Tag Archives: Iraq

FTAC – Iraq – Mad Wasps in a Bell Jar

16 Monday Jun 2014

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Iraq, Islamic Small Wars, Middle East, Political Psychology, Politics, Regions

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As regards the above noted article, I am also reading http://www.amazon.com/Waiting-Ordinary-Day-Unraveling-Life/dp/B003D7JUF8 , which caught my eye at the used book store — $4. Apparently, American military forces and the mentality that accompanies them make a mess of relationships with even better-willed or moderate elements in the state’s culture and society, so it’s not so great sending in the Marines even though today’s Iraqi live in a world, a larger world, immensely different and unconcerned with the concerns of their own.

Elsewhere, I’ve characterized Sunni-Shiite rivalry (in neighboring Syria) as “two mad wasps in a bell jar” — they’re in this confined space, however large it may seem to those involved, bent on killing one another en masse in relation to aspects of religious history completely alien to most of the world — i.e., to Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, and others. That long embedded cultural content — the literature of the mind — holds sway against a clouded and uncertain political and spiritual future that wants for a sea change in the perception of humanity.  If that change is happening, it’s happening around a storm front, the challenge posed last week by ISIS being exactly that. Before other thought may be entertained, the ISIS (radical Sunni) advance has to be stopped (by Shiite opposition within the framework adopted and endorsed over the course of centuries) and its power contained and reversed.

In neighboring Syria, it seems the one thing Obama and Putin may agree on has been containment rather than address of the issues in the space involved. Islam-by-the-sword, the legitimacy of political absolutism, the murderous Shiite-Sunni dispute have been essentially left alone in space to do as they wish, a de fact stance helpful primarily to war profiteers.

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The “above noted article” mentioned at the top of this relay was Matt Schiavenza’s “Why Ayatollah Al-Sistani’s Iraq Fatwa Is So Important” (International Business Times, June 13, 2014).  Excerpt:

ISIS, meanwhile, announced that its capture of Mosul has triggered a recruitment surge, as radical Sunnis from around the region have traveled to Syria and Iraq to join the group. Residents in Mosul told the New York Times that ISIS has pacified the city, and that they prefer to be governed by a group al Qaeda deemed too radical than by the Shia-dominated government.

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Aside

An “Ordinary Day” Away from the EMadding Crowd . . . .

15 Sunday Jun 2014

Posted by in Books, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Iraq, Islamic Small Wars, Middle East, Politics, Regions

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“Almost unanimously Iraqis tell me that America will initially win the military war but will face a fierce resistance for establishing peace.  The exiled opposition, with its varying agenda, will pull Iraq further apart.”

Fassihi, Farnaz.  Waiting for an Ordinary Day.  New York: Public Affairs, 2008.

More than 99 notifications await me on Facebook.

I fear to download the weekend’s e-mail, this having signed on to enough lists to receive from the vending and politics communities about 5-MB of email per day.

That’s a lot of slush.

Then too, the world has a lot of absolutely senseless problems driven more by vainglorious egos — so I harp: malignant narcissism — and the mafia societies they create through, in, and around themselves, than any other cause for bellicose behavior.

Not particularly exceptional in this, even Hamas in Gaza lives in mansions.

Whatever they’re about (psst — murder and plunder), they’re not about justice, much less God.

Perhaps I should be receiving 10-MB of e-mail per day.

Or not.

Here one may make a case for a quiet space far from the emadding crowd, a fair cup of coffee, and a good book.

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“Shiite Volunteers”, Muthenna Airbase, Baghdad, June 11, 2014

12 Thursday Jun 2014

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Shiite Volunteers, Mothana Military Airport, Baghdad, June 11, 2014. No EXIF data.

Shiite Volunteers, Mothana Military Airport, Baghdad, June 11, 2014.

The title of the post: set according to data sent by source, who notes, “they had to close the airport due to the huge numbers that arrived.”

Reference Related

Vela, Justin.  “Al Maliki’s sectarian policies proving disastrous for Iraq’s stability.”  June 11, 2014.

Whitaker, Brian.  “The rise of Arab sectarianism.”  Al-Bab, January 2, 2014.

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Psst — It was a setup – Mosul, behind the scenes

11 Wednesday Jun 2014

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Political Psychology, Psychology

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I know it’s hearsay (from my source in Iraq).

Read it anyway.

Verbatim.

