractors. Local workers, most of whom are now jobless, told IPS that government employment is itself affected by corruption.

"You have to pay to be a policeman," former policeman Abu Qassim told IPS. "You bring your CV, with a few hundred dollars." Or, he said, "the first salary will be for the officer who is in charge of nominating volunteers."

There are all sorts of variations. "Sometimes, there are hundreds of false names whose salaries go to the senior officers. Or, one may be told that he can have half of the salary without coming to the office." Meanwhile, basic infrastructure, from water to electricity to security, barely functions.

On Oct. 25, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was questioned by lawmakers over claims that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was shielding top ministers from corruption probes.

Senator Henry Waxman said Maliki had issued a decree requiring his approval before any minister or official in the presidential office was brought before a court on corruption charges.

Rice refused to respond directly, and instead claimed that U.S. officials took all allegations of corruption in Iraq seriously.

(*Ahmed, our correspondent in Iraq's Diyala province, works in close collaboration with Dahr Jamail, our U.S.-based specialist writer on Iraq who travels extensively in the region) (END/2007)

Victory disguised as corpses all across Iraq

The "progress" just never lets up in Iraq.

51 dead in Karbala as all hell breaks loose despite heavy security, inter-militia fighting in Baghdad and Kut, another attack on Iraqi troops in Diyala (Khalis), Iraqi security forces in Basra are scared of the impending British withdrawal, and Al-Qaeda mounted a revenge attack in Fallujah against a sheik that joined the U.S. efforts.

Of course, this is just the "enemy" trying to make Bush look bad, not any kind of security crisis. Nothing to see, folks, just more "traitor-talk". And how about the good news? After four days of Sadrists shutting off the water supply to parts of Diyala, U.S. forces finally swept in and blasted the place to bits. But what's this about AQI controlling areas around Khalis? I thought Operation Arrowhead Ripper cleared them all out and pushed them into Kurdistan? I guess not. Time for Operation Try Again. Am I detecting a pattern here? We move in and kill civilians with airstrikes, Al-Qaeda leaves, we claim success, and Al-Qaeda returns to control the area -- connect the dots. This is whack-a-mole, not "victory".

Speaking of "victory", the military has stacked the deck every possible way it can to make continuing disasters look like victory. Figures must be cleared with the military, who also decides what gets counted in the first place, and it's not the bad news that gets counted. The military now gets to decide on its own that certain terrorist groups are not terrorists if they say the right things to the senior commanders. Bodies that turn up in piles showing signs of torture are not necessarily victims of "sectarian kilings" in the minds of the military. Heck, maybe they tortured themselves before shooting themselves into a pile, maybe it was a prank gone bad, maybe some kind of frat hazing, who knows? But we're sure that every single body found in the rubble of an airstrike is Al-Qaeda. No question about that. And we know for sure that nobody will replace them in the ranks because....well, we just know, okay? It's secret military stuff. If the "enemy" knew our secrets for determining the Al-Qaedaness of corpses, well, the whole show could unravel.

We're winning. Take our word for it. You want to win, so start believing, comrade.



Aug 28, 4:23 PM (ET)

By ROBERT H. REID


BAGHDAD (AP) - Fighting erupted Tuesday between rival Shiite militias in Karbala during a religious festival, claiming 51 lives and forcing officials to abort the celebrations and order up to 1 million Shiite pilgrims to leave the southern city.

Security officials said Mahdi Army gunmen loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr fired on guards around two shrines protected by the Badr Brigade, the armed wing of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council.

Residents of Karbala contacted by telephone said snipers were firing on Iraqi security forces from rooftops. Explosions and the rattle of automatic weapons fire could be heard during telephone calls to reporters in the city 50 miles south of Baghdad.

In addition to the deaths, security officials said at least 247 people were wounded, including women and children.

The clashes appeared to be part of a power struggle among Shiite groups in the sect's southern Iraqi heartland, which includes the bulk of the country's vast oil wealth.

Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf said entrances and exits to Karbala "have been secured and more forces are on the way from other provinces." Officials said buses were sent to evacuate pilgrims from the city, which includes some of the world's most sacred Shiite shrines.

