Nuclear Beef

If Bin Laden had been politically clever, he would have phrased his message in the terms of Iraqi nationalism. By siding with the narrowest sliver of Sunni extremists, he denied himself any real impact....It appears that Bin Laden is so weak now that he is forced to play to his own base, of Saudi and Salafi jihadists, some of whom are volunteer guerrillas in Iraq.

Of course, this clashes with the election-year meta-narrative that the war in Iraq has been a distraction from the war on the REAL terrorists and has in fact made them stronger. If Bin Laden has been made stronger by Bush's inept cowboy opposition, why is Cole saying he's 'so weak'?

But that's not the fun part. The real shadenfreude comes from the cognitive dissonance which results when Kevin Drum linked Cole on his blog which (unlike Cole's) accepts comments. Here's some of the high-lights:

First, Denial.

There will probably be a LOT of Sunni-on-Shia violence over the next couple of weeks in places like Pakistan after this tape. Probably some increased Shia-on-Sunni violence in Iraq.

But this WON'T drive the Iraqi Shia into the U.S.'s arms, nor cause the anxious Sunnis to relax and get ready for the elections.

Posted by: Matt Davis on December 28, 2004 at 12:40 PM

Why? It's unclear, but Matt sure seems SURE about it. Have no fear, every silver lining has it's cloud! Bin Laden may be weak, but that'll cause more violence too!

This is all bullshit and Juan Cole knows it. He simply wants to appear here as if he is sympathetic to the stated US goals of achieving stability in the region.
Posted by: A on December 28, 2004 at 1:23 PM

That begs the question, is he now on the payroll like Saddam was for so long? Or was this a fake video planted by someone other than OBL?
Posted by: melior on December 28, 2004 at 2:04 PM

So, which will the Iraqi Shiites choose:

(1) the hamfisted and clumsy foreigner George W. Bush, whose party has betrayed Shiites repeatedly in Iran and Iraq throughout the years and which repeatedly allied itself with the Sunni "extremists" and who is friends with the Saudi Royal family, the foremost practitioners of Wahhabism and who tolerates, and even preaches, the religious superiority of Christianity over Islam; or

(2) the guy who is fighting George W. Bush and the Great Satan (America for those of you unfamiliar with Shiite terminology), who is an Arab, and who is a Muslim?

Guffaw, guffaw.

Juan vive en Fantasyland.

Posted by: Advocate for God on December 28, 2004 at 3:10 PM

If my country is run by War Criminals must I hope for the success of my country in a war based on war crimes; a success that will vindicate my country's War Criminal government? Answer: A secular humanist would only choose humankind over their country, Juan Cole!
Posted by: trueblue on December 28, 2004 at 1:53 PM

OBL is not the enemy of the Iraqui people;
aWol's mercenaries are. Posted by: Self-Negotiator on December 28, 2004 at 2:13 PM

And anything, but anything like a suggestion that maybe it's a good thing that Bin Laden appears weak in Iraq... and that maybe there's a reason for this, and it has to do with the US killing and capturing lots of jihadi assholes. That maybe, just maybe, Bin Laden is weak in Iraq because his thugs do not represent the political aspirations of the majority of Iraqis.

Is it unreasonable to think that maybe the commentors aren't really too happy to have Juan Cole tell them some good news about the so-called War on Terror?

Nah, couldn't be! THE TERRORISTS ARE UNSTOPPABLE!

STRUGGLING JUST MAKES IT WORSE!

Posted by darwin at 04:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Political Journalistic Audio Beef today. Not music!

Vietnamese Americans Join The Debate On John Kerry's War Record from KQED's Pacific Time, August 26, 2004.

This is an interesting segment from KQED's Pacific Time. Host Nguyen Qui Duc interviewing Ngo Nhan Dung, editor-in-chief of Nguoi Viet, the largest daily Vietnamese newspaper in the US.

He asks what the Vietnamese-American community makes of the recent Swift Boat Vets controversy and Kerry's Vietnam record.

NGUEYEN QUI DUC: ... There are also questions about conduct during the war.

NGO NHAN DUNG: Most Vietnamese are more concerned with the withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam. The Vietnamese are more worried at that time, they were very worried about Americans abandoning Vietnam.

NGUEYEN QUI DUC: One can assume then that there is a certain generation of Vietnamese who lived through the war and who came out of Vietnam at the end of the war.. would they not be very happy with Senator Kerry's action after the war : the anti-war activities of Senator Kerry.

