In a popular post at the HotAir Green Room, John Hayward – writing as Doctor Zero – refers to the freeing of Iran-backed Iraqi Shia insurgent Qais Qazali and numerous associates, apparently in exchange for British journalist Peter Moore and the remains of his murdered bodyguards, as an “outrage,” and demands an explanation (emphases in the original):
I encourage you to join me in demanding the full story behind why the filth who orchestrated [the murders of captured American soldiers] are walking around free. We won’t get those answers unless we push for them, with the same courage and dedication our fallen heroes gave to their duty. This story will go away, unless you keep it alive. Love the warriors, by making it clear to Washington that their lives are worth more than any politician’s career.
Hayward devotes much more attention to capsule biographies of the American soldiers executed by Qazali’s forces and apparently on Qazali’s orders, than to the Qazali release itself (actually the second release of a Qazali brother to Iraqi authorities ahead of probable full freedom), and much of the rest of the post is taken up by free-form indictments of Obama security policy from an admittedly “hostile” perspective. The responses from HotAirite commenters are unsurprising: re-echoing rage, plaudits for the good Doctor… and a trollish attempt to change the subject to Ronald Reagan and Iran-Contra.
For wider political resonance, Hayward brings in Janet Napolitano’s performance as Homeland Security Secretary in relation to the foiled Christmas Day Flight 253 bombing, as well as the simmering issue of Navy SEALs charged with abusing an Iraqi captive. Other conservatives have followed a similar pattern of attempting to connect Qazali to issues that are only indirectly related, at best: Andy McCarthy also hits the Christmas Day attack, and expresses “astonish[ment]” that he’d be observing a capitulation to Iranian-backed terrorists even while “Iranian tyrants are brutally suppressing a revolt by the Iranian people.” In a post entitled “No Conceivable Justification for This One,” Jennifer Rubin asks for Democrats to join Republicans “call[ing] foul on the entire Obama approach to terror.” Allahpundit refers to the apparent exchange as “unreal” and “mind-bendingly insane”: Linking to an item on former Gitmo detainees who may have been part of a Flight 253 conspiracy, he asks, “How many jihadis do we have to release before someone figures out that releasing jihadis is an exceedingly bad idea?”
We don’t have to accept every notional connection to the Qazali affair to admit it raises serious questions, and to agree with Senators Kyl and Sessions, who have formally requested answers from the Administration on important policy questions. Concerned citizens have a right to demand a full accounting. Still, if we decide to reject the explanations – those already available and any further ones to come – we should be clear what else we’re rejecting, and what else we’re asking for.
The pundits and bloggers have been primarily responding to reports from Bill Roggio at the Weekly Standard and the Long War Journal in which anonymous U.S. intelligence officers are quoted denying that the release was anything other than an unequal “swap,” and ominously warning of Qazali’s eventual return to violence and subversion: “We are going to pay for this in the future,” says one individual identified simply as “a military officer.” Roggio deserves credit for breaking this story – as well as for his long service to all of us in reporting on the Conflict Formerly Known as the War on Terror – but you have to turn to official U.S. military statements, or perhaps the typically even-handed summary by ABC’s Jake Tapper, to get much understanding of why anyone would even consider letting this particular detainee go along with some 100 of his comrades.
According to Tapper, a spokesman for US Forces Iraq (formerly Multinational Forces Iraq) has denied a quid pro quo, and asserts that the release was performed under the terms of the US-Iraqi Security Agreement, in recognition of the Iraqi government’s sovereign rights and responsibilities. At Contentions, Max Boot provides useful details and context, responding directly to conservative bloggers (including his colleague Rubin) while also pointing to the larger implications of their “understandably irate” reactions. After explaining the relationship of Qazali’s group to the larger and better known Shia militia under Moqtada al-Sadr, he compares the Shia fighters to the Anbar Sunnis whom the US military and Iraqi government have brought into a complex reconciliation process – inevitably involving the forgiveness of past violence, including terror and other war crimes.
More critically for our purposes here, Boot reminds us that a policy of laying every ill in the world at the feet of President Barack Obama, and reflexively grouping each new incident with every other criticism, has its limits – and dangers:
All of these deals have been brokered by Prime Minister Maliki with the close oversight of General Ray Odierno, now the U.S. Forces-Iraq commander, and his boss, General Petraeus. They can hardly be accused of being “soft” on terrorism, yet they know that in the end warfare alone will not suffice to end an insurgency. There must be a process of political reconciliation, which involves accommodating even vile figures such as the Qazali brothers, who have American blood on their hands. It is the same realization reached by Lincoln, Churchill, and other great wartime commanders who understood that after the guns fell silent they would have to learn to live with former enemies.
