"There are so many questions, many pointing to paradoxes and contradictions, that the thing that mitigates my own thinking for myself is a kind of drowning feeling. Nevertheless. It seems to me our strategy should be well informed and liberated from ignorant prejudices. I know there is a lot of brain power being applied. Still, my inchoate thought is that it seems it is not fully integrated that the codes and protocols and strategems of the tribes invoke deal-making, figuring who’s buttering your bread, planning for that bread to disappear, (etc.,) and, these do not end up reinforcing a satisfying (to us) Western-style *stable* bureaucracy-driven governance. Groping for a metaphor about this I conjur a combination of 3 dimensional chess and a drinking game where our side is less experienced. At chess." SC
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Some of you will have heard by now that Sheikh Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha , the leader of the Anbar anti AQ front has been assasinated. Add another layer to the game. pl
Just a few days after meeting Bush, shaking his hand and enjoying a photo opportunity.
I wonder if Bush is still going to run with his success in al Anbar theme in his speech?
A *good* sign for Iraq. Obviously I make that statement with a very qualified distinction of the word good.
AQ assasinating people is no big deal in of itself.
But that they are assasinating a tribal chief means they are declaring an all out war agains the Anbar Sunnis. That is a very dangerous move since they are not on “home turf” and do not have local sympathy and as so many of them have come from other Arab countries. Therefore they must be worried or desperate or both.
My prediction is that this may be the move that percipitates a Sunni backlash against those they have so far tolerated.
The Anbar anti-AQ alliance may have have just become very much wider.
mo:
Your assumption is that this was AQ but Sattar was very arrogant in his statements and I would not rule out other Sunni tribes or even a Shia faction (although they may have more difficulty projecting power in this area). The only player I would be raesonably happy to rule out are the US forces.
Mo, another way to look at the assassination is that maybe the Sunni tribes haven’t really turned against AQI just the $heik$.
Question is – are we sure that this guy was kacked by AQI? Could this have been a hit ordered by the Shiite government, afraid that this guy could be the next Saddam? By Tehran, concerned that he and his movement represent a threat to their influence in Baghdad? By another Sunni sheik, resentful of his position or vying for power? By a criminal gang or gangs, worried that wfter AQI his milita would clamp down on lawlessness in their turf? By a rogue element or elements in the various free-lance militiaries that seems to be running tame around the place out of sheer boredom, or just to keep their hand in? A CIA/OGA hit on one of their assets that was going rogue, or was pushing them for something, or threatening to go to the Saudis/Syrians for help because the U.S. was too stingy or getting hinky about his future plans for the Sunni coup against Maliki?
Who the hell knows?
And will the “Sunni backlash” be directed at one, the other, or all of the above?
My entire objection to all the excitement about this is that WE DON’T KNOW. We have no idea where this will end, where it’s going and who’s leading/driving it there. It’s like watching jello wrestling through a pinhole in the bar wall. All we know for sure is that people are killing other people and right now the people getting killed are the ones we like to see dead. Mostly. As far as why the killing is happening, where it will lead and whether its going to be “good” for American foreign policy in the long run?
I’d just as soon be in a bar betting on the jello wrestlers.
Mo, how do we know it was ‘AQI’ that killed him?
If it wasn’t AQ, I leave it to your imagination who it could have been…
Colonel,
The three dimensional battle against “Terrorism” actually is being fought here in the United States. It is identical to conflict in strategy in the Cold War between Containment and “Bomb them back to the Stone Age”. Unlike the Cold War [except for Vietnam], attrition, “kill every Islamoterroist”, is the official American war strategy. Attrition has two major flaws: 1) if the other side can reproduce more warriors it is a losing game and 2) the Distributor of death and destruction looses the high moral ground. The basic problem with “kill’em all and let Allah sort them out” is that there will never be enough Christian Soldiers to control the Middle East oil fields.
Not that you would notice, but there are hints that Containment followers are beginning to pull a few strings in the middle layers of the government; U.S. & Mahdi Army — another marriage of convenience in Iraq.
If Iowans can convince Hillary Clinton to come out for Containment and promotion of a secular realistic foreign policy based on alliances and on what is best for American citizens, Democrats have a chance to regaining control for decades.
My first reaction was that other tribesmen killed him. We shouldn’t assume that AQI did it. He was a wheeler-dealer (in Arabic I think the word is “Sheikh”) and the object of much dislike. It’s not impossible that the photo A.S. refers to above helped push him to his grave. (The Abu Aardvark blog has been writing of this for months.) Another layer, indeed.
Not that this means anything more than that I’m not the only one who can think of this stuff, but here’s Matt Yglesias thinking the same way I am:
http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/09/honorable_men.php
In the last few days I distinctly remember seeing a photo of Abdul Sattar Abu Risha shaking hands with Bush and some fairly derogatory comments about him underneath, but I can’t for the life of me remember where it was.
The fact that it might not have been al-Qaeda is underlined by this June 11th Washington Post story:
]A tribal coalition formed to oppose the extremist group al-Qaeda in Iraq, a development that U.S. officials say has reduced violence in Iraq’s troubled Anbar province, is beginning to splinter, according to an Anbar tribal leader and a U.S. military official familiar with tribal politics.
]In an interview in his Baghdad office, Ali Hatem Ali Suleiman, 35, a leader of the Dulaim confederation, the largest tribal organization in Anbar, said that the Anbar Salvation Council would be dissolved because of growing internal dissatisfaction over its cooperation with U.S. soldiers and the behavior of the council’s most prominent member, Abdul Sattar Abu Risha. Suleiman called Abu Risha a “traitor” who “sells his beliefs, his religion and his people for money.”
Mo,
Why do you automatically assume AQ of Mesopotamia did it? I could of lots of suspects. Sure, AQiI might be the most logical one…but that its. Plenty of others.