Gunfights also broke out Tuesday between Mahdi militiamen and followers of the Supreme Council in at least two Shiite neighborhoods of Baghdad and in Kut, about 100 miles southeast of the capital, police said.

Extra police took up positions in the center of another Shiite city, Diwaniyah, after gunmen fired on a mosque associated with the Supreme Council, police said. A curfew was clamped on the Shiite city of Najaf after a mortar round exploded on a major square, causing no casualties, officials said.

The trouble started in Karbala late Monday as tens of thousands of Shiites were streaming into the city for the Shabaniyah festival marking the birth of Mohammed al-Mahdi, the 12th and last Shiite imam who disappeared in the 9th century. Devout Shiites believe he will return to Earth to restore peace and harmony.

Scuffles broke out between police and pilgrims as the crowd tried to push through the security checkpoints near the Imam al-Hussein mosque, the focal point of the celebrations. At least five people were killed, police said.

Early Tuesday, crowds of angry pilgrims chanting religious slogans surged through the streets, attacking police and mosque guards, witnesses said. Two ambulances were set ablaze, sending a huge column of black smoke over the city.

Gunmen appeared, firing automatic rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars at security forces and sending panicked pilgrims fleeing the area, police and witnesses said.

A member of the city council said the center of town was in chaos, with pilgrims running in all directions to escape the gunfire.

"We don't know what's going on," said the councilman, who wouldn't allow use of his name for security reasons. "All we know is the huge numbers of pilgrims were too much for the checkpoints to handle and now there is shooting."

Some rounds struck fuel tanks on the roofs of three small hotels, setting them ablaze, police said.

With the situation spiraling out of control, police ordered pilgrims out of the center of the city, effectively canceling the celebrations which were to reach their climax Tuesday night and Wednesday morning.

"The area where they (the pilgrims) were gathering has been evacuated in order to control those (criminals)," said Khalaf, the Interior Ministry spokesman. He said the gunmen were gathering in three areas in the old town and security forces were chasing them.

In Baghdad, a senior government security official blamed the fighting on al-Sadr's followers, saying they provoked the confrontations Monday night and were responsible for the shooting Tuesday. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid enflaming the situation.

Tensions have been rising in southern Iraq as rival Shiite groups maneuver for power, especially in the oil-rich area around Basra, Iraq's second-largest city.

Concern over Basra is mounting as British forces prepare to evacuate the last of their forces from the city and redeploy to the airport 12 miles to the north.

On Tuesday, Hakim al-Miyahi, head of the security committee of the Basra municipal council, told The Associated Press that Iraqi forces were incapable of maintaining order in the city once the British leave and that the Baghdad government should send reinforcements.

"Some disorder will occur in the absence of British troops in Basra," he said. "It will take at least two army divisions to fill the gap that will be created by British troop withdrawal."

Elsewhere, hundreds of U.S. and Iraqi forces backed by helicopters and jet fighters killed 33 Sunni insurgents who were holding back the water supply to the Shiite town of Khalis, about 50 miles north of Baghdad, the U.S. command said.

The assault began before dawn Monday when a joint force was landed by helicopter in the village of Gubbiya, 10 miles east of Khalis. The assault force killed 13 fighters and attack aircraft killed 20 others, the military said. The area is known to be controlled by al-Qaida in Iraq.

Also Tuesday, a roadside bomb exploded in northern Khalis, killing four Iraqi soldiers, the Iraqi army said.

In Fallujah, 40 miles west of Baghdad, mourners buried 11 victims of a mosque suicide bombing Monday. Ten people were wounded in the attack, which police said targeted an anti-al-Qaida Sunni sheik.

Surge's "success" destroys Diyala

According the article from IPS shown below, it appears that things aren't so wonderful in Diyala after all. See also the previous post about a soldier's view of the Diyala 'success'.

IRAQ:
Caught Between the U.S. and Al-Qaeda

By Ahmed Ali*
BAQUBA,
Aug 20 (IPS) - The major U.S. military operation in Baquba city north
of Baghdad has ended, but it has left continuing suffering for
residents in its wake.