If we insist on the political equivalent of a “terminate with extreme prejudice” order, we should be aware that the Commander-in-Chief may happen to be well away from the target zone on this one.
As we pass the first zero-U.S. casualty month since Operation Iraqi Freedom began, with our forces on track for effectively complete withdrawal in 2011, there may be little interest in, and less practical basis for, an assertion of American prerogatives on what amounts to Iraqi policy toward former insurgents. Assuming that Boot’s description is more right than wrong, and assuming further that we’re not demanding a complete reversal of current U.S. policy in Iraq, entailing the recall of Odierno and Petraeus and the commencement of military operations against Iran from the territory of our newly declared protectorate Iraq, what are the critics demanding we do differently in such cases? Summary executions justified as acts of revenge? Forcible transfer to indefinite or permanent American custody?
Rightly or wrongly, we have accepted that “what happened in Iraq, stays in Iraq,” and we long ago, indeed from the very beginning, disclaimed any intention to take Iraq over. On the day we changed this policy, or declared all-out war on Islamism (the two would likely go together sooner or later), there would be plenty more where the Qazalis came from, and there would soon be many more fallen heroes to avenge – in perpetuity or ’til kingdom come.
Comments 56
Letting ‘the fabulous Quazali brothers’ on the promise that they will go into chartered accountancy or banking, rather then the family business, seems ill considered
January 3rd, 2010 at 4:12 pm
@ narciso:
No one made that promise or is operating under that assumption. The assumption is that we’re outta there by 2011 – that, for the time being and the foreseeable future, the Iraqi or Iraqi-Iranian war is over for us. Qazali’s fate is no longer ours to decide.
January 3rd, 2010 at 4:16 pm
He’s Special Group, which means the Pasdaran runs him, it seems as ill considered as sending Al Shehri back for art therapy lessons
January 3rd, 2010 at 4:39 pm
@ narciso:
Ill-considered by whom and in relation to what purposes and what alternatives? I still don’t get why you think it’s “our” decision.
January 3rd, 2010 at 5:06 pm
I understand that, much like Hezbollah and Hamas are political entities as well as terrorrist groups, in Lebanon and Gaza. The truth is he will be back to driving our forces out before lonf
January 3rd, 2010 at 5:14 pm
Well, he’d better hurry if he hopes to drive us out, because we’re supposed to be down to embassy guards and advisers very soon. We’re not even set to have oil workers there, since the contracts all went to non-US firms.
January 3rd, 2010 at 5:20 pm
I agree with narciso.Oour decision, their decision who cares, it is nonetheless idiotic.
January 3rd, 2010 at 5:21 pm
Your alternative?
January 3rd, 2010 at 5:24 pm
Easy answer on that,execute the SOB
January 3rd, 2010 at 6:51 pm
@ Christopher:
You can’t seriously advocate executing a guy for writing a stupid blog post.
January 3rd, 2010 at 7:01 pm
@ Christopher:
So, tear up the Security Agreement, deny Iraqi sovereignty, and dig in for a long-term occupation? Even if you wanted to argue that doing so was somehow in our interest, there is near zero popular support for such a project in the U.S.
We call him a “terrorist,” but he was apparently being treated as a POW, and we decided against a resort to summary execution of captured insurgents and Iranian operatives a long, long time ago. Actually, we never considered it – in part because we kind of like giving our own people a chance to survive when they happen to be captured.
There are plenty of SOBs we’re letting go – and quite a few others whom we’ve forgiven or even allied with in Afghanistan and Iraq – just as there were plenty of Vietnamese, Korean, Chinese, German, Japanese, Confederate and other SOBs we left unmolested – or even allied with when it suited our purposes – after other wars.
January 3rd, 2010 at 7:04 pm
You know frog, take things seriously for once, this fellow Quazali has blood on his hands, and will likely spill more in the next decade
January 3rd, 2010 at 7:05 pm
@ fuster:
Uh – whose stupid blog post are we referring to here?
January 3rd, 2010 at 7:06 pm
@ narciso:
Did you read Boot’s post? This wasn’t, apparently, just something somebody came up with for the fun of it late last week. Anyway, it may be that Qazali remains a bad actor in the future. Or he may go the way of al-Sadr and fade into obscurity. Either way, there seem to be much larger issues at stake, and we were in a poor position to force a different conclusion even if wanted to.
