The watchword for the day is “death squads“. The Bush government is using this to identify any armed combatants against the United States military. This is to imply that any armed opposition are murderers and predators. The implication also being that these are not the Iraqi people even though the Iraqi people reject the US invasion. I’ve heard this at least five times today. I have yet to see any Iraqi on television reporting the tactics the US ascribes to the Iraqi forces.
Society
26
Mar 03
The New American Empire
U.S. Forces Prepare Martial Law for Iraq:
“The U.S. cannot take over the mantle of law enforcement for the Iraqi people,” said Lt. Col. Richard Vanderlinden, commander of the 709th Military Police Battalion. “The expectation is that the Iraqi law enforcement structure will remain intact.” …
“Any riots and we are going to put them down. We’re going to send in the infantry. Restoring civil authority and peace is the highest priority. We are not going to let people run riot and rampant,” said Capt. Jim Wherry of the Judge Advocate General’s Corps, the army’s legal arm.
Offenders, Wherry said, could then be tried under the U.S. Code of Military Justice, detained for post-war trials by civil authorities or face punishment meted out by the Americans under Iraqi laws. The entire Iraqi judicial code has been translated into English and made available to the U.S. military. …
How the coalition will establish the boundary between U.S. military and Iraqi laws remains a “work in progress,” Wherry said.
“We’re still making it up as we go along and hope for the best,” Wherry, of Rock Island, Ill., said. “We are trying to have as little to do with this country as possible while, in effect, taking it over.”
Still, Saddam’s vast security apparatus is expected to be purged of loyalists and those suspected of torture and other human rights violations. Some supporters of the regime, however, will have to be kept in place.
“After World War II, we got rid of all the Nazis in six months and then found out we could not run the country without the Nazis,” Wherry said.
A nightmare scenario would be a postwar, revenge-based bloodbath, with the police and judiciary melting away and the United States having to become cop, judge and jailer.
You are seeing that the United States believes more in power than liberty, subjugation than freedom. The tactic of replacing only the topmost layers of authority is not new. The Mongols were very successful in doing so, removing the emperors and local rulers and replacing them with their Mongol chiefs.
25
Mar 03
Coincidence?
US general with Iraq role linked to hardline Israelis:
The retired general named as civilian governor of occupied Iraq has visited Israel on a trip paid for by a right-wing group that strongly backs an American military presence in the Middle East.
Lieutenant-General Jay Garner, the co-ordinator for civilian administration in Iraq, put his name in October 2000 to a statement blaming Palestinians for the outbreak of Israeli-Palestinian violence and saying that a strong Israel was an important security asset to the United States.
The statement was sponsored by the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (Jinsa), which pays for retired US military officers to visit Israel for security briefings by Israeli officials and politicians. Richard Perle, one of the architects of the US invasion of Iraq, is a member of the institute’s board of advisers, as was Vice-President Dick Cheney before he took office in 2001.
Lt-Gen Garner went on Jinsa’s annual trip to Israel in 1998. Two years later, he and 42 other senior retired officers said: “We are appalled by the Palestinian political and military leadership that teaches children the mechanics of war while filling their heads with hate. The security of the state of Israel is a matter of great importance to US policy in the Middle East and eastern Mediterranean, as well as around the world. A strong Israel is an asset that American military planners and political leaders can rely on.”
25
Mar 03
Not much ‘war’ news coming
Not much ‘war’ news coming out. The Pentagon has clamped down on casualty reporting, and today’s news is mainly a repeat of yesterday.
25
Mar 03
American dependence on GPS
Our dependency on GPS requires no further comment. That is fact. The six ways of crippling GPS are:
1.) Direct laser or rocket attacks against the GPS satellites. This is a ‘tough shot’ from the ground, and requires more money and technology than any of our currently perceived enemies possess. An attack like this is easier from space, but that still requires years of technological effort, of which no evidence has surfaced, and easily $100 million to execute. This is a low probability event.
2.) Nuclear or EMF radiating explosions near the GPS satellites might neutralize them with a planned near-miss. This is even more expensive and technically daunting, the ‘hardening’ of the GPS satellites means close proximity is required. The probability here is even lower.
3.) Launching a ton of gravel into the GPS satellites paths could shatter the solar panels within a few days. This might be done with a single rocket. The missile would be detected but its mission could only be guessed, until GPS goes dark. The budget for this, converting an eastern European rocket, probably runs below $20 million for a single shot, and $40 million for three launches to insure success. The probability of this occurrence in the next five years might be one in four. The dispersion of Al Queda, and their high fanatical, but lower technical orientation, suggests it’s out of reach for them. The next Chinese regime could easily accomplish this. The current North Korean regime might want to, but would need technical help. If Asian politics become more volatile, this has a 50:50 chance of occurring. It is a tiny budget item, even for a North Korea. Yet this causes so much upheaval, without direct confrontation, that the temptation to cripple GPS this way seems high.
4.) Guerilla attacks on GPS ground stations could impair the system. These stations, however, have been reinforced, but a ground assault by suicide squads could have effect. But since the terrestrial assets can be rebuilt in months this has no point unless coordinated with larger-scale military moves by an enemy. Suicide attacks rarely combine with coordinated military maneuvers, so the probability here is low.
