http://www.metafilter.com/tags/MiddleEast+iraqwar Posts tagged with 'MiddleEast' and 'iraqwar' at MetaFilter. Fri, 11 Mar 2005 13:41:19 -0800 Fri, 11 Mar 2005 13:41:19 -0800 en-us http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 60 http://www.metafilter.com/40366/Understanding%2DIslamism%2DStill%2DUnavailalble%2DIn%2DWishful%2DThinking%2DSound%2DBite%2DSpin%2DFormula Well, for a fact or two, <a href="http://slate.msn.com/toolbar.aspx?action=print&id=2114659" title="History shows us there's hot lava in this geyser, a volcano of energy, which can be creative, destructive, or both. Which way it flows is a matter of gravity, chance, the contours of landscape, or human engineering. To translate the metaphor to today's political geyser, it's a matter of indigenous culture, sheer luck, shrewd diplomacy, or brute force. Which way it goes will depend on some mix of all four. No outcome is inevitable. History is molded, not fated. Euphoria, for the moment, is beside the point.">The Beirut Wall Isn't Falling</a>, <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5145630-103674,00.html" title="Syrian mismanagement of the Lebanese portfolio had been building up to a critical mass that only needed a detonator to explode. Neither the Iraqi elections nor Bush's phenomenal use of the word 'freedom' led to the dramatic events in Lebanon. The assassination was not only the spark, but also the main motor behind the demonstrations. Current developments must be seen in the light of opportunistic exploitation by local, regional and international players rather than as a 'democratic revolution'. Tuesday's powerful counter-demonstration by government loyalists, especially Hizbullah, should rein in international euphoria. Beirut had never seen a crowd so large. Hizbullah's charismatic leader, Hassan Nasrallah, addressed a crowd of a million people, and reminded the world that 'Lebanon is not Ukraine'. Recent events do spur a glimmer of hope for positive, non-violent change. But if local and regional players want to see a Lebanon enjoying its 'sovereignty, freedom and independence', then they need to take the complexity of social reality into account.">Lebanon is not Ukraine</a> and <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5144581-103677,00.html" title="The claim that democracy is on the march in the Middle East is a fraud. It is not democracy, but the US military, that is on the march. The Palestinian elections in January took place because of the death of Yasser Arafat - they would have taken place earlier if the US and Israel hadn't known that Arafat was certain to win them - and followed a 1996 precedent. The Iraqi elections may have looked good on TV and allowed Kurdish and Shia parties to improve their bargaining power, but millions of Iraqis were unable or unwilling to vote, key political forces were excluded, candidates' names were secret, alleged fraud widespread, the entire system designed to maintain US control and Iraqis unable to vote to end the occupation. They have no more brought democracy to Iraq than US-orchestrated elections did to south Vietnam in the 1960s and 70s. As for the cosmetic adjustments by regimes such as Egypt's and Saudi Arabia's, there is not the slightest sign that they will lead to free elections, which would be expected to bring anti-western governments to power.">it is not democracy that's on the march in the Middle East</a>. And while <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=2270&u=/krwashbureau/20050309/ts_krwashbureau/_bc_galloway_column_wa&printer=1" title="After nearly 18 months, the Pentagon admitted that a team of nearly 1,000 intelligence officials and scientists had combed Iraq for evidence of chemical and biological weapons or any sign of an active nuclear weapons program. They found nothing. This war that was supposed to be a cakewalk has taken the lives of 1,510 American troops and sent thousands more home, maimed by improvised explosive devices that tear off arms and legs. American taxpayers have paid more than $200 billion in two years for a war we were told wouldn't cost much, if anything, and the cost in fiscal 2006 will be at least $70 billion more. Now the administration tells us that we had to attack not because Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and ties to al-Qaeda, but because he wasn't a democrat. Sadly, however, the costs of trying to make Iraq a