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Richard Clarke on Cyberterrorism and Iraq
An anonymous reader writes "Richard Clarke, former counter terrorism advisor to the US National Security Council, has revealed that before invading Iraq, the U.S. government used the Internet to communicate directly with Iraqi soldiers by sending them personalised messages saying, "We're about to invade. We're going to overwhelm you and if you resist us we're going to kill you. But we don't want to do that. So really the best thing for you to do when we invade is to go home." He said the soldiers got the message and most of them went home. Clarke, who many will remember for publicly criticizing the Bush administration, also emphasized the importance of cybersecurity. "Just because it doesn't create a lot of body bags, doesn't mean it's not important. It's vitally important for our economies," Clarke said."
dropping propaganda leaflets from an airplane.
I can't imagine too many of the Iraqi grunts with email or IM. Maybe the upper eschelon officers.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Or would they argue in the Hague that the personalized nature of the death threat made it okay?
If you read his book, the guy sounds a lot like Forest Gump. Not in the idiot way, but that, if you believe how he tells it, he was involved in every national security crisis in the past 30 years and if it wasn't for him, by golly, we'd all be doomed. He almost single-handedly saves the day every time!
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
So um who is terrorizing whom when america spams the other country with threats?
How many Iraqi soldiers actually had internet access? Sounds like they really just got in touch with the senior guys.
Well, I believe that in the end those messages did a good thing. Of course, their mechanism was to scare the soldiers and say they would be spared if they just didn't fight. But isn't it a good thing at least those soldiers knew they had another option instead of fighting?
Still, I can't ignore the fact that the message in the end was something like "Surrender yourself to your new overlords". But that doesn't change the fact that people were spared.
" "Richard Clarke, former counter terrorism advisor to the US National Security Council, has revealed that before invading Iraq, the U.S. government used the Internet to communicate directly with Iraqi soldiers by sending them personalised messages saying, "We're about to invade. We're going to overwhelm you and if you resist us we're going to kill you. But we don't want to do that. So really the best thing for you to do when we invade is to go home." He said the soldiers got the message and most of them went home. "
This has been known for quite some time. Majour news didn't mention it, but it has been know for at least a year.
to Falluja to stock up on car bombs and mortar shells.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
"the U.S. government used the Internet to communicate directly with Iraqi soldiers by sending them personalised messages"
But were they able to get the "Darth Vader Boards The Rebel Cruiser" ringtone to work at the same time? Now THAT would've been cool.
Why does that not seem likely to me? I mean, I was under the impression that most of these guys were lucky to have water or guns that worked.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
teh Bush i5 c0m1ng, 4ll ur b453 r b3l0ng 2 U.S.!!!!!!
before invading Iraq, the U.S. government used the Internet to communicate directly with Iraqi soldiers by sending them personalised messages saying, "We're about to invade. We're going to overwhelm you and if you resist us we're going to kill you...."
Before we invade Iran and Syria, maybe they should send this instead.
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
...and a 35% request for penis lengthening rate.
I thought it was actually pretty suprising how the iraq soldiers just gave up. Although I don't think these messages were a result of most of it, but if one life can be saved it was worth it.
Whats up with the US dropping leaflets, food and etc before we bomb people.
We our really polite at times before killing people.
I wonder why Richard Clarke keeps coming out with these stories, and what he has to gain by them.
Pyschological warfare via the internet has officially begun !
Help pay for my wedding! Go to my kickass website
"Ok, you have us convinced, my pals and I are going home. But on the way, we're going to stop at the local Al-Kmart and do a little shopping, maybe stock up on RPGs and high explosives.
So have fun in Baghdad. Do some sightseeing. Check out Saddams palaces. And watch your backs, because we're going to be bombing and sniping and kidnapping your asses until hell freezes over. Your pal, an Iraqi soldier."
We @r3 7eet! i @m g01ng t0 sn1p3 j00! LOL!LOL! F@gg0t flag camp3rs! u r g@y, @nd u suxx0r at CS. J00 @re pr0bily us1ng @n @iming scr1pt f0r y0ur @rt1llery! LOL! W3 w1ll tk u unt1l u @re ded! LOL! F@ggotz! LOL!
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
But the US is known for it's evilness and it's desire to kill as many people as possible. It can't possibly be true that they did anything that probably saved countless lives.</sarcasm>
Despite what EULAs say, most software is sold, not licensed.
A turned enemy is far more valuable than a dead one.
The war in Iraq will never be won because Bush is focused on kiling the enemy -- and not too worried about killing innocents. Every dead civilian is probably going to create 2-5 enemy insurgents (former friends and family of the dead)... The more people you kill the more enemies you end up with.
Unless he's willing to just Nuke the country then this is is gonna continue ad-infinitum.
The interesting thing is that all of those messages probably gave the baath party the idea of going home (with their weapons) and waiting until the US had moved in -- thus leading, in part, to the current dilemma.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
There were these things called UN Sanctions...
What countries did Iraq's net connection go through?
And how did the US get the email addresses?
-- Samir Gupta, Ph. D. Head, New Technology Research Group, Nintendo Co. Ltd., Kyoto, Japan.
They e-mailed the iraqi army telling them to give up?
WTF?
That just reminds me so much trash-talking other script kiddies back when I discovered things like winnuke and mailbombing.
HAHA look say I am a stupid bitch NOW or I will *nuke your lame arse! LOL
Err. I never used those things. Just saying...
Blearf. Blearf, I say.
Richard Clarke's book is a really good read. Good insight to what has been done right (or at least better) and what is currently going wrong.
JediLuke
-Do or Do Not, There is no Try
Since when did Dick Clark stop shooting $100,000 Pyramid and get into politics??? :P
He resigned in Jan 2003, before the invasion took place.
He said the soldiers got the message and most of them went home.
How did they verify that they got the message or quantify the amount that did ?
Its rather funny hearing all these estimates, like, there are 2000 insurgents in Iraq and etc.. as if
there is a way to even be 50% certain about that number.
They sure as hell werent taking a census in Fallujah
Help pay for my wedding! Go to my kickass website
Where the armies of peace will exist only to ensure the virtual civilian casualties report to the suicide booths in a timely manner.
Osama sent the same kind of email to the white house before 9-11. That would help explain a lot of things...
They are certainly not doing a good job of helping companies within their countries. Private companies for their own part, and for that matter citizens, are pretty much on their own in the cyberworld. I do not agree with this statement at all. I believe that the government is doing too much to protect private corporations in the cyberworld.
No one cares what your captcha was
Houston TX, USA
wait...how many iraqi soldiers had email? According to our administration, most were lucky to have the basics. Further, according to the propaganda on the evening news ( and it's all propaganda ), the countries infrastructure was almost nonexistant regarding internet connectivity.
Further, how did they know these were iraqi emails?
I smell a fish. I don't doubt the few that did manage to get these emails stayed home, but come on, bragging about saving 5-6 technically superior iraqis?
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Dear Richard Clarke,
I am home.
