INFORMATION SOURCES

This is a letter, this date, that I sent to the
local paper in answer to a letter published
there (in the Albany Democrat-Herald)
yesterday: Cord Meados asked for the
source of my information on Iraq. I thank
him for the question, and am happy to
share: I google "Iraq war" from time to
time, and find there a gold mine of info
concerning different views. I especially
appreciate the perspectives of our military
veterans who are serving, or have served
there. I honor their sacrifices, and thank
them totally for their service.

Of the many good books on Iraq, one by an
Iraqi heads the list: The Occupation of Iraq:
Winning the War and Losing the Peace, by
Ali A. Allawi. The author served in the first
new government as Minister of Defence, and
now is Senior Advisor to Mr. Maliki, the P. M.
He saw it all, and tells it with skill and polish.

The best book I've seen on Iraq by an American,
is The End of Iraq, by Peter Galbraith. He is an
expert who has spent a lot of time there over
many years and keeps close touch with friends
in the country. He believes Iraq will have to be
split three ways to survive. I don't necessarily
agree with that, but it may be so if we won't
work with the surrounding countries (all of
them) to stabilize the country and keep it whole.

For an authoritative military analysis of the war,
Fiasco, by Thomas Ricks is excellent. He is the
military reporter for The Washington Post. His
regular beat is the Pentagon, and he has good
sources there.

I believe the key to understanding Iraq and
what's happening there, is knowledge of the Shia-
Sunni split and the splits within those groups.
The best on that and the regional politics
involved (which we have largely ignored) is The
Shia Revival, by Vali Nasr, an Iranian-born
American Muslim professor of international
affairs, of growing recognition here and abroad.
He expertly fits the Iraq pieces into the total
Middle eastern puzzle, as we have failed to do.
It's a must-read!

Along similar lines, another brilliant book by an
Iranian-born American Muslim professor is No
God but God, by Reza Aslan. It is simply a
masterpiece on the history and basic teachings
of Islam, and sets straight, from the Koran,
many of the current and popular misunder-
standings about that unjustly vilified religion.

I hope this is helpful. For further (and valuable)
insights, check Juan Cole's regular updates on
Iraq and the Middle East as a whole, on the
Internet. He's a professor at the U. of Michigan,
and a widely recognized expert on that part of
the world and its history. Also check the foreign
press on the Internet. Newspapers are available
(free for the most part) from many parts of the
world. The Brit's papers are more objective and
more factually accurate than ours, generally
speaking. The Israeli papers are much more
balanced and objective on their part of the world
than are ours. If you want to know how Iraqis
think and feel about our presence there, and why
70-80% of them want us out now, read their blogs!
There are lots of them, with a wide range of views
and information. The truth is widely and easily
available, so there's no excuse for ignorance.
But there is a price! It's lives: theirs and ours!

jgoodwin004@centurytel.net

DEFEAT AND DENIAL AFTER FIVE YEARS

There are three wars going on in Iraq. One is
for dominance among the Shia. It involves
the Mahdi army vs. the Badr organization.
Both are Shia militia, well armed and numbering
about 80,000 each. Then there's the battle
going on among Sunnis, also for political
control. The sheiks have turned against al
Qaida in Iraq, with our help. And then there's
the resistance against us (the insurgency)
which continues, and involves elements of all
the above.

None of them want us there, except for the
power elite that we are supporting, and who
live and rule in the Green Zone, but cannot
wander abroad among the general population,
or they'll be dead fairly quickly. 70% to %80
of Iraqis want us out of there now! (That's
according to several polls.)

We function there as a damper on the various
wars, without settling anything, and without
accomplishing much, other than that. It has
cost us 1,000 of ours dead since the surge
began a year ago, and $144 billion. So it's not
cheap, and not very smart. We have nothing
to show for it in political progress that comes
anywhere near justifying the horrendous
costs. Most of our people understand that,
but won't force the issue. That's denial and
defeat!

LIKE VIET NAM!

