When My Enemy's Enemies Are Still My Enemies

One of the greatest mistakes we make in the conduct of modern warfare is to make our conflicts suit a politically palatable narrative.  It can seem as though the spin doctors are as powerful as the generals which might explain why they seem to do an equally marginal job at it.

We went to war in Afghanistan with a fairly powerful narrative about al Qaeda and the Taliban that was, at first, highly persuasive to the public.  They practically demanded that we wipe them from the face of the Earth.  Then, because the narrative was at odds with the facts, we gradually lost interest. After a decade of full contact "Whack-a-Mole", we loaded up our shipping containers and left.

The Talibs are back in force in Afghanistan.  al Qaeda used Washington's invasion of Iraq to re-invent itself and, since then, has spawned a network of franchise operations that extends to the westernmost regions of North Africa.

Iraq.  Oh, that's right.  Western forces hung around there for years, nurtured a brutal and corrupt sectarian government that could never hold the place together, and, as is our way, got bored and left.

The flavour of this year is ISIS, the Islamic State.  President Obama has given the US and America's Foreign Legion (that includes us) our marching orders. We're to bomb ISIS into fragments from the skies over Iraq and, maybe, Syria.

To justify our current war we need a narrative of ISIS as a rabid, bloodthirsty band of religious fanatics intent on creating a Caliphate to rule the region and, ultimately, the world.  Take down ISIS and problem solved.  Except that, as usual, the narrative is at odds with the facts.

ISIS isn't the real problem.  It's a symptom of a nascent, Shiite versus Sunni religious war, a sectarian Muslim holy war, that reaches beyond the borders of Syria and Iraq and already reaches into Pakistan, Iran, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia and could spread even farther.

Iran is fighting militant Sunni groups, mainly the Baloch who occupy the southern, resource rich region of Pakistan.  This has already led to clashes between Iranian and Pakistani military units.

A Shiite village in Sunni-dominated Saudi Arabia was attacked by Sunni militants.  The House of Saud is deeply worried about the country's Shia minority who are the majority in the same areas as many of the country's best oil reserves. The Saudis fear Iran could move to annex its Shiite minority region (as the Russians did in Ossetia and Crimea).  From Lebanon's Daily Star:

With civil wars in Iraq and Syria now being fought along mainly sectarian lines, Saudi Arabia's Shia minority feels increasingly vulnerable in a country where anger is rising among the majority sect at the plight of Sunnis in other countries.

Sunni jihadis now speak about Shiites as the greater enemy to members of their sect than the Western governments that were formerly their most hated foes.  The Saudi government has done little to stem a corresponding upsurge of provocative language there.

"For sure criticism of Shiites by clerics and religious television stations creates the atmosphere where this can happen.  In our own schools the teachers tell our cchildrenthat we are not Muslims," said a witness of the shooting who did not want to be named for fear of repercussions. 

Of course this isn't just a Sunni versus Shiite sectarian war.  It's fundamentalist Sunni Islam, of the type practiced by the sheikhs and princes of the Gulf States, versus moderate Sunni Islam, Christians and other groups too.  The Kurds of Iraq and Syria now engaged in heavy fighting against ISIS are a perfect example.

And a pot this full is almost too tempting for others not to stir.  The Lebanese accuse Israel and the Sunni extremists of trying to spark a civil war to bring down their country.

Israel and Islamist militants are seeking to ignite civil war in Lebanon, General Security head Abbas Ibrahim wrote in an editorial published Thursday.

"Independence Day arrives while Lebanon battles the odds ...in an ordeal not destined to end until [Lebanon's] inevitable victory in the battle for existence and identity in the face of organized terrorism, which is seeking to ...strike at its elements of existence through inciting [sectarian] strife and setting the stage for a civil war by targeting the military institution and other security agencies."

"Zionism is equally as dangerous [a threat] as takfiri terrorism," he said.

Without naming them, Ibrahim said takfiri groups - clearly indicating ISIS and the Nusra Front - in addition to Israel have similar objectives, while each party "is trying to strengthen its status."

Israel is tacitly allied with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States in opposition to Iran. What Saudi Arabia is really up to was conveyed by Prince Bandar-bin-Sultan to the former head of Britain's MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove.

Some time before 9/11, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, once the powerful Saudi ambassador in Washington and head of Saudi intelligence until a few months ago, had a revealing and ominous conversation with the head of the British Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove.  Prince Bandar told him, "The time is not far off in the Middle East, Richard, when it will be literally 'God Help the Shia.'  More than a billion Sunnis have simply had enough of them." 

Somebody recruited, trained, armed and funded ISIS.  Who could that be?  One of our confusing pack of allies perhaps?  Almost certainly.  We know that ISIS has been lavishly funded by the affluent sheikhs and princes of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar.  It's the same bunch that raised al Qaedsa and ISIS and will raise the next gang of radical Islamists we'll have to fight.  And these are our allies.