In the last few days I distinctly remember seeing a photo of Abdul Sattar Abu Risha shaking hands with Bush and some fairly derogatory comments about him underneath, but I can’t for the life of me remember where it was.
The fact that it might not have been al-Qaeda is underlined by this June 11th Washington Post story:
]A tribal coalition formed to oppose the extremist group al-Qaeda in Iraq, a development that U.S. officials say has reduced violence in Iraq’s troubled Anbar province, is beginning to splinter, according to an Anbar tribal leader and a U.S. military official familiar with tribal politics.
]In an interview in his Baghdad office, Ali Hatem Ali Suleiman, 35, a leader of the Dulaim confederation, the largest tribal organization in Anbar, said that the Anbar Salvation Council would be dissolved because of growing internal dissatisfaction over its cooperation with U.S. soldiers and the behavior of the council’s most prominent member, Abdul Sattar Abu Risha. Suleiman called Abu Risha a “traitor” who “sells his beliefs, his religion and his people for money.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/10/AR2007061001453.html
I completely agree with the colonel that the “game” just was revealed as more multilayered than originally thought, and that is not good news, as the US generally seems to be in a poor informational position viz the “insurgency.”
Mo:
The assumption being it was AlQ in Iraq. However, one gets the impression from the news/pentagon/Maliki govt, that AlQ is everywhere.
However, given independent estimates of foreigners being 2-5% of the insurgency, IMHO it is far more plausible that we are seeing an alignment of some tribes with the US vs other tribes, continued settling of scores, attempts to shift power balances, etc.
one more factor to add to the chess board — fallon’s personal disdain of petraeus.
see:
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39235
Laura Rozen recommends Marc Lynch’s post;
Nothing could have been more predictable than the murder of Abu Risha, the man most closely identified with America’s Anbar strategy. He was the public face of the turn against al-Qaeda, and Petraeus immediately said that “it shows Al Qaeda in Iraq remains a very dangerous and barbaric enemy.” But there’s no reason to assume that al-Qaeda killed him – I’d guess that one of the nationalist insurgency groups, the ones which current American rhetoric pretends don’t exist – is a more likely suspect. Other tribes deeply resented him. The major nationalist insurgency groups had recently issued a series of statements denouncing people who would illegitimately seize the fruits of their victorious jihad – of whom he was the prime example. All those photographs which swamped the Arab media showing him shaking hands with President Bush made him even more a marked man than before.
His murder graphically demonstrates that the other groups threatened by the American Anbar strategy were never going to just sit back passively and allow it to succeed – an obvious strategic point which has always seemed to elude surge advocates. The Sunni strategy as presented by surge advocates has always rested not only on a whole series of dubious claims about Iraqi Sunni politics, but also relies on a whole series of best-case scenarios in which nothing could go wrong. In Iraq, something always goes wrong.
It’s a major setback for the strategy, particularly at the symbolic level. Even if Abu Risha was a poor choice to “lead” the strategy, he was in fact elevated to that symbolic position by American propaganda and practice (that meeting with the President, for instance). His murder demonstrates that even America’s closest friends are not untouchable – not even on the day of a Presidential address expected to rely heavily on progress in Anbar. The political fallout of the murder inside of Iraq may well exceed Abu Risha’s actual role in Sunni politics.
More later.
UPDATE: Nobody has yet claimed responsibility for the assassination. According to an Iraqi blogger, Abu Risha’s tribal rival Ali Hatem Sulayman blamed al-Qaeda for the assassination during an al-Arabiya interview (I didn’t see it). According to the al-Haq News Agency, the Anbar Salvation Council itself is blaming the Maliki government – not a good sign that the most pro-American Sunni movement is pointing fingers at the Shia-led national government. The insurgency’s forums are joyous, with “Allahu Akbars” everywhere. The al-Boraq forum, which runs statements from all factions but is currently hosted on the server of the Islamic Army of Iraq, features a post which praises God for the killing: “the mujahideen promised and they delivered.”
http://abuaardvark.typepad.com/abuaardvark/2007/09/abu-risha-murde.html
To Stephen Calhoun re: 3d chess.
Your metaphors are fascinating. Aren’t you the depth psychologist perhaps influenced by the Jungian school? If I may try to use terminology from your field (please bear with me, I’ve had to it as a litigator), your metaphors suggest rather poetically that the US is sinking into the negative influences of the collective unconscious.
Drowning feeling, passing out from a drinking game and disorientation from 3d chess. They seem to suggest the nemesis aspect from the hubris-nemesis complex described in the 1994 Rand Study.
I am absolutely fascinated by what you expressed earlier: that Bush is not causing group think but is caused by the group think. It makes good sense. So based on what you have written, I am wondering if you are suggesting that the entire US is therefore unaware and not conscious, in fact drowning or becoming unconscious from a deadly drinking game.
A brief disclosure and then an idea. Yes, I spent forever and a day reading Jung’s Symbols of Transformation, especially after I decided that Jung and Freud were in a major war where the stakes could not have been higher. Theirs was a supreme drama — one of the great intellectual conflicts from Vienna during the 20th C. And I do give Jung the nod in his battle royale with Freud. But Freud came across as a better writer. More incisive. Of course, from what I could piece together reading all that material, once Jung published his book — Symbols of Transformation — Freud’s creativity plummeted. So there appears to have been one major psyop war between the two.
From my perspective, both come across as benefactors to mankind, in their own way.
One other Jung book, I believe, is apropos to deepening one’s understanding of our Middle Eastern conflict — Man and His Symbols. Jung wrote some relevant passages that seem to foreshadow how adversaries project onto each other when at war. In today’s context, it is fascinating to see how Hagee and Ahmadinejad sound so much alike. If Hagee looked in the mirror, he might see Ahmadinejad.