January 3rd, 2010 at 7:09 pm
@ CK MacLeod:
What’s this we, White Russian?
January 3rd, 2010 at 8:15 pm
@ narciso:
Ya can’t shoot all the prisoners, narc, simply because somebody might set them free one day.
I have a real problem with anybody dealing criminals for hostages, but it’s been going on for thousands of years.
The Israelis and the lame-brained Europeans continue to do it, and it’ll never work.
The whole of the last disastrous Lebanese war was a product of the asinine Israeli hostage-swap program.
January 3rd, 2010 at 8:19 pm
I’m not the one who said ‘shoot him’, and no the Israelis haven’t learned much since then, except possibly withdrawing from Gaza
was a bad idea.
January 3rd, 2010 at 8:45 pm
@ fuster:
I was obviously NOT speaking of bloggers.
January 3rd, 2010 at 8:46 pm
@ CK MacLeod: The government of Iraq had no compunction whatsoever in executing Saddam Hussein so it should have been a very easy and intelligent solution here. In that part of the world people are executed for lesser crimes so why break from past practice in this?
January 3rd, 2010 at 8:50 pm
@ Christopher:
I should have realized that. Sorry.
But I do worry so about MacLeod. He’s very dear to me, almost like a si
bling
January 3rd, 2010 at 8:56 pm
@ narciso:
Withdrawing from Gaza has worked out much the way Sharon intended it to work, IMO.
January 3rd, 2010 at 8:59 pm
Saddamm was a persecutor of the Shia, at least as bad as the Wahhabi king that ordered the razing of Najaf and Karbala in 1804, possibly right up their with Yazid, so it’s not nearly the same thing. I guess if one said, it is necessary to secure civil
peace before the upcoming election, that would make more sense, although I wouldn’t feel any more confortable with it
January 3rd, 2010 at 9:00 pm
CK,
I have to agree with your analysis in respect to the release of this scum, who should have been dead within days of being drained of useful information; but I certainly hope you and Boot are right. And I hope Odierno and Petraeus weren’t simply acquiescing to the decision because it was the least worst option.
The notion that Iraq is a “success” because violence there has receded for a few months while we’ve maintained heightened forces is a mere hope, not a fact.
January 3rd, 2010 at 9:04 pm
It must be the full moon, I thought my objection was very measured, except when the Frog started joking about it. We needed some of the Dulaimi ,Jibbur and Ubeidi tribesman as a bulwark against AQ. The Quazalis is what we have to guard against
January 3rd, 2010 at 9:21 pm
@ narciso:
Did someone hit you over the head? I agree your objections have been very measured. I welcome skeptical replies from people like yourself and Christopher.
Christopher wrote:
Further to narciso’s point – there was only one Saddam – and actually the Iraqi government, just barely on its feet at the time, put Saddam on public trial. They didn’t just drag him out behind a building and put a bullet in his brain. As for the proper penalty, part of ending the war involves negotiating non-violent, non-recriminatory solutions to outstanding issues, and taking a risk that released prisoners won’t sooner or later be converted back into fighters.
I have no reason to trust Boot’s sources or judgment over Roggio’s, or vice versa. I consider Odierno to be anything but naive or squeamish, but we’ve been in the bazaar at least since Obama was elected, if not longer, and with less and less to offer in trade. If Odierno gave the OK on the swap or appearance of a swap, I tend to trust he had good reason for it, within the context of our overall weakened position, and, considering that this was the second Qazali brother and part of a much larger reconciliation effort, I wonder if taking a stand on this one ever passed through anyone’s mind.
January 3rd, 2010 at 9:41 pm
CK MacLeod wrote:
Watch out narc. He’s checking to see if his henchpersons have gotten to you yet.
He’s a bloody Tsar and repression is inherent in his system.
January 3rd, 2010 at 11:04 pm
[duplicate, please ignore]
January 4th, 2010 at 4:39 am
What’s bothersome about this posting is in the first sentence: “Iran backed Iraqi Shia insurgent.” What about “Captive-murdering Iran-backed Iraqi Shia insurgent”? Didn’t the Qazalis capture five American soldiers and then murder them? Aren’t we losing sight of this relevant tidbit when we discuss what to do with them as a matter of reconciliation? It hasn’t even come up.
