Baghdad's on lockdown for the Arab League Summit. Imagine trying to live in that.
Daniel R. DePetra describes the plight of the average Iraqis in Baghdad:
Yet what Iraq’s leaders see as a momentous period in the nation’s diplomatic history, much of the public sees as an unnecessary nuisance that will make their lives even more complicated. Rather than viewing the Arab League conference as a chance to forge new connections with their neighbors, many Iraqis in Baghdad and elsewhere are waving off the event as a publicity stunt by their squabbling politicians—an event that will have no real positive impact on their personal lives.
Residents of Baghdad are especially aggravated about the meeting, with the capital essentially locked down for three days.
To make the conference as safe as possible for the visiting Arab dignitaries, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has dispatched an additional one hundred thousand Iraqi army and police personnel to Baghdad. The slow traffic that is already a trademark of life inside the city has gotten worse in a span of days, with hundreds of new checkpoints being set up along major highways. Bridges that cross the Euphrates River and lead into the capital are shut down to all cars. Some families have no choice but to walk miles for a bag of groceries due to the difficulty of navigating the streets.
Could you imagine that? Or how about this, you live in Baghdad. You get four to five hours of electricity a day. You can't find a job due to the high unemployment rate, bombings have become a norm of life and you look around this week and see the effects of the one billion -- ONE BILLION -- trying to make it look special FOR visitors. Not for you but for visitors. Sending a message that foreigners we'll go all out for but those of you who live here we don't give a damn about.
This is C.I.'s "
Iraq snapshot:"
Tuesday,
March 27, 2012. Chaos and violence continue, Baghdad gears up for the
Arab League Summit, a disturbing hearing is held by the US Congress,
and more.
Starting with the US Congress.
US
House Rep Susan Davis: One of the things that we know is that we've
been a military at war and not a nation at war. Would you agree with
that statement? [Nods from witnesses.] How does that effect what we
do? You mentioned, Colonel, that above all we should be a unified and
committed nation. Where does that fit in?
Col
Robert Killebrew: Well -- well -- Madam, you're running a grave risk,
I have a whole sermon I give on this. But I'll try to restrain myself.
US House Rep Susan Davis: Okay.
Col
Robert Killebrew: The social changes and the political changes that are
happening in the world right now in my view -- and I'm not a PhD-ed
social scientist but having studied it, I believe -- are undermining in
many cases the concept of nation-hood. One country as I said in my
testimony that's going back at that is Columbia. And you have to look
at them -- get away from this help that we've given them -- and look at
how they're deliberately trying to foster the concept under law of
Columbia nation-hood -- to understand the really depth of what they're
doing. In this country, we've always taken that for granted. And I
still take it for granted. We developed a-a-a-a volunteer armed force
in which -- and, by the way, I came in during the draft, so I've seen
both. I don't believe a draft would ever be pratical again in this
country. I think we have a volunteer armed force. I have to tell you
I'm very impatient with the fact that no national leader has ever said
-- since the volunteer force came in -- that it would be a good thing
for someone's son and daughter to join the armed forces. Never. Not
even after 9-11. The concept of nation-hood that we have to engender
are the things that matter to us under the Constitution. And I don't
believe it's furthered by the kind of red-blue split we see right now
in the country. I think that's -- I think -- As you look ten to twenty
years in the future with the impact of the technology and the social
change in the rest of the world, I think this runs a risk of
undermining our common concept of what we are as a nation. And I think
that's something we have to take on -- national leadership, persons
like yourself, people like me who write -- we have to come to
understand that there's some core idea about what being an American
means that may include serving in the armed forces or paying your
country back through some kind of service. But larger than that, being
willing to accept the concept of a lot of people make up this country
and everybody is an American. That's a kind of a grand strategic view
but it's occupied my thoughts for quite a while now.
US House Rep Susan Davis: Mm-hmm. Thank you. Did you want to comment on that too?
