Wingnut Logic At Work

Typical of ignorant milbloggers, such as our fave wingnut perv Ace of Spades, this photo celebrates a victory that didn't happen and confuses the situation. But who cares about being accurate, right?

[photo from Reuters]

Of course, you can't explain anything to these people. Do you think THIS explains why so many flocked to the recruiting station?

Al-Zaman reports in Arabic that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Tuesday honored the militias of the parties in the United Iraqi Alliance, i.e. the Da'wa (Islamic Call) Party and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq. They were singled out for having fought alongside government security forces, and some 10,000 of them were inducted into the latter.

Al-Zaman points to a double standard, insofar as the government has not similarly honored, or accepted into the state apparatus, most members of the Sunni Awakening Council militias that have been fighting the Qutbist Jihadis.

The induction of Badr Corps fighters (the paramilitary of ISCI) and those of the Da'wa Party into security positions came in the wake of the firing of thousands of officers and troops who had refused to obey orders to fire on the Mahdi Army militiamen in Baghdad and the southern provinces. They were accused of mutiny.

You gotta love the wingnut milblogger. There's no way of knowing for certain whether the men depicted in the picture are, in fact, Badr brigade members, but a careful check of their attire shows them to be fairly prosperous compared to most Iraqis, unafraid of a suicide bomber and definitely motivated to join a military that probably hadn't welcomed their participation until now. Celebrating the ascendancy of Iranian-trained and backed paramilitaries must be all the rage these days...

Rogered Roundly (Updated)

Note: updated with new information from Juan Cole. Original post appeared last night and was written by Blue Girl...

[Reuters] Residents riding a motorcycle look at a burnt Iraqi armoured vehicle [an American-made HUMVEE] that was destroyed during clashes in Basra, 550 km (340 miles) south of Baghdad, April 2, 2008. Mehdi army fighters burned an Iraqi armoured vehicle during fresh clashes in Basra on Wednesday, a fighter from the Mehdi army said.

The pathetic showing by the Iraqi Army in Basra has drawn a stark and sobering portrait of the security situation in Iraq. If the United States is really and truly not going to stand down until the Iraqi Army can stand up, we might just as well start teaching Arabic too our preschoolers now because children not yet born will be fighting this god-forsaken, unholy clusterfuck.

President Bush last week declared the offensive, which ended Sunday, "a defining moment" in Iraq's history.

That may prove to be true, but in recent days senior U.S. officials have backed away from the operation, which ended with Shiite militias still in place in Basra, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki possibly weakened and a de facto cease-fire brokered by an Iranian general.

"There is no empirical evidence that the Iraqi forces can stand up" on their own, a senior U.S. military official in Washington said, reflecting the frustration of some at the Pentagon. He and other military officials requested anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak for the record.

Having Iraqi forces take a leadership role in combating militias and Islamic extremists was crucial to U.S. hopes of withdrawing more American forces in Iraq and reducing the severe strains the Iraq war has put on the Army and Marine Corps.

The failure of Iraqi forces to defeat rogue fighters in Basra has some in the military fearing they can no longer predict when it might be possible to reduce the number of troops to pre-surge levels.

"It's more complicated now," said one officer in Iraq whose role has been critical to American planning there.

It remains unclear what the American commanders in Iraq knew about the operation and when they knew it - what is known is that once again, the zeal and confident proclamations of Iraqi commanders boasting about the abilities of the troops in their command were not matched by reality once they came under fire.

Today it was revealed that British forces were involved far deeply in aiding the Iraqi army during the fighting in Basra than was previously reported. Indeed, British defense secretary Des Brown told the House of Commons on Tuesday that the use of British ground troops entry into the fighting was ordered “in extremis,” which means that the deployment of forces from the British base at Basra was a last-ditch measure to save Iraqi troops from being routed. Browne told the House of commons that the Iraqi forces displayed "fragility" under fire (what a euphemism!) He also announced that Britain was halting their drawdown of forces in the wake of the sorry showing by Iraqi forces.

So let's recap: Not only can the Iraqi forces not stand up, the Iraqi government showed itself for weak and ineffectual, we can't afford to keep propping them up, and if, nay when we leave, we most likely leave a failed state in our wake, and for that we are likely to be viewed by other states as a pariah nation for the foreseeable future.

If you look at what Juan Cole has found in the Arabic language media, you find a rather sobering and devastating account of what happened. The civil war in Iraq is getting worse and the government of Nuri al-Maliki is getting more and more corrupt by the day:

Al-Zaman reports in Arabic that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Tuesday honored the militias of the parties in the United Iraqi Alliance, i.e. the Da'wa (Islamic Call) Party and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq. They were singled out for having fought alongside government security forces, and some 10,000 of them were inducted into the latter.