5.) Spoofing GPS may be the most lethal of any approach. Since GPS signals are weak, and passive or non-interactive, over-riding the transmissions is easy. This sends ships into shoals, missiles into hospitals and troops away from battle lines. A backup system, however, would detect this and reverse the surprise for an enemy. Many in the military are concerned about spoofing. Blanking out and replacing the GPS transmissions is easy, but substituting credible counterfeit signals is challenging. This suggests only a technically advanced opponent could attempt spoofing, and it would need to be part of a larger military conquest. The probability, therefore, is lower for this approach, but the consequences could be disasterous.
6.) Jamming GPS across battlefields with a hundred mile radius is simple. The Russians market a jammer for $5000 that does this, and fits in a coat pocket. Deploying twenty could bring down a continent. The probability of malicious use is quite high, although should always be detectable.
Related:
25
Mar 03
Bush attempting to starve the Iraqi people into submission
As I concluded yesterday, Bush is attempting to starve the Iraqi people into submission by halting UN food aid at the border which Iraqi oil has already paid for. If this isn’t terrorism I don’t know what is. This should prove that the Oil for Food program is simply a way to transfer Iraq’s oil wealth out of the country and that the US government uses the control of food and water as a weapon against the Iraqi people. Meanwhile, the slavish Corpro-American media is ‘staying on target’ and keeping the pro-invasion Pentagon propaganda floodgates open. You are all witnesses to a crimescene unfolding.
From the BBC: Coalition accused over aid to Iraq:
At a news conference in Baghdad, the Iraqi Trade Minister, Muhammad Mahdi Saleh, said Iraq had already paid billions of dollars for these supplies, which were bought under the UN’s oil-for-food programme.
The UN suspended the programme upon which millions of Iraqis depend for food as a US-led war against Baghdad became imminent last week.
Mr Mahdi Saleh said London and Washington had pushed for the programme to be blocked and accused Mr Annan of bowing to their will. …
On Tuesday, the United States Agency for International Development, USAID, announced it had awarded a Seattle-based company the contract to operate the Iraqi port of Umm Qasr.
USAID said the company – Stevedoring Services of America – would be in charge of managing the delivery of humanitarian aid and reconstruction materials to Iraq.
This is the second of eight civilian contracts that USAID expects to award for the reconstruction of Iraq.
The process has been criticised by some because of apparent secrecy and because no non-US companies were invited to tender.
25
Mar 03
Prodigal sons head home to fight
Iraqi exiles head home to fight ‘invaders’:
Thousands of Iraqi exiles have been returning home over the past week from Jordan, with many insisting they want to defend their country against US and British “invaders.”
Jordanian records show that 5,284 Iraqis have crossed the desert border overland into Iraq since March 16, Col Ahmad al-Hazaymeh, director of Jordan’s al Karama border post, said yesterday. …
“They all said they wanted to take part in the fight against the Americans,” Mr al-Ali said. …
Applause broke out when an Arab television station showed what it claimed was footage of a US attack helicopter downed by Iraqi forces in southern Iraq. “Our blood and soul we sacrifice for you, Saddam,” the crowd chanted as they danced under a life-size portrait of the Iraqi president.
Jassim Mohammed Laftah, 30, who has been in Jordan two years, quit his job as a mechanic to go back. “I’m going back to join fellow Iraqis in their jihad and defence of our country against the American invaders,” he shouted.
“When the Americans invaded my country, I felt it my duty is to sacrifice my life for our leader … and for my country,” said Mr Laftah, a native of Missan in southern Iraq. …
“Although I don’t like Saddam, there’s no way I would accept that the Americans attack my country and scare our children with their bombing,” Layla Burhan, a rich Iraqi who is not planning on going back, said at her home in Amman.
At the embassy, Mr Laftah said he fled Iraq two years ago to seek a better life. He refused to say whether he opposed Saddam’s regime or was affiliated with Iraqi dissident groups. “Saddam is our beloved leader,” he said.
Loa’i Ghaleb al-Abadi, a 27-year-old businessman, has been in Jordan for three years but said: “I could not stay here and watch my father and brother fighting the American invaders alone.”
He was planning to drive back on Monday to help defend his home town of Nasiriya in southern Iraq, a major crossing point for US troops on the Euphrates.
25
Mar 03
I’m so proud
Marines losing the battle for hearts and minds:
A few miles from the bridge to the south lie the ruins of the ancient city of Ur, founded 8,000 years ago, the birth place of Abraham and a flourishing metropolis at a time when the inhabitants of north-west Europe were still walking round in animal skins.
Sgt Sprague, from White Sulphur Springs in West Virginia, passed it on his way north, but he never knew it was there.
“I’ve been all the way through this desert from Basra to here and I ain’t seen one shopping mall or fast food restaurant,” he said. “These people got nothing. Even in a little town like ours of twenty five hundred people you got a McDonald’s at one end and a Hardee’s at the other.”
A few hundred yards downstream, a group of Iraqis, some of them hiding out in the country from the fighting in Nassiriya, invited journalists to strong sweet tea in a farmhouse of whitewashed mud. They spread carpets and cushions on the floor and generously allowed the guests not to take their muddy boots off. Light shone through a triangular window.
Yea, I can see a post-Bush Iraq. Hardees and McDonald’s as far as the eye can see.
25
Mar 03
Coalition of the Whining?
The US has been complaining about the Iraqi war tactics. Okay, I’m sorry, but this is an invasion of THEIR country! Not only that, but this is an illegal war. Period. End of story. If someone was invading my country I would do whatever it took to defend my community and my family. I would wear civilian clothes, I would ambush invading troops. I would do whatever it took to protect my neighbors and countrymen. I hope we bring our troops back as soon as possible. This is a sick joke.