06/10/14 – Dahr Jamail – The Scott Horton Show

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All right, you guys, welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton.
This is my show, The Scott Horton Show.
And our first guest on the show today is Dar Jamal.
Former unembedded reporter of the not-quite-over-Iraq war and author of Beyond the Green Zone.
And I'm sorry, Dar, what's the other one?
Welcome back.
Thanks, Scott.
The other book's called The Will to Resist.
It's about soldiers who refused to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Right.
Good one, too.
I'm sorry I forgot about that.
It's been a few years now.
Here we are living in the future.
That's right.
It's kind of long past.
And yet, don't tell the people of Iraq that any of this is over because I guess maybe it slowed down a little bit there.
For a while, America really did help the Bata Brigade and the Mahdi Army win their civil war against the Sunni Arabs for Baghdad, basically to cleanse them from Baghdad, as they call it.
And yet, they never did really win state monopoly power over the Sunni provinces, predominantly Sunni provinces of Iraq.
And they also never really integrated the Sunni power structure into the new government at all either.
So, in a way, it sort of seems like, you know, maybe the Likudniks or Joe Biden, some of the—well, that's the same thing—got their plan.
Maybe that's what they meant all along, was to really divide Iraq in three.
I don't know.
Ayatollah Sistani kind of insisted, and they kind of didn't have a choice.
Anyway, point is that the war's not over because the Sunnis ain't satisfied and the Shia don't have control over them.
And yet, they're not willing to just go their separate ways either.
And so, everybody's killing each other.
And you can address any and all of that that you want, including the plan in the first place and whatever you want now.
But just give us the bad news.
Well, I think you gave a good, broad, political context overview of why Iraq looks like it does, insofar as the political and religious chess pieces on the board, in the wake of kind of broader plans, you know, where Sistani's idea of splitting Iraq up, in a sense, kind of generally dovetailed into the Israeli-U.S. aims for basically dividing Iraq into three states, a northern Kurdish state, a central kind of disenfranchised Sunni-stan, and then a southern Shia-stan, obviously, that's kind of already just an extension of Iran at this point.
But really, that plan even is not going so well, because I'm sure when they had the agenda of taking northern Iraq for the Kurds, that probably included at least the better part of Nineveh province, where Mosul is.
But, oh, lo and behold, their plans are going a little awry.
So, they're consistent on that part.
You know, Mosul, the second largest city in the entire country, now completely under control of ISIS fighters, Islamic State of Iraq and Syrian fighters.
I didn't realize it was the second largest city in the whole country.
It is.
It's bigger than Basra.
So, it is.
It's the second biggest, obviously one of the wealthiest and most important cities, right on the Tigris River, right up there, not too far from both the border of Turkey and Syria, and of course right on the border of the Kurdish-controlled part of the, kind of more the northeastern part of Iraq.
So, that's a big, big deal that the government of Baghdad has literally lost military and governmental control of the entire city.
And it's important to note where U.S. policy, I mean, the situation in Iraq looks the way it does today because this is the legacy the U.S. left.
This is the result of the Salvador option that Rumsfeld even slipped up and accidentally mentioned to the media back when it was getting rolling around 2005, 2006.
This is the result of the death squads and the fomenting intersectarian violence that you mentioned earlier, backing one side against the other, turning them against each other, arming and funding both.
So, that's why Iraq is the bloodbath that it is.
But then now throw in the Syria component.
So, you've got the U.S., Qatar, Saudi, other countries backing the radical Islamic jihadists in Syria, who of course are deeply affiliated, if not in a lot of ways, basically the same as ISIS in Iraq.
And now this is why Mosul fell, in short, where you've got ISIS in Syria working in tandem with ISIS in Iraq, which is basically in central and northwestern Iraq, largely along the border right with Syria.
And so, join those forces together and send them into Mosul and other parts of Iraq and you start losing cities in Iraq.
So, what's amazing, if you look at what's going on in southeastern Syria and then northwestern Iraq, I mean, ISIS is getting a foothold.
