It can’t get any worse, can it?
It’s a very, very sad commentary on the state of our government that I actually believe they’d try something like this:
A rumor is circulating among well-connected and formerly high-level Iraqi bureaucrats in exile in places like Damascus that a military coup is being prepared for Iraq. I received the following from a reliable, knowledgeable contact. There is no certitude that this plan can or will be implemented. That it is being discussed at high levels seems highly likely.
“There is serious talk of a military commission (majlis `askari) to take over the government. The parties would be banned from holding positions, and all the ministers would be technocrats, so to speak. . . [The writer indicates that attempts have been made to recruit cabinet members from the ranks of expatriate technocrats.]
The six-member board or commission would be composed on non-political former military personnel who are presently not part of the government OR the military establishment, such as it is in Iraq at the moment. It is said that the Americans are supporting this behind the scenes.
The plan includes a two-year period during which political parties would not be permitted to be part of the government, but instead would prepare and strengthen the parties for an election which would not have lists, but real people running for real seats. The two year period would be designed to take control of security and restore infrastructure.
. . .[I]t is another [desperate plan], but one which many many Iraqis will support, since they are sick of their country being pulled apart by the “imports” – Maliki, Allawi, Jaafari et al. The military group is composed of internals, people who have the goal of securing the country even at the risk of no democracy, so they say. “
I just don’t know what to say anymore. Maybe I’ll just put my index finger on my lips and start going “Bloob-blubba-bloob-blubba-bloob-blubba.”
(Thanks to mikey for the tip.)
Saddam!!
Hrm.
Don’t they need a military before it can perform a coup?
1. steal underpants
2. ….
3. profit!
The plan includes a two-year period during which political parties would not be permitted to be part of the government, but instead would prepare and strengthen the parties for an election which would not have lists, but real people running for real seats. The two year period would be designed to take control of security and restore infrastructure.
It sounds like the next two years will be crucial!
Call it the Junta Unit. It apparently equals four Friedmans.
Um, and the heavily-armed and powerfully motivated Shiite majority will do what in the face of a neo-Baathist coup?
Oh right. Candy and flowers. Got it.
Praise Allah! Government by “non-political” “technocrats!” The Broder-Mallaby regime has arrived at last!!!
Um, and the heavily-armed and powerfully motivated Shiite majority will do what in the face of a neo-Baathist coup?
What the hell, Snowwy, don’t be an asshole–the technocrats will be non-political! Gawd, if you can’t trust a shadowy and unaccountable military junta with no popular constituency, who can you trust?
What the hell, I’m feeling like a dick today, why not triple-post.
My very favoritest part of the whole thing:
The military group is composed of internals, people who have the goal of securing the country even at the risk of no democracy, so they say.
The risk? The aspiring military dictators are willing to risk never holding elections? Yes, what a terrible risk that would be for them, but they’re willing to face it! To rule forever, oh so reluctantly! Sir Galahad comes to mind–“Let me go back in and face the peril!”
There is a bit or realpolitik logic to this. By holding elections so quickly after Saddam was deposed, the US created the current situation, where politics is not a means to govern, but a method for accumulating wealth and power in a strictly zero-sum environment.
It is generally accepted that there should be a period of several years to allow the development of institutions, particularly an independent judiciary, before allowing the population to select their leadership through a popular vote.
By rushing from the battlefield to the ballot box (in order to be able to hold up Iraq as a succesful transition to democracy), all that was created was the well know “tyranny of the majority”. Without creating governing institutions and developing a respect for rule of law, all you have done is gone from orderly dictatorship to chaotic dictatorship.
Unfortunately, it is much too late to try to take power back into the hands of a governing elite or military junta. With the Shi’a deeply suspicious of anyone with connections to the former regime, Tehran would certainly provide the resources the militias would use to thwart the intentions of the junta, even if they had the best of intentions, of which I would be highly sceptical.
Pretty much any attempt to “engineer” the political leadership at this point is going to cause one of the sides to turn up the heat, resulting in extremely violent chaos and at least support, if not outright intervention, but the other players in the region.
This is really not good….
mikey
A push from the left
A shove from the right
It’s all planned up
We’ll do it tonight!