Seth
Jones: Uh, I do. Very briefly, I think your question: Are we a nation
at war? If you look at the last uh decade, decade and a half, we have
been at times. We were a nation at war after September 11th because
there was a threat that brought us together as a nation, that there was
mutual feeling that we had to defend the borders. I think that there
was a -- We were a nation at war in May of last year, during and after
the bin Laden raid. I think that the challenge that we find ourselves
in along these lines, is that in many of the areas where we face
regular warfare challenges, we are talking about a, uhm, countries
like, uhm, Syria now, countries like Libya, where we have -- and this
is just a sub-set of them -- large Muslim populations. I think we have
found that adding and deploying large numbers of conventional forces to
these kind of theaters is -- is not only in some cases
counter-productive but certainly doesn't provide a lot of domestic
support. We see that on the Afghan front today. I do think one of the
things that this suggests as we move forward is -- and this goes back
to comments that both of the panelists have made, is that does it make
sense on the irregular warfare threat to think of this really as
focusing predominately on the indirect side? Smaller numbers,
competent US Special Operations and intelligence forces dealing more
systematically with these kinds of threats rather than deploying
hundreds of thousands -- over a hundred thouasand forces because I
don't think there are, uh, unless we're attacked like we were on 9-11,
we will be a nation at war from a domestic standpoint the way we were
on 9-11. I think those kinds of incidents are extremely rare but the
threat is real.
David
Maxwell: Madam, I think, uh, really to echo both my colleagues
comments, we have to look at the nature of the conflict that we're
engaged in. And I think that, uh, I think Dr. Jones was right, after
9-11, we were a nation at war. And we have been at times. But we also
have to ask ourselve: Should we be a nation at war? And as I look at
the categories that I've laid out, the first category: Existential
threat to the US or allies? We have to be a nation at war if we're
faced with that. I think for the second category, those threats to
regional stability and status quo, our friends, partners and allies,
subversion, terrorism, insurgency and lawlessness and the like, that
may not cause us to be a nation at war. And as Dr. Jones says it might
require a smaller footprint, a discreet force, that may not require the
nation to be focused. The third? A more hybrid threat, I think, would
require us to be a nation at war because the scale of that complex
threat, we would need to be a nation at war. So I think it's really a
question of the types of threats that we face and the strategies we
employ to deal with those threats. But I think, the other -- the other
aspect you're getting at is -- Our nation supports our military. You
know, there is support for it but the question is, as always, who
serves. And there are a lot of people who are serving and who continue
to serve and they feel that burden on their shoulders and they are
tired.
That was this
afternoon, a little over half-way through the House Armed Services
Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities. It was an
'interesting' hearing. US House Rep Mac Thornberry is the Subcommittee
Chair and he explained at the start of the hearing:
Last
fall, this Subcommittee held a hearing to begin exploring the
possibility that what we call irregular warfare may be a regular --
that is, frequent -- challenge for us in the future as, in fact, it
certainly has been in the past. And we began to explore how we ensured
that the hard won lessons of the past decade are not simply shelved and
forgotten as we "get back to normal." Today, we want to go a little
deeper in looking at what type of future irregular warfare
challenges we are likely to face, what strategies are best suited to
deal with these future challenges and what examples or models may exist
to suspport those strategies and effectively deal with the irregular
challenges.
The Subcommittee heard
from three witnesses, Rand Corporation's Seth Jones, Center for a New
American Security's Robert Killebrew and Georgetown University's David
Maxwell.
Jones is a rah-rah War Hawk who made
many claims but whether the assertions could be established or not is
anyone's guess. Afghanistan, he declared, was a series of mistakes
from 2002 to 2009 because there were attempts to build a government.
No, he's not against nation-building, he feels the tribal strength was
not understood. You may agree with that, you may not. You may just,
like me, remember that this is a little different than the maint thrust
of the argument Jones made in his book In The Graveyard of Empires
where he asserted that there was a chance to create a stable democratic
government in Afghanistan but that chance had a brief window and, by
2006, political upheaval had changed that. And, of course, one of his
big complaints then about Afghanistan's was that there was corruption
and how it spread. Let's quote: "Afghan governance became unhinged as
corruption worked its way through the government like a cancer, leaving
massive discontent throughout the country; and the international
presence, hamstrung by the U.S. focus on Iraq, was too small to deal
with the escalating violence." Courrption, by his own ranking in that
book, needed to be addressed first and long before any tribal issues.