Thank you for your concern...
Iraq resident soon to be in the line of fire.
A SM in poly-sci. But still that might make him a slashdot type.
End of message.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Those Iraqi soldiers probably didn't prefer dying as civilians.
the conservative one (by their own account)
The realistic one because of its methodology
So, we have a zdnet.com.au article write by someone from UK. Why is it that U.S. citizens have to depend on foreign newsources for the latest and most accurate U.S. information? This is not an isolated example; I see it again and again. Why aren't U.S. reporters killing to get the "scoop" on things about their own country and getting the interviews first? It doesn't make sense.
Wonder what kind of email it would take to make Daryl McBride go back home? "Mr. McBride: Linux users are going to invade your company. You will have the choice to die or live. On the other hand, we can just continue to let you run the company like you are and you'll kill yourself, the company, and the stockholders all with one shot." Friendly Linux User.
http://dont.spam.me.anymore.com
Propaganda? There were telling the enemy to go home so as to inflict fewer casualties; considering the allied forces obliterated the Iraqi army within weeks, that may very well have saved lives.
I don't know about you, but I'm really getting tired of people bashing the British & American forces in Iraq. Sure, you can debate whether they should've gone in the first place, I will give you that, but now that they are there, will you not admit that they are in the right?
I mean, here we have a country filled with and ruled by fascists and Islamic fundamentalists, where women are looked down upon -- the United States attempts to install a democracy and yet people like you see the United States as "the bad guys". Are the US and British forces truely worse than the suicide bombers who kill civilians packed in buses, restaurants, and crowded Israeli markets, or worse than the Saddam Husseins of the world, or worse than the Islamic radicals that kill civilians in the name of Allah with knives, slowly sawing the throats of captured aid workers?
Tech, life, family, faith: Give me a visit
If we could only focus Spammers' efforts towards flooding the "enemy's" mail boxes full of crap, maybe we can bog down their infrastructure bringing their society to a screaming halt!
And it would be cheap to do... we just buy more of those spamming servers from China and... hmmm... WAIT A MINUTE!!!
Diplomacy is the art of saying, "Nice doggie!" until you can find a rock.
Yeah, I feel that committing the most awesome war crimes in the history of history is the way to go, too. Word up, brothuh. And seig heil.
What was it that happened to Rome again?
Lately I've been hearing that the plan was never to stand and fight against the U.S., but rather switch to a guerilla war from the beginning. The U.S. is extremely capable of winning any stand-up fight but urban warfare against an indigent population is extremely grueling.
(emphasis mine)
And the UN helped. Now before I get modded, PLEASE read this.
? id=110005904/
e astreports/s_273762.html/
http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/cRosett/
and
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/middle
Life is not for the lazy.
I wonder if this propoganda would work?
Get your own free personal location tracker
Not sure about the major news not mentioning it. Seems I recall it being reported many times during the build up on Fox News. And they reported it as emails targeted to the military leadership.
They went home, then they came back when it was easier for them to kill us. If they had just had Saddam to command them, they'd have surrendered en masse again, just like in 1991, and been captured. Instead, we directed them into the ranks of "insurgents". At least half of them showed up again for the free training, guns and uniforms, before regrouping as "insurgents" to bomb us. As usual, we're our own worst enemy.
--
make install -not war
All your oil are belong to us.
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Attention leftist activists and intelligentsia! The solidification of our power is imminent. Although you could stay and fight, it would really be much better if you just left. Please accept these Novia Scotia brochures and a complimentary copy of Hockey for Dummies! Remember, if it's not Right, it's Wrong!
perl -e 'foreach(values %SIG){$_="IGNORE";}while(){}'
Oh yeah, the US is so totally unprepared, that's why Falluja is going so horrib... oh wait a minute, it's over already. The whole town of 350k (size of Wichita KS, 49th largest city in US), urban warfare, one week.
Now if we could just get the US bureauocracy like this guy to stop warning the enemy leaders when we are coming, maybe we can actually catch them before they flee?
Isn't this the bumble Dr. Rice fired?
How do you stop the Chinese? Not Internet messages. Think "nuclear warhead". Think "flame thrower". Think "spreading HIV throughout the Chinese population."
Oh Grest, so you had a bunch of trained soldiers sitting at home waiting for the Americans that threatened their country.
I believe you're confusing Iraq with Afganisthan.
OK, so Saddam is gone. Shouldn't the Coallition armies go home, now? After all, the Iraqi people doesn't want them around, and the supposed goal was accomplished. Why stay?
Why stay and waste precious resources, which could be used to hunt down the real danger, a guy named Bin Laden? And how is it that the most powerful army in the world, with advanced technology and thousands of elements at its disposal, and who defeated the Iraq army within weeks, is unable to capture one single man?
Shouldn't that be 1337? And you're assuming an awful lot of literacy skills on the part of a DoD spammer.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
First you drop food long enough to train them to come running every time you drop something from a plane. Then later when you drop the cluster bombs that look identical to food packages, they are much more effective!
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
"All warfare is based on deception."
Sun Tzu, "The Art of War"
I can hardly believe slashdot chose to use the propagandistic term, "cyberterrorist." You should know better than to adopt vocubulary terms which tell the reader how to judge the do-er before understanding the facts. In this day and age, it's clear that the term "terrorist" has been used to manipulate the American people. Please consider using titles that don't attempt to manipulate me.
"Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." -Jesus Christ The Lord's Prayer
Otherwise it might have been an interesting story. But that boy makes up too much to know when he's telling the truth and when he's Yarnspinning.
(If at first you don't succeed, do it different next time!)
"Clarke, who many will remember for publicly critisizing the Bush administration..."
It truly is memorable that this official publicly criticized the Bush administration. That's scary. A healthy democracy requires broad criticism and debate about those in power.
You know what else was memorable? The administration's ferocious character assasination that began as soon as Clarke spoke out.
Four more years.
Is this the same Richard Clarke who contradicted himself constantly on when the Bush administration decided on a proactive approach to al-Qaida? Administration records show April 2001 which he initially agreed with. Then he had a book to sell and it suddenly became September 10. Even Time Magazine couldn't pimp his book for him after they found numerous questions of credibility and outright partisanship.
You want to know who isn't running Firefox 2.x? They spell it "definately" and "rediculous".
Clark is takeing a standard line of approach when he says:
"Just because it doesn't create a lot of body bags, doesn't mean it's not important. It's vitally important for our economies,"
He may even believe it literally, but he may not. It's often said as a way of avoiding having to explain some basics to the more economically clueless so that the speaker can get on with talking about their point to the clued in. Unfortunately, real progress is hard with those clueless people involved, and what's needed is often the extra effort of reminding people that death here is more than a metaphor.