The old "my enemy's enemy" business no longer applies in the Middle East. We have no allies worthy of the name. We seem to be getting dragged into a sectarian bloodbath we can't control and certainly cannot fix.  We may be bombing the Sunni fundamentalist outfit, ISIS, at the moment but we didn't fail in Iraq or Afghanistan for want of bombs.  If anything we demonstrated, again and again, that All the King's Horses and All the King's Men are far from decisive in these confused conflicts.

We have gone into a war - again - on the strength of a narrative at odds with reality and that, naturally makes almost no sense.  It is a hallmark of the truly miserable calibre of political and military leadership we endure today.

If we really want to show the flag by bombing the hell out of someone, let's go where we might actually do some good.  Let's defend Lebanon.

While We're Focused on Chemical Warfare

It's interesting how selective the United States can be about weapons of mass destruction given that the U.S. continues to be responsible for widespread and ongoing death and destruction from its own chemical and nuclear weapons.

The gas that Obama-Kerry are blaming on Assad appears to have killed somewhere between a few hundred and a thousand or more Syrians.

In Iraq and Afghanistan, the locals are left to live with the radiation hazard created by American depleted uranium (DU) shells and bullets.  D.U. is known to cause cancers, birth defects and stillbirths and D.U. contamination is believed to persist for decades, if not generations.  D.U. dust particles can be inhaled and then embed in the lungs.

And American chemical weapons are still killing in Vietnam and could be for centuries to come.   Agent Orange, generously air delivered as a defoliant, is estimated to remain lethally effective for up to six centuries.  It gets in the soil and in the ground water.  It too causes cancers, birth defects and stillbirths.  Hang in there, Vietnam, only 500 years to go.

Where was our righteous indignation and call to arms when Israel blasted Gazans with white phosphorus rounds and bombs?  The Liberal leader of the day absolved Israel for that and one of his former aides now demands that Syria be attacked.

How do we explain our indifference to the cluster bomblets that litter southern Lebanon, taking lives almost daily, that were fired into that area by Israel in the hours prior to ceasefire?

This is not an apology for Assad.  He's a brutal, murderous shit in a region full of brutal, murderous shits, among them a number we consider friends.  This is about us and it's about our hypocrisy that undermines any credibility we have in denouncing Assad and calling for strikes against Syria.

When do the Vietnamese, the Iraqis or the Afghans get to retaliate against the Americans for the use of WMDs against them in their homelands?

Hezbollah Loses in Lebanon

The radical Shiite Hezbollah organization has suffered an unexpected drubbing in the Lebanese elections. Just a week ago, Hezbollah was considered the favourite to take enough seats to form and lead a coalition government.

The Western-backed coalition took 68-seats in the 128-seat parliament while the Hezbollah coalition won 57-seats. Both sides have said they want a national unity government but the Hezbollah leadership has yet to speak out on the election results.

Could Hezbollah Win in Lebanon?

In less than a week Lebanon may have a new government, a coalition led by the Shiite group Hezbollah. Asia Times Online reports that Hezbollah is the odds-on favourite to win the June 7 election. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KF03Ak01.html

Hezbollah has said that, if it forms the next government of Lebanon, it will seek closer and direct military ties with Iran, something that is understandably giving Israel fits.

The Lebanese newspaper, The Daily Star, reports of both political and military tensions in Lebanon in advance of the election. http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=102574

The paper also published a curious comment by US General David Petraeus claiming that Hezbollah will have no reason to exist, "if the Palestinian cause is resolved. Reaching an agreement over a peace process in the Middle East will eliminate several groups' justifications for existence."

Oh wait, so all we have to do is get in place a two-state solution the Israelis and Palestinians will accept and all our problems will be over? Whew, what a relief that is.

Meanwhile, Spiegel Online is reporting that the United Nations special tribunal investigating the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri has concluded it was Hezbollah, not Syria, that was responsible. The report is not going down well with the Lebanese who probably fear the consequences, even another civil war. http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,626412,00.

Israeli Clusterbombing Violated International Law

Barely a month after the Israeli military cleared itself of all wrongdoing in the use of clusterbombs against Lebanon during its 2006 war with Hezbollah, the Winograd commission into the war has found just the opposite - that the weapons and the way they were used clearly violated international law.

From the UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs:

"The Winograd Committee said it did not find any evidence to prove that soldiers fired cluster bombs at civilian targets or that civilians were injured by the bomblets during the war, but it did say that firing the bombs at built-up areas - even if they were being used by Hezbollah as military posts at the time - "does not comply with the rationale on which the restrictions [in Israeli and international law] on the use of cluster [bombs] is based."

The committee, set up by the Israeli government to investigate the war, found that firing the bombs into residential areas, even if the residents had left, was not an "acceptable widening" of the rules, as civilians would be hurt.

The Winograd Comittee had five members, who were appointed by the cabinet about a month after the war ended, and was headed by retired judge Eliyahu Winograd. The committee’s mandate was to investigate and reach conclusion on the conduct of political leaders as well as the military and defence systems.