And, in that book, Jones was arguing that Afghanistan was spinning out
of control not due to some lack of understanding of tribal landlords
but due to what was going on within Pakistan.
"You change like sugar cane,"
says my northern lad
I guess you go too far
when pianos try to be guitars
It
was certainly interesting to watch him make assertions that -- whether
you agree with them or not -- pull at the loose strings in his previous
work, reducing a sweater collection to a ball of yarn. And you don't
have to go back to the publication of that book. You can just drop
back to
August 30th of last year when he was a guest on Patt Morrison (KPCC) and listen closely to determine whether you find matching statements and beliefs.
Jones
insisted, "We made mistakes in Iraq, in my view, for several years.
We corrected them. In the Iraq case, beginning around 2006." Really.
Hmm. Again, interesting assertions I'm just aware of the conflict in
his testimony before the Subcommittee and his previous statements. For
example, at Georgetown, where he's a professor, he does many public
events. I attended one in -- of all years -- 2006. You know what he
was advocating at that one? Back in January of 2006, he was advocating
that stability in Iraq would come from the US pulling troops. (Not all
troops.) Now if you feel that way, if that's, in fact, the entire
basis of your presentation -- it was, and it was co-presentation with
David Edelstein, if I'm remembering correctly -- how do you then say
today that 2006 is the start of a turnaround? That's before the
"surge" starts. And you were arguing for it to go the other way in
2006 (arguing for a drawdown).
I'm sorry that I
expect consistency in witnesses and expect that -- when they go back on
their own previous positions -- they either acknowledge the switch or
have the good manners and decency not to present their new positions as
ones they've always held and ones that make them so much smarter than
everyone else in the room. (And for those late to the party, a US
withdrawal was always going to likely mean increased violence. That
wasn't a reason to prolong the occupation of Iraq. It was a reason to
get out because the longer the US occupies, the stronger the pushback
would be after the US left. The US never should have gone to war on
Iraq, having failed to realize that, the US government should have
withdrawn immediately.)
On
January 31, 2001, former Senators Warren Rudman and Gary Hart and their
United States Commission on National Security issued a final report
warning that "Americans will likely die on American soil, possibly in
large numbers," as a result of terrorist attacks. The commission
recommended that the government create a National Homeland Security
Agency to deal with the threat. That was more than seven months before
terrorists flew jetliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon,
killing thousands.
Again, some
laughed. I just found it embarrassing and sad to see a grown man make
such an idiot of himself in public. "I was on the Hart-Rudman
Commission about global threats," he said mincing intentionally with
his right hand to gin up the laughter, "and no matter what the
retrospective view is, I'll tell you we had it figured out, it was
China and a resurgent Russia. Terrorism didn't even hardly come up on
the scale." What a sad, sad man.
The TV news
media is often criticized for its failure to discuss issues as
important as war with anyone other than Hawks and/or retired military
personnel. The same criticism could be made of the Armed Services
Committee. And anyone who asserts, "It's the Armed Services Committee,
they have to cover the Defense Dept in their witnesses." The Rand
Corporation works closely with DoD on many projects, yes. But that's
Jones. The other two? Retired military officers now at alleged 'think
tanks.'
The thrust of the hearing -- witness
testimony and statements made by most Subcommittee members as well --
is that irregular warfare is not just upon us, it is here in the US and
it has no end date. I don't see how Congress is helped with such
nonsense and I'm positive that America isn't.
The
witnesses offered a variety of 'threats' and, as you might expect, Iran
and China were among them. You might be surprised to learn Venezuela
was also floated.
we have important interests there that are worth
Are
these threats to the US or just countries with leaders the US doesn't
like? I'm having a hard time believing that even the most anti-Chavez
person in the US could truly believe that Hugh Chavez would lead
Venzuela in an attack on the US.
