CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O HAS "HAD IT, I MEAN I HAVE FRIGGIN' HAD IT!"
WHAT HAD AMERICA'S STARLET SO ANGRY THAT HE WAS TOSSING CLAM SHELLS AT REPORTERS AND PHOTOGRAPHERS?
THESE JOURNALISTS APPROACHED HIM ONLY AFTER RAHM EMANUEL HAD GIVE BARACK HIS INJECTION OF "SUGAR WATER" ("TO MAKE ME EVEN SWEETER," INSISTS BARACK BUT OTHERS SPECULATE IT MAY CONTAIN DRUGS). WE PROVIDED BARACK THE OPPORTUNITY TO PRESENT HIS SIDE OF THE DEBATE.
"I JUST THINK IT'S RUDE OF THEM [THE PRESS] TO CALL ME OUT ON THE GULF DISASTER AND NOT GIVE ME CREDIT FOR VACATIONING IN ONE OF THE STATES MOST EFFECTED BY THE GULF DISASTER."
WHEN THESE REPORTERS EXPLAINED THAT MAINE REALLY HASN'T BEEN KNOWN TO SEE ANY IMMEDIATE EFFECTS OF THE GULF DISASTER, BARRY O DISMISSED THAT AS "POPPYCOSH! I CAN SEE THE WATER RIGHT OVER THERE! I THINK YOU NEED TO STUDY UP ON YOUR 57 STATES. MAINE IS A GULF STATE, A SOUTHERN STATE. NOW, IF YOU'LL EXCUSE ME, I INTEND TO GO HAVE ANOTHER BOWL OF NEW ENGLAND CLAM CHOWDER."
FROM THE TCI WIRE:
David Vine: Counterinsurgency, just quickly, because it features in the title, it features in the title of the book that we're going to disccus today The Counter-Counterinsurgency Manual: Notes on Demilitarizing American Society. Counterinsurgency, just quickly, is a term that dates to about 1960, the Vietnam era, came to mean the elimination of an uprising against the govenrment. Although the tactics of course are much older. Dating centuries, most likely the United States so-called "Indian Wars," the occupation of the Philipines and certainly the tactics employed by the people inside the British and French empire.
David Vines is with the American Anthropological Association and he was speaking as moderator of the December 5, 2009 discusion by Network of Concern Anthropologists in Philadelphia for the AAA's annual meeting.
You won't hear these voices on NPR very often (David Price was on The Diane Rehm Show addressing this topic -- see the October 11, 2007 snapshot for an excerpt of the October 10th broadcast of Diane's show). You will, however, hear the 'insight' of David Kilcullen on Morning Edition and you won't hear it or him questioned. Is Morning Edition unaware of what took place in Philadelphia last year?
From the December 3rd snapshot:
The American Anthropological Association's annual meeting started yesterday in Philadelphia and continues through Sunday. Today the association's Commission on the Engagement of Anthropology with the US Security and Intelligence Communities issued their [PDF format] "Final Report on The Army's Human Terrain System Proof of Concept Program." The 74-page report is a blow to War Criminals and their cheerleaders who have long thought that the social science could be abused or that the social sciences were psuedo sciences. It was in December 2006 when Dumb Ass George Packer raved over Dumb Ass Montgomery McFate and her highly imaginative and fictional retelling of both her childhood and her current work which Packer identified as "Pentagon consultant" working on Cultural Operations Research Human Terrain. Packer was jizzing in his shorts and not even warnings from other anthropologists ("I do not want to get anybody killed") could sway him.
In May the US House of Representatives made an unusual move. Noah Shachtman (Wired) reported in May that the House Armed Service Committtee announced it would be limiting funding for the program.
If you click here, you will be taken to the AAA website and to a podcast (where I grabbed David Vine's statement from) of the Network of Concern Anthropologists' symposium featuring Roberto Gonzalez, David Price, Andrew Bickford, Gregory Feldman, Dylan Kerrigan, Cahterine Besteman, Catherine Lutz and Nancy Scheper-Hughes.
Counterinsurgency is war on a native people. In its current usage by the US government, anthropologists are embedded with the military in Afghanistan and Iraq and they give the guise of "social science," the appearance of it. The cover to allow what really are War Crimes to take place. It turns social scientists into spies, spying on a native people so they can run back and fine tune the US policies and goals of war and occupation. It is not social science by any means. At its most basic, social science, when studying a people, requires informed consent. Counterinsurgency dismisses it. Those interviewed do not know who is interviewing them. They often think it's the military (because the 'social scientists' are dressed in military garb) and that they have no choice but to answer the questions. That is not informed consent.
Information is not gathered to illuminate the human condition, it's gathered to advance military goals. That is not social science, it's so far beyond a bastardization of social science that it is, in fact, a War Crime.