It would not surprise me a bit, especially in light of the article treehugger linked over at stageleft – the important part reads
Coupled with Juan’s post what does that tell you is on the books?
Boy, I didn’t even know Karl Rove had turned his attention to Iraq.
But this “non-political” attempt to let the “technocrats” set up a no-term-limits government sure sounds like his dream of the “permanent Repub majority”, doesn’t it? Except, of course, for the military bits. I guess Karl’s decided that you really can’t fool all the people, all the time — that’s what you need the artillery for.
Another black mark againt William McKinley’s presidency…
Wow… won’t it be funny if Chalabi gets put in charge after all?
Oh, wait… no, it really wouldn’t.
Dammit, if only we had a brutal strong-man we could prop up – you know, one who will be ultra friendly to our business interests, serve as a secular buffer in the middle east, and act as an insurance the stability of the world’s oil supply. Sure he would be a son-of-a-bitch, but he would be OUR son-of-a-bitch.
Seriously, who wants to bet that former Baathists will find their way to high places if this actually goes down?
are we supporting a coup against the government we’re supporting? this is better than the marx brothers. it’s like the marx brothers meets mel brooks.
Dumbya drew comparisons between Iraq and Vietnam yesterday. He left out Maliki and Ngo Dinh Diem.
are we supporting a coup against the government we’re supporting? this is better than the marx brothers. it’s like the marx brothers meets mel brooks.
Yes! I’m actually reminded of Groucho-as-Lord Julius in the incomparably brilliant Cerberus compilation High Society: http://www.amazon.com/High-Society-Cerebus-Dave-Sim/dp/0919359078/ref=pd_sim_b_title/102-2539233-0572944
are we supporting a coup against the government we’re supporting?
It’s like the right hand doesn’t know what its fingers are doing.
it’s like the marx brothers meets mel brooks. meets Heller, meets Bananas, meets the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
“Democratic institutions are not necessarily the way ahead in the long-term future,” said Brig. Gen. John “Mick” Bednarek
He’s talking about Iraq, right?
Mmmm, love that tasty Freedom Spread!
Gee, Iraq really is like Vietnam, we even had US backed coups now.
Progress!
Don’t they need a military before it can perform a coup?
That’s the question that immediately occurred to me, too.
once we start bombing Iran, it will get much, much worse.
All those insurgents can get their old “Baathist thug” jobs back. Interestingly enough, some of these gentlemen already have a fair amount of experience in applying aggressive interrogation techniques, which will really help out the training budget.
Only problem will be that the intermittent Iraqi electrical supply means they’ll have only a limited time each day to shock people’s nuts.
Good times, good times.
And which military would that be?
According to those soldiers who wrote the op-ed in the Times on Sunday that Joke Line creamed his pleated dockers over, the chain of command in the Iraqi army effectively stops at the level of colonel.
Perhaps they mean the Kurdish peshmerga? Wake me when the repercussions of that nightmare scenario end.
Perhaps there’d be an upshot – at least the civil war would then be completely undeniable to even the most blatant liars and thickest dolts.
Kathleen,
It’s probably occurred to our leaders that a Shiite PM in Iraq might, just might, publicly object when we start bombing Iran. A re-Baathified military regime would be eager to take on Iraqi Shiites enraged by a US attack on their Iranian brethren. Heck, a coup against Maliki might just provoke the kind of “smoking gun” act of Iranian meddling that Bush needs to start bombing the Revolutionary Guard. Bonus!
Only problem will be that the intermittent Iraqi electrical supply means they’ll have only a limited time each day to shock people’s nuts.
Somehow, I suspect these are the folks who would get first dibsies on all the diesel they wanted…
mikey
Engineering military coups/dictatorships is what the USA does best. That and selling guns to anyone who will buy them. $20 billion worth to the Saudis one day, $30 billion worth to the Israel the next.
Under the guise of promoting a “security dialogue” in the Persian Gulf, the Bush Administration has proposed $63 billion in arms transfers to the Middle East over the next ten years.
Bringing democracy…not so good.
Nothing should surprise anybody anymore about this vile, disgusting administration.
So…what did we invade for in the first place? What exactly did we gain from it? What did the people of Iraq gain from it? After years of fighting is the best outcome we can hope for now is a government just like the one we overthrew?