Seems like one way for the US to win — or at least not drown — is to become more conscious and transcend the dynamic described in Man and His Symbols. And then it becomes critically important to employ the proper collective symbols.
It might not matter if AQI actually killed Sheikh Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha. What really matters is what the “locals” think. No-one’s taken responsibility. One possibility is a rival who wants to increase resistance against AQI while also laying the ground work to be the new power player once AQI is basically out of the picture. Two birds with one stone.
It will be interesting to see what the Arab news sources are saying in the coming days.
seems as if the dogs of war are about to be let loose again in the levant. the media blackout re: the israeli strikes in syria has been total and impressive.
any thoughts would be welcome
I’ve tracked down the post I saw at the time of Bush’s handshake. Again its from Marc Lynch:
]And I didn’t even mention the widely discussed, sensational rumor that he had skipped town with $75 million in American cash – which evidently wasn’t true, or else was just a “misunderstanding” which has been “resolved”, but does speak to endless circulation of unpleasant rumors about the guy’s corruption and mercenary behavior.
http://abuaardvark.typepad.com/abuaardvark/2007/09/bush-and-abu-ri.html
Apologies to having stated my belief of AQ’s guilt without qualification. I point the finger at AQ by process of elimination.
In my opinion (and emphasis on opinion):
It wasn’t the Shia. If AQ are around when the US leaves then the AQ v Shia battle will be the biggest and bloodiest. Anyone fighting AQ before that battle happens is doing them a favour.
It wasn’t the insurgency. For all the talk of the insurgency not liking people who shake hands with Bush, well this is the Middle East.I doubt any tribesmen able to wage war on AQ were not or have not also taken part in the insurgency if they are not still part of it. My enemy’s enemy and all that.
The most likely alternative to AQ is another Sunni tribe. But I prefer the AQ scenario because I don’t believe the Sunnis think they are strong enough to be getting rid of their more influential leaders so easily and so soon. And if he was so widely disliked as some have reported there are far less violent ways to move him on. If the culprits were to be another tribe the blood feud and battles that will result will destroy the alliance they have and AQ will soon be back in town.
Sorry for disaggreing with everyone but I remain of the belief that AQ wanted to send a message to the Anbaris and to any that might oppose them.
Having worked in the World of information technology where the phenomenon of “smoke and mirrors” is well known it’s very easy to be overwhelmed by the dimensions of a situation if you do not have an extremely accurate mental GPS to guide you through the maze.
George W Bush not only doesn’t have this “mental GPS”, he has actively ensured that no one else is allowed to have one either. What usually happens when one follows ones instinct instead of a good compass or GPS while walking in the woods is to travel in a great big circle.
Then of course there are those like the AEI, who will tell you which dimensions are important, and which aren’t. At present the only dimension on Bush’s mind is the historical dimension and his “legacy”.
Lets just catalogue some of these dimensions – we are definitely not in a 3D space.
– Geopolitical dimension – China, Russia and so on.
– Energy dimension – oil.
– economic and financial dimension
– humanitarian dimension (ignored)
– Iraqi dimension, national, tribal, clan and family levels.
– the religious dimension
The list goes on…..
Yet Iraq is being portrayed as a two dimensional Manicheaen contest between good and evil, and too many people buy that simple line, to their eventual cost.
Meanwhile,
“BAGHDAD, Sept. 12 — A carefully constructed compromise on a draft law governing Iraq’s rich oil fields, agreed to in February after months of arduous talks among Iraqi political groups, appears to have collapsed. The apparent breakdown comes just as Congress and the White House are struggling to find evidence that there is progress toward reconciliation and a functioning government here….
Contributing to the dispute is the decision by the Kurds to begin signing contracts with international oil companies before the federal law is passed. The most recent instance, announced last week on a Kurdish government Web site, was an oil exploration contract with the Hunt Oil Company of Dallas.”
The Hunts of Dallas, for which see:
http://www.huntoil.com/
This is off-track, but I’m curious about last week’s Israeli air raid over Syria. It was originally billed by Syria as merely an infringement of their airspace, supposedly chased off by Syrian AA. There was some speculation about it being a dry run for a raid on Iran, or just testing of new Russian AA systems. But this week, we hear that they really did bomb something in Syria; maybe Iranian weapons bound for Hezbollah?
What the hell is the real story?
“It wasn’t the Shia. If AQ are around when the US leaves then the AQ v Shia battle will be the biggest and bloodiest. Anyone fighting AQ before that battle happens is doing them a favour.” I doubt any tribesmen able to wage war on AQ were not or have not also taken part in the insurgency if they are not still part of it.”
Unless they suspect that that person will emerge from the battle capable of returning the Sunni to power in Baghdad (see below). Given what we know about the raw numbers of AQI vs. Sunni fighters (tiny) and their popularity among the run of Iraqi MAMs (lower than whaleshit) the “biggest and bloodiest” battle between the Shia militias (including the baddest SM on the block, the IA/IP) should last about fifteen minutes, twenty if the Shia insist on leaving the lights off. AQI vs. Shia the “mother of all battles”? Please. I hate it when I laugh to where the milk squirts out my nose…
“It wasn’t the insurgency.
WTF? And this is because…ummm…why? Because you can’t simultaneously fight your enemies as well as kneecap your internal rivals? The boyos of the PIRA are laughin’ at ya, chum.
It is my belief that the main line Sunni insurgency has been fighting the U.S. in order to make the U.S. be on its side. Therefore shaking hands with Bush would be a step in the right direction.
swerv21,
Here is a post I left over at noquarter regarding the Israeli incursion. Note that the media blackout didn’t apply elsewhere in the world.