When he thinks no one is watching, David Kilcullen can be very illuminating and drop all pretense that he's attempting to help anyone other than a military. Speaking this month to Byron Sibree (New Zealand Herald), Kilcullen described counterinsurgency as "a form of what the French call counter-warfare which kind of morphs in response to whatever we're dealing with." Michael Hastings' article on Gen Stanley McCrystal was about McCrystal's objections to counter-insurgency (portrayed in the article as McCrystal thinking they were a waste of resources). McCrystal is now out as the US' top commander in Afghanistan. Gen David Petraeus is now the top US commander in Afghanistan. Petraeus is a close friend of Kilcullen's (he even attend Kilcullen's wedding -- no word on whether he was the ring-bearer or flower girl). And all the War Criminals hang out together. The civilian side (which Kilcullen is on now, having left the Australian military) is represented by War Whores such as Samantha Power and Sarah Sewall -- America's very own Josef Mengele and Kurt Lischka. If you're late to the party, Ava and I covered the group in 2007 when two little War Criminals -- Sarah Sewer and Monty McFate -- went on Charlie Rose -- that's the episode where Sarah Sewer brags she can get Barack to say whatever she wants. Where were you brave journalists of the left? Oh, that's right. You were all up Barack's crack or else playing the quiet game. And if you're trying to lose weight, click here and see the War Criminals Monty McFate, Sarah Sewer and Michele Flournoy (I'm sure Susan Brownmiller could analyze that photo at great length). It may be days before you regain your appetite. These women are liars and include Samantha Power who is a blood thirsty War Hawk who blurbed the counterinsurgency manual Sarah and Monty 'wrote.' (Monty's academic 'writing' appears doomed to the same fate as her juvenile 'writing' -- massive charges of plagiarism. For those late to the party, I knew Monty McFate when she was an ugly, little girl and, if nothing else, her life has demonstrated that the old wives tale of "Ugly in the cradle, pretty at the table" was wrong. Sometimes it really is ugly in the cradle and ugly at the table.) You can also click here for Noam Chomsky's thoughts on the War Criminals (Monthly Review, 2008). Though women often lead on this (at least publicly -- and Ms. magazine and Feminist Majority Foundation were stupid enough to promote these War Hawks in a so-called 'feminist' confrence), Michael Ignatieff and many other men are also part of it. (One-time journalist Thomas E. Ricks, John Nagl and many others.) One of the few journalists to tackle counterinsurgency is Kelley B. Vlahos (Antiwar.com). Most recently (June 15th), she took on the counterinsurgency 'brains' big Center for a New American Security conference:
But a year later, "victory" in Afghanistan is more elusive than ever and the "COINdinistas" are either disappearing to other realms of pop doctrine or standing around defensively, trying to backtrack and redefine tactics to accommodate the negative reality on the ground. So, as last year's event mimicked the preening confidence of a new sheriff in town, this year it amounted to a lot of whistling past the graveyard.
Whistling past the graveyard seems to be the only way to describe the sense that no one really wanted to talk about the 800-pound gorilla in the room: how their venerated COIN formula -- you know, the one that would have worked in Vietnam if spineless bureaucrats and long-haired hippies hadn't gotten in the way -- is actually playing out in Afghanistan today.
This was the largest congregation of the uniformed and civilian defense policy establishment all year. CNAS (pronounced see-nass) had been writing non-stop about Afghanistan in some capacity since its inception in 2007 -- including a recent study by fellow Andrew Exum, "Leverage: Designing a Political Campaign for Afghanistan." The fact that on June 10, the morning of the conference, one of the major front-page headlines in the Washington Post blared "Commanders Fear Time Is Running Out in Marja" should have been the perfect launching point for a stimulating discussion.
Instead, you had panel after panel nibbling around the edges and a keynote speech that managed, gratingly, to avoid talking about current operations altogether. Indirectly, the day provided a few tiny glimpses into how the COIN community and all of its defense industry hangers-on are feeling about the state of things. And it is not good. Unfortunately for them, the lack of public candor just added to the growing sense of doom.
But a year later, "victory" in Afghanistan is more elusive than ever and the "COINdinistas" are either disappearing to other realms of pop doctrine or standing around defensively, trying to backtrack and redefine tactics to accommodate the negative reality on the ground. So, as last year's event mimicked the preening confidence of a new sheriff in town, this year it amounted to a lot of whistling past the graveyard.
Whistling past the graveyard seems to be the only way to describe the sense that no one really wanted to talk about the 800-pound gorilla in the room: how their venerated COIN formula -- you know, the one that would have worked in Vietnam if spineless bureaucrats and long-haired hippies hadn't gotten in the way -- is actually playing out in Afghanistan today.
This was the largest congregation of the uniformed and civilian defense policy establishment all year. CNAS (pronounced see-nass) had been writing non-stop about Afghanistan in some capacity since its inception in 2007 -- including a recent study by fellow Andrew Exum, "Leverage: Designing a Political Campaign for Afghanistan." The fact that on June 10, the morning of the conference, one of the major front-page headlines in the Washington Post blared "Commanders Fear Time Is Running Out in Marja" should have been the perfect launching point for a stimulating discussion.
Instead, you had panel after panel nibbling around the edges and a keynote speech that managed, gratingly, to avoid talking about current operations altogether. Indirectly, the day provided a few tiny glimpses into how the COIN community and all of its defense industry hangers-on are feeling about the state of things. And it is not good. Unfortunately for them, the lack of public candor just added to the growing sense of doom.