Like Viet Nam, the battle in Iraq is for hearts
and minds, and was lost before it began. Fol-
lowing the expulsion of the French from their
country, there was no chance the Vietnamese
would allow another western power to come in
and dictate who would govern them. We never
lost a battle in Viet Nam, and never had a chance
from day one of ever winning that war. The more
Vietnamese we killed (and we killed over two
million), the more resolute they became in
resisting us. Nothing could change that.

And so it was in Iraq: we lost any chance of
winning hearts and minds when we failed to
establish order at the outset, and stop the
looting. That cost us their respect, and enflamed
their anger. It showed them that we cared
nothing for them, their history, their institu-
tions, their pride of their feelings. 60% of Iraqis
think it's okay to kill our G. I.s That's why.

And it's why we have been losing ever since.
Again, we are winning every battle, and sinking
ever deeper in the quick sand. We can't get out!
To leave would be to admit it's a holding opera-
tion without resolution in sight. "No military
solution possible," our generals have kept
telling us over and over for years. But we keep
seeking that military solution we know to be
impossible. That's denial. And defeat! Live
with.

jgoodwin004@centurytel.net

WORTH ANY PRICE?

The cost of staying on in Iraq is $12-$15
billion per month, depending on whose
figures you believe. The total tab is now
over $2 trillion, and heading for the stra-
tosphere. A nobel prize-winning economist
recently testified to congress that when the
ongoing costs for care of our disabled
veterans from Iraq are factored in, the
long term total cost of the conflict will top
$3 trillion! Think what this kind of money
could have done in fixing our crumbling
infrastructure, providing jobs, insuring
the uninsured, funding social security for the
next 50 years, and so on and on. And
remember, we are borrowing all this moola
from the Arabs and the Chinese on our kids'
credit cards! Whom the gods destroy, they
first make mad (crazy).

Christopher Hitchens argues in the Washington
Post (3/11/08) that cost is irrelevant where Iraq
is concerned, because the war couldn't have been
avoided: we had no choice but to remove
Saddam, he says. In typical Hitchens style, he
adds that to believe otherwise is both ignorant
and frivolous.

In other words, the Germans knew nothing, the
French new nothing, the 60% of the Brits, incl.
British Intel, who opposed the war knew zip,
King Abdullah next door in Jordan who warned
of a blood bath was ignorant, and so on. Several
of them warned of reviving the ancient blood
feud between Sunnis and Shia, but what did they
know? Mubarak in Egypt said it would create
1,000 Osamas. Musharraf in Pakistan said it
would open Pandora's box, and once started,
couldn't be stopped. Several also quoted the old
proverb about not removing the king unless you
know who or what will replace him: it could be
worse!

But all of these people were uninformed idiots.
(Hitchens' way of speaking, not mine.) Only he
and the handful of Bush people who thought
like him knew anything. It turns out that what
they knew wasn't true. It was all hogwash from
start to finish. They had believed their own spin
and were caught up in their own delusions and
illusions. Nothing they predicted happened,
and everything their opponents predicted came
to pass, and then some! This is the dumbest
thing our nation has ever done, and it keeps on
getting dumber. If it goes on for another 20
years and kills all the Iraqis and totally bank-
rupts us at a cost of trillions and trillions,
will it still be worth it, Chris? Have a nice day!

jgoodwin004@centurytel.net

TRUTH STILL A CASUALTY IN IRAQ

Admiral Fallon opposed the Surge because
he saw that the tactical successes that would
be achieved, besides being temporary, would
put an unsustainable strain on our military
without any strategic pay-off. He was right,
of course. Which means he has to go! Truth
and logic are unwelcome distractions when the
"state of denial," as Bob Woodward called it,
continues to confuse national leadership as
well as much of the public.

We have lost 1,000 of our people killed since
the surge started, and are pouring $12 to $15
billion per month of borrowed money down that
rat hole. Yes, it's a total waste, I'm sorry to say.
And yes, the terrorists are losing in Iraq. But
they are gaining in Afghanistan and Pakistan!
So where's the progess? Is Iraq any closer to a
political settlement it will live with? If you
believe that, you'll probably buy Christopher
Hitchens' spurious argument that it's worth all
the lost and disrupted lives, and the $3 trillion
(lost so far) just to be rid of Saddam! More on
his inane babbling later, for now I want to
answer another popular bit of propaganda
nonsense.