NGO NHAN DUNG: I think this is the most important thing that Vietnamese refugees in the states are concerned about. Because in the mind of the Vietnamese refugees, the reason why the Americans got out of Vietnam, they think, the main reason is because of the anti-war movement.

NGUEYEN QUI DUC: But it's been 30 years or so, and the Vietnamese community is now very varied and diverse. So isn't there a shift in political thinking among the Vietnamese-Americans. Isn't there a younger generation that would think differently?

NGO NHAN DUNG: Yes, I think that the younger would think different from their parents. But their parents are also very influential. And for the young people who left Vietnam after the war and who have lived under the Communist regime, they also resent all the anti-war movement because their parents and the younger generation, both of them endured the very harsh life in South Vietnam after the war. And they also see many people escaped from Vietnam and hundreds of thousands of people died during this escape. so when they thought about the war and the end of the war, they blame the anti-war movement. Both generations, the older and the younger, thought that way and it's very difficult to change them now.
...
NGUEYEN QUI DUC: Would you give us a sense of how you view this whole incident or this whole debate in terms of its influence on the Vietnamese-American voters?

NGO NHAN DUNG: I think that the Vietnamese voters have made up their mind. Many of them are inclined to vote for Republicans because they all will believe that the Republicans are more Anti-Communist than the Democrats.

My whole life I've been told that the US was just making things worse for the South Vietnamese.

That the US military presence in South Vietnam was unwanted, hated, and wholly bad. That the Vietnamese people wanted us to leave, and that the heroes of the anti-war movement stopped a pointless and ill-advised war. That we did the right thing when we pulled out, leaving South Vietnam at the mercy of the Communists.

It seems that the refugees of South Vietnam disagree. They should know, right?

(Yes, this audio is re-encoded from the KQED stream, because mp3 is good and real audio javascript links are bad.)

Posted by darwin at 11:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

Hi. I'm a friend of darwin's, currently living outside the Green Zone in Baghdad. I am a business executive with an Iraqi communications company in Baghdad, one of two americans in an Iraqi-expat-owned company of 150. We do things largely in the "Iraqi way", giving me a unique view of life in the country -- we don't travel in huge armored convoys or fly around on helicopters above the city, but have to deal with checkpoints, delays, and other daily facts of life for Iraqis, most of whom are unlikley to post in English-language weblogs for you to read. I will try to post first-hand accounts of life over here, and direct observations of the situation, rather than the kind of speculation and big-picture analysis which is common among "real journalists". I plan to be over here (including neighboring countries) at least 3-5 years, and have been learning Arabic, Kurdish, and Farsi to better communicate with the people around me, so I should be able to get some pretty interesting opinions from people.

Posted by ryan at 01:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

CBFTW (whose blog continues to impress) has a great post up which contains this excellent nugget.

We were now in the same area where a couple months ago we had a mounted patrol through here, and we were driving around slowly, and we were the trail vehicle, and my AG and I were sticking out of the back air guard hatches. And we were being followed by literally 100's of little kids, they were hooting and hollering, clapping and saying stuff in Arabic. So my AG looks over at me and with a mischievous smile says, "Watch this!" and then he starts chanting: "U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!" over and over again, next thing you know all these little kids, 100's of them, started chanting U-S-A!! Over and over again, each time a little loader. We were both laughing and thought this was all funny until I saw the reaction on the older people faces on the side of the road. They didn't look too thrilled about that, once I immediately noticed that, I said, "Dude, that's not cool! Make them stop yelling that shit!" But it was too late, these kids were having too much fun chanting U-S-A! Next thing you know I saw an older middle eastern lady wearing all black pick up a rock and throw it at us, which of course started a huge chain reaction of rock throwing at us. We got out of that neighborhood in a hurry after that. Lesson learned.

U-S-A! U-S-A!

Posted by darwin at 01:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Iraq beats Portugal 4-2 in the Olympic opening match. Portugal won silver medals at Euro 2004. Remarkable !

UPDATE [darwin] : Nabil is psyched. Olay Iraq!