Killebrew was
full of 'expertise.' Citing a friend of his with the LAPD, he declared
we'd start seeing car bombs across the US. The LAPD. Or one officer
with the LAPD. Why stop there? Was Miss Cleo's 900 number busy?
Who's
the model for what we need? Killebrew said it was "the DEA agent in
Columbia who lives with this every day." Wow. Colombia's the model?
Transparency International's most recent findings, Corruption Perceptions Index 2010 Results
awarded Columbia a 3.5 on its index where the perfect score for
transparency is a 10. 3.5. Not only is that an awful score, on the
South American continent, Colombia's not in the lead. Among those
beating it? Chile with 7.2, Uruguay with 6.9 and even Brazil with
3.7. But that's the example? And the police force there that
Killebrew couldn't stop praising? Corruption is not a new angle on
them. Among the many articles, you can refer to Raymond Billy's "
Police Corruption Plagues Colombia, Residents Say" (
Resonate News).
"That's the success story in Colombia," Killebrew insisted at another
point in the hearing. And it can be exported with Special Ops. He
wants "a lot of Colombias out there." I can't think of many things
sadder.
If Killebrew gets his way look for
another war between the US and Mexico because insisted that "what's
happening in Mexico is a new kind of insurgency. As you know the
Secretary of State and Assistant Secretary of the Army got their hands
slapped when they said that."
It was a very
disturbing hearing as eternal war was preaced and we were informed it
was here on the US soil because insugrency "is blending with cimre,"
there is "a hybrid crime-insurgency threat" and national borders "don't
matter" to our opponents. "Armies around the world everywhere are kind
of similar," Killebrew insisted. We got Seth Jones lamenting that,
after 1975, the US government wrote off counter-insurgency and all the
lessons learned.
Only with a hand picked
panel of War Hawks and War Whores could such a laughable assertion be
made. Ronald Reagan's administration saw to it that counter-insurgency
was used throughout the eighties in Latin American and you can find a
large bodycount to demonstrate that. More importantly, by 1975,
counter-insurgency was rightly out of favor and it was out of favor
because it not only was an excuse to murder, the very process of
counter-insurgency (forget the results) went against the notions of
what was humane.
There are hearings that
inspire me, there are hearings that engage me, there are hearings that
bore me. I can't think of another hearing that left me as frightened
for our future. And not just because of what was said by the witnesses
but because there was never objection to it.
If
I've ignored David Maxwell it's because the few bits of intelligence on
exhibit in the hearing usuallyf lowed from him. While Seth Jones
blathered on about Twitter and Facebook -- and sounded like a middle
aged man trying desperately to sound 'hip' while talking to a teenager,
it was Maxwell who told the committee, "Sir, I would focus on
capabilities and say that rather than military and technology,
irregular warfare capabilities rest in people. And I think that's
where we really have to invest -- especially in this time of fiscal
constraint, it is our people who have to solve complex
political-military problems."
Any common sense flashed this afternoon came via Maxwell.
In
Baghdad today, more Arab League Summit excitement. Jane Arraf is a
correspondent for Al Jazeera and the Christian Science Monitor. She
tweeted today.
Silly
Nouri, doesn't he realize that spending all that money on the summit,
to impress, really needs photos and text praising the 'beauty'?
Sam Dagher (Wall St. Journal) reports,
"Nearly $1 billion has been spent on sprucing up a capital racked by
years of conflict, and close to three million flowers and a
half-a-million trees have been planted for the occasion. Baghdad
International Airport will be shut to civilian traffic and some 100,000
army and police have been mobilized to secure the visiting Arab
dignitaries".
Alsumaria TV adds
that over 500,000 trees and plants have been added to the streets and
entrances of the Green Zone and Baghdad International Airport. Some of
the trees are date palm trees, some of the plants are rose bushes. And
the guests must be made to feel welcome. Jane Arraf Tweeted:
None of which covers over
Kitabat's report
that Iraqi children are forced labor working for hours on end for
little pay at a brick factory just outside of Baghdad. No, Nouri, all
the rose bushes in the world won't take away the stench of a child
sweat shop where young children labor for 14 hours a day. Not will it
conceal the true state of Iraq.
