10/18/10 – Jason Ditz – The Scott Horton Show

All right, hot microphone.
Anti-war radio.
How's it going, y'all?
I'm Scott.
It's the show again.
I'm back.
I've been gone, but now I'm not gone.
Got a good show lined up for you today, too.
Gareth Porter's going to be here.
And Anthony Gregory is actually sitting here right now.
He will be joining us on the air here, too.
But first, we're going to go to Jason Ditz.
News.antiwar.com for Jason Ditz, Antiwar.com's news director.
Welcome back to the show, Jason.
How are you doing, man?
I'm doing good, Scott.
How are you?
I'm doing great.
Listen, man, I really appreciate you joining me on the show today, as always.
But here's the thing.
I have no idea what's going on in the world.
This is the longest time I've gone without reading the news.
Well, a little bit.
What am I going to do?
Not read Antiwar.com at all?
But mostly, I haven't paid attention to the news for three weeks.
So I know that Barack Obama's been killing Pakistanis and basic standard boilerplate stuff like that.
But I was hoping that you could help catch me up.
So right now, I'm just looking at news.antiwar.com.
And I thought I'd just go through here and find some headlines and see if you can help fill me in on some details.
The top headline here at news.antiwar.com is Yemen launches flurry of airstrikes against South following clashes.
So can you catch me up on three weeks of America's war in Yemen, Jason, please?
Well, there's not a ton to catch up on.
It's just more of the same.
There have been ambushes and the occasional assassination of a Yemeni official.
And now they're bombing targets that they say belong to al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
Of course, Yemen's history of bombing that province suggests that they don't really know whose targets are what.
And they could just as easily be bombing random houses or bombing the separatist movement.
Well, that is the thing, is Yemen is a very complicated place, right, with all kinds of civil wars in the past since British rule ended.
And you have socialists here, and you have Shiite insurgents there, and Sunni insurgents there, and then supposedly you have some al-Qaeda dudes.
But I guess the question really is, does anybody know?
Is America just paying the government of Yemen to fight their enemies, whoever their enemies happen to be?
Or are they actually going after, I don't know, somebody worth going after at all?
Well, I think the American hope is certainly that they'll go after al-Qaeda first and foremost.
But it hasn't really proven to be the case over the past few years.
More often than not, the Yemeni government gets sidetracked with the more domestically popular fights against the Shiites in the north or against the separatists in the south.
Yeah, you know, you remember that piece on Yemen in the New York Times?
Geez, I guess about a month and a half ago or so, I think it was like the New York Times Weekend Magazine or something did a really in-depth piece about Yemen and the crises going on there.
And basically, even to hear the New York Times tell it, by the end of that thing, man, we should not be messing around there at all.
They went after some guys that, at least according to a New York Times reporter guy, really were al-Qaeda dudes.
But then they ended up killing all kinds of people.
And in the local politics in the province, basically they killed a government minister, I think was one of them.
But they also killed a tribal leader that had respect from the government that America supports there and basically interfered with the locals' attempts to marginalize al-Qaeda.
And even the New York Times was saying, this is a big muddy.
Why are we wading into it here when it seems like even just getting started, really, we're making things worse?
Well, yeah, that's sort of the old story that officials don't really understand what they're doing or how they're going to do it.
And they just have this impulse to do something, whether or not it's a good idea.
All right.
Well, so now let's talk about whatever.
This should take one sentence.
We got peace in Palestine or what?
No.
Yeah, but I saw two months ago, six weeks ago, they said, yeah, we're going to do these peace talks and create a Palestinian state.
Barack Obama has fallen through on his Cairo speech and all that.
No?
No.
Sorry, I have trouble feigning that level of ignorance without breaking out laughing.
Well, so are they going to extend the partial freeze on the rate of growth of the colonies in the West Bank at all?
It doesn't sound like it.
And even if they do at this point, the freeze has been over for a few weeks now.
And the government approved hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of new settlements since then.
Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of new ones?
Yes.
Well, new constructions within the settlement, not new settlements themselves.
Right.
But it really wouldn't matter all that much if they did a 60 day freeze again, like they were talking.
Even if they do it, which it doesn't sound like they will, all the stuff that got approved in the interim in between the two freezes would still be approved and would still be allowed to continue.
Yeah.
So in other words, Palestine, same story, different day.
Was there anything big that broke out there or anything we really need to know about?