democracy probably would have been lower, and the chances of succeeding better, if we hadn't gone to war with flimsy evidence and wishful thinking. ">remembering all those arguments made 1,500 deaths ago</a>--not to mention <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5145536-103550,00.html" title="Experts in public health from six countries, including the UK, today castigate the British and American governments for failing to investigate the deaths of civilians caught up in the conflict in Iraq. Twenty-four experts from the UK, the US, Australia, Canada, Spain and Italy say the attitude of the governments is "wholly irresponsible. they say the uk government's reliance extremely limited data from the iraqi ministry of health is unacceptable because it is likely to seriously underestimate the casualties. their hard-hitting statement, published by the british medical journal, comes nearly five months after the lancet published a household survey of civilian deaths in iraq which estimated that about 100,000 civilians had died - most of them women and children.>those so far uncounted but estimated at 100,000+ civilian deaths</a>--let it be, all the while the <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-na-milwar11mar11,0,2202168,print.story?coll=la-home-headlines" title="The 10-30-30 construct said that the U.S. military should plan military actions to seize the initiative within 10 days of the start of an offensive, achieve limited military objectives within 30 days, and be prepared within another 30 days to shift military resources to another area of the world. Many Pentagon officials fear that the success Iraqi insurgents have had in preventing a U.S. troop reduction in Iraq could be the new rule, rather than the exception. As few enemies choose to fight the U.S. military head-on, they might opt instead to fight protracted rear-guard insurgencies. 'I think that the Pentagon realizes by now that 10-30-30 is largely outdated,' said Frank Hoffman of the Marine Corps' Center for Emerging Threats and Opportunities, a contributor to the Defense Science Board study. 'It presumes a model of warfare that we ourselves have made obsolete.'Hoffman said no adversary was likely to present U.S. forces with a conventional threat that can be defeated in 30 days. 'Our enemy's metric is protracting conflicts to 3,000 days or more,' he said. 'Prolonged insurgency, death by a thousand cuts, is their answer to 'shock and awe.' '">Iraq War compels Pentagon to rethink Big-Picture Strategy</a>, it is that American military intevention which makes <a href="http://www.theglobalist.com/DBWeb/printStoryId.aspx?StoryId=4421" title="Muslims increasingly identify insurgent fighting groups as their community's change agents. This is a movement of emotional and cultural legitimation, driven by the dramatic narrative of American occupation of Iraq. Thus, Insurgents are gradually becoming — through their relationship with U.S. activity in the Muslim world — the expected basis for future Muslim political formation. As a result, the Insurgency begins to take a sort of Successor-Authority in the Muslim mind. That is hardly the response the U.S. government planned to trigger with the invasion. And yet, all the while, that is the force it has created — perplexingly and perhaps disastrously.">America as a Revolutionary Force</a> in the Middle East, according to some. Meanwhile, <a href="http://www.mahbubani.net/index.html" title="Kishore Mahbubani is the author of Can Asians Think? and a new book, Beyond the Age of Innocence: Rebuilding Trust between America and the World. Now the Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, he served for 33 years as a diplomat for Singapore and has written many articles on world affairs. This website will introduce you to his writings: you can learn more about his books and read some of his articles and interviews.">Kishore Mahbubani</a>, author of <a href="http://www.mahbubani.net/book.html" title="The curious paradox is that America has done more than any other country to change the world. Yet Americans are among the least prepared to cope with the world they have changed. Without intending to, America has entered the lives of most people on Earth. By sharing the American dream globally, America has sprinkled the stardust of hope into billions of eyes. By refusing to make the mistakes of European colonists, it has liberated