A big enough economic impact is the equivalent of body bags. For example, when Enron screws up their employee pension plan enough, that's thousands of workers who will have to keep their noses to the grindstone into their seventies instead of retiring, and who will have lesser quality of medical care in their declining years. Some of these people will actually die a few months or even a few years younger than they otherwise would. Add those months and years together, and screwing up 15,000 retirement plans is a loss of life easily equal to killing 10 or so healthy newborns at birth. We can even limit this more, to 10 or so healthy newborns who are by and large guarenteed to become productive citizens and neither criminals or welfare cases.
Cyber-terrorism has that sort of potential impact, often on an even larger scale. Screw up the economy enough, and unemployment goes up. People can't keep up insurance - people can't afford regular checkups - people wear themselves out working two or three part time jobs for lower wages - people eat worse - net result, those people die younger. Add those trimmed off bits of lifetimes together to get whole average lifetimes, and we're looking at the equivalent of killing 100,000 healthy young people, but focused chiefly on the elderly.
Even spam and viruses fit this in principle. If it takes 30 seconds to delete a bunch of spam, but 100 million people have to contribute 30 seconds each, how many human lifetimes is 3 billion seconds? (It's about 95 years - by this standard, one good solid e-mail spam attack on the public at large is about as bad as one murder.). Whether it's fair to take the analogy that far or not's another question.
Who is John Cabal?
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
According to "Anonymous", writing in "Why the US is losing the War on terrorism", the only way to win a war is to kill enough enemy. If they go home (with their weapons, no less!) then nothing is accomplished. They aren't defeated.
Mod me down as off topic, but I'd like to personally thank the parent poster for his service and his lucid post.
Thank you, Iraqis
Your quote above reminds me when that scary witch Allbright was secretary of hate and she acknowledged that teh sanctions which were responsible for about 500,000 dead iraqui children were worth it if it got us Saddam (and we know what capturing him has meant in the greater picture).
So youre telling me that there are between 1,000,000 and 2,500,000 iraqui parents that would gladly gouge an american's eyes out with a rusty spoon?
Yup, from all reports that sounds about right.
Thank god all those poor trailer trashers are 'protecting' us.
dd
Contrary to the image seen on TV, some of the Iraqi units did stand and fight -- talk to anyone in the US units who were at the front line of the attack (of course, many of those are now back in Iraq for their second or third tour, but some are Stateside). The assault wasn't the advertised "cakewalk"; there was real fighting. Of course, those Iraqis who fought, often as not, died as a consequence.
As for most of the remainder -- who didn't want to be there in the first place, and had no love for Saddam and his cronies -- they did what men in any army in history would do in a similar set of circumstances: they deserted as soon as the opportunity arose to do so without risking punishment.
And finally, some percentage -- it is unclear how many -- disappeared, went into hiding for about six months, and then emerged to fight a classical guerrilla war. Which, unfortunately for the stability of the region, they are doing with considerable skill. Some folks that earlier deserted (particularly Sunnis; the Shi'a have decided to wait until they can win the election that the US is generously arranging for them) have joined them, as have an unknown number of outsiders.
This is a nice neat plausible story without the email, which probably had little if any effect. The Iraqi Army (as distinct from Baath apologists and lackies, plus their fearless leader) had no illusions about its chances against the US -- after all, this organization fought two major wars within the memory of its current officer corps. They probably found the emails a bit of comic relief prior to dealing with the inevitable.
"All successful systems accumulate parasites" -- Hal Hixon
"Each senior officer of the Iraqi army got that message and most of them went home"
Paul Lenhart writes words!
It wasn't the messages telling officers to have their soldiers sit out the battle that bred the insurgency. That message campaign was clever, and saved lives on both sides.
It was when we got there and told those guys who went along with our plan that they were all fired that we ran into problems, and drove them to some pretty desperate measures. Hopefully the reasons for that are obvious.
I'm pretty sure that Gen. Garner was replaced by Paul Bremer because of his objections to the "debaathification" methods used with the Iraqi army. That's still mostly rumor, though.
Now before I get modded down, I be to remind whoever might read this that what I am saying is FACT. - bogaboga
Why should someone waste their time responding to an AC?
And, why should anyone respond to the bllushit "got a link for that" response? Seriously, heard of Google? Go use it and respond with facts.
I don't mind the "hive mind" stuff nearly as much as the "AC comeback" that questions everything that was said and yet provides no real info either.
And, this goes both ways for both sides.
Kudos to you for actually posting non-AC. (Unfortunately, I think you are about to get modded into oblivion for it.)
--Phillip
Can you say BIRTH TAX
You must have an odd definition on character assasination. As best as I can tell, 9/11 was as much Richard Clarke's fault as anyone else's.
Clarke was the counter-terrorism czar SINCE BUSH THE ELDER! He had 9 years to do something about Bin Laden, but he thought cyber-terrorism was a bigger threat. Too bad for America. The guy should be deported to Mexico.
links to past posts plz
There he was (Clarke), sitting in the smokey fleshpots of Burkino Faso (or, wherever,) after smoking a load of Bolivian prayer hash and worshipping a marzipan effigy of the Fonz he'd accidentally created, and it occurred to him to project his thoughts at Iraq, AND THEY OBEYED HIM!!!!
We Americans should get ready to bow down to our (slightly deranged) lizard masters...
668: Neighbour of the Beast
You mean to tell me this country of nearly a billion was able to conquor a country as powerfull as Tibet? Arg... I'm gunna be way to afraid to sleep tonight.
and I've pointed it out before. Define "terrorism" in this context. How you can hold up Titus' genocide against the Jews -- he ordered the complete destruction of Judea -- as an example of stopping terrorism is beyond me. It was an attempt to steal gold and, of course, put down Jewish resistance to the Roman empire. Perhaps the morons modding this crap up every time you post it would stop to think if they knew you were advocating genocide based on an example of the near extermination of Jews that was actually an influence on Hitler's strategy of annihilation during WWII.
And then you keep hearing stories about the military sending some of the few translators they do have home because they come out as gay. Great priorities there.
Richard Clarke made repeated attempts at trying to show Condoleeza Rice and Bush that Al-Qaeda was a major threat; the April 2001 date was one of the times where he brought up the topic with the Bush administration, only to be ignored and brushed aside.
m ission/
... We could have caught those guys and then we might have been able to pull that thread and get more of the conspiracy. I'm not saying we could have stopped 9/11, but we could have at least had a chance. "
After the book came out (and I'm not doubting some things were stretched to sell more copies), numerous news agencies asked Condoleeza Rice about whether Richard Clarke had pleaded with the Bush administration; she can't seem to recall any of those NSC meetings - odd considering her position has National Security Adviser to the president.
See CNN here: http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/03/24/911.com
Slate has a great op-ed piece too:
http://slate.msn.com/id/2097685/
"To an unusual degree, the Bush people can't get their story straight. On the one hand, Condi Rice has said that Bush did almost everything that Clarke recommended he do. On the other hand, Vice President Dick Cheney, appearing on Rush Limbaugh's show, acted as if Clarke were a lowly, eccentric clerk: "He wasn't in the loop, frankly, on a lot of this stuff." This is laughably absurd. Clarke wasn't just in the loop, he was the loop."