I fear that the pieces are already being lined up for the onslaught. Consider the significance of the recently reported air incursion into Syrian airspace by the Israeli air force.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18361.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6989961.stm
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3448134,00.html
Reports about and theories as to the true purpose of the incursion/strike vary; but it is unmistakably clear that this is an ominous event, likely linked to an impending American military move against Iran. The incursion could be explained by any one (or any combination) of three motivations: 1) An attack on a shipment of armaments being shipped to Hizbullah forces in Lebanon; 2) A probing of vulnerabilities of Syrian air defenses undertaken with an eye towards a possible attack on Syria in the near future; 3) A reconnaisance of a possible avenue of attack against Iran that passes through Syria. Motivations 2 and 3 would dovetail very nicely, I must say. Motivation 1 would be intelligible if an attack on Iran by the Americans is imminent; an retaliatory attack from Hizbullah would be expected in this instance, and any reduction in the ordnance available for this attack would be of primary importance to the Israelis. The reported incursion also sends the message to the Syrians that the Israelis can and will penetrate Syrian airspace at will. Motivation 2 would make sense if the Americans are about to strike Iran, and the Israelis have been given the job of taking on the Syrians. Motivation 3 would, I suspect, only come into play if the Americans demur from an attack on Iran. Although a state of war still exists between Israel and Syria, this extremely overt and agressive incursion is freighted with significance, under whatever construance of the event you might choose to credit. If we attack Iran while the Israelis attack Syria, this will clearly be seen as a pre-planned joint military action against multiple majority-Muslim countries – and most tellingly, countries both Sunni and Shia. God help us throughout the Muslim world.
If anything could create pan-Islamic solidarity, this might be it. At that juncture, you might have to agree with Thomas Jefferson when he reflected, “Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.”
During his testimony, Gen. Petraeus made some interesting comments about Sadr, referring to the shame he incurred when his fighters got out of control. I think he showed some insight into Arabo-Iraqi culture.
So what element will shame play in our inability to protect abu Risha? I detect a bit of symbolism is involved here, perhaps more important than abu Risha himself, who will be replaced in any case. Bush’s insertion into this story, his grandstanding photo sessions with abu Risha were duly noted in the Arab press. This murder makes him look impotent.
Solid Curtain-Citadel Shield 07′ drills new false flag?
http://www.total411.info/2007/09/solid-curtain-citadel-shield-07-drill.html
“SOLID CURTAIN-CITADEL SHIELD 07 MILITARY DRILLS RAISE SPECTER OF IMMINENT FALSE FLAG PROVOCATION, ATTACK ON IRAN
By Webster G. Tarpley
Washington DC, September 13 – US military bases in the continental United States (CONUS) will go on special lockdown between September 17 and September 21 under the auspices of Solid Curtain-Citadel Shield ’07, a reliable source reported today. Under these exercises, US installations will institute enhanced anti-terror force protection measures, with increased security at all gates. The increased security was so elaborate that base personnel were being warned to expect significant delays at all base entrances.
According to William Arkin’s 2005 directory of military code names, Solid Curtain is a US Navy Fleet Forces Command anti-terrorism/force protection exercise. In Solid Curtain ’03, Arkin reports, the drill scenario involved 15 simultaneous attacks across the country including the Corpus Christi naval air station, the Ingleside naval station, local shipyards, and other targets of attack in the coastal bend of south Texas. In earlier versions of Solid Curtain, the Newport Rhode Island naval station was featured in the scenario.
snip
BASE ISOLATION AND COUP PREPARATION
snip
Persons of good will in the United States must demand that elected representatives and presidential candidates act to expose, denounce, and shut down these reckless and highly dangerous drills. Countries outside of the US must demand explanations from the US Embassy as to whether the US is indeed preparing a nuclear aggression against Iran, under the cover of a false flag war provocation. Countries not wishing to be drawn into the abyss of such a catastrophe must take steps now to assert their national independence.
Both the White House and the al-Dawa/Badr Organization government want the world to believe every Sunni insurgent is run by al-Qa’i’da, both the White House and the Ba’ath want the world to believe every Shia insurgent is run by Iran. Considering the record of the three, I think some skepticism is justified; when we learn the real story five to ten years from now it will prove to be very different from the propaganda of this moment.
I’m still trying to understand all the methodology, names, moneclature and relationships in the Tribal study report. We will endure this game at best, and never comprehend it.
I’d read a comment from Gen. John Craddock, commander of all NATO operations, including allied troops in Afghanistan, saying “It’s like three-dimensional hess in a dark room, and you have gloves on” — but “a combination of 3 dimensional chess and a drinking game”? Is that you, Stephen? If so, you know my interest in games…
Shpuld we be thinking about Chaturanga, as Mao apparently thought about Go? (Scott Boorman, *The Protracted Game*)
Elkern: Here is what I found via Google:
Did Israel Destroyed Iranian-Syrian Missile Production Facilities?
http://www.iran-press-service.com/ips/articles-2007/september-2007/israel_syria_13907.shtml
It does seem strange to me that Israel is being so quiet, perhaps they lost some planes in the action, or it was a complete failure, after all,who brags about failure. I feel that if they had been successful, they would be boasting about it in the press. Who knows.
Dana j.
p.s. I wish the comments window was a bit bigger to type in.
FDChief,
Unless they suspect that that person will emerge from the battle capable of returning the Sunni to power in Baghdad? If you are going to show disdain for someones opinion perhaps you should do so without such fanciful opinions in return. No-one is returning Sunni power to Baghdad anytime soon.
And perhaps you should also abstain from putting words into people mouths. I did not use the phrase “mother of all battles” and when I said the biggest and the bloodiest it was not meant to convey a sense of size of battle but a comparison of the animosity that will be involved. It also was not meant to convey “battle” as two armies on a battlefield.