Al-Zaman points to a double standard, insofar as the government has not similarly honored, or accepted into the state apparatus, most members of the Sunni Awakening Council militias that have been fighting the Qutbist Jihadis.

The induction of Badr Corps fighters (the paramilitary of ISCI) and those of the Da'wa Party into security positions came in the wake of the firing of thousands of officers and troops who had refused to obey orders to fire on the Mahdi Army militiamen in Baghdad and the southern provinces. They were accused of mutiny.

If al-Zaman's reporting is correct, the scale of the mutiny is breathtaking, and helps explain why government troops did so poorly against the Sadrists-- the hearts of the thousands of them were simply not with the fight.

Full scale mutiny, British troops sent in to keep them from collapsing, and armed thugs who fought on the side of the government are now "inducted" in as security forces. The very notion that the legitimization of the Badr Corps has now been accomplished should be of paramount concern to people who pay attention to these things:

Under the tutelage of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), SCIRI established a military wing in 1983, called the Badr Brigade. This force quickly grew into a full-fledged corps and joined regular IRGC forces on the front lines during the Iran-Iraq war. The relationship with the IRCG has persisted and deepened over the past two decades. The main Badr Corps training center, located just west of the Vahdati air force base in Dezful, and most of its other facilities in Western Iran and Tehran are IRGC property. The Badr Corps is believed to have between 10,000-15,000 fighters, though only around 3,000 are professionally trained (many of these being Iraqi army defectors and former POWs).

Will General Petraeus answer any of these questions? I hope to God no one runs an ad in the New York Times before he gets back from Iraq. Wouldn't want to distract anyone from what's really going on...

UPDATE I - PALE RIDER

Of course, you can't explain basic COIN to the wingnuts. Here's what Austin Bay has to say:

After his outlaw militiamen raised white flags and skedaddled from their latest round of combat with the Iraqi Army, radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr declared victory.

He always does. He understands media bravado. He wagers that survival bandaged by bombast and swathed in sensational headlines is a short-term triumph. Survive long enough, and Sadr bets he will prevail.

This time, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki issued a contrarian press release, however, calling the Iraqi Army's anti-militia operations in southern Iraq a "success."

A dispute over casualties in the firefights has ensued, as it always does. An Iraqi Interior Ministry spokesman alleged that Sadr's militia had been hit hard in six days of fighting, suffering 215 dead, 155 arrested and approximately 600 wounded. The government spokesman gave no casualty figures for Iraqi security forces.

Let's see--we have a "body count" because that's how wingnuts think you win against popular insurgencies. They haven't learned the lesson of Vietnam--body counts don't matter. Support from the indigenous population matters. Thousands of Iraqi government troops mutinied, abandoned their equipment, then had to be bailed out by the Brits and had to call in air strikes from the US (another failed method of fighting insurgents that reveals just how badly we're doing in Iraq), ultimately leaving the Mahdi Army intact--and that means that al-Maliki won?

It's incredible to contemplate how ignorant these people truly are.

Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq’s increasingly isolated Prime Minister, claimed yesterday his campaign to stamp out illegal armed groups in Basra had been a “success” despite being forced to sue for peace with al-Mahdi Army militia who fought his men to a standstill.

The Prime Minister, whose future is looking uncertain after he staked his reputation on the stalled military offensive, also asked gunmen to return the 50 government cars and armoured vehicles they captured from his forces during a week of fighting that left close to 500 people dead.

Rarely does the victor have to "beg" for his vehicles to be returned from the people that he "defeated."

Basra is Burning

The security situation in Iraq is more unstable than it has been in months as the oil-rich region around Basra disintegrates into chaos in the wake of a massive operation by the Iraqi Security Forces that sparked an uprising of local Shiite militias. The situation has deteriorated so severely that Iranian figurehead Nuri Kemal al-Maliki issued a dire warning: Lay down your arms within 72 hours, "or face the consequences."

The fierce battles, along with indications in recent weeks that militia and insurgent attacks had already been creeping up, raised fears across Iraq that Mr. Sadr could pull out of a cease-fire he declared last summer. If his Mahdi Army militia does step up attacks, that could in turn slow American troop withdrawals.

There were also serious clashes reported Tuesday in the southern cities of Kut and Hilla, and Major Bergner said Wednesday that fighting involving the Mahdi Army was continuing around the country.

In Basra on Tuesday, American and British jets roared through the skies, providing air support for the Iraqi military. A British Army spokesman for southern Iraq, Maj. Tom Holloway, said that while Western forces had not entered Basra, the operation already involved nearly 30,000 Iraqi troops and police forces, with more arriving. “They are clearing the city block by block,” Major Holloway said.

The scale and intensity of the clashes in Baghdad kept many residents home. Schools and shops were closed in many neighborhoods and hundreds of checkpoints appeared; in some neighborhoods they were controlled by the government and in others by militia members.