Posted by Mishka at 02:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

QUESTION: Since Sadam's fall, what items are the Iraqi's buying like crazy? I have heard cell phones & satellite dishes. Trying to find out the specifics on what companies are making the products that are being bought. Thanks. Jenkins, Jason ANSWER: About 100 meters from my room is small shop that's owned by a couple Iraqi's. I went over to them today and asked the three Iraqi's behind the counter your question, and the first answer all three of them gave me was: Porno. They said now you can buy porno videos downtown, and you couldn't do that when Saddam was in power. The also have worldwide communication available to them now that wasn't here before, cell phones, Internet, and there's a shit load of European cars here now. Everyday I see truck loads of European cars being brought here, and a lot of people here are now driving BMW's and Mercedes. Its weird, almost every car here looks like its straight off the junk yard, but then every now and then you'll see some luxury european car driving down the street.

See, Saddam tried to keep porno from the people, and he got his due comeuppance. Now people throughout the ghettos of Iraq are rolling in their M3s on 24s.

Hallahhhhh!

Posted by darwin at 05:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've noticed recently that "abu ghraib anagram" is listed in my search terms. I'm not sure exactly how, but I'll take all the hits I can get. So in the spirit of internet wh0redom, here are some sinister anagrams for "Abu Ghraib." I expect the hits to come rolling in.

AHA BIG RUB

Yes, that big pile of semi-nude men rubbing each other was hee-larious.

"Aha!" indeed. *

HI ARAB BUG

The Arabs did "bug" out in response.

A HABIB RUG

Who doesn't like a nice Middle Eastern Rug?

A RABBI HUG

Or a hug from a Rabbi?

A RABBI UGH

Hrm. There seems to be a sort of mixed message emerging... another enigmatic Middle East mystery. A shadowy conspiracy involving.. Rabbis! Maybe this is the big break that The Beef needs to break into the upper echelons of blogdom!

Continue reading "Hug A Rabbi!" »

Posted by darwin at 02:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is an transcription (by me) of part of an entry in the NPR Radio Diary of Lori Mildice Hill. She is the wife of a gunnery sergeant serving in Fallujah, Iraq with the 1st Marine Division. Any mistakes in transcription are mine. The excerpt begins at 1:55 into the file.

On Saturday, the 24th [of April, 2004], I went to the commisary to do my grocery shopping and after I had done my shopping and was coming off, I went off through the main gate and there were protesters outside the gate. And these people had signs saying "Bring Home Our Troops," which to me is just a masked protest. And things like "the only people who are suffering are innocent children and they're being killed" or something like that. And to say that I was hurt by that... is an understatement.

I understand that we have a free country and I understand that they have the right to protest. But don't protest in my front yard where I have no control over what my husband is doing, and nor does he.

The best thing that I saw was a naval officer who was standing out there, handing out flags. And I thought to myself "thank God that there was someone strong enough to stand out there, in uniform, and support us. Because I didn't have the strength to do that.

You know, it's obviously a very difficult time for everyone, but protesting outside a base isn't going to change anything.

Protest politics is founded on shocking people. In many cases, this protest is not directed properly and ends up hurting the feelings of people who haven't done anything wrong. These people, being offended or insulted, are far less likely to consider the worth of an opinion. They can see through the "mask," as Lori Mildice Hill so lucidly describes it.

Protestors would do well to protest appropriately and with a modicum of civility. The radical fringe of the protest movement has usurped a forum in which those who sincerely want to bring out troops home for legitimate pacifist or other moral/ethical reasons could express their message. The tactics of ANSWER et al (including protests at businesses, military bases, etc.) are both divisive and ineffective.

Posted by darwin at 12:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Richard Armitage: They Ought To Hang (via FoS)

April 30, 2004 -- WASHINGTON - The State Department's No. 2 official said yesterday that those guilty of corruption in the U.N. oil-for-food program "ought to hang."

The blunt remarks by Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage to a House subcommittee were the strongest comments the Bush administration has made since accusations surfaced in January that Saddam Hussein ripped off $10 billion from the program.
...
He noted that the department has taken what he called the "extraordinary" step of turning over sensitive documents to investigators on the matter, "because we want to get to the bottom of it as much as you do."

"And if someone is found guilty they ought to hang," Armitage said.

Can anyone explain to me how in the hell Richard Armitage became a DIPLOMAT?

I mean, we here at The Beef love the crazy bastard but I can't imagine how he can be a successful diplomat while being so.. colorful.

One thing that is clear from this Google image search is that there are two faces of Richard Armitage.

Happy-Go Lucky Glad-Hand Armitage
and his evil twin,
Upset Uncle Fester Armitage

* (because the resolutions that they constantly pass.. say nothing to dictators about their lives..)

Posted by darwin at 04:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Many of my peers consider security contractors in Iraq to be something like bloodthirsty, greedy mercenaries.