Another great tidbit:
"The Principals meeting, which Clarke urgently requested during Bush's first week in office, did not take place until one week before 9/11. In his 60 Minutes interview, Clarke spelled out the significance of this delay. He contrasted July 2001 with December 1999, when the Clinton White House got word of an impending al-Qaida attack on Los Angeles International Airport and Principals meetings were called instantly and repeatedly:
In December '99, every day or every other day, the head of the FBI, the head of the CIA, the Attorney General had to go to the White House and sit in a meeting and report on all the things that they personally had done to stop the al Qaeda attack, so they were going back every night to their departments and shaking the trees personally and finding out all the information. If that had happened in July of 2001, we might have found out in the White House, the Attorney General might have found out that there were al Qaeda operatives in the United States. FBI, at lower levels, knew [but] never told me, never told the highest levels in the FBI.
Not sure how all of them surrending would have made a difference. They would have still gone home and joined together to fill the power vacuum.
Hollow words will burn and hollow men will burn.
You didn't even address his character assassination by the Bushistas after his testimony to the 911 Commission. Your comment that he thought "cyberterrorism" was a bigger threat than bin Laden just shows how uninformed you are. Clarke publicly admitted being partially to blame for 911, but his book makes very clear that if anything, people thought he took the OBL threat too seriously prior to 911. And of course the biggest problem is that the Bush Admin stopped listening to him entirely until 911. "Cyberterrorism" was a subset of his concerns, but for him, al Qaeda was the biggest threat America faced since the Cold War, and he made that eminently clear.
And mod grandparent down. He presents no evidence of any "questions of credibility and outright partisanship."
You are correct: A war is won when the enemy gives in.
But there's a point everyone is missing about this e-mail business and why it's news: to Clarke, not being able to keep tabs on the Iraqi army after our ground troops rolled over Iraq was a huge mistake. What Clarke is saying was that the content of the e-mails to Iraqi officers was an early symptom of our poor post-war planning. And the problem wasn't our spamming them. A huge criticism of the post-war, according to Clarke, was Mr. Bremer disbanding the Iraqi army (and without pay!). The e-mail might have said how to surrender properly without getting killed and don't go home (and blend in!)
How could our enemy give in when they weren't there? Should we have employed the common Iraqi foot soldier to provide security or (more realistically) put them to work on multiple public work projects: would they be working to rebuild Iraq or shooting at American soldiers right now? Well, if we would have captured the Iraq army intact, at least we would have been able to track them/ID most of the army.
So for Clarke, this e-mail strategy as it was executed via its content was poorly thought out and just one of many shortcomings of our post-invasion game plan.
An interesting article on how both sides are using propaganda against the other:
/ mi ddleeast/17psyops.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/17/international
Both sides want to send "messages" to the other soldiers to demoralise them:
"But in this war, the insurgents respond in kind. In one town near Falluja, a bag with hundreds of leaflets in it was left near a damaged tank, where Americans were bound to find it as they recovered the vehicle, said Staff Sgt. Randall Weeks of the Army's First Cavalry Division, who reviewed hundreds of propaganda DVD's, tapes and written materials during the past year in Al Anbar Province, where Falluja is situated.
"Who will benefit from your death?" one of the leaflets said in handwritten English. "George Bush and his oil cronies."
"Who will benefit from your death?" said another leaflet. "Your wife and her new boyfriend.""
How many innocent people did you kill while you were over there? People that were no threat to you or your country?
"We're going to overwhelm you and if you resist us we're going to kill you"
Isn't that terrorism?
I am sure none of the mails were lost inside Iraq, as they are running GNU/Linux. ;-)
Home must have been Fallujah.
"Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely."
Why has claiming Bremer Order 36 has anything at all to do with Texaco been moderated as Informative?
Why isn't there a Misinformative moderation?
Here is order 36 in its entirety
Recognizing that the theft and smuggling of the natural resources of Iraq are crimes that affect the wellbeing and future of all Iraqis;
Noting the complexity of the past regime's laws, regulatory provisions and instructions in the field of oil distribution, and the inconsistency and irregularity of their enforcement;
Determined to act decisively to tackle the theft and smuggling of natural resources pending the outcome of a full review of current Iraqi laws, provisions and instructions;
Resolved to provide the Coalition Forces with an easily accessible and ascertainable regulatory code with which to support the Iraqi authorities in the lawful distribution of oil into, out of and throughout Iraq;
hereby promulgate the following:
Blah, Blah, Blah
COALITION PROVISIONAL AUTHORITY ORDER NUMBER 36 REGULATION OF OIL DISTRIBUTION Pursuant to my authority as Administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), under the laws and usages of war, and consistent with relevant U.N. Security Council resolutions, including Resolution 1483 (2003), Recognizing that the theft and smuggling of the natural resources of Iraq are crimes that affect the wellbeing and future of all Iraqis; Noting the complexity of the past regime's laws, regulatory provisions and instructions in the field of oil distribution, and the inconsistency and irregularity of their enforcement; Determined to act decisively to tackle the theft and smuggling of natural resources pending the outcome of a full review of current Iraqi laws, provisions and instructions; Resolved to provide the Coalition Forces with an easily accessible and ascertainable regulatory code with which to support the Iraqi authorities in the lawful distribution of oil into, out of and throughout Iraq; hereby promulgate the following: Section 1 Definitions 1) Authorization means any written approval, authority, certificate, license, contract or other order issued by the Ministry of Oil, the Oil Products Distribution Company, the State Oil Marketing Organization, and the recognized representative regional organizations or companies of those bodies, the Coalition Provisional Authority, the Commander Coalition Forces, and in relation to fishing vessels the Iraqi Port Authority. Authorize and authority and all cognate and derivative words shall be \ construed accordingly. 2) Benzene is also known as petrol and gasoline. 3) Cargo Fuel means fuel transported by any vehicle or vessel which is not being used or is not intended for use as fuel by that vehicle or vessel. 4) Confiscation Order means CPA Order Number 25, Confiscation of Property Used in or Resulting from Certain Crimes. CP A/ORD/3 Oct 2003/36 5) Criminal Proceedings Law means Law of Criminal Proceedings Number 23 of 1971, as modified by CPA Orders and Memoranda. 6) Customs Law means Customs Law Number 23 of 1984, as amended. 7) Diesel see gasoil. 8) Fuel means crude oil, residue crude, oil products including for example diesel, kerosene, liquid petroleum gas, benzene. 9) Gasoil is also known as diesel. 10) Gasoline see benzene. 11) Interdiction means the stopping, search, arrest and the initial questioning of a suspect. 12) Penal Code means the Iraqi Penal Code Law Number 1 CP A Orders and Memoranda. of 1969, as amended by 13) Petrol see benzene. 14) Port of Entry means a designated land, sea or air point of entry or exit manned by Border Enforcement staff. 15) Regulatory Offense means a contravention of a Regulation under this Order. 16) Territorial Jurisdiction includes the territorial sea and all internal waters. Section 2 Regulatory Code 1) There is hereby created the Regulatory Code for Oil Distribution. The Code is set out at the Annex. 2) The Regulatory
Your claim that "the country's energy is far *lower* than before the war" is incorrect.
http://www.usaid.gov/iraq/pdf/AYearInIraq_infrastr ucture.pdf
By October 2003 the Electricity generation surpassed prewar levels. 4500 Megawatts postwar vs 4400 prewar.
http://www.usaid.gov/iraq/pdf/iraq_electric_Sept04 .pdf
And by September 2004 electricity producton was nearly 50% *above* prewar levels 6000 Megawatts vs 4400 prewar.