You can fight enemies and take out rivals all you want. I didn’t say you can’t. I said I didn’t think so…You may have, in all your laughing, missed the word opinion.
But hey, glad to have brought some humour to your day.
From albasrah.net:
Al-Anbar Province.
Ar-Ramadi.
Head of “al-Anbar Salvation Council” noted collaborator Shaykh Sattar Abu Rishah killed in bomb explosion in ar-Ramadi Thursday afternoon. State of emergency declared in al-Anbar.
In a dispatch posted at 5:03pm Makkah time Thursday afternoon, Mafkarat al-Islam reported that the Iraqi puppet police announced Thursday that the Chairman of the collaborationist “al-Anbar Salvation Council,” Shaykh Sattar Abu Rishah, had been killed in a bomb explosion near his home in ar-Ramadi, 110km west of Baghdad on Thursday.
Mafkarat al-Islam reported that Sattar Abu Rishah began open collaboration with US forces in 2006, officially claiming to be opposed only to the al-Qa‘idah organization, but in fact campaigning together with US troops against the Iraqi Resistance. His organization, the “al-Anbar Salvation Council,” which set up its own puppet police force recruited from among tribes in western Iraq, received support and assistance from the US occupation forces and the American-backed puppet regime in Baghdad.
Puppet security sources reported that in addition to Abu Rishah, two of his bodyguards were killed in the blast and five more people were wounded.
A spokesman for the collaborationist organization, Muhammad al-Qa‘ud, said that the bomb exploded at 3:45pm local time and was a pre-planned killing of the Abu Rishah.
Prior to his death Thursday, Abu Rishah had announced that he had traveled to Jordan and Syria in addition to various Iraqi provinces, recruiting supporters for his collaboration efforts from among the ad-Dulaym tribe in Iraq and neighboring countries.
US President George W. Bush met Abu Rishah during the American leader’s recent visit to Iraq. (Photograph of Bush and Abu Rishah shaking hands: http://www.islammemo.cc/article1.aspx?id=50738)
In a dispatch posted at 5:14pm Baghdad time Thursday afternoon, the Yaqen News Agency reported that a state of emergency had been declared in al-Anbar Province following the death of the prominent collaborator Sattar Abu Rishah.
Yaqen reported that on Wednesday, the first group of al-Anbar tribesmen graduated into the puppet police in the province serving the American occupation regime.
An informed source said that on Thursday before he was killed, Abu Rishah had gone for a swim in the Euphrates River that runs near his home. The source said that when he was killed Abu Rishah was riding in an armored vehicle together with his bodyguards and horse guards. The collaborator Shaykh was killed on his way to his farm not far from the Euphrates. The source added that US forces arrived at the farm after the explosion and took samples from the vehicle that caused his death.
Sheikh Abu Risha might have been done in by the same forces that did the following:
(from here: July 22, albasrah.net )
Resistance fighter drives explosives-laden minibus into meeting of US-backed “al-Anbar Salvation Council” in Baghdad, killing five collaborationist leaders.
In a dispatch posted at 6:04pm Makkah time Sunday afternoon, Mafkarat al-Islam reported that an Iraqi Resistance fighter drove an explosives-laden minibus into a house and blew up killing five members of the US-backed collaborationist “al-Anbar Salvation Council.”
Mafkarat al-Islam reported sources in the puppet police as saying that leaders of collaborationist “Salvation Council” were holding a meeting in the Jurf al-Milh area near the northern Baghdad suburb of at-Taji, about 20km to the north of Baghdad proper. The pro-American Sunni politicians from al-Anbar Province were discussing how to merge their militias with US and Iraqi puppet regime forces in combat against the Iraqi Resistance.
The source said that by preliminary count, the explosion killed five of the collaborationist leaders, but it was expected that the death toll would increase as 12 other “Salvation Council” leaders were wounded in the attack.
A source in the Iraqi puppet army reported that the Sunday gathering of the al-Anbar collaborationists came after they had met with local Shi‘i collaborationist leaders in at-Taji on Friday. The source said that both meetings were being held under the auspices of the US occupation forces, but there was no word regarding US casualties in the Sunday attack.
The “al-Anbar Salvation Council” was formed at a US-sponsored meeting known as the “Congress of al-Anbar Awakening” held in August 2006. The nominal purpose of the group was to resist al-Qa‘idah, but in fact the group has joined its efforts with those of the US in fighting all opponents of the American occupation.
“Iraqi police in Ramadi suspect that the bomb that killed the sheikh was planted by one of the petitioners who came to see him. “The sheikh’s car was totally destroyed by the explosion. Abu Risha was killed,” said a Ramadi police officer, Ahmed Mahmoud al-Alwani. Giving a different account of the assassination, the Interior Ministry spokesman said that a roadside bomb killed Abu Risha. Soon afterwards a second car bomb blew up.”
My hunch is that a “petitioner” would be a local.
Belfast Telegraph
In the 3-D chess metaphor, who is the opponent? AQI?
One way to understand what’s going on with the U.S. and Iran:
The Iranians are playing 3-D chess, Bush is playing 2-D checkers while drinking from a bottle labelled “neoconservatism.” Bush gets angry that every move he makes strengthens Iran, pounds his fist on the table, and upends the board in frustration. Game over.
The upending part of that analogy would be the attack on Iran he is now contemplating.
Also, on the death of Bush’s favorite Iraqi sheik:
http://www.counterpunch.org/patrick09142007.html
Greet Bush and Die
The Killing of Abu Risha
By PATRICK COCKBURN
Ten days after President George Bush clasped his hand as a symbol of America’s hopes in Iraq, the man who led the US-supported revolt of Sunni sheikhs against al-Qa’ida in Iraq was assassinated.
Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha and two of his bodyguards were killed either by a roadside bomb or by explosives placed in his car by a guard, near to his home in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar, the Iraqi province held up by the American political and military leadership as a model for the rest of Iraq.
His killing is a serious blow to President Bush and the US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, who have both portrayed the US success in Anbar, once the heart of the Sunni rebellion against US forces, as a sign that victory was attainable across Iraq.
On Monday General Petraeus told the US Congress that Anbar province was “a model of what happens when local leaders and citizens decide to oppose al-Qa’ida and reject its Taliban-like ideology”.
But yesterday’s assassination underlines that Iraqis in Anbar and elsewhere who closely ally themselves with the US are in danger of being killed. “It shows al-Qa’ida in Iraq remains a very dangerous and barbaric enemy,” General Petraeus said in reaction to the killing. But Abu Risha might equally have been killed by the many non al-Qa’ida insurgent groups in Anbar who saw him as betraying them.
The assassination comes at a particularly embarrassing juncture for President Bush, who was scheduled to address the American people on television last night to sell the claim made by General Petraeus that the military “surge” was proving successful in Iraq and citing the improved security situation in Anbar to prove it.
Abu Risha, 37, usually stayed inside a heavily fortified compound containing several houses where he lived with his extended family. A US tank guards the entrance to the compound, which is opposite the largest US base in Ramadi.
He spent yesterday morning meeting tribal sheikhs to discuss the future of Anbar. He also received long lines of petitioners as he drank small glasses of sweet tea and chain-smoked. He carried a pistol stuck in a holster strapped to his waist and dressed in dark flowing robes.
Surprisingly, he is said to have recently reduced the number of his bodyguards because of improved security situation in Anbar, although he ought to have known that as leader of the anti al-Qai’da Anbar Salvation Council he was bound to be a target for assassins.
Iraqi police in Ramadi suspect that the bomb that killed the sheikh was planted by one of the petitioners who came to see him. “The sheikh’s car was totally destroyed by the explosion. Abu Risha was killed,” said a Ramadi police officer, Ahmed Mahmoud al-Alwani. Giving a different account of the assassination, the Interior Ministry spokesman said that a roadside bomb killed Abu Risha. Soon afterwards a second car bomb blew up.
“The car bomb had been rigged just in case the roadside bomb missed his convoy,” said an Interior Ministry spokesman, Maj-Gen Abdul-Karim Khalaf.
He added that the Interior Ministry planned to build a statue to Abu Risha as a “martyr” at the site of the explosion or elsewhere. However, statues, as well as living politicians, often have a short life in Iraq.
Abu Risha’s death underlines the degree to which the White House and General Petraeus have cherry-picked evidence to prove that it is possible to turn the tide in Iraq. They have, for instance, given the impression that some Sunni tribal leaders turning against al-Qa’ida in Anbar and parts of Diyala and Baghdad is a turning point in the war.
In reality al-Qa’ida is only a small part of the insurgency, with its fighters numbering only 1,300 as against 103,000 in the other insurgent organisations according to one specialist on the insurgency. Al-Qa’ida has largely concentrated on horrific and cruel bomb attacks on Shia civilians and policemen and has targeted the US military only as secondary target.
The mass of the insurgents belong to groups that are nationalist and Islamic militants who have primarily fought the US occupation. They were never likely to sit back while the US declared victory in their main bastion in Anbar province.
There is no doubt that Abu Risha fulfilled a need and spoke for many Sunni who were hostile to and frightened by al-Qa’ida. Their hatred sprung less from the attacks on the Shia than al-Qa’ida setting up an umbrella organisation called the Islamic State of Iraq last year that sought to enforce total control in Sunni areas.
It tried to draft one young man from every Sunni family into its ranks, sought protection money and would kill Sunni who held insignificant government jobs collecting the garbage or driving trucks for the agriculture ministry as traitors.
The importance of the assassination of Abu Risha is that it once again underlines the difference between the bloody reality of Iraq as it is and the way it is presented by the US administration. He is one of a string of Iraqi leaders who have been killed in Iraq since the invasion of 2003 because they were seen as being too close to the US. These include the Shia religious leader Sayid Majid al-Khoei, murdered in Najaf in April 2003, and Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, the head of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, killed by a suicide bomber the same year.
In practice the surge has by itself has done little to improve security, according to Iraqis, a majority of whom say security has got worse. The number of Iraqis fleeing their homes has actually gone up from 50,000 to 60,000 in recent months, according to the UN High Commission for Refugees. Baghdad has become a largely Shia city with the Sunni pressed into smaller and smaller enclaves.
Cultivating an alliance with the Sunni tribes had been a long-term US policy since 2004 but finally caught fire because of al-Qa’ida overplayed their hand last year. It has the disadvantage that the US has, in effect, created a new Sunni tribal militia which takes orders from the US military and is well paid by it and does not owe allegiance to the Shia-Kurdish government in Baghdad. This is despite the fact that the US has denounced militias in Iraq and demanded they be dissolved.
The US success in Anbar was real but it was also overblown because the wholly Sunni province is not typical of the rest of Iraq. The strategy advocated by Washington exaggerated the importance of al-Qa’ida and seldom spoke of the other powerful groups who had not been driven out of Anbar.
Abu Risha had real support in Anbar, particularly in Ramadi where many people yesterday referred to him as “hero” and expressed sadness at his death.
But President Bush’s highly publicised visit to Anbar may well have been Abu Risha’s death knell. There are many Sunni who loathe al-Qa’ida, but very few who approve of the US occupation. By giving the impression that Abu Risha was one of America’s most important friends, Mr Bush ensured that some of the most dangerous men in the world would try to kill him.
The testimony by General Petraeus to Congress earlier this week has proved effective from the point of view of the White House in establishing the US commander in Iraq as a credible advocate of the administration’s military strategy.