hundreds of millions, accumulating huge reservoirs of good will. Tragically, when the Cold War ended, America did a U-turn, walked away from the world, displayed indifference to the plight of others and unwittingly alienated huge populations. A majority of the 1.2 billion Muslims are clearly angry with America. Many cheer Osama. Similarly, America has been imprudent in its dealings with the 1.2 billion Chinese. Reservoirs of good will have been replaced with reservoirs of anger and resentment.">Beyond the Age of Innocence: Rebuilding Trust between America and the World</a> lists <a href="http://www.theglobalist.com/DBWeb/printStoryId.aspx?StoryId=4413" title="The first strategic mistake made by the West was to assume that its long-term interests were best served by a world in which Islamic states were mired in poverty and backwardness; the second..., which flowed from the first, was a policy--never articulated, perhaps never conscious, but nevertheless very rea--not to share the successful policies of modernization with the Islamic world; third.. was to not see the huge importance of encouraging the success of Muslim moderates in Islamic societies; while the fourth... was not to consciously promote the spread of modern secular education in Islamic societies and the fifth... was to implement economic policies that brought short-term electoral benefits to the democratically elected leaders in Western societies--but came at the expense of long-term damage to Islamic societies.">Five Strategic Mistakes</a> the West has made which continue to destabilize the Islamic world. Along related lines, comes <a href="http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usawc/Parameters/05spring/henzel.htm" title="The United States should instead exploit its ties to the existing regimes of the Sunni world in order to combat jointly the revolutionary Salafists. The US struggle against al Qaeda and similar groups will be chiefly a matter of intelligence and police work, with perhaps a role for special forces working with local partners in ungoverned areas. Only the existing Muslim regimes, in coordination with American investigators and spies, can defeat the cells of al Qaeda and similar groups moving among the Sunni world’s masses. The United States needs to support and to engage with these undemocratic regimes even more closely if US security services are to be granted the liaison relationships with local authorities that are essential to the real war against terrorism. Washington should set aside, for now, its ambitions for democratic revolution in the region, at least until the Salafist revolution is contained.">The Origins of al Qaeda’s Ideology: Implications for US Strategy</a>. Sound bites, wishful thoughts and stage managed demonstrations aside, could it be something more thoughtful might be required? Say, like, <a href="http://www.icg.org/home/index.cfm?id=3301&rss=1" title="Reacting to the spectacular and violent events of 11 September 2001, many Western observers and policy-makers have tended to lump all forms of Islamism together, brand them as radical and treat them as hostile. That approach is fundamentally misconceived. Islamism -- or Islamic activism (we treat these terms as synonymous) -- has a number of very different streams, only a few of them violent and only a small minority justifying a confrontational response. The West needs a discriminating strategy that takes account of the diversity of outlooks within political Islamism; that accepts that even the most modernist of Islamists are deeply opposed to current U.S. policies and committed to renegotiating their relations with the West; and that understands that the festering Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the war occupation of Iraq, and the way in which the 'war against terrorism' is being waged all significantly strengthen the appeal of the most virulent and dangerous jihadi tendencies.">Understanding Islamism ?