After World War II, Sepp Dietrich who commanded the “Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler” Waffen SS panzer division was simply implicated in the death of 82 American POWs at Malmedy during the Bulge. Dietrich ended up spending about 13 years behind bars. I cannot think of a single instance in US military history where any enemy combatant who executed American prisoners in his custody and subsequently fell into our hands who wasn’t dealt with very, very harshly, usually summarily.
January 4th, 2010 at 4:41 am
Joe NS@That’s why I mentioned Special Group, assigned with the Ramazan Corps of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard (Vevak Sepah-Pasdararan) So say we catch up with the fellow who ordered the bombing of FOB Chapman, and say he’s ISI connected (crazy notion, I know) do we make a deal with him, to give up his contacts
January 4th, 2010 at 5:14 am
narciso, that is a tougher call. Suicide bombing and executing captives are very different. According to one report I read, the suicide bomber at FOB Chapman was wearing an Afghan army uniform. Had he been detected and prevented from self-detonating, I believe that the laws of war countenance summary execution. I very much doubt that the same standard would apply to whomever sent him on his mission. In the case of shooting of POWS, however, the man who gives the order is definitely deserving of execution under relevant articles. I mentioned Sepp Dietrich because, although he was the CO of the division there was no evidence presented at his tribunal that he gave such an an order and even some evidence that he did not. He still ended up with a long stretch in prison on the grounds of not maintaining proper order and discipline in his command. Also, I believe that at least two SS officers were hanged for the Malmedy Massacre.
Is there any doubt that Qazali ordered the execution of American soldiers held prisoner? Punishing such a criminal should fall outside the demands of reconciliation or even Iraqi sovereignty in the matter, and the Iraqis can go fish if they don’t like it.
January 4th, 2010 at 7:15 am
Joe NS wrote:
Considering that the post begins with a discussion of and emotive excerpt from Doctor Zero’s five bloody shirts post at HA, I don’t consider that a fair criticism.
As for the details of this Qazali’s conduct, that might be a subject for further research. More generally, if we had adopted a policy of summary execution or war crimes trial for terrorists, I’d have had no trouble with it – but we didn’t. If we had adopted a policy of disproportionate reprisals for Iranian “meddling,” I would have stood up from seat and cheered. If we had told the worldwide anti-imperialist screamers to get stuffed, had made it clear we were in Iraq for as long as it took to satisfy our security needs and stand up a neo-imperial client hosting US bases, with regime change in Syria and Iran in direct view, I’d likely have been supportive.
Instead, we nearly lost the post-Saddam battle, then spent several years creating what became a framework for withdrawal that spared us excessive humiliation and that may have left a tolerably stable, democratic capitalist Arab state behind. If it survives, its positive influence on the region may further justify the commitment we made. However, you can’t enjoy the prerogatives of a conqueror, meting out your version of justice in the former zone of conflict, when your every effort has been at walking backward as quietly as possible out of the area.
It would take a better military historian than I am to provide you with examples directly comparable to that of Sepp Dietrich, but I’m able to say without a doubt that after Vietnam and Korea there were many, many former enemies who got away with obscene crimes against our prisoners of war (among other crimes). After World War 2, even in total victory, the Allies settled for exemplary rather than systematic punishment of German and Japanese war criminals. Of course, the Germans and Japanese got scant attention for claims they might have moved against individuals on our side.
It could be argued that we have effectively declared murder of prisoners “in bounds” in insurgent warfare: I guess as long as you don’t videotape it and use a ceremonial sword, it’s something you can get away with, just as we’ve come to discount a limited amount of proxy warfare against our troops as a cost of doing business, on the basis of some comparative advantage/cost-benefit calculation. If there is a scandal here, it goes back years, in my opinion, and undoing it, it seems to me, would come at a cost we show little interest in bearing – perhaps wisely.
January 4th, 2010 at 8:32 am
Colin, I am baffled as to why pointing out that a description of Qazali, apparently written by you, that was in the first sentence of the post is in the first sentence of the post is unfair. You mentioned the murdered British captives. The omission of any mention of the executed American soldiers, not just in the first paragraph, but anywhere, was what troubled me.