Also:
"While total electric power output continued to climb, it was distributed in a new way. Under the old regime, the outlying regions were required to send power to Baghdad which enjoyed electricity nearly 24 hours per day. But the smaller cities such as Basra had power only a couple of hours each day. Now power is more evenly shared, even if Baghdadis may feel they have less hours of power than they enjoyed in the past."
I remember when the war started, Fox News mentioned the emails that the Good Guys were sending to the generals of the Iraqi forces. There seemed to be extensive negotiations with them over email.
It didn't take the omniscient, omnipotent Richard Clarke (didn't he invent the Internet, too?) to reveal this.
All scenarios, without exception, involve corpses. The only questions are how many, who, and how. If the US didn't invade and left UN sanctions in place, the answer would be another 100,000's MORE then had already died, all of which would have been civilian, and they would have died due to shortages caused by sanctions and Saddam's government.
I am not claiming that one options was better then another, but don't be naive enough to think that there was a way out that didn't involve a pile of corpses. If anything bothers me about the debat around Iraq, it is that the body count gets dragged into it with no frame of reference. Being shot is more dramatic and plays up better in the media, but dying due to a simple medical ailment easily treated if sanctions were not in places leaves you just as dead.
So, I am not saying ignore body count, but before you go citing the civilian losses as a reason to take an alternative action, be sure to compare it to the cost of civilian dead resulting in the action you propose. The partisan anti-war group at http://www.iraqbodycount.net/ puts the number of dead to be at most 16,579. Put that number next to the number of Iraq that died due to sanctions and you are talking about a number that is at low end estimates, 1,000% larger.
There were a lot of good reasons to stay the hell out of Iraq. The number of people killed by the US military compared to sanctions was not one of them.
or not... i think after sept 11 many people and organizations put a lot more focus on data security, not just in case of a physical disaster but for virtual ones as well... hackers are constantly trying to compromise systems and efforts to protect the nations vital systems have been the focus of many security experts... i don't know what clarke is doing (other than promoting his book and trying to save face) talking about these things like they are new ideas when they are the actual basis for the creation for things such as the internet
Get your torrents...
http://www.iraqcoalition.org/regulations/20031220_ CPAORD_39_Foreign_Investment_.pdf
The links you provided to others' analysis are invalid - maybe you could read the actual order.
It states:
Section 6:
Foreign investment may take place with respect to all economic sectors in Iraq, except that foreign direct and indirect ownership of the natural resources sector involving primary extraction and initial processing remains prohibited.
This specifically does NOT allow foreign investment in oil.
What did you think it said?
Deceptive. Not surprising, coming from USAID. Here's a running graph from the CPA:
r 9. pdf
_ it em&itemid=345
http://www.iraqcoalition.org/ES/consolidated/Ap
It goes up to the last day that they made CPA graphs like this (April 9th).
Furthermore, the "prewar" numbers don't mention that this is discussing "immediately before we invaded". Before we flattened Iraq's power infrastructure in the first gulf war, they produced 9500 MW. On Thursday, Iraq's acting minister of Electricity stated that current electricity production ranges between 3,600 and 4,000 MW:
http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show
It's particularly bad right now because several oil installations have been hit, both power and gasoline are in short supply.
The *special* hell.
1) I provided the exact same link as you. ... ... it only applies to primary extraction and initial processing.
2) Order 39 does not define "natural resources" for the exclusion. Even if you assume that it includes oil
3)
4) It puts no limit on the amount of foreign investment (i.e., the entire country could be purchased)
5) It bypasses Article 16 of the constitution which prohibits foreign ownership of "immobile property" (allowing for unrestricted foreign lease of property)
6) Now that it grants unrestricted, unlimited foreign investment, any iraqi company can be a "shell company" that is 100% foreign owned but still considered "iraqi", and thus able to own primary extraction and initial processing businesses.
The *special* hell.
They forgot "P.S.: Please don't become insurgents either."
The Baathists were known to be secular. What religious minority are you speaking of?
Furthermore, the "prewar" numbers don't mention that this is discussing "immediately before we invaded". Before we flattened Iraq's power infrastructure in the first gulf war, they produced 9500 MW.
And precisely who caused Gulf War I? Oh, that's right -- Saddam, when he invaded Kuwait. Or are you going to argue that war, a war fully sanctioned by everyone in the U.N., was somehow uncalled for as well?
The post-cease-fire sanctions prevented the power infrastructure from being rebuilt nationally, which kept the overall figures depressed. Now that Saddam is gone and sanctions removed, that number will soon be back up to pre-1991 levels or higher.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Hey, I'm just discussing power. If you want to get into the background of the first gulf war, we should probably start with the changing of military aid to debt by gulf states and the approval given by April Glaspie. Not that it justifies it, but it gives context.
> the number will soon be up
That's what they said shortly after the invasion. We're still waiting.
The *special* hell.
Clarke was one of the major figures interviewed in PBS Fronline documentary about cyber security. You can watch the full, streamed broadcast at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cybe rwar/view/
The actual reason soliders/offiers went home is because they knew they couldn't win. The Iraqi army in 1991, was, by it's standards, very strong, and it was destroyed. It never recovered and in the more recent invasion, was a shadow of a army. Everyone in the army knew the outcome. So why die, when you were conscripted anyway and you hate the regieme too?
As it happened, there was also some allied propoganda telling soliders to go home. Maybe a few people even noticed.
--
Toby
But terrorism in general doesn't create hardly any body bags compared to the USA's many other problems (e.g. in order of deaths: Atmospheric pollution, car crashes and gun crime).
So to the government, the amount of body bags created is not the point. The point is more likly to be something to do with being able to say to the public "Terrorists want and could (no matter how infilitesimally small the chance is) kill you, fear them
Cyberterrorism can't do this at the moment, its not a simple concept like bombs are.
Clarke and the Clinton administration cracked the Millenium attacks
A single solitary border patrol agent decided to search a car. Clinton/Clarke had nothing to do with it.
So, please consider that next time you are asked to go to Iraq.
You're using the "they're savages and thus it's wasteful to try and give them democracy" angle, one I happen to disagree with. The same was said of the English peasantry by the pre-parliamentary monarchy of England. You and I are today proof of the folly of such thinking.