I mean, at this point, I would argue that not that they're going to be establishing borders and setting up a consul and getting their own currency anytime soon, but I would argue that right now, as far as the ISIS goal of developing some sort of Islamic state in the region, it looks like they're kind of getting a little closer to it than they have been in the past, given how solid they are in certain parts of Syria, and now, of course, controlling the second largest city in the entire country of Iraq.
Alright, well, so a few things here.
Now, I just saw, well, I better follow this guy on Twitter.
I don't know, Bill Mahn just tweeted out this thing that Iraqi MP Hassan al-Bayati has claimed that ISIS has captured helicopters and are flying them over Mosul right now, if true, unprecedented and huge.
And boy, you got that right.
As you're saying, and you know, Jonathan Landa is using the exact same language as you in describing the State Department terrorism report that came out, I don't know, six weeks ago or whatever.
Like, hey, they really are building a state here.
The Islamic State of Iraq was a nice name.
It might as well have been the name of a football team.
It sure as hell wasn't the name of a state anywhere until, uh-oh, actually, now it's really starting to look like one.
At least, as you're saying, it's not, you know, complete, but then again, as Landa was saying, some of these areas in Syria, they really have set up their own little IRS and their Department of Motor Vehicles and whatever the hell, man.
They are taking over and building, you know, social services beyond just being your local warlords, you know.
And there are places where, you know, as we're talking about, Maliki can't go there and Assad can't go there.
And so, maybe it's sort of just lawless Wild West land, but it seems like there's pockets of real kind of proto-statehood building up.
The Islamo-fascist caliphate that George Bush always pretended was out there and was the excuse for this intervention in the first place, they're building it.
A whole damn country of Bin Ladenites between Iraq and Syria.
And I, to me, that's one of the most amazing parts of this, that they, George Bush and company, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, dot, dot, dot, created this imaginary boogeyman of, you know, this big giant Islamic Al-Qaeda, you know, is going to start, you know, taking over countries and dominate the world and then gobble up the evil empire United States, which, of course, did not exist.
There was no inkling of it in existence when the invasion against Iraq was launched.
And then now, as a direct result of U.S. policy, both in Iraq and Syria, and the so-called war on terror, that they have created it.
I remember when ISIS was the first inklings I heard of it years ago.
And, you know, basically all that they had was a really, really bad website and with a couple of videos of guys with their heads covered up, carrying around black flags during a little kind of mock photo shoot that they did on Backstreet and Ramadi several years ago.
I mean, that's kind of all it was in Iraq.
It was laughable.
I mean, nobody, including myself, took it seriously.
And now, oh, whoops, they just took over the second largest city in the entire country of Iraq and kicked the entire Iraqi army out.
And if it's true, they're actually literally now in control of parts of the Iraqi Air Force and using them at their disposal.
And it's really, really amazing.
I mean, the governor of the city, Atheel Nujafi, actually had to be rescued.
They almost actually caught him while they were in the process of taking over the city.
So it's going to be very interesting to see where this goes.
All right, well, I got a hell of a lot more questions for you when we get back from this break.
We're talking with Dar Jamal.
He lived through the worst of the Iraq War, reporting as an unembedded reporter there.
And we're talking about the Sunni-based insurgency, such as it is, and America on all sides of this one, too, of course.
And more when we get back right after this.
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Wallstreetwindow.com All right, you guys, welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton.
I'm talking with Dar Jamal, former unembedded reporter of the Iraq War, author of Beyond the Green Zone and The Will to Resist.
And there's so much to cover here, Dar.
I mean, obviously there's the whole hypocrisy of America backing Maliki, Iran, and the Shiites in Baghdad and ever since 2003, that side of this thing.
And then yet back the Sunni-based insurgency in Syria, which, you know, once you zoom out just a bit, you realize these are the very same guys, al-Nusra.
They say, oh, al-Nusra's different from ISIS, but only because they're the Syrian veterans of al-Qaeda in Iraq rather than the Iraqi veterans of al-Qaeda in Iraq, which is ISIS.
But they're still Zarqawi's guys.
And this has been their war, and America's on their side.