But critics of General Petraeus have described him as “a military Paris Hilton” whose celebrity is not matched by his achievements. As commander of the 101st Airborne Division in Mosul in 2003-4 was lauded for re-establishing Iraqi police units only for them to desert or join the insurgents who captured most of the city after the general left.
A model for Iraq?
General David Petraeus in his testimony to Congress:
“The most significant development in the past six months likely has been the emergence of tribes and local citizens rejecting al-Qa’ida and other extremists. This has, of course, been most visible in Anbar. A year ago the province was assessed as “lost” politically. Today, it is a model of what happens when local leaders and citizens decide to oppose al-Qa’ida and reject its Taliban-like ideology.”
Patrick Cockburn is the author of ‘The Occupation: War, resistance and daily life in Iraq’, a finalist for the National Book Critics’ Circle Award for best non-fiction book of 2006.
Charles, yes, and I introduce the drinking game as ironic metaphor for the intoxicating fusion to magical thinking, and, the rummy attachment to a messianic mission, (or however one might put it.)
Consider that in a college dorm drinking game the competitiveness to achieve a win is increasingly made unrealistic by the increase in drunkenness. (The Beer Pong game ends with one of the contestants falling onto the table!?)
Mr. Smith, I will fashion a response to your thought-provoking response later. However it will be forged mostly by my preoccupations with social psych and anthropology even if it will be capped by a germane reference to Dr. Jung’s work and one of its few mentions of the Muslim psyche.
One thing: (a gloss,) the development of consciousness as it is framed within Analytic Psychology is fundamentally an affair of the individual, and this development stands against the collective and its unconscious participation via collective symbolic experience.
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/article2962054.ece
per patrick cockburn:
roadside bomb killed Abu Risha. Soon afterwards a second car bomb blew up.
“The car bomb had been rigged just in case the roadside bomb missed his convoy,” said an Interior Ministry spokesman, Maj-Gen Abdul-Karim Khalaf
But yesterday’s assassination underlines that Iraqis in Anbar and elsewhere who closely ally themselves with the US are in danger of being killed
. He is one of a string of Iraqi leaders who have been killed in Iraq since the invasion of 2003 because they were seen as being too close to the US. These include the Shia religious leader Sayid Majid al-Khoei, murdered in Najaf in April 2003, and Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, the head of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, killed by a suicide bomber the same year.
Cultivating an alliance with the Sunni tribes had been a long-term US policy since 2004 but finally caught fire because of al-Qa’ida overplayed their hand last year. It has the disadvantage that the US has, in effect, created a new Sunni tribal militia which takes orders from the US military and is well paid by it and does not owe allegiance to the Shia-Kurdish government in Baghdad
In reality al-Qa’ida is only a small part of the insurgency, with its fighters numbering only 1,300 as against 103,000 in the other insurgent organisations according to one specialist on the insurgency. Al-Qa’ida has largely concentrated on horrific and cruel bomb attacks on Shia civilians and policemen and has targeted the US military only as secondary target.
There is no doubt that Abu Risha fulfilled a need and spoke for many Sunni who were hostile to and frightened by al-Qa’ida. Their hatred sprung less from the attacks on the Shia than al-Qa’ida setting up an umbrella organisation called the Islamic State of Iraq last year that sought to enforce total control in Sunni areas.
It tried to draft one young man from every Sunni family into its ranks, sought protection money and would kill Sunni who held insignificant government jobs collecting the garbage or driving trucks for the agriculture ministry as traitors.
Pat, perhaps this should go in a different section:
Iran leader: Bush must face trial over Iraq, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
So, just what is the possibility of Bush & Co ever facing trial for War Crimes, Crimes against Humanity, Violations of the Geneva Conventions?
For example, lets say that they do decide to hit Iran using nuclear weapons, a CLEAR war crime and violation of the G.C.’s. Is there any chance in hell that they can be held accountable via that forum? Obviously, Bush & Dick aren’t going to be impeached, and they think that they have given themselves immunity, but doesn’t the international community have any say?
Thanks, Dana J.
Babak
Yes. We are “smug” in our dealings with other faiths but you know very well that if it was just we Catholics that you had to deal with, the world would be a better place. We decided a thousand years ago that the crusade was “not on.” These “protestants” as you describe them collectively, (I presume you mean evangelicals)have yet to learn that.
All
As for Benedict’s statements concerning the availability of salvation on other paths than that of Catholicism, I do not think he was speaking ex cathedra and therefore his teaching was not infallible. Some laicized theologian will undoubtedle straighten me out on that. pl
All
“Abu Risha?” Sometimes you eat the bear and sometimes the bear eats you.
There are lots of sheikhs in the big sand box. pl
“Abu Risha?” Sometimes you eat the bear and sometimes the bear eats you.
There are lots of sheikhs in the big sand box. pl
In spirit of naming things, (the decider, flatheads, etc.) and in response to the lastest events in Anbar, let me be the first (and probably the last) to propose that the dry and dull sounding name “Anbar Model”, be renamed “The sheikh, rattle and roll model.”
I know, I’ll burn in hell.
Mr. Calhoun:
Thank you for the response. From what I have read, both Jung and Freud agreed that highly advanced civilizations can become infected with the same psychological dysfunctions as an individual. Both focused on Weimar. If I remember correctly, Freud advanced this idea in his book Civilization and Its Discontents and Jung wrote an essay about how the spirit of Wotan overcame the German people (something along those lines — I can’t recall the title of Jung essay).
If I understand you correctly, you seem to advance the idea that Bush is a product of group think and not a creator of group think. So in that sense he symbolizes the psychology of the group.
