Wampum

I was struck by the Pentagon's list of accomplishments a few days ago -- an insurgent morter crew was engaged by a rotary-winged asset. Three hostiles KIA. That was the sum total of accomplishments of the day. Other actors that day managed to initiate multiple squad-sized operations around the capital, and inflict nearly 500 casualties on their targets.

Juan Cole asks 'What is the mission? When and how could it reasonably be expected to be accomplished?'

Juan wants phased reductions in US force levels. He fears that without US forces, heavy armor and air in particular, the compeating militia operations would ... worsen.

He's not the only one who fears that the withdrawal of US forces would lead to a humanitarian crisis.

Americans project. The cover story for the war of aggression has been lying around for a decade. Sunni minority, Shi'i majority. Dictatorship encoded as political power distributed along confessional lines. Americans project the supordination of nationalism to proportional representation, to the status of cults and the permanent color lines. Anglo-Araq Iraq in its guises as Post-Ottoman Arab Mesopotamia and Arab Hashemite monarchy. Soviet-Arab Nationalist Iraq under General Abdul Karim Qassim (reform), and the Arif brother, Colonel Abdul Salam and Abdul Rahman, and Socialist Arab Ba'ath Iraq.

These sign posts of American understanding of Iraq have vanished, replaced by projections of American cults that first obtained party power, and then state power, and the struggle to eliminate the Establishment Clause and maintain the dominance of a cultural and ethnic majority over all aspects of state power. So Iraq has come to be the simple slogan of an oppressed majority, defined by cult, and an oppressed minority, defined by ethnicity. Shi'i and Kurd. A slogan the American Simpletons, who seek to retain state power, and of American Sophisticates, who seek to recover state power, employ with indistinguishable vigor.

But is power proportionate to population, one person, one ballot or bullet, let alone proportion defined by cult or ethnicity, useful?

The parents of Abdul Karim Qassim, the brightest spot in the history of executives in post-Ottoman Iraqi civil society, baring the executions of King Faisal II and his immediate family during the revolution of 14 Tammuz, were a Sunni Arab, and a Kurdish Baghdadi. Everyone who follows Iraq since the debacle, or reads Riverbend, is dimly aware that much of Iraq's civil society is confessionally mixed, and until the arrival of the Americans and their fixation on cults, and indifference to nationalism, that the Sunni/Shi'i distinction was less important in every day life, in hire and promotion decisions in the state industries, than the tribe/clan distinctions.

The puppets of the Islamic Republic of Iran, carpetbagger clerics and their militia, are running some of Iraq. The parts they are not running are the parts where the clerics, and their militia, are not puppets of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and where the Army, disbanded and still organized, are not puppets of the American Regime, and where another Army, organized and parallel to the "army", are not puppets of the American-Iranian Regime of multi-puppets.

I ran across a statement yesterday that the Army officers are planning to re-take the Green Zone, and are, in the opinion of the author of the quote, capable of defeating the Iranian carpetbaggers and their militias. The context was the simultanious squad-and-above sized units in operations around the capital, inflicting nearly 500 casualties on their targets nominally "protected" by the American-Iranian Regime, its Iranian militia infiltrated forces, and its Iranian militia.

Is humanatarianism a cover for preventing the officers of the Iraqi Army and their formations from engaging the Iranian carpetbaggers and their militias in set-piece battles? That really is all that armor and air are capable of engaging. That really is the only form of conflict the presence of armor and air can prevent or cause the human and material resources marshalled to expended ineffectively. Would a "balance of forces test" between nationalist forces organized around the officers of the Iraqi Army and non-nationalist forces organized around exiled clerics seeking replication of the Iranian dominance of clericism, involve everyone, or just the religious zealots, rather popular in both the America of Simpletons, and the America of Sophisticates, who want to permanently end Arab Nationalism?

If you don't know the answer, you at least know that Mahdi Army (Iraqis) and Badr Corp (Exiles) have lively exchanges of fire, and that Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Husaini Sistani (Najef, Iraq), like Grand Ayatollah Hossein Montazeri (Qom, Iran), pubically differs from Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Hossayni Khamenei (Qom, Iran) and (Imam) Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini (Qom, Iran) on wilayat al-faqih (the authority of jurists). [The detour to the turn of the century (19th) works of Muhammad Mahdi ibn abi Dharr al-Naraqi is worthwhile.]

a cease-fire supports our troops.

a cease-fire ends planned manuvers that are likely to result in battle, and removes the americans from the iraqi domestic calculation of the balance of forces. it isn't peace, but it is better than what we have, because we don't know who the real rulers of iraq are, or will be.

as long as our troops are proping up some party or another, they will be the "buffer" between the militia of a party that can't hold onto civil government by its own organic means, and the other militias that are no worse qualified.

we cannot know how the cities of iraq will be self-governed until we remove our troops from the cities of iraq, and we should have some confidence that modern iraq is not feudal afganistan, and that self-government is a real possibility. [from cease-fire and all-party talks of September 25th, 2004.]

So you're left with the well-being of puppets, hailing from Tehran, London, Washington, Paris, and yes, Tel Aviv, who all want Baghdad given to them for free, rather than fighting for it, and defeating Iraqi Nationalism, as the "humanity" to be spared from a "humanitarian crisis". On this, like the Afgan War, I respectfully differ from Professor Juan Cole, as I respectfully differ from Professor Mark Grimsley on the legitimacy, and utility, of lynching George W. Bush's opposite number.

The wire services report that an F-16CG, a Block 42 LANTIRN¹ capable unit, went down a few hours ago, in the middle of the afternoon, 20 miles north of Baghdad, in al Anbar Province.

It wasn't doing anything in the air that it isn't doing just as well on the ground. Close Air Support missions against carjackers with automatic rifles and RPGs is just a waste of Jet A.

¹ Low-Altitude Navigation and Targeting Infra-Red for Night. Two pods, each mounted underneath the air intake. The AAQ-13 navigation pod is on the left, the AAQ-14 targeting pod is on the right. The navigation pod has terrain-following radar and FLIR, the targeting pod has FLIR and a laser designator. The LANTIRN must interface with the flight controls, since the pod flies the airplane while in terrain-following mode. I used to work on stuff like this, the terrain-following mode control loop in particular. But not for Martin-Marietta.