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[ This message has been sent to you via the CASI-analysis mailing list ] This is an automated compilation of submissions to newsclippings@casi.org.uk Articles for inclusion in this daily news mailing should be sent to newsclippings@casi.org.uk. Please include a full reference to the source of the article. Today's Topics: 1. What's our biggest problem? (CharlieChimp1@aol.com) 2. 'Democrocy' Pays - Literally (farbuthnot) --__--__-- Message: 1 From: CharlieChimp1@DELETETHISaol.com Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 17:59:46 EST Subject: What's our biggest problem? To: Intelligentminds@yahoogroups.com, newsclippings@casi.org.uk [ Presenting plain-text part of multi-format email ] _http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts01122005.html_ (http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts01122005.html) January 12, 2005 Dear Ken, About That Cakewalk... What's Our Biggest Problem...the Insurgency or Bush? By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS Three years ago in the Washington Post Ken Adelman, formerly an assistant to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, promised us "Cakewalk In Iraq." I wonder how Mr. Adelman feels about his promise today. In his article Adelman disparaged Brookings Institution military analysts and the redoubtable Edward Luttwak for "fear-mongering." Adelman dismissed concerns about US casualties and unilateral action as misguided worries that inspire inaction when it was perfectly clear, to Adleman at least, that Iraq's Saddam "Hussein constitutes the number one threat against American security and civilization." As for concerns about going it alone, "President Bush does not need to amass rinky-dink nations as 'coalition partners' to convince the Washington establishment that we're right." The Washington establishment must be wondering today how it was convinced into making such a fatal mistake. Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. Saddam Hussein had no terrorist links or involvement in the September 11 terror attack. US casualties (dead and wounded) now stand at 10 percent of the US invasion force. A few thousand lightly armed insurgents have tied down eight US divisions. Iraq's infrastructure lies in ruins. Fallujah, once a city of 300,000, has been destroyed. The US has lost control of the roads, and most of the US fighting force is confined to protecting supply lines and its own bases. The US military is cracking under the strain of prolonged service in the field. The cost of the war mounts, putting more pressure on a collapsing US dollar. The US occupation has recruited thousands of new terrorists for Osama bin Laden and provided a training ground. Torture and torture memos have destroyed America's moral reputation. Civil war looms as neither Sunnis, Shiites, nor Kurds are willing to support a government they do not control. Anti-American feelings throughout the Middle East threaten to undermine the secular puppets that the US keeps afloat in Pakistan, Egypt and Jordan. There is no light at the end of the tunnel. Generals speak of staying another 3, 5, 7, and 10 years in order "to get the job done." If this is a cakewalk, what is a failed invasion and a lost war? Where Mr. Adelman, the neoconservatives, the Pentagon, the White House, the flag-wavers, and the media went wrong was in thinking the outcome would be settled by a set piece battle between massed Iraqi and US forces. They thought this because they knew nothing whatsoever about Iraq. The Sunni-controlled Iraqi military chose insurgency as the strategy. Suck the invader in, and make him unsafe on every street and in every building. Blow him up in his own fortified bases. Their strategy has worked. Ours has failed. The question is: are Americans smart enough to realize this? Our government is not smart enough. The occupant of the Oval Office is drowning in hubris and delusion. The neoconservatives are still in charge of the Bush administration, and they are still talking fantasies about taking out Iran and Syria and imposing our will on the Middle East. This is extraordinary delusion when we have conclusively demonstrated that we cannot even impose our will on Fallujah, not even after leveling the city to the ground. We cannot even impose our will on the road from Bhagdad to the airport. The promised Iraqi election, if held, will settle nothing. If it is not a total disaster, it might provide cover for US withdrawal, not piecemeal but all at once. If 150,000 US troops are in jeopardy, piecemeal withdrawal will place remaining troops in more jeopardy. Americans must ask themselves where lies our biggest problem? Is it the Iraqi insurgency, or is it President Bush who will not admit a mistake? How long will we bleed in Iraq? How many war crimes will we commit in frustration with an invisible enemy? How intense will Muslim hatred of Americans become? At what point will this hatred unseat our puppets and deliver the Middle East to Osama bin Laden or his equivalent? Three more years? Five more years? We certainly cannot get away with it for seven or ten more years. The US invasion of Iraq was a strategic blunder. It has greatly damaged US credibility, while greatly enhancing Osama bin Laden's credibility. Who will provide the desperately needed leadership that will rescue America from this self-inflicted catastrophe?Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of _The Tyranny of Good Intentions._ (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/076152553X/counterpunchmaga) --__--__-- Message: 2 Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 20:05:52 +0000 Subject: 'Democrocy' Pays - Literally From: "farbuthnot" <asceptic@DELETETHISfreenetname.co.uk> To: casI-analysis@lists.casi.org.uk CC: hussy_al_2000@yahoo.co.uk [ Presenting plain-text part of multi-format email ] Printer Friendly Version E-Mail This Article =A0 =A0Published on Tuesday, January 11, 2005 by the Financial Times/UK Allawi Group Slips Cash to Reporters by Steve Negus in Baghdad =A0 The electoral group headed by Iyad Allawi, the interim Iraqi prime minister= , on Monday handed out cash to journalists to ensure coverage of its press conferences in a throwback to Ba'athist-era patronage ahead of parliamentar= y elections on January 30. After a meeting held by Mr Allawi's campaign alliance in west Baghdad, reporters, most of whom were from the Arabic-language press, were invited upstairs where each was offered a "gift" of a $100 bill contained in an envelope. Many of the journalists accepted the cash - about equivalent to half the starting monthly salary for a reporter at an Iraqi newspaper - and one jokingly recalled how Saddam Hussein's regime had also lavished perks on favoured reporters. Giving gifts to journalists is common in many of the Middle East's authoritarian regimes, although reporters at the conference said the practice was not yet widespread in postwar Iraq. The press conference came as Mr Allawi and his allies kicked the electoral campaign of their Iraqi List into high gear. Mr Allawi was not at the conference, but Hussein al-Sadr, a Shia cleric running on the prime minister's list, used it to challenge Islamist opponents in the United Iraqi Alliance, saying they were falsely claiming the backing of the country's Shia clerical establishment. In recent weeks, there have been signs that Mr Allawi's campaign is staging an unexpectedly strong challenge. According to the preliminary results of one survey in Shia majority areas, Mr Allawi's list was favoured by 22 per cent of respondents compared with 2= 7 per cent who chose the Alliance. Mr Allawi's list, whose campaign emphasises the rebuilding of the Iraqi military, is playing on its leader's reputation as a strongman and Iraqi yearnings for stability. Like most candidate groups, Mr Allawi's has not announced its complete list of candidates for security reasons. However, officials in his party say that his prominent Shia allies include Mr Sadr and Basra governor Wael Abd al-Latif, while Sunnis include Falah al-Naquib, the interior minister, and Thamer al-Ghadhban, the minister for petroleum. Leonid Kuchma, Ukraine's outgoing president, on Monday ordered an early withdrawal of the country's 1,600 troops from Iraq over the next six months= . Mr Kuchma's move came in response to the deaths of eight Ukrainian soldiers in a blast in Iraq at the weekend. Viktor Yushchenko, the president-elect, said he would make the troop withdrawal a priority when he took office in the coming days. Additional reporting by Awadh al-Taee in Baghdad and by Tom Warner in Kiev =A9 Copyright The Financial Times Ltd 2005 ### End of casi-news Digest _______________________________________ Sent via the CASI-analysis mailing list To unsubscribe, visit http://lists.casi.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/casi-analysis All postings are archived on CASI's website at http://www.casi.org.uk