I will tell you that the speaker of the Parliament Usama Al-Nujaifi is also the brother of Atheel Al-Nujaifi the Governor of Mosul who didn’t allow the military to get in a few months ago and kept on fighting them and kicked the Federal police (the Shiites from the city) and said we can protect it ourselves , and many more decisions that lead to this and he was the first to flee to Kurdistan

And Usama backed his brother in all his decisions against the government of Baghdad

Also for you informations Usama went to the States and convinced the Congress in not arming the Iraqi military cause he said that they will use the weapons to kill the Sunnis

I could tell you a few things about “malignant narcissism”, the “psychology of small differences”, the difference between

mafia and system-by-relationship

and

open courts and meritocratic justice and fairness,

but I would have a more difficult time addressing the matter of psychology’s “internal saboteur”.

It appears Atheel Al-Najaifi may have gambled on Sunni-based affinity to maintain Masul and, perhaps by chit-chat, to repulse such as ISIS, but as Mosul melts into ISIS, the same, Sunni or not,  may have lit out for the border.

Where I live, Maryland, USA, Christian Catholic and Protestant colonists had similar decisions to make but may have been more cooperative, eventually, with one another for finding themselves alone on a then European and English frontier with worries about security and markets held in common.  Maryland historian Robert Brugger came to call what the state found within itself a “middle temperament”.

Except in Israel, perhaps Lebanon at the moment, that “middle temperament” seems to be having a hard time surviving n the middle east.

The fascists, secular or religious, dictators or religious warriors, seem to have the more effective armies, and those possessed inherently of a “middle temperament” suffer mightily, endlessly at the onslaughts and impositions of both.

From a location 217 miles north of Baghdad, there’s a fine photograph of Atheel al-Nujafi at this location: http://www.knoxnews.com/photos/2014/jun/11/480986/

One may hope that Iraq will find its “middle temperament” and that Iraqi Sunni and Shiite adherents (for there is no compulsion in religion — or is there?) find the courage to build and cement the army that represents it.

Addendum

Perhaps I have made more of the mechanics than is deserved.  In the west, we would couch the same request — defense by local or regional militia — as associated with “local rule” and reasonable autonomy within a greater federal system.

The one thing known to politicos about the al-Qaeda affiliates: they make themselves the controlling agents of others until stopped cold.  They may or may not believe they are the soldiers of God Almighty himself, but (also given the numbers confused about this), they are really the Soldiers About Themselves Experiencing Power Revolving Around Themselves — pretty much the same as any other ordinary dictator.

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Mosul – A Video from Yesterday’s Fighting

11 Wednesday Jun 2014

Posted by in Iraq, Islamic Small Wars, Middle East, Regions

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Recorded: Ninawa Province, east of Mosul,

From the Vietnam Era’s evening newscasts from the killing fields of that war to this: having enough of a social network to be directed to a URL, one, however, that may raise more questions than can or will be answered: where was the above clip made?  What happened to the children the soldier was carrying?  What happened to military personnel assembled at that location?  How many were killed in that battle?  How many are missing in action today?  What was gained?  What was kept?  What was lost?

This blog has a correspondent in Iraq, and with a little bit of difficulty in the language, this, nonetheless, is what he has had to say about Mosul recently:

 . . . unfortunately I’m not sure about what happened to those kids but many of those who ran away got killed by those terrorists, but mainly the people of Mosul are happy and they are celebrating in the entry of ISIS and consider it a liberation, and the ISIS are really good with them now and I guess it will last untill the Iraqi and Kurdish armies try to enter the city and go deep , then they will kill many of those who welcomed them and film them to say that the Iraqis and Kurds killed them

It appears that the Sunni-Shiite division that runs through Iraqi society plus the exigencies of war half a million of Mosul’s residents to flee and left the remainder in place to be pleasant, genuinely so or not.

The paragraph’s a little garbled at the end but I’m not going to mess with it.

. . . . cause they are against them and most of them are Sunnis along to Christians and other minorities (since it’s a Sunni province) , and they hate them but Mosul is known in Iraq as a real hater for the Shiites (my mother studied at the University of Mosul and she saw that even though it was over 25 years ago and now they hate the Shiites more than ever… and let’s say that 1 million are just staying cause they are scares of running and think they are safe cause they are sunnis then that leaves us more half million aiding and supporting them and the Iraqi army had to keep its presence as minimum due to the hate of Mosul’s people against them, and the continues attacks by the people of Mosul more like the attacks that the IDF often have in the West Bank..