Also on Tuesday, barrages of rockets and mortar shells pounded the fortified Green Zone area. An American military spokesman said there were two minor injuries to civilians in the Green Zone.

That there is fighting among the Shi'ites should surprise exactly no one. There is no love lost between the Hakim's and the Sadr's - they both represent remnants of a past in which Ayatollahs ran the show in that part of the world. The Badr Brigade and Jaish al Mahdi represented the "muscle" requisite of any successful crime family. Duh.

Be honest - have you even thought about the Badr Brigade in the last two years? You haven't have you? Well, think about it now - where do you think all those militiamen disappeared to? They sure as hell didn't go back into their lamps, you know. But the average American has about that level of understanding about just what the hell has been done in their name. Nimrods. (Not you guys, everyone else. Especially the idiots who still support this mess.)

The Badr Brigade is the ISF. They are still militia thugs, they just have uniforms and sanction now, thanks to the backing of Iraqi president Jalal Talibani. But frankly, anyone who really, truly knows anything about the players in this game (Pat Lang, Marc Lynch, Scott Ritter) has seen this coming down the pike since SCIRI won the recognition battle.

Does anyone else find it even slightly ironic that the security forces the United States is determined to prop up, by any means necessary, has it's roots in Iran, opposing Iraq? And simultaneously they are sabre-rattling at Iran.

Our ignorance of what has been brewing in Basra has been because the Brits, god bless them, really didn't try to piss off the locals by insisting everyone disarm.

Now, was it smart of them? Of course--they suffered less while occupying Basra. They dealt with the locals, and the locals quietly accumulated weaponry, strengthened their power base, and built their militias.

When you then go in with a different philosophy--al Maliki saying "surrender or be killed--" you're asking for a shitstorm.

Basra is an example of what is probably going to happen when former allies or people we've bought off decide it's worth their while to start killing again. It's a microcosm of what will happen when the Sunnis get wind of where Iraq is likely to go.

UPDATE I - PALE RIDER

Of course, Juan Cole had this all figured out a year ago:

Feb. 23, 2007 | Tony Blair's announcement that Britain would withdraw 1,600 troops from southern Iraq by May, and aim for further significant withdrawals by the end of 2007, drew praise from U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney. "What I see," said Cheney, "is an affirmation of the fact that there are parts of Iraq where things are going pretty well."

In reality, southern Iraq is a quagmire that has defeated all British efforts to impose order, and Blair was pressed by his military commanders to get out altogether -- and quickly. The departure has only been slowed, for the moment, by the pleas of Bush administration officials like Cheney. And far from the disingenuously upbeat prognosis offered by the vice president, the British withdrawal could spell severe trouble for both the Iraqi government and for U.S. troops in that country.

The British helped provide the security that allowed private supply convoys bearing fuel, food and ammunition to travel from Kuwait up through Shiite-held territory to the U.S. military's forward operating bases in and around Baghdad and in Anbar province. Col. Pat Lang, a retired senior officer with the Defense Intelligence Agency, has pointed out that if Shiite militias began attacking those trucks, American troops in the center-north of the country would become sitting ducks for the Sunni Arab guerrillas.

The other danger posed by the British withdrawal is to Iraq's economy. The southern port city of Basra is the country's primary economic window on the world. Exports of the 1.6 million barrels a day of petroleum it managed to produce in January all went out of Basra. The pipeline that used to take Iraqi exports from the northern oil city of Kirkuk to Ceyhan on Turkey's Mediterranean coast has been subject to constant sabotage. The Iraqi state depends on the revenue realized from Basra's exports for its survival. As it is, it has been charged that militias siphon off $2 billion a year in petroleum revenues through smuggling operations. Were the central government to lose control of even more of those revenues, it could be starved to death.

And the danger is imminent. Although it is often alleged that Basra is relatively calm because it lacks Sunnis, neither claim is true. Though heavily Shiite, Basra also has tens of thousands of Sunnis -- even, perhaps, the odd al-Qaida operative. Sunni spokesmen such as Qatar-based Yusuf al-Qaradawi maintain that thousands of Sunnis have been driven out of the city and that a hundred Sunni mosques have been confiscated by Shiites. The Shiite-dominated Iraqi government denies these allegations.

And Basra is certainly not calm. The British have faced a difficult situation in the city during the past two years in particular, which has not been helped by the recent deterioration in relations throughout Iraq between Coalition troops and the Mahdi army of nationalist Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. In largely Shiite southern Iraq, the British have lost 132 troops to attacks by militiamen, many of them involving roadside bombs. British bases and headquarters are constantly targeted with mortar fire and Katyusha rockets, and often nearby Iraqis are killed by accident in these attacks. Last Oct. 30, the British were forced to relocate most of the staff at the British consulate in Basra out to the airport because the consulate kept coming under mortar fire. When the British consulate cannot even function in the heart of a city, it is a sign of poor security.