Maybe Arabs can't function as a democracy. Maybe they only understand the rule of force instead of the rule of law. But I don't believe it, and I want to see these people given a chance. It may take ten years, or fifty, or a hundred, but if they eventually enjoy the freedoms we do, it's worth it. It's all worth it.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
That's what they said shortly after the invasion. We're still waiting.
And how long did it take for us to fully restore Germany, Italy, and Japan to their pre-war electrification and production levels? I'll give you a hint: it was a lot longer than two years. You're being too impatient, not understanding the size and scope of what's required to change a country that's been mired in dictatorship and sanctions for decades.
This isn't some quick in-and-out intervention here, Iraq is a long-term project. It's not going to be a nice and tidy, wrapped up in between commercial breaks. The President never said it would be and neither did the generals or the Pentagon. In fact, both parties said the exact opposite. You should give people time to do their jobs before condemning their efforts as failures.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The US isn't in the right.
Yes, we overthrew a violent, psychotic, dictator who was killing people by the thousands (Far greater numbers have died at his hands than ours)
One problem is we didn't have the people behind us. The citizens of Iraq, by and large, had no interest in the US "Saving" them and building a democracy. The few who actually wanted change only wanted THEIR leaders in power so THEY could be the ones in charge.
The other problem is that we didn't necessarily have the right to be the ones to go in. We went in without a plan and without a strategy.
Our president is too ignorant of recent history to realize that declaring an open ended "War" with no definition of victory or specifically achievable goals is a recipe for disaster. How do we know when we've "won" this "War on Terror"?
We don't. there's no definition of victory. At best, we've "won" when we've eliminated all violent resistance to anything the US does. Great. Just great. We have to achieve global military control of the planet to win this war.
Where are all the "One World Government is approaching and it's evil" people now that it's a supposed Christian in control? Nowhere. Why? Because they're only against a one world government if THEIR guy isn't in charge.
And yes, I am intentionally drawing a parallel between the Iraqis who want their guy to be the dictator, killing the opposition, and the Americans who want their guy to be the dictator, killing off the opposition.
when you get right down to it, we're not any different.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
> And how long did it take for us to fully restore Germany,
> Italy, and Japan
After carpet bombing their entire power, fuel production, and fuel transportation infrastructures? (in Iraq, unlike GWI, we largely avoided hitting power infrastructure). Unfortunately, I can't find that data; although if you want to compare this to postwar Germany, Japan, etc, there were almost no deaths of any occupying troops after the war.
> The President never said it would be and neither did the
> generals or the Pentagon
You're kidding, right? We were supposed to be down to ~30,000 troops by last fall. How's that goin? Do you think that we *planned* to be using stop-loss orders and activating the Ready Reserve?
Kenneth Aldeman, a Rumsfeld ally on the Defense Policy Board, actually used the word "cakewalk". Bush stated "the United States and our allies have prevailed." on his infamous "Mission Accomplished" speech (from which we have since had to notably increase troop deployment numbers - including one of my friends, who had is MOS changed from lab tech to combat medic so that they could deploy him). Perle stated that all resistance would "collapse after the first whiff of gunpowder." I could keep on going if you wanted.
The *special* hell.
After carpet bombing their entire power, fuel production, and fuel transportation infrastructures? (in Iraq, unlike GWI, we largely avoided hitting power infrastructure). Unfortunately, I can't find that data; although if you want to compare this to postwar Germany, Japan, etc, there were almost no deaths of any occupying troops after the war.
With today's more accurate bombing, it's possible to acheive similar levels of effects (i.e. power losses, no water, etc.) with much less collateral damage. That doesn't mean the bombed-out power plants are any eaiser to replace than they were in 1945, it just means things don't look as destroyed. Appearances can be deceiving.
As for your contention that there were "almost no deaths" of occupying troops after the war, there were actually more than what we have currently in Iraq. There were organized programs of assassination aimed at both the occupiers and Germans who worked with them, almost identical to what we're in today. You can read more on this in The Fall of Berlin 1945. Good history book.
You're kidding, right? We were supposed to be down to ~30,000 troops by last fall. How's that goin? Do you think that we *planned* to be using stop-loss orders and activating the Ready Reserve?
There is an old axiom that says "no battle plan survives first contact with the enemy." As I recall, everyone including the U.S. military was predicting invasion casualties in the thousands or tens of thousands, yet actual losses were well under a thousand. So, those predicting gloom and doom for our armed forces were wrong, yet I see you assigning no blame there. Was Rumsfeld wrong on troop allocation numbers? Perhaps. Does that make him wrong on everything? Absolutely not, and you should stop trying to paint him otherwise.
Kenneth Aldeman, a Rumsfeld ally on the Defense Policy Board, actually used the word "cakewalk". Bush stated "the United States and our allies have prevailed." on his infamous "Mission Accomplished" speech (from which we have since had to notably increase troop deployment numbers - including one of my friends, who had is MOS changed from lab tech to combat medic so that they could deploy him). Perle stated that all resistance would "collapse after the first whiff of gunpowder." I could keep on going if you wanted.
Please do if it makes you feel any better, but it proves nothing. A lot of this could be filed under pre-war psyops, trying to psych the enemy out. Saddam was watching this. No doubt a lot of his commanders were as well. Don't think this "posturing" by the talking heads and policymakers didn't have at least some small effect.
As for what's happened post-invasion, anyone who knows anything about military history knows that conquering a city is easy but keeping it is hard. We are trying to return Iraq to normalcy as soon as possible, and this means we can't have dawn to dusk curfews, security checkpoints every fifty yards, and so forth. The unfortunate side effect of this is that it allows insurgents more lattitude. The insurgents could easily be crushed (as they are being right now in Fallujah) with more military force, but to our credit we are not using all of our available force to bludgeon the city into submission. You refuse to acknowledge that, again painting yourself as someone all too willing to see only the bad and none of the good. I cannot see how you could consider yourself even remotely objective when you're so close-minded on this subject.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
I know that Saddam is a Sunni, but he barely waved the religious banner; he supressed religion in general.
> As for your contention that there were "almost
> no deaths" of occupying troops after the war,
> there were actually more than what we have
> currently in Iraq.
There was not a *single* postwar killing of a US soldier in Germany. Not a one. Here's the American Institute of Contemporary German Studies' take:
http://www.aicgs.org/c/livingston011004.shtml
> There is an old axiom that says "no battle
> plan survives first contact with the enemy."
> As I recall, everyone including the U.S.
> military was predicting invasion casualties in
> the thousands or tens of thousands
Hardly. Perle wanted to invade with 30-40k troops. Rumsfeld wanted 90k. "10s of thousands" would mean all of Perle's force, and half of Rumsfeld's force.
> yet actual losses were well under a thousand.
> So, those predicting gloom and doom for our
> armed forces were wrong
Who was predicting doom and gloom? Specific names, please.
> Was Rumsfeld wrong on troop allocation numbers?