This is the "leaving now is surrender," mantra.
In a letter to the editor of the Albany Democrat-
Herald (3/12/08) I made the following points:
Bush/McCain claim that if we leave Iraq now al-
Qaida will take over there. That's not only
impossible, it betrays an underlying ignorance
about Iraq that has doomed our efforts there
from day one.

Sixty percent of Iraqis are Shia, and they make up
most of the current government and army. They
are bitter implacable foes of al Qaida in Iraq (which
are Sunni), and will (and do) kill them on sight,
without hesitation or mercy. 20% of Iraqis are
Kurds, who although secular Sunnis, have
suffered as much at the hands of Arab Sunnis as
the Shia have, and are just as bitter enemies of
al-Qaida in Iraq. Most of the remaining 20% of
Iraqis, the Sunni Arabs are secular (unreligious)
and have now turned against the extremists,
especially al-Qaida in Iraq.

The Kurds have a well-trained, well-equipped
army of about 140,000. That's about the number
of troops we'll have left there after the surge. The
two Shia militias have (together) an estimated
100,000+ under arms. The Iraqi army we are
now training and arming has about 300,000.
If we left tomorrow there would be at least
500,000 armed and trained anti al-Qaida forces.
And the Bush people (including McCain) fear
that less than 5,000 al-Qaida (in hiding) are
going to take over the country? They are either
unbelievably ignorant or trying to scare us with
what they know is hogwash! Pedaling that kind
of nonsense shows how impoverished their
whole rationale for Iraq really is. It has been
dishonest from the beginning, and remains so
today.

Turning security responsiblity over to the
elected Iraqi government that we established
is hardly "surrender." Surrender to whom? How?
Besides we are "winning" over there. Remember?

And speaking of winning, isn't the relevant
question: what are we winning? What we
are winning, basically, is a holding operation --
that's all! What for? Who knows? It keeps
changing. Are we winning battles? Yes, thank
God, we are winning them all. It's all tactical. At
the moment, we're holding the lid on. But if
(and when) we reduce our forces, it all comes
unglued again. What's the point? Actually, we've
been winning like this for five years. We've never
lost a battle. But the Iraqi Minister of Defense
says they need us there until at least 2018.

So if winning doesn't mean we can leave now
after 5 yrs, what exactly does it mean? We are
satisfied with tactical successes because we have
no overall strategy for larger success. That would
require cooperation with other countries in the
region, as was explained by the Iraq Study Group
(ISG). As long as their neighbors are supplying
various elements of the civil war in Iraq, that war
will continue, no matter what we do.

After the Viet Nam war, a colonel from our army
met a Vietnamese colonel at a social gathering
in Europe. "You guys never defeated us in a
single battle," the American said. "That's true,"
replied the Vietnamese, "but it's also irrelevant."
So much for tactical successes without a winning
strategy within which to fit them.

The ISG found that a military solution is not
possible in Iraq without a political solution, and
the latter is not possible without agreements and
help from the surrounding countries. Until and
unless that happens, we are not winning any-
where near enough to offset our terrible and
continuing losses. We are repeating Viet Nam
all over again!

And the losses, both of our people, and civilians,
after slacking off for awhile are inching up again.
We are losing nearly 50 a month KIA, and Iraqis
are dying at the rate of 60-80 a day. So the much
touted idea that since the surge all is sweetness
and light is incorrect. As Eugene Robinson wrote
in The Washington Post (3/11/08): "Has anyone
noticed that Iraq, supposedly transformed into
an oasis of peace and tranquility by George W.
Bush's troop surge, is growing less peaceful and
tranquil by the day? . . . The past several weeks
have seen a recrudescence of the kind of horri-
fying, spectacular violence that the Decider's
surge was supposed to have ended." (As, by the
way, Adm. Fallon and other military that were
opposed to the surge, could (and did) forsee.)

jgoodwin004@centurytel.net