I think that I have a different perspective on security contractors in Iraq because I know just how many people need security, and how few of them are directly related to anything sinister. I also don't assume and impugn the profit motive and severely as my peers.

From Rich Galen's Mullings, here is an example of why :

The bad guys, also wanting to mark the anniversary, blew up a hotel in downtown Baghdad. It was not immediately clear what the hotel had done to anger the bad guys, but they put about 1,000 lbs of explosives into a car, had some poor schmuck drive the car down the street and then blew it, him, and seven innocent people to smithereens.

There is a very small part of that story which I want to share with you:

Many organizations here have what are called PSDs - Personal Security Details. These are private companies who are hired to provide bodyguards to various and sundry civilian employees.

One of the guys who manages a PSD unit is named Russ Preston. Russ and his team do not live in the Green Zone, they live in Baghdad proper. As it happens they live near the hotel which was blown up the other night.

When the bomb went off, Russ ran into the building to help pull out victims. This is a photo of that activity captured by Amman Awad for Reuters:

Personal Security Detail guys get paid well. But I guarantee you, Russ ain't paid to do this.

Fern. Bob. Chad. Russ.

Civilian. Reserve. Active Duty. Retired. They each rushed into danger to help, in their own way, people they didn't even know.

The image in question is below the MT cut. Look at it and tell me that Russ is a mercenary and deserves to die for what he does in Iraq.

Continue reading "Mercenaries" »

Posted by darwin at 12:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Iraqi Group Threatens to Kill Italian Hostages

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (Reuters) - A group holding three Italians hostage in Iraq has threatened to kill them in five days unless Italians take to the streets to publicly denounce their country's involvement in the U.S.-led occupation.
...
Al Arabiya television aired a tape Monday showing the men, together with images of a statement dated April 25.
...
"We tell you, we will show good faith and free them...if you sympathize with our cause, show solidarity with us and publicly reject the policy of your prime minister by staging a big demonstration in your capital to protest against the war and call on your government to withdraw from our country," Arabiya quoted the purported kidnappers as saying in a statement. "We grant you five days, after which we will kill them without any hesitation or any other warning," added the statement, signed by a group calling itself the Green Brigade.

These Italians were kidnapped with Fabrizio Quattrocchi.

That's right, the Green Brigade is calling on the activist community to protest. Or else.. they'll murder some more Italians.

I guess they still consider protest relevant.

Posted by darwin at 02:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've heard lots of snide commentary mocking the idea that the very foundation of our pluralistic, secular, democratic society is offensive to those who wage Jihad on us. Surely nobody could hate equal rights for women, or the idea of secular democracy. After all, it's 2004, not 1504!

Someone should tell these Jihadis that.

The Iraqi Rebels Show Me Their Latest Victim: A German In a Pool of Blood

Here in the lawless Sunni Triangle, the mujahideen had been on edge, waiting nervously for US marines to launch a powerful attack in the area in retaliation for the murder of four American security contractors in Fallujah, a hotbed of anti-American resistance west of the Iraqi capital. Even though I was British, and therefore deeply suspect, the mujahideen had agreed to let me live among them in a small town a few miles from Fallujah, giving me a rare insight into their way of life as they braced themselves for American reprisals.
...
When the commander explained the mujahideen's motivation to me, he said that they would fight the coalition, the Iraqi Governing Council - whose members they denounce as collaborators and placemen - and any of Saddam Hussein's supporters.
...
"We do not hate the Americans and British, we hate the ideas they have brought here. We will now fight every person who tries to bring those ideas, including the Iraqi Governing Council. "We do not want their capitalism, we do not want communism. We have our own ideas about how we want our country to be run in a Muslim way. We support the Shia leader Muqtada Sadr, not because of his ideas; they are not good or bad. We are supporting him with money, weapons and men because he is against the Americans."

Could it be any more clear that the warriors of Jihad are fundamentally opposed to what most of the West considers modern civilization?

They are will to reap its rewards (for example the AK-47s they are armed with) but are unwilling to pay the price of modernizing (liberalizing) their culture. For an idea of the "Muslim Way" they wish on Iraq, see Afghanistan under the Taliban.

So, yes. They hate freedom. Obviously this is not the sole motivation of every Iraqi upset about the occupation, but it is the motivation of the mujahideen and to deny this is silly.