*Incredibly*. And completely wrong about how we'd already have pulled out most of our troops, as opposed to having to *increase* our troop numbers via a backdoor draft.
> Please do if it makes you feel any better, but
> it proves nothing. A lot of this could be
> filed under pre-war psyops
Then they were trying to use psy-ops on themselves, since they were anticipating we'd be mostly gone by now.
> As for what's happened post-invasion, anyone
> who knows anything about military history
> knows that conquering a city is easy but
> keeping it is hard.
If the city is resisting you, it is all but impossible. Of the seven major insurgencies this century before Iraq (Indochina, Malaya, Algeria, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Chechnya, and Palestine), four were outright failures, 2 are ongoing with no sign of letting up, and only one (the British in Malaya) was a success. In that case, the insurgents weren't the local population, but an outclass group (Chinese from a small number of refugee camps); even still, it took decades to defeat. The Soviets killed over a million people in Afghanistan, and took the same general tactic that we did (appoint a government friendly to you, try and train local security forces and make them do the hard work, etc). They still lost - and the Afghan people had no major source of prior resentment toward the Soviets, unlike the Iraqis who at the bare minimum are furious about US support of Israel.
> We are trying to return Iraq to normalcy as
> soon as possible, and this means we can't have
> dawn to dusk curfews
Baghdad is currently under a dawn to dusk curfew.
> security checkpoints every fifty yards,
In some places in Iraq.
> The insurgents could easily be crushed (as
> they are being right now in Fallujah)
They'll have it back in weeks. The Falluja operation was one of the dumbest I've ever seen. Even members of the IGC-appointed government have resigned over it. Across the country, Iraqis are seing on their TVs images of US soldiers casually executing a wounded countrymen, at point blank range, in the middle of a mosque, on one of the holiest days of the year, and then almost joking about it afterwards; talking to refugees (mostly women and children, since men between the ages of 15 and 50 are banned from leaving) about their relatives trapped in the city; hearing reports from the ICRC that they're *still* not allowed to operate in the city, and how they have been unable to respond to a number of cases of children bleeding to death; how no hospitals have been operating in the city, as we took over the main hospital and bombed the second largest one on the first day of the invasion; hearing the testimony of doctors in the hospitals that we took over about things like one who was cuffed before he could cut the umbilical cord of a mother who had just given birth, and all sorts of oth
The *special* hell.
Here's some links for today:
/a p/20041118/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_fallout_from_falluj ah&printer=1
/
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/18/international/ mi ddleeast/18troops.html?oref=login&ei=5094&en=aa37d e207d4fc376&hp=&ex=1100754000&partner=homepage&pag ewanted=print&position=
(snippet)
"WASHINGTON, Nov. 17 - Senior Marine intelligence officers in Iraq are warning that if American troop levels in the Falluja area are significantly reduced during reconstruction there, as has been planned, insurgents in the region will rebound from their defeat. The rebels could thwart the retraining of Iraqi security forces, intimidate the local population and derail elections set for January, the officers say.
They have further advised that despite taking heavy casualties in the weeklong battle, the insurgents will continue to grow in number, wage guerrilla attacks and try to foment unrest among Falluja's returning residents, emphasizing that expectations for improved conditions have not been met.
The pessimistic analysis is contained in a seven-page classified report prepared by intelligence officers in the First Marine Expeditionary Force, or I MEF, last weekend as the offensive in Falluja was winding down. The assessment was distributed to senior Marine and Army officers in Iraq, where one officer called it "brutally honest."
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&u=
(snippet)
BAGHDAD, Iraq - The recapture of Fallujah has not broken the insurgents' will to fight and may not pay the big dividend U.S. planners had hoped - to improve security enough to hold national elections in Sunni Muslim areas of central Iraq (news - web sites), according to U.S. and Iraqi assessments.
Instead, the battle for control of the Sunni city 40 miles west of Baghdad has sharpened divisions among Iraq's major ethnic and religious groups, fueled anti-American sentiment and stoked the 18-month-old Sunni insurgency.
http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/2004_11_01_riv er bendblog_archive.html#110063119588554403
An Iraqi blogger's take on recent events - if you want to see what Iraqis see on TV, take a read.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la- fg -mosul17nov17,0,1272033,print.story?coll=la-home-h eadlines
A good summary of goings-on in Mosul, a city of 1.7 million people
http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2004/tr20 04 1115-1602.html
Of the "> 1000" insurgents captured, only 20-60 were foreign
http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/16 83
A backgrounder on Falluja, the city
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A52675- 20 04Nov15?language=printer
(snippet)
FALLUJAH, Iraq, Nov. 15 -- Even the dogs have started to die, their corpses strewn among twisted metal and shattered concrete in a city that looks like it forgot to breathe.
The aluminum shutters of shops on the main highway through town have been transformed by the force of war into mangled accordion shapes, flat, sharp, jarring slices of metal that no longer obscure the stacks of silver pots, the plastic-wrapped office furniture, the rolls of carpet. These things would be for sale, except there are no traders, no customers, hardly any people at all in the center of Fallujah.
http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticleprint/2004/1 1/ bcf52003-4caf-40f7-8b4c-75cb02d8a425.html
(snippet)
The growing insurgency in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul took a turn in recent days as many police in the city reportedly deserted their positions and took up arms alongside militants. Sources told RFE/RL's Radio Free Iraq that multinational forces arrested General Muhammad Khayri al-Birhawi, the director-general of Mosul police, accusing him
The *special* hell.
So you're saying you'd kidnap and behead innocent civilians, including foreign aid workers who have lived and done charity work in the country for decades?
cp /dev/zero ~/signature.txt
While it is true that Iraq and the U.S. vary greatly in hundreds of ways I don't have time to get into, EVERY COUNTRY THAT HAS EVER EXISTED has taken part in activities that were violent, unjust, and flat out wrong.
But to say "Iraq commits atrocities, the US doesn't" is plainly ignorant. Did you know that a large number of mass graves found in Iraq were dug when Iraq was a client nation to the US? The US looked the other way. In the past decade or so from that last gulf war, do you know how many civilians in Iraq have died from complications to being exposed to depleted uranium weapons, landmines, etc. that the US left over from the war? I've read numbers that push towards 500,000, but let's be conservative and say 100,000. Is 100,000 dead at the hands of your government not an atrocity? (And how about the millions dead in Vietnam? Still apples and oranges?)
Need I also mention that worldwide concensus is that the United States, not Cuba or Iraq or North Korea, is the greatest threat to world peace and stability.
Question and challenge every government, military, religion, and business. When power is concentrated, atrocities like these are the inevitable outcome.
Look, you and I are just not going to agree on this. You throw your figures in from your sources, I throw them in from mine. It proves nothing to you or me since neither of us is going to believe the other. I feel this has gotten to the point where I'm wasting my time with you, and I don't wish to waste my time.