I saw Bill Mahn, again, the former blogger.
I don't know if anybody knows who this guy is.
Former blogger, now he's on Twitter, and he's joking, oh, what a great way for Obama to figure out how to arm the Syrian insurgency that he's been arming this whole time is just call his puppet Maliki back in Iraq and let them seize all the weapons that we gave Maliki's faction in Mosul and take that back to Syria again.
And that's how completely illogical this policy is if there's supposed to be a logic to it, which I don't mean to presume that.
But it's amazing.
And when it comes down to it, since it was the al-Qaeda guys that knocked down our towers, then that means that, and Iran really isn't our enemy at all, then that means that this is really the highest treason in the world.
And what's happened in Mosul today only drives home exactly what treason it is.
America's support, the Obama administration's support for the rebels in Syria this whole time.
These are the guys who killed our guys in the Iraq war.
That's exactly right.
And Iraq is the classic, perfect example of a failed state.
And it's largely as the result of all the U.S. policy throughout the occupation as well as ongoing U.S. policy of having sold arms and training worth over $20 billion to the Maliki regime.
And then, of course, what the U.S. is, the cards that they're playing in Syria of funding and arming and backing the most radical of the radical Islamists there.
And look at Iraq today.
I mean, there's no design left in what's happening.
I don't think that any of this was planned.
I mean, certainly it was never in any of the U.S. government plans to lose the second largest city in the entire country to the most radical of the radical fighters out there today.
But that's exactly what's going on.
And Iraq itself is in just total absolute chaos.
I mean, it is currently under basically a national wide siege accepting perhaps the deepest part of the Kurdish-controlled northeast and the deep south that's under largely Shia control.
And yet, look at what's going on in the rest.
You've got car bombs in Sadr City, bombings and gun attacks in Bakuba, massive attacks in Kirkuk, of course Mosul, we've discussed that, massive bloodshed and car bombs across Baghdad, large parts of Fallujah also under control of ISIS.
I mean, this is obviously a coordinated siege on their part.
Meanwhile, Iraq is in just complete political tatters to the point where the outgoing governor of Mosul coupled with outgoing Prime Minister Maliki himself are literally calling on, hey, look, we'll get guns to civilians.
I mean, you know that the government's lost total control when the military's not getting the job done enough that they're willing to basically just start funneling weapons into civilians and asking them to fight for their country.
I mean, you know all is lost for sure when it hits that point.
And then look at what's going on politically.
You have Sadr's political bloc, his parliamentary bloc is blaming outgoing Minister Maliki for all of the militancy that's going on across Iraq as well as how strong the Islamic state of Iraq and Syria has become.
So there's political infighting, total fracturing of what was left of the failed state and look at it on the ground.
Really, Scott, I guess really the only thing left that could happen is to see ISIS taking total control of Baghdad and kick the government out of the green zone.
Well, I mean, boy, they would have to kill a hell of a lot of people because the surge of 07-08 if it did anything, it made Baghdad an 85% Shiite city.
And I don't know, maybe there's been a little bit of rollback since then, but not that much.
I mean, I think Obama would have to re-invade from west to east now to really give them the capital.
But then again, I don't know, man.
What the hell do I know?
Maybe they could.
You know what?
Let me ask you this.
And this gets kind of complicated here, but I want to understand best I can.
And, you know, a lot of this is just subjective categorization, maybe from a Texan's point of view, rather than the real reality on the ground.
But that's why you're here.
So, here's my thing of it.
My conventional wisdom from the Iraq war was that the Sunni-based insurgency was the Sunni-based insurgency and that ultimately it was run by the Imams and the tribal leaders of Sunni-Iraq.
And they were the ones who were the bosses and the Al-Qaeda berserkers, the Zarkawi-ites were basically an auxiliary and they were tolerated as long as they were useful.
And I think they found out, the Sunni leaders found out too late that these guys aren't useful.
They're making matters worse, by the way.
They butcher civilians and then justify further sectarian cleansing of Sunnis from Baghdad and that kind of thing.
They figured out probably too late that it wasn't worth tolerating these guys.