I haven’t called for Qazali’s execution. I pointed out that he was very probably liable to execution. You seem to be saying that if we didn’t execute him, then we have to live with trading him. How does that follow? This was a very specific case, with very specific circumstances, one of which is that we had the guy in custody. It is also, I think and am grateful for, a unique case. I can think of only one other soldier who died under similar circumstances in Iraq, but that’s also a case in which we neither had nor have a likely suspect in captivity or even know who he might be. Introducing your judgment of our present “big picture” posture in Iraq seems like smoke and mirrors obfuscation of a simple decision: what to do with a particular war criminal who was in custody. We are not without leverage or influence in that country, whatever the mistakes we have made.
The scale of World War II dwarfs that of Iraq, but I think you are on shaky ground in implying that specific cases of criminal conduct in that war where the evidence was substantial and where charges could have been brought were simply ignored. A large number of German and Japanese miscreants paid with their lives or lengthy prison sentences. I shall try to run this down, but I think the number, east and west, is about 1500.
We are not without leverage or influence in Iraq.
January 4th, 2010 at 9:14 am
@ CK MacLeod:
I agree with everything except you’re ending “perhaps wisely”.
One will have many fewers active enemies, and enemies will cause many fewer noncombatants to suffer both from their attacks and our own, if other nations understand that one will fight governed by at most the restraint they show, and not one bit more.
January 4th, 2010 at 9:14 am
@ Sully:
Can’t be done, Sully. There are things that we simply can not do.
January 4th, 2010 at 9:21 am
Yes, we let Barbie and co, go down the ratline, Kodama and Sasagawa become kingmakers in the LDP, Kichi become Prime Minister, those aren’t the examples we’re aspiring to, is it
January 4th, 2010 at 9:25 am
Here’s what I have learned:
“After the major trials in Nuremberg, American military tribunals held 809 trials in both Germany and Japan, involving 1,600 defendants; the British held 524 trials involving 937; and the French tried 2,107 individuals (Trials of War Criminals; United Nations, War Crimes Commission). It is estimated that ten thousand persons were tried for war crimes in Europe and the Far East between 1945 and 1950.”
at: http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:Zg32TfqJpbcJ:law.jrank.org/pages/2308/War-Crimes-War-crimes-
I so far have been unable to locate statistics on the dispositions of these trials, but please note: The Russian totals, which must be scarifying, are not given here.
January 4th, 2010 at 9:30 am
@ Joe NS:
Yes, but the statistics on Amis, Brits, Frogs, and Russkis tried for war crimes against Germs and Japs may be harder to track down. There were a few – moved by us against ourselves. If the Germans and Japanese had won, the statistics would have looked a bit different.
Joe NS wrote:
I refer you again to the post itself, though I see now that the quote from the Doctor Zero piece should have been clarified, and I’ll fix it. In addition to the reference ambiguity, I made a mistake of presuming familiarity with the underlying story. I did, however, refer to the “fallen heroes” repeatedly. From the title down, the entire piece is a response to the temptation to “wave the bloody shirt” pointlessly.
narciso wrote:
In a way, they are: How many times have you heard a conservative defender of the Iraq war refer to our historical experience in Japan as proof that we can impose democracy on a culture seemingly unprepared for it, if we’re willing to make the commitment?
I don’t want to get into an argument comparing post-war Japan to contemporary Iraq. That’s another subject except to the extent that any reconciliation process will necessitate forgiveness of acts that at any other time might be seen as unforgivable.
It could be (though I’m skeptical) that the Qazali case is the worst compromise of our ideals that we’ve made in Iraq or over the course of the entire War on Terror. It may therefore stand as a typical exception – or one of several. We have certainly handed over other bloody-fingered Iranian operatives and Iran-supported characters. We worked with former AQ allies throughout Anbar and elsewhere. I have little doubt that we’ve done a lot of looking the other way regarding individuals, leaders and footsoldiers, who we were fairly certain had been laying IEDs and guarding torture chambers not too long before.
We may retain great potential influence in Iraq, but it’s a wasting asset, and any assertion of prerogatives will likely come at a cost. The Qazali case may be an extreme example, and maybe we should have stood on principle. The fact remains that it’s less and less our show, more and more the Iraqis’, especially as regards the disposition of former combatants.
Throughout Iraq we have been asking former adversaries whose depredations against each other are beyond description to bury their differences and work together – Saddamites, Mahdists, AQs, and all, exemplary exceptions to the reconciliation rule notwithstanding. Maybe we should have taken a stand on this one, but the facts of the case, costs of pursuing it, and its weight in the grand balance may appear much different to those in Iraq, whether serving in our uniforms or serving the Iraqi government.