So I was wondering if you are inferring that there is some psychological dynamic at work in American society that will lead to catastrophe — perhaps the nemesis of the Hubris – Nemesis complex mentioned in the Rand study. Or perhaps a catastrophe that has to do with narcissism because you offered an association between narcissism and Bush in an earlier post on another thread. Just curious if you think that the USA is at risk of suffering the same fate as Puer Aeterus.
Sidney, my view on the explanatory power of Analytic Psychology is, in short, that it isn’t explanatory either as a framework for understanding individual or collective behavior.
However, it isn’t completely incapable. It lends itself–under considerable constraints–to a phenomenological strain of interpretation of collective currents and their symbolic content.
I feel the Iraq project is already catastrophe enough. What qualities of intention and enactment, viewed as behavior, are suggestive of explanations for various mistakes? Group think is one such quality. Although there is lots more which could be revealed at the pertinent level of analysis, it’s enough to say that a group reinforces objectives around a mistaken estimation of what constitutes a viable locus of control with alignment to a mistaken evaluation of contingencies and context.
This is to say that ill biases are reinforced. So ignorance and pride in ‘chess playing’ ability, along with self satisfaction about control over management of consequences, analytically viewed, reveal deficits in reality testing. A lot of catastrophic consequences are made available by this, (glossed,) suggestion about psychological constituents.
Yet, the fate of the puer aeternus is to unconsciously walk unknowingly into a fateful future, or, do the hard work of becoming reality-based. Neither puer or narcissist will ever be enthusiastic about reality. It’s too real!
In the aftermath of 9-11, I surmised that the clash of civilizations pointed toward a clash of fundamentalisms that, as the Iraq project loomed in the early winter of 2002, then pointed toward a clash of problem solving regimes. This is a cognitively-oriented, anthropological way of interpreting potential consequences.
Thus it is more apt to say the game is 3D (metaphorically signifying only challenging complexity,) but that the contestants are playing different games.
My intuition. Local differences count for a lot. For example a satisfying resolution of problems for one culture might pose a short and a long term measured in years, a decade at most. For another culture, the time factor is different. There might be two clocks ticking to each player’s side, both measuring time differently.
Or, consider that one culture may wish to control conditions and reactions so as to move to response, whereas another might be completely oriented to response alone. This is the difference between conditions being manageable and conditions being given.
Dr. Jung did not write much about Islam, or, in his old fashioned and dodgy way, about the Arab psyche. (This is surprising for several reasons; Jung was a colleague and contemporary of Henri Corbin, and, Islamic religious esotericism presents a lot of grist for an archetypal mill.)
Still, he wrote a section, 3: A Typical Set of Symbols Illustrating the Process of Transformation, in (CW9:1, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious) that provides a psychological treatment of the story of Khidr and Moses, from Quran:Sura 18.
His treatment, aside from its psychological interpretation, speaks of two themes that resonate with my intuition. These concern, first, the idea of the inability to properly evaluate a chain of consequences, and, second, there is a worldview for which the unfolding of consequences has embedded, in modern terms, ‘hidden multipliers.’ To me, it is eerily spot on about local differences.
As for psychological dynamics of the American people, we come to a complex problem about, among many things, participation, the commons, education, etc. In a better world, I’d hope that the electorate would insist the definition and character of leadership would elevate cogent reality-testing to be a primary, realized factor. Oh well…
(Jung’s essays on the psychological context of WW2 are contained in the book, C.G. Jung Speaking.)
Mr Calhoun:
Thank you very much for your insights. From what I can glean, your observations are very consistent with — and in fact reinforce — one of the major themes that has emerged at this website: respect the local culture. This theme became first evident, at least to me, in the WWII handbook for US soldiers headed to Iraq (posted at Athenaeum awhile back). And much of the work posted subsequently appears to arise from that tradition. As examples…Col. Lang’s magnum opus re: Iraq Tribal study and Eisenstadt’s article.
In my opinion, it is a significant sign when different disciplines intersect at the same point. And, at least from my perspective, respecting the local culture certainly passes the common sense rule.
If I understand you correctly, at a certain level you appear to stress the immense danger of strategic intel that “takes off from the wish”, particularly when you write: “This is to say that ill biases are reinforced. So ignorance and pride in ‘chess playing’ ability, along with self satisfaction about control over management of consequences, analytically viewed, reveal deficits in reality testing.”
So in that regard, your insights appear to support David Habbakuk’s essay that was posted at this website. In this essay, Habbakuk refutes the 1998 article by Shulsky and Schmitt re: Leo Strauss and the World of Intelligence. And you seem to warn us against the disastrous consequences of a foreign policy that simply takes off from the wish. Perhaps that approach reflects the Puer profile you mention but I don’t know.
Also, your observations may relate to another theme that has arisen lately at this website. The concept of empathy. I always thought that Jung relied heavily upon empathy in his work. Through empathy he was able to determine the “psyche” of the other and then respond accordingly.
I’d have to leave it to the military experts, but I always thought Sun Tzu was of the “empathetic” type. In my opinion, Tzu’s approach is diametrically opposed to the work of David Leo Guttman and, in fact, stands much closer to Buber’s idea of “I and Thou” which apparently has been pushed into the dustpin of history.
Perhaps when fashioning a response to Iran, it is worthwhile to remember, among all the evidence, that after 9-11, the Iranians held candlelight vigils in support of the victims and victims’ families.
A recent article at the Daily Mail also reminded me of Jung’s book Man and his Symbols and his idea that two adversaries at war project onto to each other. Of course one has to make a discount because it is from the Daily Mail but nonetheless the title of the essay was “Bush the Jihadist”. It could just have been easily titled “Hagee the Jihadist” or “Osama the Jihadist”.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=481908&in_page_id=1770
Thanks for sharing your insights with us.
Sid
Fly by the seat of one’s pants