It was backfiring.
They kind of turned on them and they'd been offering the American government for years we'll turn on these guys if you'll just stop attacking us for a minute, kind of thing.
Petraeus finally took them up on it.
They turned on the Al-Qaeda guys and pretty much whooped them.
And they went silent at least.
Maybe they weren't dead but they went silent for a long time until the Syria thing started back up again.
But then ever since the Syria thing started back up, or started up people like David Enders and Coburn and others have said that, yeah, you know, not so much about this small percentage of the Sunni-based insurgency.
In Syria it is ISIS and al-Nusra.
It's their war.
Any free Syrian army or any moderates or any trained up people sent in from Jordan or whatever are just nothing but a margin, you know, a rounding error or something.
This is entirely ISIS's war in Syria, virtually entirely this whole time.
But then and I'm sorry I'm going on and on here but I've got to get these things out.
You'll know what to do with it.
I think it was last December the al-Qaeda flag flew over Fallujah, but just for a minute and the tribal leaders said take that damn flag down and they did because it seemed like, no, the Iraqi tribal Sunni tribal leaders really are still the boss.
And maybe that old al-Qaeda is a small percentage thing still holds more sway in Iraq.
But I'm sure I'm probably oversimplifying all this anyway but can you tell me what you make of all that?
Of who's really zooming who here?
Are the ISIS guys useful servants of the tribal leaders now or they really are a threat to their authority in Iraq or what?
You're spot on, Scott.
I think most of that, speaking of it generally, is accurate and I think that there is a gray area and some confusion around who's really in control between tribal leaders and ISIS because that's still obviously being worked out.
I don't think, obviously in a place where what happened with Mosul, at least for the moment, ISIS is in control of that.
How long that will last, who knows.
Fallujah is probably a good example in that it's really the micro or the macro of the rest of the country from the Central Park going north where parts of the city are absolutely under control of tribal leaders.
I think probably largely the better part of the city, but there are also parts where certainly ISIS has control.
Is it total control?
Is it changing day by day?
It's probably not total control.
It probably is changing day by day and I think that's really what we're looking at across the better part of the Central and Western and Northwestern part of Iraq where it's an extremely dynamic, fluid situation.
It's changing by the day, but clearly there are areas like Nineveh province where Mosul is located, big swaths of Anbar province, which is the biggest province in the entire country that are generally being controlled by ISIS.
But certainly tribal leaders still hold great sway and have a whole lot of power.
The problem is ISIS, I think another important point that we need to discuss is that ISIS keeps getting stronger as we go into the future because of a point that you made at the outset of our discussion where there is no Sunni political representation in Baghdad where from the beginning Maliki pushed them out, has been horse trading with the Kurds and other Shia groups behind the scenes and the Sunni have basically been completely left out in the cold and so that with no political representation in Baghdad, more and more younger folks are seeing what's going on and saying, look you tribal leaders, you're not doing us any good.
Standing down and waiting for you guys to try to do political horse trading in Baghdad is not working so we're going to ISIS.
Alright, so now here's the thing I wonder also about religious warfare as the motivation here.
It seems like back during the Iraq war when it was so much it was Sunni versus Shia but it seemed like they weren't really fighting over who was a heretic or any kind of crap like that.
They were just basically America had given them a proportional representation type of a system and so everybody just signed up and voted for the religious slate basically and so they were separated by identity politics not by their interpretation of what the Quran said or who was the legitimate authority since Muhammad or that kind of thing but now Patrick Coburn talks about how these ISIS guys in Syria are so hell bent on slaughtering Shiites that they just basically like they're distracted.
At this point it's almost helping keep the West safe.
These guys are so hell bent on slaughtering innocent Shiite civilians in Syria and that this is I guess to be expected and maybe if you go back and listen to interviews of you and me from years ago we probably both predicted this kind of thing that as feelings get harder and harder after all this bloodshed and people get further and further away from the possibility of forgiveness the basis for their hatred start to change and morph and now maybe it's not just that Sunni and Shia are from different belief systems but maybe now they think that that's really something that heresy for example really should be a priority for punishing that kind of thing as we're seeing people crucified and hunted down for their beliefs I mean you would think that ISIS would be targeting Assad and his forces but no they'll completely go off the beaten path in order to kill some Shiites for a while that kind of thing so I just wonder what you think of all that and whether you predict that it could possibly get better from here before it gets much worse or what?