Add to the impending changes a new U.S. intelligence report released today that says Iraq is unable to govern itself effectively and it looks even more like the stage is set for some changes.
So…what did we invade for in the first place? What exactly did we gain from it?
Hey, credit where credit where credit is due. It stopped an existential threat to the US in its tracks for seven critical years — Democratic control of the House, Senate, and Executive.
Iraq isn’t a war so much as the world’s most expensive campaign commercial. Or think of it as the civil-war equivalent of Munchhausen’s-by-proxy.
What is really disturbing about Iraq news is what gets the attention is the “War We Just Might Win” shit in the face of all the brutal reality.
I spent some time yesterday reading the reports by Anthony Cordesman. They say the same thing as the NYT op-ed by the soldiers and are quite detailed in their assessments (Although the conclusions reached are iffier)
Bush just keeps blabbering about insurgents and terrorists when there are at least 4 different skirmishes going on. We can’t articulate what the end goal is, how to get there, who the bad guys are or what we are supposed to be doing.
I keep wanting to cover it in my blog (shameless blogwhoring alert) but I keep getting distracted by other stuff. There is so much shit going wrong it’s depressing to even start on it, it’s a giant mountain of fuckups.
People want simple explanations – us vs. the terrorists. I guess the simple short version is “we’re fucked.”
Yes, Lesley is quite correct, propping up dictatorships we’ve engineered is indeed what we’ve done so much of for the last 50 years or so. What always suprises me when that road is chosen is how badly it has worked out time and time again. They never learn, do they?
I had to listen to that shit victor david hansen on NPR’s talk of the nation today. That calm-talking prick manages to use sentences structured in such a way as to make you think all the chaos in Iraq just “happened”, and certainly he and his types share no blame in that, and by golly, leaving now would cause chaos and genocide! Like chaos and genocide haven’t already been occurring; shall we talk about US-made cluster bombs, or is that just too inconvenient?
So…what did we invade for in the first place?
Um yes, well the – Hey! Over there! FAGS!
Bubba, I’m writing a children’s book titled “Foreign Policy Failure Has Two Daddies”. It’s about how gay marriage has the potential to destroy the Middle East.
It’s kind a morality play, with the protagonists being sorely tempted by the thought of dudes smoking thick, meaty, tumescent pole. And then they all become “conservatives” and cheer on the invasion of remote, sand-filled nations while they stay, err, behind, to fight the battle on the homo front.
Twenty bucks at a time.
I’m pretty sure I can get an advance from Regnery Publishing.
I blame Scott Beauchamp…
id,
August 23, 2007 at 23:15
All those insurgents can get their old “Baathist thug” jobs back. Interestingly enough, some of these gentlemen already have a fair amount of experience in applying aggressive interrogation techniques, which will really help out the training budget.
Only problem will be that the intermittent Iraqi electrical supply means they’ll have only a limited time each day to shock people’s nuts.
Good times, good times. Oh well done,Bravo,Bravo!!!!
ZSA.it blocked your I.D. for some reason. I’m still laughing.
I really hate the meme that Iraqis are to blame for this mess. We invaded their country, destroyed their infrastructure and toppled their government — now on top of that we are tsk tsking them for not pulling themselves up by their bootstraps and forming a working government?
That’s becoming increasingly common among both Republicans and Democrats, probably because us a way to exit gracefully by saying “hey, we tried but these fuckers are just crazy!!”
Hey Random, don’t forget we totally wrecked all their shit back in 1990, and then imposed unreasonable, crippling sanctions on them for the next fifteen years. Babies died by the thousands. But people stayed, because you know what? They loved their country.
Yep, weird, ain’t it. They loved their country just like americans love theirs. And they struggled to make shit work, with a crappy, corrupt, rotten government and crippling sanctions.
Yep. Here in america, with our kind, benevolent government and our infrastructure all A+, how could we have any sympathy for a nation of smart, patriotic folks trying to do the best they could? Crazy, huh?
Now the educated folks are all leaving. Abandoning the country of their birth, the place that for them is HOME, because some asshole thought it would be cool to deploy his military.