UPDATE: Christopher Hitchens in this book review :

I was very struck recently by seeing Tom Cruise's appalling movie The Last Samurai, where an American adventurer takes the side of feudal and tribal chivalry in Japan, presumably because of its self-annihilating authenticity, but realizes during the course of several destructive massacres that the samurai ethos will not survive in the face of modernity. What is needed, he concludes, is a fusion or synthesis between new weapons and old ideas. It's bad enough that an American, even a Scientologist, could actually desire to see what Japan eventually got -- in the combination of an imperial god-king with a large air force and navy, an evil empire and an absolutely calamitous war. Even more alarming was the cultural myopia that prevented critics and audiences from seeing that precisely this combination of medieval and atavistic ideas with borrowed technology is what threatens Eastern societies no less than our own.

Posted by darwin at 07:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Brian Behlendorf (on a MAILING LIST (ew, how 1990s)) alerted me to this SlashDot Q&A with a reporter who helped start a Linux Users Group in Iraq.

Apparently Iraq used to be the The Land Without Linux. Our cultural imperialism has won us GNU converts! U S A This fact alone should be enough to convince anti-war nerds that we've done right by Iraq.

But he just doesn't know enough about Linux, since it was all but unknown in Iraq during Saddam's regime. I find that is typical--when I explain Linux to just about any Iraqi, they get it quickly and want it.

Saddam deprived the people of LINUX. The man was a monster. He had to go!

I was also reminded of this old Healing Iraq entry and photoblog about LAN cafes in Iraq:

Of course all the games we get are copies and we rarely find originals. There are (thankfully!) no such things as copyrights in Iraq. Which means you are able to buy a PS game for half a dollar. These games reach us the moment they are released in neighbouring countries.

It appears that Iraqi Freedom™ includes the the right to 0day warez. If only the US could have such Freedom™. They're way ahead Over There.

Posted by darwin at 12:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Man, do I love these Iraqi Bloggers. It's ever so satisfying to read a debunking of the faulty anti-war "quagmire" ideas I hear. It's even more satisfying when the debunking comes directly from the horse's mouth.

Here's a good example of the new freedom of speech now enjoyed within the Iraqi Quagmire™ :

Five Gallons of Gasoline.

Oh my god what a fool I was. Yes, I realized this just lately, although I had my doubts but I was blinded by some facts and now thanks to some good friends of the Iraqi people, I've opened my eyes to see the naked truth. ...
For 9 months I've thought that things were OK, that America did the right thing, we got rid of S.H. and his killing machine, that I'm happy, free and dreaming of a better future.
...
Another depressing news was that there will be no more public executions, what am I talking about, there will be no executions at all, can you believe it? There are no more action or amusement!
...
You made me realize that freedom doesn't worth waiting for hours to get 5 gallons of gasoline, and 10 hours of power shortage a day (even if it was temporarily). in fact you showed me that freedom means NOTHING to me.

Thank you for showing me that I was born to be a slave and that I enjoyed getting down on my knees in front of my master whoever he was (and there was no one better than Saddam to bow to).

I loved kissing the ground he walks on, and I adored his way of insulting, raping, torturing and killing Iraqis everyday.

A friend has asked me never to use the 4 letter word (and it's not my style to do so), sorry Scott but I can't help not saying For all those who tried to show me how I should feel:

Even if I was wrong (and I'm sure I'M not)To hell with oil, to hell with power supply and F***YOU ALL. GWB MADE THE RIGHT DECISION AND AMERICA DID THE RIGHT THING AND WE ARE FREEEEEEEEEE!

Posted by darwin at 08:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Via Instapundit we are linked to a great Spinsanity post about a damning quote from a White House spokesman which I've already seen making the "BUSH LIED" rounds.

A new myth is making its way through the media: that White House press secretary Scott McClellan said "This is about an imminent threat" about the Iraq war during a press briefing last February. This tall tale, first created by the liberal Center for American Progress, has been repeated several times by journalists who failed to check their facts. As we showed last week, McClellan was actually talking about Iraq potentially posing an "imminent threat" to Turkey if a war started, which would justify invoking the NATO charter and allowing alliance members to help defend Turkey. But analysts at the Center for American Progress inaccurately claimed in their January 29 e-mail newsletter that McClellan made that statement as a reason why "NATO should go along with the Administration's Iraq war."

People ask me why I'm such a hard-core crytpo-fascist. Frankly, it's stuff like this. I see the left struggle and struggle and struggle to come up with the dirt. This sort of crap is the best they can come up with. We are not impressed.

Posted by darwin at 08:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)