Not really.
There have been some talks around the Palestinian officials citing the 1967 border as something that would solve everything.
And one of the PLO's officials even said they would recognize Israel as a Jewish state in return for the 67 borders.
Really?
But I don't think anyone seriously believes Israel is going to go back to the 67 borders anyway.
Well, of course not.
But the thing is, too, is I think I saw that headline that Mahmoud Abbas had said that, which that's basically the PLO, the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, Yasser Arafat's old organization.
But Hamas says the same thing.
Or I don't know about recognizing the Jewish state part, but I don't know why that would be important anyway.
But one of the major leaders of Hamas said on a Charlie Rose show that, look, man, the whole world, including us, are agreed, we're going to go back to the 67 borders for peace and recognition.
Abbas just yesterday said the Palestinians would end all outstanding claims with Israel in return for the 67 borders, which would include the right of return inside Israel proper, apparently, although it's not clear if he intended to say that.
Well, I'm sorry, say that again.
I'm sorry, repeat that, please.
Abbas yesterday in an interview with Israeli television said that the Palestinian Authority and the PLO were willing to abandon all outstanding claims on Israel for everything in return for the 67 borders.
Including the right of return, that's really what that's about, right?
Right.
And some people have said it's not clear if he really meant to discount the right of return past that, but it certainly sounds like that.
Yeah, well, those people are terrorists.
We don't have to deal with terrorists.
All right, so next topic here, since everybody knows that's not going anywhere, except more poverty and hopelessness and humiliation and degradation for the people of Palestine.
So when will they ever stop occupying the poor Israelis?
You know, I don't know, poor guys.
All right, now talk to me about this.
This is the most important thing.
We'll only have a couple of minutes at this before the first break here, Jason.
But I want to know about the election results in Iraq from last March.
What's going on there?
Well, it's been more of the same, really.
The fighting about how to form a coalition, which, of course, you've got the three main factions there, the Iraqi factions, the State of Law faction, and the Iraqi National Alliance.
And it looked like a couple of weeks ago, State of Law and the Iraqi National Alliance, the two religious Shiite factions, were finally going to get together and form a government.
But now it's looking like that's not the case, then?
Well, now there are reports, according to one of the top members of the Supreme Islamic Council, that President Obama is telling Maliki he better not do that.
All right, hold it right there, Jason.
We'll be right back with Jason and who's who in Iraq, taking power, and whether that war is going to break back out again right after this.
All right, y'all, it's Antiwar Radio on the Liberty Radio Network.
I'm Scott Horton.
I'm talking with Jason Ditz.
He's our news editor at news.antiwar.com.
And now a little bit of inside baseball here, just to refresh everybody's course and all that.
You got Yad Alawi, who was Bush's puppet dictator of Iraq for a little while there, former Saddam murderer, and then CIA murderer.
And he's nominally a Shiite, but he gets along really well with the former Baathists, because he used to be one, and really was, in large part, responsible for the civil war of a couple of years ago, which the Sunnis lost.
The Sunni-based insurgency lost.
He's got his party.
And then you have Muqtada al-Sadr, who has basically inherited all of the Iraqi National Alliance, because Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of the Supreme Islamic Council, died.
And they lost a lot of influence.
And Muqtada al-Sadr has basically inherited the entire Iraqi National Alliance, less Nuri al-Maliki, the current prime minister's party, which broke off from there.
He's a member of the Dawa party, which was actually founded by Muqtada al-Sadr's father and uncle.
But he broke off.
And so we've been talking with Jason on the show here about Iraqi politics since March.
Well, longer than that, but since March, since this election happened, Alawi came out just barely ahead with the more nationalist faction there, with the plurality, but not enough to form a government.
And then here we are wrapping up October.
And still, no one has been able to form a government in Iraq.
And as Jason and I have talked about this whole time, the natural alliance would be Sadr's bloc and Nuri al-Maliki's bloc.
Of course, there's bad blood there.
And of course, Maliki did break off from the Iraqi National Alliance, like I just said.
However, they're on the same side, the winning majority that America fought a war to install and power, the Friends of Iran.
And so now, this obvious natural alliance in the parliament that would form a majority government there is, according to Jason, being now blocked by Barack Obama, who is saying, no, no government can include Muqtada al-Sadr.
Because what, he wants to have another war in Najaf?
Or what, Jason?
I'm not sure what he's thinking.