How completely sad this will take decades to understand. But one thing cannot be misunderstood. We’re the bad guy. Yep, us, good clean wholesome americans? We’re the terrorists, the aggressive invaders, the thugs who killed in wholesale for our own purposes. Live with it…
mikey
He guys,how much you want to bet that the reactionarys in Merka would be the the first ones to collaborate with an invading power.I mean they worship brute strength and despise weakness,aside from being unconscionable cowards,so it would only be natural for them to suck up to an invading army.Maybe thats why it seems so incredible for them to to understand that there is so much resistance to all our little colonial adventures.I don’t want to belabor a point but RED DAWN!!!!
Yeah DEMIZE!, I read an article many years ago about a woman @ a peace demo (I think in Chicago possibly against Bush War I in 1990 or ’91, maybe even earlier) a cop asked her something like, well, who would keep order if the commies (or whoever) took over, to which she replied: “There’ll always be bullies like you to push people around & ‘keep order.'”
#
M. Bouffant said,
August 24, 2007 at 5:53
Yeah DEMIZE!, I read an article many years ago about a woman @ a peace demo (I think in Chicago possibly against Bush War I in 1990 or ‘91, maybe even earlier) a cop asked her something like, well, who would keep order if the commies (or whoever) took over, to which she replied: “There’ll always be bullies like you to push people around & ‘keep order.’”
Ahh yes,and to that the fine gentleman replied,touche madame.Touche indeed.
It’s uncanny.
Just how EXACTLY do these jamokes want to re-create the conditions of Vietnam?
We’ve had:
An election to install a government viewed as illegitimate by a sizable chunk of the populace;
An escalation in the number of troops in the operational area;
Deals cut with local tribesmen to support our side;
‘Strategic hamlets’ and ‘De Lattre forts’ (h/t Gilliard, miss ya, man)
Extended tours of duty breaking the morale of the military;
Increased antiwar feeling back home dismissed by the government;
Resorting to ‘body counts’ as a means of showing progress;
Atrocities committed against the civilian populace, and coverups of same;
Death squads roaming the streets;
Threats of an air offensive against neighboring countries seen as sources of supply and refuge for the insurgency;
And now rumors of a military coup to depose the guy we supposedly were backing.
What’s next, Ayatollah Sistani immolating himself? That’s about all we haven’t had yet, isn’t it?
Oh yeah, foment a coup. Great idea, I’m sure that the neocons are up to their necks in it.
But it’ll all turn out just great. What could possibly go wrong?
</snark>
Huh?
Wasn’t the entire justification for this deadly fiasco (after the WMD fallacy was fnally, finally, finally exposed by the pliant MSM who helped push the fictions for so long) that “we were bringing democracy to the mideast” and “getting rid of a cruel despot”?
So…..that we can put in our very OWN anti-democratic fascistic regime, replete with ruthless military strongmen?
Uh……Oh. Okay. I’ll go back to my DVD collection now and stop asking questions.
a cop asked her something like, well, who would keep order if the commies (or whoever) took over, to which she replied: “There’ll always be bullies like you to push people around & ‘keep order.’”
The police aren’t there to create disorder, they’re there to preserve disorder.
And I see there are a few commenters here who can add things up as well as I can *blogwhore*
After all, Maliki has been making snarky noises about going “elsewhere” for aid if the U.S. abandons him (probably to Iran or Syria). THAT’D put an awful cramp in the “Liberate The Oppressed of Iran And Keep The Mullahs From Gettin’ Nukes” project we seem to be on the road to. *second blogwhore*
Look at the two year “waiting period”… what will be different about the USA in 2 years? I wonder what the Administration will say we must be do during those 2 years?
Isn’t this sort of necessary? You know, in the Shakespearean sense? We toppled a military dictator, we put into place a “democratic” system, and now we are going to replace the democratic system with… a military dictatorship. We will have gone full circle, but with hundreds of thousands of dead, accomplishing nothing, a folly completely of our own making.
It’s almost like it has to be done. Not just because, well, the government there is incompetent, but to finally cap off Bush’s legacy.
[…] things like this are certainly no more or less horrifying than, say, Mike Gravel’s flat tax proposal: A rumor […]
And who runs the company promoting the coup? Oh, it’s Hardball regular and rich fucking bastard Ed Rogers.
You have to say, it’s a sign of political progress in Iraq that DC lobbyists are being paid good money to help overthrow the PM.