The U.S. military launched Operation
Arrowhead Ripper in Baquba, 50 km northeast of Baghdad, on Jun. 18.
Baquba is the capital city of Iraq's Diyala province.

The stated goal of the operation was to eradicate al-Qaeda from the
city and other areas in the province. The region has seen some of the
highest number of attacks on U.S. troops.


Shortly after launching the operation, the U.S. military
admitted that nearly 80 percent of al-Qaeda militants had fled the
area.

Residents had been looking for an end to raids and abductions
by criminal gangs and sectarian death squads, but the U.S. military
operation brought no relief.

"People here feel afraid because the coalition forces always push
al-Qaeda out of the cities, but unfortunately they return when the
troops retreat," resident Mohammed Hulail told IPS. "So the coalition
forces can provide no solution."

A Baquba city official, speaking on condition of anonymity,
told IPS that al-Qaeda militants had already returned to parts of the
city. "We are now sure that Iraqi police and army cannot defeat
al-Qaeda who are well fortified in the streets and buildings."

Residents have learnt to fear enemies on all sides. "People are the
victims of this war because they are in the middle point between the
American forces and the fighters of al-Qaeda," Jabbar Ibrahim, a
secondary school teacher in the city told IPS. "The fighters of
al-Qaeda came to control the city, but when the U.S. troops came to
fight them, they ran away, leaving civilians to face the shells the
bombs."

Many residents complain of indiscriminate arrests through the U.S.
forces' search for al-Qaeda suspects. "Arrests are sometimes made
wrongly; simple people who have nothing to do with fighting and
violence were arrested, and those who were the real fighters ran away,"
a resident who declined to give his name told IPS.

The Iraqi Islamic Party has accused the Multi-National Forces operating
in the area of killing many people in Baquba in the early weeks of the
operation.

"The operations led by the U.S. forces in western Baquba led to the
death of more than 350 people, most of whom are still under the
rubble," the party said in a statement.


Many residents in this city of 300,000 say that operation
Arrowhead Ripper has made living conditions worse. "We spent 12 days
without water, electricity and food," Hamid Shaaban, a 51-year-old
retired city official told IPS. And U.S. forces were of little help.


"I have seven children," said Shaaban. "I went to ask U.S.
troops for food and water." All he got, he said, was some bottled
water. He was then sent away.

The shortage of water hit the city at the worst time of the year. "The
temperature was between 45 and 51 degrees C," an elderly woman said.
"We have had very long days, it has been terrible."

Most residents IPS spoke to said they would leave if they could, but
they either lacked funds or simply did not know where to go.

"We do not have another place to go in order to leave this
miserable place," resident Kamil Abid told IPS. "All places are the
same, and we have no money to start again."

The U.S. military has often detained people who have stayed home during
the attacks and searches. Several residents say a decision to stay on
was often seen as a gesture of defiance.


Now almost everyone seems fed up with the violence and
intimidation from all sides. "What people want is security in order to
get back again to their jobs to earn their living," said the owner of a
local food store. "Providing this is the responsibility of the
coalition forces and the Iraqi government."


Suspicions abound that the U.S. forces do not really want to
solve the problem. "U.S. governments always tend to create an enemy,
and then fight him in order to show weak governments, like this one in
Iraq, that they cannot do without the support of U.S. power," said a
retired army officer.

(*Ahmed, our correspondent in Iraq's Diyala province, works in close
collaboration with Dahr Jamail, our U.S.-based specialist writer on
Iraq who travels extensively in the region) (END/2007

The boots on the ground speak: Diyala

This is an excerpt from a post from a blog that I have noted before.
Army of Dude is a blog written a soldier named Alex currently serving in Diyala, the province that neocons wax ecstatic over as proof that the surge is "working". This particular pair of "boots on the ground", however, sees things quite differently from the press releases written by commanders trying hard not to be the next Shinseki.

I strongly encourage you to take a moment to read not only the entire post in Alex's blog, but the other entries. One point of interest is his post detailing the pressure to re-enlist.

In the excerpt that follows, Alex outlines possible nominees for the stupidest mistakes made by the military in the areas he has served. Emphases are mine.