Farirai Chubvu (New Era) explores those realities today:
Today,
nine years after US troops toppled Saddam Hussein and just a few months
after the last US soldier left the devastated country, Iraq has become
something close to a failed state.
Prime
Minister Nouri al-Maliki presides over a system rife with corruption
and brutality, in which political leaders use security forces and
militias to repress enemies and intimidate the general population.
The
law exists as a weapon to be wielded against rivals and to hide the
misdeeds of allies. The dream of an Iraq governed by elected leaders
answerable to the people is rapidly fading away.
The
Iraqi state cannot provide basic services, including regular
electricity in summer, clean water, and decent health care; meanwhile,
unemployment among young men hovers close to 30 percent, making them
easy recruits for criminal gangs and militant factions.
Although
the level of violence is down from the worst days of the civil war in
2006 and 2007, the current pace of bombings and shootings is more than
enough to leave most Iraqis on edge and deeply uncertain about their
futures.
A member of Parliament's security committee tells Al Rafidayn that Baghdad lacks "intelligence capabilities" and some of the "necessary equipment." However,
Kitabat notes a rocket attack was foiled or is said to have been foiled.
CNN's Jomana Karadsheh Tweeted a photo of one of the Iraqi forces vehicles patrolling Baghdad.
Al Sabaah reports
Comoros President Ikililou Dhoinine was the first Arab leader to arrive
in Baghdad for the summit. It's not often that the president Comoros
(whose total population is less than 800,000) gets to garner
international headlines. On the attendees, Jane Arraf Tweets:
The Wall Street Journal's Sam Dagher Tweeted on another possible sleight:
On the attendees, AFP's Prashant Rao Tweeted:
While the Washington Post's Liz Sly Tweets on this topic:
What the attendees will officially discuss is the topic of the Associated Press' Lara Jakes' Tweet:
Al Mada reports
on Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari's Monday press conference where
Zebari stated 21 countries would be participating in the summit, that
Syria wasn't invited and the newspaper notes that Syria is expected to
be a major part of discussion at the summit.
In another article, they quote him stating that the summit will send an important message about how Iraq has integrated into the Arab world.
Al Sabaah runs a photo of Zebari from the press conference.
Zebari gloats to Liz Sly (Washington Post), "We pulled it together. Nobody believed us. The very idea it is taking place is a success."
Al Mada notes
that Nouri has ordered a stop to the protests against Bahrain for this
week. (Yet in Falluja, protests were staged calling for support of the
Syrian opposition.)
The Arab League Summit is being covered but
what is the organization? Who are they? Why did they come together?
What have they accomplished? The Brookings Institution offers three
views on the Arab Summit.
Khaled Elgindy view includes:
For most of the last six decades, the Arab League has been, as one expert put it, a "glorified debating society"
-- synonymous with ineffectiveness, inaction, or incompetence (and in
some cases all three). In the year since the Arab uprisings began,
however, the ArabLeague seems to have enchance both its street
credibility and its diplomatic standing thanks to a number of bold
actions that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago.
But
how much is that judgment based upon a desire for the Arab League to do
the bidding of others? I have no idea but the piece reads like, "The
Arab League won't do what we want it to! And we know best! If only
they'd listen!"
Tamara Cofman Wittes' opens her piece with:
When
the Arab League convenes this week, it will meet in a constitutional
democracy, Iraq, and will include a former Tunisian human rights
activist, Moncef Marzouki, among its assembled heads of state. These
are two of the least remarkable facts reflecting the rapid assimilation
of democratic norms into the League and its member states over the past
year.
Is it a constitutional democracy, Tamara, if the constitution is never followed?
Kenneth M. Pollack focuses on it in terms of Nouri al-Maliki:
As
a result, it is all the more imperative for him that the summit go
well, both for Iraq and for him personally. If it goes well, not only
will he buttress his sagging popularity with the Iraqi street, he also
will likely be able to parlay it into improved trade relations with the
rest of the region, more direct foreign investment from the wealthy
Gulf states and greater Arab diplomatic support for Iraq's
international causes -- particularly the lifting of the last UN
sanctions under which Iraq has labored since the days of Saddam. If
Maliki is truly accepted by the other members of the Arab League, it
could mean significant material benefits for Iraq that would further
reinforce his popularity and power.