In the final report, it said that the cluster bombs were inaccurate and spread out over a wide area; not all the bomblets exploded and continue to cause harm long after they were fired.

About 90 percent of the cluster bombs were fired in the last days of the war, when it was clear a ceasefire would soon be announced. Over four million bomblets were fired during the war, according to the UN."

The UN says unexploded cluster bomblets such as those shown above continue to exact a toll on Lebanese civilians having killed 30 and wounded 200 since the war ended.

The Israeli military still refuses to assist UN workers trying to clear the remaining weapons, finding ten new sites every month.

"All these weapons systems are computerised and grid references are entered before the bombs drop. Not receiving the cluster bomb strike data from the Israelis remains our biggest obstacle to clearance,” Dalya Farran, a spokeswoman for the UN Mine Action Coordination Centre for South Lebanon (MACSL), told IRIN. The UN estimates that Israel rained down around four million bomblets - most US-supplied - onto south Lebanon in the last three days of its 2006 July war with Hezbollah fighters, when a ceasefire had already been agreed.

And this, supposedly, is our ally and friend.

Torture, No - Terror, Absolutely

The men shown here are hunting for unexploded cluster bomblets from Israeli weapons fired into southern Lebanon. The UN reports they're still finding an average of ten new sites every month. Israel, which left the Lebanese countryside littered with these weapons, won't tell the UN where they are. From the UN Human Affairs Office news service, IRIN:

"Deminers clearing Israeli-dropped cluster bombs in south Lebanon are turning up an average of 10 new sites per month, while Israel continues to ignore requests for data that would assist clearing the estimated one million unexploded bomblets, which continue to kill and maim civilians and decimate rural livelihoods. A single cluster bomb can disperse hundreds of bomblets.

All these weapons systems are computerised and grid references are entered before the bombs drop. Not receiving the cluster bomb strike data from the Israelis remains our biggest obstacle to clearance,” Dalya Farran, a spokeswoman for the UN Mine Action Coordination Centre for South Lebanon (MACSL), told IRIN. The UN estimates that Israel rained down around four million bomblets - most US-supplied - onto south Lebanon in the last three days of its 2006 July war with Hezbollah fighters, when a ceasefire had already been agreed.

Cluster bombs, or sub-munitions, are legal, and manufacturers say their failure rates should be between 10-15 percent. The UN estimates in general the weapons fail between 20-30 percent of the time. In south Lebanon MACSL estimates between 30-40 percent of the bombs dropped failed to explode, rising up to 80 percent in some places.

The high failure rate may partly be explained by Israel’s use of Vietnam-war era munitions, such as the M42, M77 and Blue 63, all US or Israeli-made and the MZD2, made in China, many of which MACSL said had gone beyond their expiry date by the time they were dropped on Lebanon.

The Israelis also dropped the new M85 cluster bomb that is designed to self destruct if it fails to explode on impact and which manufacturers say has a 1 percent failure rate. MACSL’s Dalya Farran said they estimate the bomb, used for the first time on battlefields in Lebanon, had a 10 percent failure rate."

Refusing to assist in clearing these weapons or at least disclosing where they can be found is state terrorism, plain and simple. These weapons are serving no military purpose unless the Israeli government and its military see some benefit in killing and maiming Lebanese civilians.

It Always Was About the Oil

The Lebanese paper, The Daily Star, speaks for a lot of the Middle East in asking why Bush invaded Iraq:

What is Bush's cause? To the people of this region, Bush's cause has long been painfully evident: to gain control of Iraq's oil resources. Indeed, ever since the US-led invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration has been aggressively pressuring the Iraqi government to pass a new oil law, ostensibly to promote "reconciliation" among the country's divided communities. In fact, Bush has made the passage of a new oil law one of his key "benchmarks" for Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government.

Members of the Bush administration have argued that the new law will serve to "unify" the country by giving Iraqis a "shared stake in Iraq's future." In fact the bill has proven to facilitate Iraqi unity: It has drawn fierce opposition from lawmakers representing the country's divided Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish communities, as well as from all five of the country's trade unions, which represent hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.

The Iraqis are understandably concerned about the draft law because oil is Iraq's economic lifeblood: It accounts for nearly 70 percent of GDP and more than 95 percent of government revenues. But the draft oil law would take over three-fourths of Iraq's oil fields out of the hands of the Iraqi government and put them in the pockets of Western companies. These companies would not be obliged under the new law to meet minimum standards in partnering with Iraqi firms, hiring Iraqi workers or investing profits in the Iraqi economy. The law also allows for production-sharing agreements, corporate-friendly deals that have been rejected by every other country in this region, and with good reason: They grant foreign firms control of resources and profits for as long as 20 to 30 years, or an entire generation.

The Americans invaded Iraq on the basis of lies that Bush concocted about Al-Qaeda and weapons of mass destruction. Now that Bush has completely shattered the Iraqi nation, he wants to deprive the Iraqi people of one of the only means they have to repair it. The question now becomes: Is this a cause that the American people can support in good conscience?