Good. And good for Kelley for continuing to call out the counterinsurgency 'gurus' at a time when most others take a pass and in spite of the fact that Thomas E. Ricks launches personal and sexist attacks on her for doing so.
In Iraq, the Sahwa movement was part of the counterinsurgency effort. The main part, according to Petraeus (who is now trying to replicate it in Afghanistan even though for two years now it's been noted that it probably can't be done in Afghanistan). Sunni fighters (and, according to Petraeus' April 2008 Congressional testimony, some Shi'ites) were put on the American tax payer's dime. A little over 90,000 of them were paid not to attack US miltary equipment or military personnel. It was like paying a school bully off not to beat you up in the playground. And how did it work out? Shor-term it may have helped somewhat. (The large refugee crisis did more to end the bloody ethnic cleansing than paying off Sahwa -- by Petraues' own testimony and that of then-US Ambassador Ryan Crocker -- Sahwa was only paid to stop targeting the US.) But there was never a diplomatic push (which the Sahwa and the escalation -- "surge" -- were sold on) and what we really see today is that the Sahwa is not, has not and will not be integrated into Iraqi society as long as Nouri al-Maliki is prime minister.
And how long might that be? Trend News Agency reports Iraq's Sunni Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi's adviser Khalil Azraa is stating the US has not done enough to resolve the political stalemate in Iraq and quotes him stating, "The U.S. can exert political pressure on the formation of the government, because it is responsible for building democracy in Iraq." Tariq al-Hashimi is a member of Iraqiya, in fact, he is, after Ayad Allawi, probably the most prominent member of Iraqiya (especially post-purge by Ahmed Chalabi and Ali al-Lami).
March 7th, Iraq concluded Parliamentary elections. Three months and two days later, still no government. 163 seats are needed to form the executive government (prime minister and council of ministers). When no single slate wins 163 seats (or possibly higher -- 163 is the number today but the Parliament added seats this election and, in four more years, they may add more which could increase the number of seats needed to form the executive government), power-sharing coalitions must be formed with other slates, parties and/or individual candidates. (Eight Parliament seats were awarded, for example, to minority candidates who represent various religious minorities in Iraq.) Ayad Allawi is the head of Iraqiya which won 91 seats in the Parliament making it the biggest seat holder. Second place went to State Of Law which Nouri al-Maliki, the current prime minister, heads. They won 89 seats. Nouri made a big show of lodging complaints and issuing allegations to distract and delay the certification of the initial results while he formed a power-sharing coalition with third place winner Iraqi National Alliance -- this coalition still does not give them 163 seats. They are claiming they have the right to form the government. It's four months and five days and, in 2005, Iraq took four months and seven days to pick a prime minister. Today makes it four months and nine days without any government being established. Salah Hemeid (Al-Ahram Weekly) notes the lengthy delay:
March 7th, Iraq concluded Parliamentary elections. Three months and two days later, still no government. 163 seats are needed to form the executive government (prime minister and council of ministers). When no single slate wins 163 seats (or possibly higher -- 163 is the number today but the Parliament added seats this election and, in four more years, they may add more which could increase the number of seats needed to form the executive government), power-sharing coalitions must be formed with other slates, parties and/or individual candidates. (Eight Parliament seats were awarded, for example, to minority candidates who represent various religious minorities in Iraq.) Ayad Allawi is the head of Iraqiya which won 91 seats in the Parliament making it the biggest seat holder. Second place went to State Of Law which Nouri al-Maliki, the current prime minister, heads. They won 89 seats. Nouri made a big show of lodging complaints and issuing allegations to distract and delay the certification of the initial results while he formed a power-sharing coalition with third place winner Iraqi National Alliance -- this coalition still does not give them 163 seats. They are claiming they have the right to form the government. It's four months and five days and, in 2005, Iraq took four months and seven days to pick a prime minister. Today makes it four months and nine days without any government being established. Salah Hemeid (Al-Ahram Weekly) notes the lengthy delay:
With many Iraqis describing this new postponement as unconstitutional, there are widespread fears that the ongoing political crisis over who will lead the country will now escalate further.
The parliament had previously convened on 13 June, the country's constitution stating that the president should be selected within 30 days of its convocation. The possibility of further delay raises the question of whether inaction is flouting a constitution that many Iraqis believe has already been violated by politicians.
Iraqi voters went to the polls on 7 March to elect a new 325-member parliament, but an indecisive result, and bickering over who should be the country's next prime minister, has delayed the formation of a new government and plunged the country into political stalemate.
Under the country's constitution the Iraqi parliament should have convened 15 days after the results were announced in order to elect a speaker, and a new president should have been elected within 30 days of the parliament's first session. The president should then have nominated the new prime minister, who should have submitted his cabinet within 30 days for ratification.
According to an understanding that emerged after Iraq's first post-Saddam elections in 2005, a Shia Arab would be prime minister, a Kurd president, and a Sunni Arab speaker of the parliament. This quota system also covers top jobs, such as ambassadors and senior government and army posts, and the country's Shias and Kurds have been insisting on the quota system despite strong Sunni opposition.
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