Working with 1920s – A Sunni insurgent group we’ve been battling for months, responsible for the death of my friend and numerous attacks, agreed to fight Al Qaeda alongside us. Since then, they’ve grown into a much more organized, lethal force. They use this organization to steal cars and intimidate and torture the local population, or anyone they accuse of being linked to Al Qaeda. The Gestapo of the 21st century, sanctioned by the United States Army.

The Surge – The beefing up of ground forces in Iraq at the beginning of the year, started by the 82nd Airborne. Unit deployments were moved up several months to maintain a higher level of boots on the ground to quell the Baghdad situation. What most don’t realize is the amount of actual fighting troops in a brigade, something in the area of 2,000 soldiers in a brigade of 5,000 depending on what unit it is. So for every 2,000 fighters, there are 3,000 pencil pushers sucking up resources in every brigade that was surged. A logistical nightmare that, surprise, failed miserably. The increase of troops in Baghdad pushed the insurgents to rural areas (like Diyala), hence our move here in March. The surge was nothing more than a thorn in the side of nomadic fighters having to move thirty five miles while the generals watched Baghdad with stubborn eyes.

Two Companies Clearing Baqubah – Which brings us to the next nominee. Since Baghdad was the showcase of the war and Baqubah was brimming with super IEDs taking our Bradleys and Abrams tanks, it was decided that a unit needed to be sent there to assist the cavalry unit who averaged a death per week. But how many to send? Someone, somehow, somewhere decided that two companies of Strykers would be adequate to take down what Al Qaeda had deemed their headquarters in Iraq. What came about this oversight? Two hours into the first mission, my friend was killed in a massive IED blast that busted the hell out of the squad leader’s face, resulting in traumatic brain injury and facial reconstruction surgery. The vehicle commander tore his ACL from the concussion. Shrapnel being thrown around the inside of the truck caught one dude in the knee as a dude in the back hatch got rattled around, bruising his back as the other in the hatch was thrown completely out the vehicle. He’s been quiet since then, and was sent home soon after. Returning fire from us and the Bradleys killed an untold number of kids unlucky enough to be in the school next to our position. A wrecker sent out to pick up the destroyed Stryker was the next victim of an IED explosion, killing two men inside. Two more wreckers were sent out, one for the Stryker, one for the now totaled wrecker. As we pulled out that evening, local Iraqis, men, women and children, danced in celebration by the massive crater where the Stryker had been. At once we realized reinforcements were needed but we didn’t get any for two more months. Many more men were killed because we were stretched to our operational breaking point. But there was always more to do. Whoever made the decision to send less than an infantry battalion should be in jail right now.

The Extension – This wasn’t too much of a surprise to us, as we knew in the back of our minds that an extension was in our future. What was surprising was the fact that everyone in Iraq was extended to fifteen month deployments. It was meant to give every unit at least a year in between deployments, as some were coming back to Iraq after only ten months back in the states. Now at the end, it’s not hard to assess the achievements of our three extra months. It seems at a quick glance that we pacified the city, street by street. There was a lull in American deaths because, simply, we absorbed all the bomb blasts or found the IEDs before they could detonate on us. As deadly as they are, deep buried IEDs must take a lot of time to build and emplace. The ones used against us were meant for the cavalry unit, who didn’t have the manpower to patrol the streets like we have been. After we arrived, there were few bombs that haven’t been sitting in the ground for several months already. The enemy ran out of ways to kill us until the ingenious idea of putting bombs in houses took hold. Instead of blowing us up in armored vehicles, they thought about doing it inside an abandoned house. What kills you isn’t the bomb, but the foundation of the house that comes crashing down after the explosion. Wires and triggers are hidden behind doors or underneath rugs, so when we go out and clear blocks and blocks of houses, there’s a pressure plate waiting for you at the foot of the stairs. Only your eyes can save you at this point. That tactic has been born from our proclivity to redundantly clear neighborhoods, and the extension is guilty of claiming lives of men who are running on too little sleep, walking into house after house in the desert heat. When you’re worried about how much water you have left and the trucks are too far away to get more, you tend to miss the trip wire in the dark stairwell. Twelve month deployments are a burden on your body and mind. Asking men for three more months is not only unfair but deadly.

