Alright, y'all, welcome back to Anti-War Radio.
I'm Scott Horton, and Barack Obama just landed on the USS Abraham Lincoln and gave his mission-accomplished speech.
We're leaving Iraq.
We won.
It took a little bit longer than they said it was gonna, but we did it.
Alright.
Right, John?
That's correct.
John Glazer, everybody, he's assistant editor at AntiWar.com.
The surge worked, says right here.
You bet it did.
They got a democracy now.
I got a chance to skim through that speech, and, you know, it's interesting.
He was singing a very different tune before he became president, which is not unusual for Obama, as we know.
But there's nothing in there, first of all, about how he disagreed with the war, how it was a distraction, how, for example, it was an illegal war, one defined by having the lack of justification for self-defense, which makes it a war of aggression.
Nothing about the war crimes, the various war crimes that were committed by U.S. forces in Iraq, oftentimes with the permission and knowledge of some of the higher-ups in the Bush administration.
It was all about how, you know, the incredible sacrifice we've made, what a momentous day in history this is, the wonderful service of the military, so on and so forth.
It's a terrible example of the non-reflection on the true aspects of American war crimes in the past decade, and it's a disgrace, but, you know, I don't expect anything different from Obama.
One thing he did say over and over again, he did sort of, this is a running theme throughout the speech and has been throughout all the speeches on Iraq, is that now, of course, we've liberated Iraq.
We've given them a democracy of their own.
They can defend for themselves now.
But, of course, as you were talking about earlier, Jason Ditz wrote today, for example, that an Iraqi deputy prime minister said the other day that Maliki was becoming a dictator.
He said the political process is going in the very wrong direction, going towards dictatorship.
To tell you the truth, we've known this for some time.
I mean, Maliki has circumvented parliament a number of times.
He's consolidated illegitimate power in a long trend of quasi-dictatorial behavior.
He's harshly cracked down on peaceful activism, which arose right around the time, the early weeks and months of the Arab Spring.
He harshly, harshly cracked down with security forces, harassed and even attacked journalists that were critical of his regime.
He's been accused of torturing prisoners in secret Iraqi jails.
I mean, none of this smells like democracy and human rights to me, which is the only thing that Barack Obama seemed able to focus on in his speech.
Well, you know, it seems pretty easy to see how he'd get away with it, since TV never explained to people what the hell was going on with that war, other than we're fighting bad guys over there or whatever.
So the actual narrative that we fought a civil war on the side of the majority that no longer needs us, that our government oversaw the death of approximately a million people, not just from the actual fighting, but from all the deprivation that goes with it, not being able to get to the hospital when you're dying of cholera that you wouldn't have had, because all of the checkpoints in the way and all those things, the excess deaths when you compare the rates before and during the war.
And since they never did tell anybody who is who and who's on whose side and what it is we're doing over there, they can basically just fill it in with, yeah, times were bad for a while, but then we did a surge and an awakening and everything was fine.
That's basically what this speech says.
And now that we solved all the problems and we're finished solving the problems, we can pat ourselves on the back and leave.
You know what?
And there's a nuance here about whether or not it is a mission accomplished.
I mean, of course, you and I recognize all the loss and the criminality that went along with this war.
But for the insiders in Washington, for the national security planners, it's quite possible that this is mission accomplished.
I mean, you and I also both know about how the status quo now is that the leadership in Iraq is much closer to the leadership in Iran, which is a demerit for U.S. national security planners.
However, for example, in 2009, WikiLeaks released a diplomatic cable from Ryan Crocker, who used to be the ambassador to Iraq, and he was speaking in 2009.
If you'll excuse me, I think I want to read this at length.
So I'll just be doing it for a little bit, but it's important because all the points he says are enlightening.
He says, this is Ryan Crocker talking.
A key question posed by Maliki, Maliki's evolving hold on levers of political and security power, is whether the prime minister is becoming a non-democratic dictator, bent on subordinating all authority to his hand, or whether Maliki is attempting to rebalance political and security authority back to the center.
Okay, that's interesting.
I was going to say, he was first seen as weak and ineffective and ill-informed about the political and security structures put in place, but now he's being, by 2008, he was being widely criticized.
Kurdish politicians and Sunni politicians and even some Shia politicians within Maliki's own Dawah party have criticized him as autocratic and excessively ambitious, with the long-term aim of becoming a new strongman dictator.