My distillation:  Mosul is predominantly Sunni and by that along partially aligned against Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s perceived Shiite-friendlier government.  As happens often in politics, it may not be true, but if it’s believed, it’s treated as true.  Those politics play in the field to leave state forces exposed to Sunni extremists, i.e., not engaged positively with state forces.

The soldiers who ditched their uniforms are mostly cops from the city (sunnis) and they are 52,000 And the army had to ran away cause their leaders (the Sunnis that were put cause the Governor of Mosul asked to since he didn’t want a Shiite or Kurdish general in the city) Then the soldiers had to leave their spots and far more they didn’t even have ammunition and they fought in the road to secure the people of Mosul who ran away

If for western readers the image of the state’s resistance in flight has made out Iraqi military and paramilitary forces a paper tiger, the reality relayed to me would seem to describe a very practical decision process predicated on 1) Sunni identification with Sunni force come to town 2) an ambivalent military not completely welcomed in Mosul and running low on ammo.

Time to skedaddle.

Recorded today, June 11, 2014, probably by Sunni bystander today: Round Street, Tikrit, Iraq.  About that provenance, my correspondent says, ” . . . and at the end he said “exclusively for the Iraqi great revolution” which is a Sunni Iraqi term not ISIS way.”

We’re going to see a lot of this.

This one: yesterday, driving around:

My source: “They meant liberated by the ISIS and the police vehicles moving in the streets are in the hands of ISIS.”

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Mosul – “A Catastrophe By Any Measure”

11 Wednesday Jun 2014

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Iraq, Islamic Small Wars, Middle East, Regions

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While the New Old Now Old Far Out and Lost Left continues to decry the Bush Era invasion of Iraq (and many Muslims continue to blame America for the widespread death and displacement brought about through sectarian warfare and vendetta), the most brutal and horrifying of al-Qaeda affiliates — actually, these so exceed limits that al-Qaeda has officially distanced itself from them — the ISIS has stormed through Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city.

From a CNN video clip: “Planes and command positions, all of them have fallen in addition to weapons caches.  In addition, prisons were stormed and criminals have been set free.  What happened is a catastrophe by any measure.”

Reference

Free Republic.  “ISIL fighters seize Turkish consulate in Iraq’s Mosul.”  June 11, 2014: “The seizure of the consulate comes a day after 28 Turkish truck drivers were abducted by ISIL militants while delivering diesel to a power plant in Mosul.”

BBC.  “Iraq crisis: Islamists force 500,000 to flee Mosul.”  June 11, 2014.

Robertson, Nic and Laura Smith-Spark.  “500,000 Iraqi civilians flee Mosul fighting, migration group says.” CNN, June 11, 2014.

Knights, Michael.  “Battle for Mosul: Critical test ahead for Iraq.  BBC, June 10, 2014.

Sly, Liz and Ahmed Ramadan.  “Mosul as security forces flee.”  The Washington Post, June 10, 2014.

Abbas, Mushreq.  “ISIS ‘hit and run’ tactics reveal Iraqi security weaknesses.”  Al-Monitor, June 9, 2014.

Damon, Arwa and Raja Razek.  “CNN Exclusive: Syrian town left scarred by opposition group ISIS’ brutal rule.”  CNN.  February 17, 2014.

Afterthought

I have for some years now been sitting on journalism’s “second row seat to history”, specifically, in front of a computer monitor attached to a computer with a broadband connection to the Internet.  It has been and remains a global virtual trip.

I’ve made some friends.

My weirdest introduction to what this baby (of a setup) can do: watching television with a family in Madrid via Skype with their laptop turned to their screen.  It was like sitting on their sofa with them.

Later: one of the Anonymous clique got a live camera on to the streets of Egypt’s counterrevolution.  It was like being taken on a walk, but the communication was one way — remote camera to my eyes.

Oh what we can now see on the World Wide Web!

What we’re seeing in Mosul is a disaster.

The worst of the worst, so lacking in their own containment and so cruel that even the fascists of al-Qaeda want nothing to do with them, have gained martial control of a major oil producing state, a state so riven with internal divisions and cowed by decades if not centuries — or centuries and decades — of authoritarian brutality that even while outnumbering ISIS invaders 15:1 its defenders chose to dematerialize by shedding their uniforms in their flight.

After kidnapping 28 Turkish truck drivers, ISIL/S has occupied the Turkish consulate as well, as clear a provocation and invitation to war as any ever made.

Where is America now?

Where is NATO?

Related: https://twitter.com/INTLSpectator/status/476753992655978496/photo/1

 

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