Seven Men Killed At The Same Time – Finally, one of the lowest, saddest points of the deployment came in May. One night, a helicopter spotted several men gathered in the road with a large object. Permission was asked to fire a Hellfire missile at them, as they were obvious IED emplacers. Permission was emphatically denied, but someone decided that a Stryker platoon should head out there anyway to check it out. In tow was a Russian reporter. On a road called Trash Alley, they hit a massive deep buried IED. Everyone in the truck except the driver, six Americans and one Russian, dead. And they didn’t need to be there at all. A helicopter could have killed the insurgents with breathtaking ease. Instead, those guys and the one with the detonator got away in the night. Justice was never done.

War supporters always tell us to "listen to the boots on the ground". What goes unsaid, however, are the consequences for those "boots" who fail to repeat the scripted lines.

As for me, I started to sign these entries with my initials long ago to avoid detection by superiors. I could and still can get in trouble for what I’ve written. Lately this blog has been passed around to dudes of every rank, and those who would be punishing me have become readers.

...and also:

In the future, I want my children to grow up with the belief that what I did here was wrong, in a society that doesn’t deem that idea unpatriotic.

This soldier's post is a heart-breaking read and I sincerely hope that nobody reading this sees this an opportunity to punish someone who has served their country but fails to squawk like a parrot when cued. The Republican's crazy "dissent is treason" mantra should be excepted in the case of the troops, but sadly it is the case where this belief is applied most stringently. "Support the troops", my ass. They mean "support the troops that say what they are told to say, and punish those who are brave enough to speak the truth".

Like most war testimonials, this one tells a story of someone fighting for their friends rather than some glorious cause. That's what makes me deeply suspicious of accounts from tools like Michael Yon, who is forever spinning tales of soldiers spouting the Party line and saying things that sound like they come from Tony Snow's mouth. Maybe officers talk like that, officers seeking quick promotion with little regard for the men under their command, that is. The "grunts", however, don't have time for that and don't see any future in it. They know better than to speak their minds around such officers, which only serves to reinforce the fantasy world of these craven toadies. This lot was still chirping away with glowing reports of 'enemy' body counts and inevitable success in Vietnam right up to the bitter end. Do we never learn?

I think that the right-wing had better brace themselves for more stories such as Alex's when the surge is over. These guys won't keep their mouths shut forever, especially once they find out to what devious lengths the Bush Administration will go to when denying them their benefits and care. Once they start to look for a job and find Republican fundies mouthing "we support your service" tonelessly while tossing their resumes in the trash, they will surely wise up to the immense fraud, lies, and hypocrisy at the foundation of the neocon's 'support' for the troops. Having built up the troops as a nearly angelic group beyond reproach or criticism, the Republicans will find it very difficult indeed to suddenly label these men and women as 'traitors' and 'defeatists'.

The major strategic "progress" of the surge has been in enlisting the sectarian militias in the effort to fight Al-Qaeda, which somehow is the most important thing.
Not only does this tactic glaringly point out the failure of the Iraqi military and police, but it also puts us directly in league with those who have tortured and killed innocent Iraqis for years in a short-term bid to tackle a relatively minor cause of the massive instability in Iraq. It was the (Iraqi) police and military who were supposed to take the lead in the surge, not our troops and certainly not the gangs that the surge was supposed to disarm. These sectarian militias are little more than street gangs, and their objectives are not nobler or more evolved than common street gangs, yet our alliance with them is the major reason behind the "pacification". In an earlier post, Alex poignantly describes an exchange with one of these militia's members:

For now, our relationship with 1920 is one of mutual distrust and hatred, a sign of the times. A conversation between a member of my platoon and a 1920 source is ripe with foreboding on the future of this partnership, and of the war to come.
“Do you want to kill me?” asked the soldier.
“Yes,” replied the source, coldly and without emotion. “But not today.”