</a> <small>(Now available in new slow acting convenient <a href="http://www.icg.org//library/documents/middle_east___north_africa/egypt_north_africa/37_understanding_islamism.doc">Word</a> or <a href="http://www.icg.org//library/documents/middle_east___north_africa/egypt_north_africa/37_understanding_islamism.pdf">pdf</a> form)</small> Say, <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=2251" title="...Had we really declared a global 'war' on terror, we would certainly have had to make the complex and difficult questions of dismantling all such arsenals its centerpiece and so, instead of ensuring that WMD would be the preferred currency of power for the foreseeable future, we might well have begun to hack out new pathways for the world. Of course, the mind-set that goes with World War IV and GWOT ensures that nothing complex and untelegenic, nothing that smacks of our real, complicated world but doesn't have the clean, Manichaean feel of a global crusade to it, is possible. If, on our proliferating planet, we end up, one of these days, with an actual apocalyptic scenario on our hands, it will be too late to thank the GWOT intellectuals, who took a terrible situation and are managing to turn it into the Schwarzenegger movie from Hell.">Which War Is This Anyway ?</a></a></a> tag:metafilter.com,2005:site.40366 Fri, 11 Mar 2005 13:41:19 -0800 InternationalRelations iraqwar Islam MiddleEast WarOnTerror y2karl http://www.metafilter.com/36638/Rumsfelds%2DWar <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/pentagon/">Frontline: Rumsfeld's War</a>, a PBS/Washington Post joint documentary that aired earlier this week is now <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/pentagon/view/">online</a>. It is the inside story of Rumsfeld's battle to assert civil control over the military. tag:metafilter.com,2004:site.36638 Sat, 30 Oct 2004 15:12:40 -0800 chainofcommand DonaldRumsfeld Frontline Iraq Iraqwar middleeast mideast PBS Rumsfeld USA USMilitary WashingtonPost stbalbach http://www.metafilter.com/35699/Sleeping%2Dwith%2Dthe%2Dpresident%2Dis%2Dnot%2Da%2Dgood%2Didea <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/ap20040919_81.html">Sleeping with the president is not a good idea.</a> Bush had no answers to big questions, such as 'what happens on the morning after.' The Daily Telegraph reports that documents show Prime Minister Tony Blair signed up to the U.S. policy of regime change in March 2002, a year before the conflict started... after he was warned that postwar stability would be difficult and the U.S. had few answers. Oh, no problem. This week, <a _top href="http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/09/18/bush.iraq/index.html">Bush said he is 'pleased with the progress' in Iraq.'</a> tag:metafilter.com,2004:site.35699 Sun, 19 Sep 2004 07:18:29 -0800 AmericanHistory Blair Bush GeorgeWBush GWB iraq iraqwar lapdogs MiddleEast Mideast PresidentBush TonyBlair USHistory war fleener http://www.metafilter.com/33176/The%2DMoral%2DCase%2DAgainst%2Dthe%2DIraq%2DWar <a href="http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20040531&s=savoy" title="Let's look this thing in the eye once and for all. - Arundhati Roy">The Moral Case Against the Iraq War</a><br>Also on the moral tip, <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4999734/site/newsweek/site/newsweek/" title="Could Bush administration officials be prosecuted for 'war crimes' as a result of new measures used in the war on terror? The White House's top lawyer thought so">Memos Reveal War Crimes Warnings</a><br><a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4999148/site/newsweek/">internal January 25, 2002, memo by White House counsel Alberto Gonzales (PDF</a>) tag:metafilter.com,2004:site.33176 Tue, 18 May 2004 20:59:03 -0800 AlbertoGonzales AmericanPolitics iraq Iraqwar leaks memos middleeast mideast morality USPolitics war WhiteHouse y2karl http://www.metafilter.com/27634/Cherry%2Dpicking%2Dshopping <a href="http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=34042">$20,000 bonus to official who agreed on nuke claim</a> <em>A former Energy Department intelligence chief who agreed with the White House claim that Iraq had reconstituted its defunct nuclear-arms program was awarded a total of $20,500 in bonuses during the build-up to the war, WorldNetDaily has learned...His officers argued at a pre-briefing at Energy headquarters that there was no hard evidence to support the alarming Iraq nuclear charge, and asked to join State Department's dissenting opinion, Energy officials say. Rider ordered them to "shut up and sit down," according to sources familiar with the meeting.