That's interesting, too.
They wrote a, some factions within the Iraqi government wrote a document to the Maliki government, urging him to, I'm quoting, adhere to the constitution, to commit to a democratic federal system, to professionalize and depoliticize the security forces, to guarantee a free judiciary, disband unconstitutional structures within the government, and release prisoners eligible for amnesty held without due process.
Again, this is not what we see as free and democratic Iraq.
But here's the key point.
Here's the key point about how perhaps America has achieved precisely what it wanted to achieve.
The critical process, Crocker said, on security and stability made over the past year, while underpinned by the U.S. military surge, owes much to Maliki's leadership and restoration of central government authority.
It is in the interests of the U.S. to see that process of strengthened central authority continue.
This is in the interest of the U.S.
They've achieved their goal.
They wanted a new puppet dictator who would allow U.S. bases on Iraqi soil, who would be more subservient to U.S. interests in terms of trade and oil and national security policy.
And that's exactly what they have in the Maliki government.
That's what they have in Iraq.
It is a mission accomplished.
It doesn't have anything to do with democracy or liberating Iraqis and so forth.
But it's precisely what imperial grand strategy is supposed to conceive.
And that's what we have in Iraq today, unfortunately.
Yeah, I'm not so sure.
I mean, you look at how hard Obama pushed to keep tens of thousands of troops there.
And Maliki just shined him on and said, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm working on it, I'm working on it, I'm working on it.
Ran out the clock on him, just like he did George Bush on the bases back in 08, didn't he?
I mean, they had 5,000 mercs, but what good are they?
So we lost in terms of Obama and Washington lost in terms of Iraq being more friendly with Iran.
And, you know, we wanted up to 20,000 troops there, and we didn't get that.
So, yes, those are drawbacks in terms of what imperial grand strategy wants.
But think about it.
I mean, we really have 11 military bases around Iraq, including three consulates and the world's largest embassy.
Ongoing responsibilities include carrying out two of the largest foreign military sales and foreign military financing programs in the world.
We just finished up closing in on a deal for $82 million worth of military equipment.
That included high explosive projectiles and all sorts.
And somebody's going to have to train them on all that fancy new stuff.
Precisely.
And we also have news that mercenaries from Blackwater, formerly called Blackwater, now it's called Academy, are marching back into Iraq, or at least vying for the contracts that would allow them to do so.
All right.
More like this on the other side of this break.
It's John Glazer, assistant editor at AntiWar.com.
All right, y'all.
Welcome back to the show.
It's AntiWar Radio.
I'm Scott Warren.
I'm talking with John Glazer, assistant editor at AntiWar.com.
And, you know, I've got to tell you, when you're reading that Ryan Crocker, it sounds to me like he's still living in a fantasy world of American, you know, create our own reality because we're so awesome kind of mentality there.
If you look at what they thought they were getting out of Iraq, a system that was going to put all this pressure on Iran, rather than, you know, enhance their power in the Middle East by 500 percent.
And they thought they were going to get a Hashemite king and a pipeline to Haifa, water and oil, too.
And, you know, and all these things.
I mean, this is, you know, really falling short.
It seems like now, on the other hand, maybe I'm not cynical enough on this.
On the Common Ills blog, I think they pretty much agree with you that all the bases they figured out a long time ago that they weren't going to get all the bases.
And so they basically use that as the big red herring, the MacGuffin, they called it there at the Common Ills blog.
So that Maliki could say no to a lot of something while still saying yes to like you're saying quite a bit as well.
You know, I think you said there are 11 military bases still that are going to remain there under American control.
Yeah, approximately.
And of course, with all the air power, you sell them a bunch of F-16s.
That means the U.S. Air Force has to build their whole air traffic control system and train them on how to fly them all and everything else.
Oh, it is, yeah.
A fleet of U.S. aircraft will be based and maintained in Baghdad, Basra, and Erbil.
That includes, you know, attack helicopters, 18-lift UH-1N helicopters, you know, 5-8 fixed-wing aircraft.
I'm just reading from the thing.
Flight landing zones, maintenance hangars, all the operation buildings, aircraft control towers, these are all from the U.S.