January 4th, 2010 at 10:00 am
Say, Colin, in that last post of mine, how did the link to the excerpt on war-crimes statistics get “coded up”? I didn’t do it. I just cut-and-pasted from the URL. Did you format it? If so, thanks. Or does WordPress automatically create a link when it somehow recognizes one?
January 4th, 2010 at 10:16 am
@ Joe NS:
In most cases, WordPress will auto-linkify URLs placed in the comments, as long as they’re formatted recognizably.
BTW, we also have a magical little app whose introduction you likely missed: If you emplace a standard video URL or hyperlink, hovering over it should cause a video viewer to pop up.
January 4th, 2010 at 10:23 am
@ CK MacLeod:
That’s good to know. In my last blog, I considered trying to embed an audio or video (assuming I could’ve found it!) of the song “Money (That’s what I want!),” by the Beatles – I think. But I quickly realized that I hadn’t a clue as to how to do it and gave up.
January 4th, 2010 at 10:31 am
@ fuster:
Ramesh Ponnuru of NRO agrees with you. And he’s a certified big head on ethical matters; but I simply ain’t convinced.
“We” can and have done things far beyond any concept of what qualifies as ethical in a philosophy class in the past. And “we” will do them in the future if scared or mad enough. Hence my belief that a higher view of ethics favors erring on the side of preventing wars and ensuring fear and respect over love on the part of potential adversaries of which the world always contains many for the wealthy.
For instance, I believe moderate Muslims are foolish in failing to take risks to control their crazies in part because they’re underestimating what will happen if their crazies succeed in carrying out their ultimate wish, which is to hurt us badly on a large scale. In that eventuality “we” will almost certainly lash out on a scale new in human history. I take consolation in the fact that European countries will probably convey that warning adequately for us before our own action becomes necessary; much as many take consolation in the probability that Israel, under the gun, will probably take action to prevent Iran from building a missile deliverable nuclear capacity.
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YTE3MDk1OWIzMjQ5Yzk3YmM5NzAyNDU3YWNiOGRmYzA=
January 4th, 2010 at 10:53 am
@ Sully:
Of course, people agree with my position, Sully.
If you had a better understanding of it, you probably would also agree.
If not, we should agree that it’s best to be cautious and kill you.
However, practical considerations dictate that anticipated parodical poetry outweighs the fate of the human race.
January 4th, 2010 at 11:20 am
@ Sully:
You cannot “misunderestimate” Muslim fatalism in all of this, Sully.
Two anecdotes:
1) From a book written (some time ago) by a British travel writer. She was journeying up the Nile when her party stopped for lunch. With time to spare before reboarding the ferry, she took a stroll along the river and met a dozen or so Egyptian women busy at washing clothes and drawing water for cooking and drinking. Our traveller happened to notice – ugh – that floating right alongside them downstream in the river were large chunks of, well, shit, a lot of them. Inquiring about the source of the pollution, she learned that a rather capacious sewage pipe half a mile upstream continuously discharged raw sewage into the river and had done so for decades. Why then did the women continue to draw water downstream of the pipe? she wondered aloud. The women were baffled by the suggestion. “Allah sends us this as He sends us everything,” they informed her cheerfully. She had the impression that the notion of going upstream of the pipe to fetch water was viewed by the ladies as more than a touch blasphemous.
2) A close friend of mine represented an American importer of African clothes as a buyer (not so long ago) in Gambia, which is in West Africa on the coast. He lived there about two years, as I recall. He often had to use Gambian taxis to get around. My friend reported that taxi drivers reliably, meaning 100% of the time, based on hundreds of trips, passed other cars at high speed on blind turns! That the driver simply had no idea what was in the oncoming lane in such a maneuver did not affect his driving tactics in the slightest. The hour of his death was not in his hands, was the explanation. It’s one thing to repeat this chestnut, as many people do from time to time when the hour of one’s death is a fanciful conceit. It is quite another to see, as my friend did, someone actually living out its implications on a daily basis. On one occasion, my friend, quite unnerved by having his pleas not to pass on a blind turn ignored, tried to explain the notion of statistics and probabilities to his driver. It would be an understatement to say that the man had no idea, not an inkling nor a glimmer, of what my friend was getting at, and since he (the driver), merely by virtue of being there, was himself proof that his beliefs were true, regardless of statistics, he dismissed the whole notion of probability as deeply deluded.
The chances, to use this un-Muslim term, that Muslims will act to avert a disaster that they are convinced is being beyond their power to influence in the slightest are nil.