I see things differently than you, and I wish I could let you see the things I've seen with my own two eyes. Perhaps they would alter your perception, but perhaps not. You seem intent on wanting us to fail, whether out of some sort of anti-military hatred or some hatred of Bush or hatred of America I cannot tell. I wish I knew what made you come to these conclusions that make you hate us so. I feel no animosity towards you, just confusion over why you are the way you are, so full of loathing and anger. Perhaps one day you'll understand.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Thank you for risking your life for our country. I thought of you and your comrades often on November 11th and wish you success now that you are home.
The best way to cause such armies to disband is to convince the people that the occupying force is there to the advantage of the people. Things like building up the country, enforcing the law (or any reasonable and predictable law), and giving the people a general feeling that they are respected.
The British did not get the only areas where people were happy to see Saddam go, but they held onto and built on what goodwill there was when they arrived. The US, on the other hand, acted like overwhelming force was enough to hold the land. They squandered the goodwill tht they had and are now dealing with overtly hostile populations -- even in places like the Kurdish North which originally worked with US Special forces at the start of the war.
Acting like a bully doesn't give you respect it gains you fear. When people fear you, they will bow down as you pass but then shoot you in the back. It's what happened in the American Revolution and it's what's happening now in the Iraqi (counter-)revolution. Bluntly put: Too freaking bad.
When people respect you, they may disagree with you to your face, but ehey'll watch your back when you need it. That's what Canada and France did with the US when it went into Iraq -- public disagreement because the governments honestly felt it was a very bad idea. I have respect for the American people, but (much like many Americans) very little respect for Bush and his policies. I honestly hoope that Canada does not go into Iraq because it would do very little good for te world, The Iraqi people, the US or for Canada as things stand. It would cost Canada it's respect in the world (esp. in the middle east), Canadian Lives, the ability of Canada to interceed effectively when the opportunity presents itself, and gain very little other than give Bush some fleeting comfort.
That's not to say that Canada should never go into Iraq, but rather that we should wait until it will do enough good to be worth the Canadian deaths that would almost inevitably result given the royal cock-up that Bush and his team have now generated in that country and the whole region.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
And this is why Augustine's method of armed surrender works- because it gives local populations control over their own areas.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
First: I honor your service in what many believe is a dishonourable war (I do not confuse the war with the warriors).
Regarding your post though, you sound like a good news propaganda source so let's get real with the handwaving (2 examples):
DEAD WMDs:
In the 2003 State of the Union Address, President Bush stated that Iraq had 500 tons of sarin. This sarin was manufactured in 1990 or 1991. The shelf life of this sarin is approximately 2 months, according to Peter Zimmerman, former Chief Scientist of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He says that weapons inspectors and analysts confirmed this, and that there was no way the Bush administration could not know it. Bush spoke of 38,000 liters of anthrax. Anthrax has a shelf life of 3 years. According to both US and UN sources, the last known anthrax production in Iraq was 1991.
For what it's worth, David Kay was on NBC saying (about the first sarin shell discovered) that this was an old shell from before 91 and not, ahem, germane to the WMD that Saddam was supposed to have produced after 95. Sarin is nasty stuff, but commonly available fertilizer bombs have proven to be far better at dealing death and destruction in Iraq. Take a look at Gregg Easterbrook's "The Smart Way to Be Scared" for some perspective on a sarin attack:
The 1995 release of the nerve gas sarin in the Tokyo subways by the Aum Shinrikyo sect killed 12 people, fewer than a small, standard bomb might have killed in that crowded, enclosed area...A terrorist release of chemical weapons in an American city would probably have effects confined to a few blocks, making any one person's odds of harm far less than a million to one.
Aum Shinrikyo had sarin - instead of Irag, I guess we should've bombed Japan. Again. In a longer range view, more quietly known but rarely "newsworthy" when folks are ranting about sarin is that antidotes to nerve gases similar to sarin are so effective that top poison gas researchers predict they eventually will cease to be a war threat.
Additionally, the U.S. Defense Department's "Militarily Critical Technologies List" (MCTL) is "a detailed compendium of technologies" that the department advocates as "critical to maintaining superior US military capabilities. It applies to all mission areas, especially counter-proliferation." Written in 1998, it was recently re-published with updates for 2002.
So what is the MCTL's opinion of Iraq's chemical weapons program? In making its chemical nerve agents, "The Iraqis . . . produce[d] a . . . mixture which was inherently unstable," says the report. "When the Iraqis produced chemical munitions they appeared to adhere to a 'make and use' regimen. Judging by the information Iraq gave the United Nations, later verified by on-site inspections, Iraq had poor product quality for their nerve agents. This low quality was likely due to a lack of purification. They had to get the agent to the front promptly or have it degrade in the munition."
Furthermore, says this Defense Department report, "The chemical munitions found in Iraq after the [first] Gulf War contained badly deteriorated agents and a significant proportion were visibly leaking." The shelf life of these poorly made agents were said to be a few weeks at best -- hardly the stuff of vast chemical weapons stores.
There was some talk shortly before the first Gulf War that the Iraqis had been creating binary chemical weapons, in which the relatively non-toxic ingredients of the agent remain unmixed until just before the weapon is used; this allows the user to bypass any worry about shelf life or toxicity. But according to the MCTL, "The Iraqis had a small number of bastardized binary munitions in which some unfortunate individual was to pour one ingredient into the other from a Jerry can prior to use" -- an action few soldiers were willing to perform.
Iraq did produce mustard gas that was somewhat more stable than the nerve agents. It may have a longer shelf life; perhaps potent forms of this agent could still
You can read more on this in The Fall of Berlin 1945. Good history book.
You should give it a read, since that book goes completely against what you just claimed- indeed, it attributes the bulk of terrorism in postwar Berlin to rampaging occupation troops!
As I recall, everyone including the U.S. military was predicting invasion casualties in the thousands or tens of thousands, yet actual losses were well under a thousand.
False. There were more than 10,000 during just the first 3 weeks, including more than 80 by a single Bradley gunner. (Furthermore, it is dishonest to compare a "casualty" statistic with one of "losses", because casaulties can easily be 5-15x greater than losses)
Or if you didn't intend to include OPFOR and collateral figures in those casualties, then your recollection is quite wrong, and most military planners thought that 500 Coalition deaths would be a high guess.
There was not a *single* postwar killing of a US soldier in Germany. Not a one.
That's not quite true- there were a few fratricidal deaths when one occupation soldier murdered another. Of course, that just supports your position that there was no insurgency of any meaningful threat in postwar Europe.
(There have already been some intentional murders between USA soldiers in Iraq, but they are of course overshadowed)
You don't need to surrender. You just need to make sure that the people that you are occupying feel like they are being respected and protected. At that point they have very little reason to risk their lives to try and kill you.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
Ah, but you see- from the point of view of the right wing point of view, even admiting that the people you are occupying are HUMAN is a surrender. That's why occupation is something to be fought against.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Cat got your tongue? Why don't you answer? It's all laid out there for you to see and you can't stand it. Go read the relavant U.N. Resolutions and see for yourself.