Does this sound like a tactic we can put our faith in? Or does it sound like a short-term move to create the illusion of long-term success while a report is due? I wish those who support the surge and claim that it's "working" would explain how it will deal the sectarian militias once the reason for this alliance of convenience disappears. It is nothing short of madness to keep on repeating that Al-Qaeda is the big problem facing Iraq, but that is exactly what we gambled the farm on. Instead, for all of this compromise with the gangs, we have merely managed to keep Al-Qaeda moving around. There is no "reconciliation"; there is only a temporary distraction that the Iraqi government, police, and military are completely squandering. And we have bought this sham of success with the extension of soldiers like Alex.

Listen to the boots on the ground

Neocons say, no beg, that we should "listen to the boots on the ground". Of course, they mean certain selected "boots". I have been reading a soldier's blog, "Army of Dude", for about two months now. The latest entry is haunting. As Alex is preparing to return home, he summarises his views of the occupation and his role in Diyala.

This occupation, this money pit, this smorgasbord of superfluous aggression is getting more hopeless and dismal by the second. It’s maddening to think that more than a year’s worth of blood, sweat and tears will lead to little more than a pat on the back and a hideously redundant speech from someone who did none of the bleeding, sweating or crying.

I must remind myself not to offer any "hideously redundant speeches" if I ever meet Alex. The poor guy must not be reading enough right-wing blogs or he would 'know' that the surge is "working", not "getting more hopeless and dismal by the second". Maybe he and Michael Yon could get together. Yon is a 'real expert', while Alex is apparently just one of those 'defeatists' with 'an agenda'. Yon could regale poor Alex with reports of 'the mission'. Because having a mission to do something automatically means that success is inevitable. The best possible outcome is the only likely outcome, at least to neocons.

Despite being in a meaningless situation, my life has never had this much meaning. I watch the backs of my friends and they do the same for me. I’ve killed to protect them, and they’ve killed to protect me. For friends and family, being deployed is like being pregnant or surviving a car wreck; everyone is nice to you all of a sudden. People I don’t even know send me kind words and packages from all over. They came out of the woodwork knowing my plight and shared with me heartfelt hope and luck. The fact that you’re reading this now, dear reader, is a testament to that. Would you have cared about what I thought, felt or did two years ago? This position I’m in, shared by less than one percent of the U.S. population, has given me the distinct privilege of sharing my experiences and ruminations of this war, observations undiluted by perpetually delirious officials like General Petreaus and mainstream media sirens. I have felt every extreme of the human condition, physically, morally and emotionally. I’ve never laughed so hard, cried so long or felt more ashamed of myself in all of my life. In a matter of weeks it’ll be over, and I’ll have just the memories of enduring 130 degree heat, and poker games lasting well into the night. I’ll look back on the hysterical laughter during fifteen hour Baghdad clears, the terror of being pinned down by machine gun fire, the sight of a Stryker on it side and the unfolding of a body bag under the flames of a nearby school, unzipped tenderly to fit the body of Chevy as RPGs screamed overhead. Soon this place will all be in the past.

"perpetually delirious officials like General Petraeus"? "mainstream media sirens"? Oh, dear. It sounds like Alex "doesn't want to win". Doesn't he know that the troops will lose faith if he talks like that? Oh, wait...he is "the troops". Maybe it's not "treason", then.
It certainly sounds like he knows something about combat, and it doesn't sound as if he's been sitting behind a desk in the Green Zone, so I guess this would make him "not credible" to neocons. Does any of Alex's narrative sound like he's fighting a war against Islam for the survival of Christianity? Any mention of bringing democracy and hope to Iraqis? No. It's pretty much that he got the short straw in Bush's ill-considered gamble to look like a hero. For the neocons, who adulate "the troops" for values that these soldiers simply do not have, Alex is simply another aberration who must be punished when he returns home. Republicans who turn him down for a job will mumble that they "honor his service" while wishing him "luck". And the crude charade continues by flag-wavers dripping with hypocrisy.

And that’s how we’ve been leading our lives for the past year and two months. Going from place to place and hoping we don’t die on the way there or the way back. With our GPS tracking satellites and laser guided warheads and scientifically developed helmets for ultra comfort, we’re getting beat to the punch every day by a dude crouching behind a wall with a battery and a spool of wire. We’ve been killing the innocent with the guilty because we don’t have the luxury to tell the difference when that bomb goes off and you don’t know which of your friends are dead or alive. In essence, we’ve come here to help each other survive. It worked in most cases and sadly, not in others.