January 4th, 2010 at 11:30 am
@ Joe NS:
Next time you feel like embedding a video or styling an URL, let me know. I’d be happy to walk you through the very simple process. You could then ignore my instructions like certain other not-to-be-named Contenders.
January 4th, 2010 at 12:10 pm
@ Sully:
I agree CKM’s analysis is thoughtful and intelligent here. Regarding your (Sully’s) hope:
“I hope Odierno and Petraeus weren’t simply acquiescing to the decision because it was the least worst option.”
That’s pretty much life in the big city, though; a point VDH makes often.
Something we tend to forget in the US is that Iraq’s government has its own character, and will be, in the coming years, developing its own patterns and traits. It’s not an analytical nullity, something too many American pundits are apt to dismiss it as, without thinking.
Neither is it “like us,” in terms of how we prefer government to operate. But nor, yet again, is it categorically a fount of evil or vice. It’s very Southwest Asian, and it’s going to be more obviously so over time.
They’re not nearly as fanatical as we are about the “rule of law” in that area of the world, nor is there a strong cultural basis of abstract, a priori trust and regularity on which governments and their leaders can depend, when they disappoint their constituents and fall out of favor. With a little help, I remain reasonably hopeful that Iraq can cultivate the cultural factors required to make government unpopularity, and changes of government, more quiescent and routine conditions. But the whole idea they operate on, of what a moral and sensible government looks like, is still likely to look somewhat different from what seems normal to us, for the foreseeable future.
It’s not an existential tragedy that the government in Baghdad has to govern all Iraqis, and may make gestures toward some constituencies that we deem undesirable. It’s just how things are. It’s also the kind of horse-trading, maneuver, and quid pro quo politics this area of the world is famouos for. It’s not perfect, but Maliki’s government and Iraq’s current prospects are still a night-and-day improvement over the Saddam regime.
The Maliki government certainly CAN’T offer guarantees that this release won’t result in recidivism and fresh danger to Iraqis or us. I think CKM’s argument is correct, though, that we have to let it be responsible for what it does. My guess is that Petraeus and Odierno couldn’t justify making this a situation in which we overrode Iraqi sovereignty.
What I would say is that this decision, or others like it, won’t be the tie-breaker(s) in whether Iraq spirals back downward, or in whether its insurgents, former and present, present a tipping-point threat to US interests.
My biggest concern with Iraq right now is that we are on autopilot there. It wouldn’t take much to seize the initiative from us, since we’re kind of complacent and on our heels at this point. And if you were a terrorist with a big world-view, you’d figure Barack Obama would react ineffectively to a major shift of initiative in Iraq.
My concern is that someone is going to act on this opportunity. Maybe no one will; plenty of historical opportunities have gone by the wayside. People of evil intent don’t manage to act on everything. But the opportunity is there, and there are thousands more jihadis in the region than Qazali and pals to recognize it. If there is a surprise offensive, it could be anyone; it won’t matter whether it’s Qazali or not. I would want Americans to avoid being fixated on Qazali, just as I want them to avoid being fixated on bin Laden. I wouldn’t have released the Qazali gang, under American conditions; but jihad can and will be waged without them. It’s our own posture and expectations we should be focused on. Ineffective policy can’t be made effective through keeping specific individuals incarcerated — and if something erupts in Iraq this year, it will be the ineffective policy, and not the disposition of individual terrorists, that’s to blame.
January 4th, 2010 at 12:36 pm
Interestingly, the bomber of FOB Chapman, turns out to be a Jordanian born doctor, who was a double agent for AQ, hence
the GID agent, the former happened to be from Zarquawi’s home town
January 4th, 2010 at 1:39 pm
@ Joe NS:
Interesting stories and a good point; but the great mass of Muslims we have to influence are more modern. And even among the seventh century religious variety of Muslims, the leaders and financiers do not act fatalistic to as great a degree as your examples.
One does not hear of Mullahs or other big men bragging of suicide bombers among their children or going around without bodyguards. Heck, few Arab leaders would last a week after dismissing their bodyguards. Their own sons would kill them for having gone soft in the head.
January 4th, 2010 at 3:33 pm
@ CK MacLeod:
Have you no shame? Have you never heard of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
January 4th, 2010 at 3:40 pm
Having no shame does not as yet, in these unenlightened times, qualify as a disability.
January 4th, 2010 at 3:46 pm
@ J.E. Dyer:
Unfortunately we’re stuck with what we’re stuck with for at least the next three years.