Now, I do want to – I mean, you are right, though, in terms of the grander vision for Iraq, that they sort of intoxicated with the stupidity neocons envisioned.
That has not occurred and was never going to occur.
They couldn't accomplish that.
But in terms of whether or not the U.S. national security community is sort of measuredly happy with the final outcome in Iraq, I mean, I think it's reasonable to conclude that, in part, they are.
I mean – Well, what do you think about Saud?
Do you think he cares anymore?
Because the deal always was that, you know, Maliki, obviously, you know, the one thing that America has to offer is all that equipment you just listed.
So maybe Maliki doesn't need us in order to stay in charge.
But he does need us if he wants those helicopters, that kind of thing.
So, you know, it seems like he could be compromised by American carrots pretty easily.
But Muqtada al-Sadr's got a stick, and he always said no, all of them out by, you know, like in the deal at the end of 2011.
No, I agree with you.
And this is an – people like Sadr are – Maliki, I'm sorry, I should say real quick.
Maliki's support greatly depends on Sadr in the parliament.
Yes.
No, I agree with you.
But this is an indication of how, you know, history doesn't end today.
History doesn't end with this Obama speech on what wonderful things we've done.
This is going to go – this is going to continue.
And I think violence will continue in Iraq.
I think Sadr and his allies will continue to build up a lot of tension and aggression and anger towards the remaining American presence, which he should.
I mean, it's his country, and we're illegally occupying it after, you know, ten years of horrible war and illegal war.
So, yeah, I don't think this is the end, and I think it could get much worse.
But I think, you know, there's still many, many chapters to be written with the U.S. and Iraq.
All right, now let's talk about Afghanistan a little bit.
Well, first of all, Pakistan, it looks like we have lost power and influence in Pakistan by a lot, or is that all just show going on?
No, I mean, that could be the case.
I mean, there's – Pakistan's possibly one of the most dangerous countries in the world, other than the U.S.
Or in terms of, like, U.S. purview, Pakistan's pretty dangerous.
And if certain elements within Pakistan get control of the government, which they could, that would mean some concerns for the region.
But, you know, Obama's policy towards them has not been helping.
I mean, the 24 Pakistani soldiers that we killed in an unprovoked attack on a Pakistani outpost just a couple weeks ago seem to be the last straw.
Or maybe not.
I mean, maybe, like we've been talking about, U.S. guns and butter will still be able to maintain the status quo.
What was actually interesting to me is something came up again.
I wrote about something back in September after a Human Rights Watch report came out about it.
But it's an indication of how treacherous and horrible our policy in Afghanistan still is.
The Afghan local police, which are various groups of basically local thugs, which were intended to supplement the Afghan National Army, who the U.S. is training, at the community and village level in order to fend off Taliban and insurgent forces.
General Petraeus in 2011 told the U.S. Senate that the ALP is arguably the most critical element in our effort to help Afghanistan develop the capacity to secure itself.
Okay, so who are these people?
Well, a Human Rights Watch report said that they documented serious abuses such as killings, rape, arbitrary detention, abductions, forcible land grabs, illegal raids by irregular armed groups in northern Kunduz province and the Afghan National Police.
They are also accused of abducting a 13-year-old boy and bringing him back to one of the Afghan local police's commander's home and gang raping him.
Another teenage boy was captured for some social infraction and they hammered nails into the feet of this boy.
This is who the United States is arming and funding all throughout Afghanistan.
And this is the most critical part, according to commanders, of the transition to Afghan rule.
But what's critical and newsworthy just recently is that an anonymous source, and they called it a NATO-led effort, but it was almost certainly a U.S. military commander, told Reuters that this is going to be expanded and extended.
And right now there's about 10,000 Afghan local police enforced and they're trying to get up to 30 or maybe even more, 30,000 or more.
I mean, this is how sick and twisted the Obama administration's policy towards Afghanistan is.
I mean, they have an avid support for human rights abuses and it's supposedly a critical part of security.
That basically seems like, okay, the strategy is U.S.
-supported groups can terrorize Afghanistan for the foreseeable future as long as there's not interference by the Taliban.
All right, well, I'm sorry we're out of time.
We'll have to leave it there.
Thanks very much for your time, John.
Appreciate it.
All right.
Bye-bye.
John Glazer, everybody.
News.antiwar.com, antiwar.com/blog.