But he seemed to be of the mind that none of Sadr's supporters, which, of course, are most of the Iraqi National Alliance at this point, can take any part in the government, and that he should boot them out of the coalition.
The obvious question then is, is there a coalition left?
Or is Maliki back to square one with just his bloc, and then a few supportive Kurdish factions that aren't nearly enough to form a government?
Well, and the other question is, and this could be something, assuming that Jim Jones, which, funny, as we all commit murder-suicide here in the American empire, the National Security Advisor's name is Jim Jones.
I've got to love that.
But assuming he knows anything about this stupid war that he's fighting up there, perhaps, Jason, he's explained to Barack Obama that, look, man, if Maliki and Sadr form an alliance and a government, then that means that the Sunnis are entirely left out.
And the reason that they quit fighting, basically, was because they lost Baghdad in the civil war.
And Petraeus promised them, we're going to work to make sure that you guys are part of the government.
And if they continue to be excluded, then, I don't know, it's not like they could launch an attack really to take back Baghdad at this point.
But they could certainly arm up and refuse to participate in this government at all.
And we could see an outbreak of major hostilities again.
Not that it's been peaceful over there at all this whole time, but there hasn't really been a concerted insurgency campaign like we saw back in 2004, especially, through 7, 8.
So perhaps that has something to do with this, huh?
Like, hey, man, if George Bush turned the whole government over to the Iranians, but they promised the Sunnis that it wasn't going to be like that if they just had patience.
Well, that could certainly be part of it.
And there really is a growing sense of disillusionment among the Sunnis.
Of course, after Alawi basically won the March election, there was this sense that the Sunnis were going to finally have a voice in the future of Iraq.
And now it looks like even though there are far more Sunnis in parliament than there were in the last government, they're going to have considerably less influence than they did before.
Now, did you read that Bob Dreyfuss piece the other day about he brought up that guy Al-Mahdi from the Supreme Islamic Council as some kind of compromise?
And if I remember right, back in 2005, that's who George Bush and Condi Rice were pushing for after the election in January 2005 that really precipitated the Civil War.
That's who they wanted was this guy Al-Mahdi from the Supreme Islamic Council.
But is there any indication that Muqtada al-Sadr would put up with that at this point?
Well, Sadr seemed to have been floating that idea for a while.
But Maliki was the one that seemed to have a problem with it.
I mean, Maliki's whole faction has insisted all along that he's the only one that can be allowed to be the prime minister.
And there can't be any compromise on that issue under any circumstances.
And for a while there, it actually looked.
And this was a few weeks ago before the Maliki-Sadr alliance started to reform, that Alawi had actually backed down and said, OK, we're going to let Eid al-Abd al-Mahdi be the prime minister and Alawi can be president or something like that.
And basically, Sadr's faction, the Iraqi National Alliance, would have been the, even though they're the smallest of three major factions, they would have had the prime ministership.
Yeah.
Well, I see here one of your news articles at news.antiwar.com is disillusioned that U.S. allies in Iraq rejoined insurgency.
Right.
There's been reports that the Awakening Council, the Sons of Iraq, which, of course, haven't been treated very well by the Iraqi government to begin with, are getting less and less willing to stick around.
Although some of them, according to the reports, are sticking around enough to collect their paychecks and are just supporting the insurgency on their own time.
They're in a real bad spot.
There's really nothing they can do, as Patrick Coburn has explained over and over on this show.
They lost the Civil War.
They lost Baghdad.
America helped Muqtada al-Sadr and the Iranians win it.
And the Bata Brigade and all them, ethnically cleansed, they call it, not ethnically, but whatever, sectarian cleanse, the Sunni Arabs from Baghdad.
So they're not really in a position to try to take Baghdad back at this point.
That was kind of why they called their cried uncle and made the deal with Petraeus.
But all Petraeus really did was pay them off to stop fighting temporarily and make them a bunch of promises.
So that doesn't mean they've gone away.
It just means that they've been waiting.
And I guess we'll see.
And I guess we know for a fact that you'll be keeping an eye on it for us.
So thanks, Jason.
I'm sorry we didn't get to talk about more topics.
I hope I can have you back later in the week and catch up on some more things.
Good work, as always.
Appreciate it.
Thanks for having me.
Everybody, that's Jason Ditz, news.antiwar.com.
This man reads every paper on Earth for you every day.