No I think that'll be a really good thing to talk about because then it draws in you know it completely implicates US, Qatar, Saudi and what they're doing in Saudi because they're basically backing these lunatics and let's definitely go there and I've got about 8 more minutes and then I've got another call I don't even have that long give me like 3 or 4 but yeah I mean that's a great point too about our friends the Saudis were backing our enemies the Sunni insurgency in Iraq this whole time as we're on the side of Iran in that proxy war and that political fight really has so much more to do and also who controls Baghdad has so much more to do with this than you know who's supposedly representing what Mohammed would want yeah and I think we should try to bring in I know we're going to be real short on time but just the total incoherence of Obama's foreign policy that I mean literally you know backing different sides at different times just I mean I think that's just an important political point for us to bring in just the complete lack of any kind of coherence in their foreign policy in the region at this point right yeah I mean yeah of course I mean well and since Bush too I mean Bush is the one who launched the redirection for Jandala and for Fatah al-Islam and for groups like you know proto al-Nusra in Syria back in 2008 when he realized his big stupid mistake and handed Baghdad over to Tehran too late way too late but yeah I mean the whole thing I mean I don't know if there is a coherence to it other than just expediting the chaotic collapse but I doubt even that I don't see any grand design here other than you know just a bunch of people who are no better no smarter than George Bush and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama running this thing and they don't know what to do except keep killing people yeah they don't know which ones to kill though yeah ridiculous alright anyway I'm sorry man but so wait do you think I'm right though is that really a correct interpretation though that sort of this kind of anti-Shiite hatred is becoming a more predominant theme among the Sunni resistance types the Al-Qaeda types I think it's completely accurate and one of the most important points because I mean certainly man I mean I when I lived in Doha I mean that is the policy of the Qatari government which is right in line with the Saudis I mean we're talking about the Wahhabis and so yeah they want all Shia dead that's that's the deal I mean they're that and what they're doing in Syria specifically is really the direct playing out of that policy and the US is 100% in bed with it oh man what a disaster that's a really important point alright thanks so much Dar I'll let you go but let's do this again soon appreciate it thanks Scott everybody that's the great Dar Jamal unembedded reporter from the Iraq war author of Beyond the Green Zone and the Will to Resist you hate government one of them libertarian types maybe you just can't stand the president gun grabbers or war mongers me too that's why I invented libertystickers.com well Rick owns it now and I didn't make up all of them but still if you're driving around and want to tell everyone else how wrong their politics are there's only one place to go libertystickers.com has got your bumper covered left right libertarian empire police state founders quote central banking yes bumper stickers about central banking lots of them and well everything that matters libertystickers.com everyone else's stickers suck hey y'all Scott Horton here it's always safe to say that one should keep at least some of your savings and precious metals as a hedge against inflation and if this economy ever does heat back up and the banks start expanding credit rising prices could make metals a very profitable bet since 1977 Roberts and Roberts brokerage Inc. has been helping people buy and sell gold, silver, platinum, and palladium and they do it well fast, reliable, and trusted for more than 35 years and they take bitcoin call Roberts and Roberts at 1-800-874-9760 or stop by rrbi.co hey y'all Scott here for liberty.me the brand new social network and community based publishing platform for the liberty minded liberty.me combines the best of social media technology all in one place and features nightly classes, guides, events, publishing and so much more.
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AIPAC and the Israel lobby what's the only interest group in D.C. pushing to sabotage the nuclear deal with Iran right now?
AIPAC and the Israel lobby why doesn't the president force an end to the occupation of Palestine, a leading cause of terrorist attacks against the United States AIPAC and the Israel lobby the Council for the National Interest is pushing back putting America first and educating the people about what's really at stake in the Middle East help support their important work at councilforthenationalinterest.org