</em> tag:metafilter.com,2003:site.27634 Wed, 13 Aug 2003 08:28:02 -0800 AmericanPolitics bribery corruption deception GeorgeWBush intelligence iraq iraqwar kickbacks middleeast nuclear nuclearweapons war WhiteHouse Ignatius J. Reilly http://www.metafilter.com/24948/Invasion%2DExplained <a href="http://www.minimumeffort.com/nutshell.html">Iraq in a Nutshell</a> <br> by O'Reilly Books (not really)<br><br> <i>A WARMONGER EXPLAINS WAR TO A PEACENIK </i><br><br> A light hearted look at the oft repeated justifications for war in Iraq and their counter arguments. tag:metafilter.com,2003:site.24948 Mon, 07 Apr 2003 11:58:08 -0800 AmericanPolitics Iraq iraqwar MiddleEast peaceniks terrorism USPolitics war warmongers nofundy http://www.metafilter.com/23353/Terry%2DJones%2DMonty%2DPython%2DObserver <a href="http://www.observer.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,882459,00.html">Terry Jones of Monty Python fame attempts to apply the Bush administration policy to his own neighborhood.</a> tag:metafilter.com,2003:site.23353 Wed, 05 Feb 2003 21:31:55 -0800 bush gwb gwbush iraq iraqwar middleeast python satire terryjones war thedailygrowl http://www.metafilter.com/22931/Welcome%2Dyour%2Dnew%2Dnumerically%2Dchallenged%2Dliberal%2Dmedia%2Doverlords <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/01/19/sproject.irq.protests/index.html">Media covers massive D.C. (and world) Anti-War protests, discounts numbers</a> <i> - Backflash: <a href="http://www.npr.org/programs/atc/transcripts/2002/oct/021026.brand.html">NPR</a> and the <a href="http://www.iacenter.org/iraq_nytimes.htm#nyt">NYT</a> <b>later issued apologies for their drastic undercounting</b> of the Oct. 26 D.C. Anti-War protest - <small> later admitted to be between 100,000 and 200,000 in size "...It was not as large as the organizers of the protest had predicted. They had said there would be 100,000 people here. I'd say there are fewer than 10,000"(NPR's Nancy Marshall) </small></i> <a href="http://www.indymedia.org/"><i>Last saturday's D.C. AntiWar protest</i></a> <small>received far more media coverage but a similar discounting of the numbers. IndyMedia (above link) provided numbers more in line with D.C. Police statements. Many media outlets ran the same AP news feed. [<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/19/national/19PROT.html?pagewanted=print&position=top">NYT</a>, <a href="http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wbur/news.newsmain?action=article&ARTICLE_ID=4">NPR </a>, <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/01/18/sproject.irq.us.protests/index.html">CNN</a>, <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/wire/US/ap20030119_1143.html"> ABC</a>, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Anti-War-Protests.html">AP</a>] and claimed..."Thousands" or "tens of thousands" of protesters. But in the words of those who witnessed it (as I did - 2.5 times size of Oct. 26 protest, from what I saw): <i>'D.C. police chief Charles Ramsey said, <b>"It's one of the biggest ones we've had, certainly in recent times."</b> U.S. Capitol Police chief Terrance Gainer said, "I know everyone is skittish about saying a number, but this was big. <b>An impressive number."</b> A C-SPAN cameraman I spoke to spent the entire protest on the roof of a cargo truck just to the side of the stage. He told me that he had covered dozens of protests in his time, and that <b>the crowd on Saturday was the biggest he had ever seen.</b>'</i> (<a href="http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/012103A.wrp.dc.htm">story</a>) <a href="http://www.internationalanswer.org/">and organizers claimed 500,000 marched in DC</a> meanwhile, a new poll shows <a href="http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0304/kaplan.php">support for a war on Iraq is slipping in the US</a> and also<a href="http://www.msnbc.com/news/861313.asp?0cl=c3&cp1=1"> dropping at the UN</a></small></i> tag:metafilter.com,2003:site.22931 Mon, 20 Jan 2003 11:49:52 -0800 AmericanPolitics antiwar civildisobediance demonstrations iraq iraqwar media middleeast propaganda protests streetpolitics USPolitics war troutfishing http://www.metafilter.com/20341/ <a href="http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20021014&amp;s=editors">An Open Letter to Congress</a> from the editors of The Nation. All the makings of a final plea. tag:metafilter.com,2002:site.20341 Thu, 26 Sep 2002 12:47:41 -0800 bush congress editorials georgebush georgewbush invasions iraq iraqwar middleeast military opposition politics resolutions thenation war waropposition mooseindian