Perhaps it’s not so easy for AQ to move assets around, form networks, provide finances, etc. given, one hopes, somewhat better security procedures in the Arab states than pertained before Afghan and Iraq proved that the local tyrants could themselves be at risk if seen to be not helping.
January 4th, 2010 at 3:50 pm
@ fuster:
Are you still around? I’m going to have to talk to Luca about carrying out his tasks more promptly.
And, how come no comment about the nice poem I wrote to smooth things out between you and Taximom.
January 4th, 2010 at 3:51 pm
@ Sully:
I hadn’t realized that I had roiled things o’ermuch.
And I was still pondering the aaaabbcc.
January 4th, 2010 at 4:05 pm
Luca says hello.
http://www.lucaspinone.co.uk/Luca%20April%2007%20001.jpg
January 4th, 2010 at 5:07 pm
It is worthwhile to revisit your essay in light of the kidnapping last week of an American contractor in Iraq. Even if you are right (and you are not) that what happens in Iraq stays in Iraq, we are paying, and will continue to pay, a bitter price for releasing these terrorists in exchange for a British hostage. What happens in Iraq does NOT stay in Iraq, any more than the Islamic Revolution stayed in Iran, or the terrorism of Hizballah stayed in Lebanon. There is strong evidence that Lebanese Hizballah and Qods force have trained and armed the “League of the Righteous”; that training for the Karbala PJCC attack took place at a facility in Iran; that League of the Righteous has, and in the case of the five American soldiers would have, transported their hostages to Iran; that EFP’s and other explosive are designed and manufactured in Iran. We are dealing with an Iranian problem, and how we deal with it will affect the actions of Iranian proxies in Iraq AND elsewhere, just as our response to past Iranian and Hizballah hostage-taking has led us to where we are today. When Iranian-backed Hizballah took American hostages in Lebanon (and briefly transported at least one to Iran) the US began a protracted process of negotiation which ended in US concessions, including the arms for hostages. And the kidnapping started up again. Talking about Reagan is not tangential; we should learn from his mistakes (and President Carter’s) in dealing with Iran, instead of repeating them. And Iran is indeed the party whom we were, and are facing, on these issues. Despite a pretense that groups like Hizballah (in the Lebanese and now Iraqi iterations) and the League of the Righteous are “independent”, all are funded by and supervised by Iran. They adopt the principles of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, which includes an extreme form of “Guardianship of the Jurist”, rejected by other Shia groups, which amounts to fealty to Iran’s Khamenei. They adopt similar tactics. As many of the authors you criticize have pointed out, one of those tactics is to kidnap, cut a deal, and then kidnap again. And now, as many of the author’s you criticize predicted, the League of the Righteous, having gotten its leaders back, has kidnapped an American contractor. And that is the real trap. To correct your last sentence: Rewarding these terrorists and kidnappers for their actions, instead of confronting them, will lead to more terrorism and kidnapping (and many more fallen heroes) in perpetuity, ’til kingdom come.
February 8th, 2010 at 9:15 am
@ beirut:
Thank you for your thoughtful reply. I disagree with you less than you may assume.
The problem remains that, under Obama – that is, under the approach ratified by his election – “what happens in Iraq…” describes both our policy and the limits of our power, the two being directly related to each other. The reality is something else again – just as it’s not really true that “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas,” as many a bankrupted gambler can testify.
The kidnapped contractor will take his place among, no doubt, countless victims of the low level terrorism – sometimes hard to distinguish from brigandage – that we have decided not to exert ourselves to stamp out. Under Obama, the US has sometimes seemed prepared over the last year to extend its neo-isolationist stance to “what happens outside the US news cycle, stays outside the news cycle”: That’s even less true than the line about Iraq, but the truth value of a proposition is often only secondary at best in the calculations of a government.
To return to the Qazalis, it still looks like a “least worst” decision made among real, and therefore uncertain, alternatives. Odierno is a fallible human being just like the rest of us, but was in a better position to weigh the real options, and real trade-offs. I agree with you that Iran is the problem – not some particular militia member – but even the more muscular policies against the mullahocracy that I would support are unlikely to make that region safe, perfectly and forever, for American contractors.
So what do you advocate?
February 8th, 2010 at 10:02 am
Have a care, MacLeod!!! Once you start to fling about terms such as “brigandage” it’s but a hop, skip and a slippery slope to civilian trials!
February 8th, 2010 at 10:06 am