"killing the innocent with the guilty"? Say it isn't so! We're the good guys. Everyone we kill is Al-Qaeda, and the proof is that they are dead. Alex must not be reading the talking points from the White House.
All in all, not a particularly upbeat assessment of the "dramatic success" in Diyala. Surely there must be a general whose job is on the line to give us a more "balanced" view of the situation.

Signs of progress in Diyala

More 'signs of progress' from Diyala province in Iraq. The morgue can't deal with all of the bodies piling up. The solution is mass graves for the growing numbers of unidentified and unidentifiable dead. Of course, these must be Al-Qaeda that we're killing, right? After all, they are dead.
Also note that numbers reported, which are used by U.S. military commanders to show a decrease of violence, are a fraction of the actual numbers.

IRAQ: Mass Graves Dug to Deal With Death Toll
By Ahmed Ali*

BAQUBA, Jul 17 (IPS) - The largest morgue in Diyala province is overflowing daily. Officials told IPS they have had to dig mass graves to dispose of bodies.

More and more bodies of victims of the ongoing violence are being found every day in Baquba, capital city of the province, 50km northeast of Baghdad.

"The morgue receives an average of four or five bodies everyday," Nima Jima'a, a morgue official, told IPS. "Many more are dropped in rivers and farms -- or it is sometimes the case they are buried by their killers for other reasons. The number we record here is only a fraction of those killed."

Ambulances, now able to move again after weeks of restrictions, have been removing bodies of victims from the current fighting. But they have also found skulls and bones, evidence of other killings long ago.

Dealing with these remains is becoming difficult. Like the rest of the city, the morgue suffers from continuing lack of electricity. Over the last two weeks, two of its refrigerators have been shut down. The smell of decomposing bodies hits visitors 100 metres away.

Morgue officials told IPS that a local U.S. military commander recently ordered them to bury all bodies within three days.

"We got 30 bodies out of the refrigerator on Sunday, put a number on each, and put them in plastic bags provided by U.S. troops," morgue official Kareem al-Rubaee told IPS. "We asked families to have a look at the bodies. Then, they were buried collectively."

There is expected to be a need now to bury bodies collectively every 15-20 days in order keep the capacity of the refrigerator intact, al-Rubaee said.

Families are often unable to identify and collect the bodies, morgue officials say. It is still extremely dangerous to travel around the city. Also, most bodies are never brought to the morgue at all to be identified or counted.

Many victims of U.S. air strikes have been buried under the rubble of their homes for days, sometimes weeks, residents say. The military operation has been launched to target al-Qaeda, amid local reports that the operation began after the al-Qaeda suspects had fled town.

People in the town feel targeted by killings from all sides. Foreign terror groups, like those who claim to be following the model of al-Qaeda, have kidnapped many people who are never heard from again.

Groups believed to be al-Qaeda have been known to kill and then drop the body in selected places that they call "the execution zone." This is intended to show people the power of al-Qaeda.

Police vehicles and ambulances have been moving bodies mainly from such spots to the morgue.

Baquba, never anticipating such a death toll, has only a small morgue, and limited means to carry out necessary procedures.

"When a number of bodies are brought to the morgue, we take at least two photos from different angles," Mohammed Abid, another official at the morgue told IPS. "Generally, the bodies are brought without identity cards. This is a problem for the families for whom the photographs are not enough -- faces are often deformed due to torture or shooting."

The refrigerators at the morgue are packed beyond capacity, and workers narrate grisly accounts of attempts to access the bodies for identification.

"My brother's photo is in the computer, but we couldn't get the body because it was taken by another family," 52-year-old primary schoolteacher Naser Sattar told IPS. "They thought him their son because the body was deformed."

The schoolteacher added, "I went to that family and got my brother's body and then buried it."

(*Ahmed, our correspondent in Iraq's Diyala province, works in close collaboration with Dahr Jamail, our U.S.-based specialist writer on Iraq who travels extensively in the region) (END/2007)