I
don't know how accurate or how fair it is to make the focus of a body
one single person. I grasp that it's much easier to do that. The
Los Angeles Times' Ned Parker is on a sabbatical and is a Edward R. Murrow Press Fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations.
They've done a video on the Arab League Summit.
Ned
Parker: This week, Arab leaders gather in Baghdad for their first
summit in two years. There are three major issues at this conference.
One is: How does the Arab League stay vital in the 21st century? Two
is the durability of Bashar Assad's regime in Syria. And three is the
question of whether or not Baghdad can hold a successful Arab League
Summit?
The
Arab League was founded in Cairo in 1945 by Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi
Arabia, Syria, Transjordan (Jordan, as of 1950), and Yemen.
[. . .]
The
Arab League has served as a platform for the drafting and conclusion of
almost all landmark documents promoting economic integration among
member states, such as the creation of the Joint Arab Economic Action
Charter, which set out the principles for economic activities of the
league. It has played an important role in shaping school curricular,
and preserving manuscripts and Arab cultural heritage.
The
Arab League has launched literacy campaigns, and reproduced
intellectual works, and translated moder technical terminology for the
use of member states. It encourages measures against crime and drug
abuse and deals with labor issues (particularly among the emigrant Arab
workfrorce).
The Arab League has also
fostered cultural exchanges between member states, encouraged youth and
sports programs, helped to advance the role of women in Arab socieites,
and promoted child welfare activities.
More history can be found at
this BBC News page which explains that there are 22 member states of the Arab League and notes:
The
highest body of the league is the Council, composed of representatives
of member states, usually foreign ministers, their representatives or
permanent delegates. Each member state has one vote, irrespective of
its size. The council meets twice a year, in March and September, and
may convene a special session at the request of two members.
Day-to-day,
the league is run by the general secretariat. Headed by a
secretary-general, it is the administrative body of the league and the
executive body of the council and the specialised ministerial councils.
The current Secretary-General is Eypt's Nabil Elaraby.
Back to the United States. Senator Patty Murray is the Chair of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee. Her office notes:
FOR PLANNING PURPOSES
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
CONTACT: Murray Press Office
(202) 224-2834
TOMORROW: Senator Murray to Question Army Surgeon General on the Handling of Mental Wounds of War
At
Hearing of Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, Veterans Chairman
Murray will press the Army Surgeon General on troubled PTSD unit at
Joint Base Lewis-McChord and whether similar problems exist at other
bases.
(Washington,
D.C.) -- Tomorrow, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Chairman of the
Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee and a senior member of the Defense
Appropriations Subcommittee, will question Army Surgeon General
Lieutenant General Patricia Horoho on recent shortcomings in the Army's
efforts to properly diagnose and treat the invisible wounds of war.
Specifically, Murray will discuss the forensic psychiatry unit at
Madigan Army Medical Center on Joint Base Lewis-McChord that is under
investigation for taking the cost of PTSD into consideration when
making diagnosing decisions. The Army is currently reevaluating over
300 servicemembers and veterans who have had their PTSD diagnoses
changed by that unit since 2007. Murray will ask whether similar
problems are happening at Army bases nationwide.
WHO: U.S. Senator Patty Murray
WHAT: Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Hearing -- DoD Health Programs
WHEN: TOMORROW -- Wednesday, March 28th, 2012
10:00 AM EST/ 7:00 AM PST -- Hearing start time
WHERE: Dirksen 192
Matt McAlvanah
Communications Director
U.S. Senator Patty Murray
202-224-2834 - press office
202--224-0228 - direct
###
There's
a House Veterans hearing that took place this morning that I'd like to
squeeze in some coverage at some point this week. I'll try for tomorrow.
Sam Dagher 
Prashant Rao 
Liz Sly 
Lara Jakes