victory over drug lords still in distant future

• NATO will embark on the biggest mission in its history on Monday when it takes over security from the U.S.-led coalition in six southern provinces [of southern afghanistan], extending its authority to almost all of the country.
• British Lieutenant-General David Richards said he hoped to see improvements in the south within three to six months, which would allow the 26-nation alliance to proceed with the final phase of its deployment into the east by the end of the year.
• Afghanistan is going through the bloodiest phase of violence since the fall of the Taliban government in 2001, with most attacks occurring in the south.
• Richards told a news conference in Kabul that the violence was inextricably linked to drugs.
• "Essentially for the last four years some very brutal people have been developing their little fiefdoms down there and exporting a lot of opium to the rest of the world," he said.
• "That very evil trade is being threatened by the NATO expansion in the south. This is a very noble cause we're engaged in and we have to liberate the people from that scourge of those warlords." (NATO sets sights on Afghan drug barons, By Jeremy Laurence, July 29, 2006, KABUL, Reuters)

good news, indeed, but has anyone doubted the link between taliban in southern afghanistan (or hezbollah and bakaa valley) and drug trafficking? is there any reason we are only now turning to this issue? or that it is not the usa, nor "coalition" troops, but nato that is taking on this issue? couldn't be that we wasted time, money, good will, and troop and civilian casualties in iraq could it? but smuggling, of any sort, works best when it works with the existing government (helps eliminate your competitors, and, without high duties or barriers to trade, the smuggler wouldn't have a profit motive). look to see this latest nato-led move corrupted in, well, 3-to-6 months. there is too much money to be made in an area with too little money.

never, ever again do i want to hear about the inefficiency of the united nations or public, government projects: private business can't get it up

• The United States is dropping Bechtel, the American construction giant, from a project to build a high-tech children’s hospital in the southern Iraqi city of Basra after the project fell nearly a year behind schedule and exceeded its expected cost by as much as 150 percent.
• Called the Basra Children’s Hospital, the project has been consistently championed by the first lady, Laura Bush, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and was designed to house sophisticated equipment for treating childhood cancer.
• Now it becomes the latest in a series of American taxpayer-financed health projects in Iraq to face overruns, delays and cancellations. Earlier this year, the Army Corps of Engineers canceled more than $300 million in contracts held by Parsons, another American contractor, to build and refurbish hospitals and clinics across Iraq.
• American and Iraqi government officials described the move to drop Bechtel in interviews on Thursday, and Ammar al-Saffar, a deputy health minister in Baghdad, allowed a reporter to take notes on briefing papers on the subject he said he had recently been given by the State Department.
• The United States will “disengage Bechtel and transfer program and project management” to the Army Corps of Engineers, the papers say. Bechtel, the State Department agency in charge of the work and the Health Department in Basra all confirmed that the company would be leaving the project, but the reasons are a matter of deep disagreement.
• The Iraqis assert that management blunders by the company have caused the project to teeter on the verge of collapse; the American government says Bechtel did the best it could as it faced everything from worsening security to difficult soil conditions.
• A senior company official said Thursday that for its part Bechtel recommended that the work be mothballed and in essence volunteered to leave the project because the security problems had become intolerable. He also disputed the American government’s calculation of cost overruns, saying that accounting rules had recently been changed in a way that inflated the figures.
• The official, Cliff Mumm, who is president of the Bechtel infrastructure division, predicted that the project would fail if the government pressed ahead, as the briefing papers indicate that it would. Because of the rise of sectarian militias in southern Iraq, Mr. Mumm said, “it is not a good use of the government’s money” to try to finish the project.
• “And we do not think it can be finished,” he said. (Series of Woes Mar Iraq Project Hailed as Model, By JAMES GLANZ, Published: July 28, 2006, BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 2)

i take that back: it was my tax dollars and yours that funded this disaster; i guess we cannot blame private corporations--they just took the profits and ran.

controlling iraq is the key to controlling the middle east; controlling baghdad is the key to controlling iraq; controlling the green zone is the key to controlling the red zone: is this the direction the neo-cons suggested we would be moving?

time for some optimism from operation iraqi freedom, the official website of multinational force--iraq:

• This is a decisive period in the country, Army Gen. John Abizaid told National Public Radio in a recent interview. "First and foremost we have to stabilize the situation in Baghdad before we need to get overly focused on leaving," Abizaid said. (Controlling security in Baghdad key to security throughout Iraq, Thursday, 27 July 2006)

whoo-hooh! woo-hah! how many more decisive periods can iraq take? how many more shifts in policy can we take? fallujah was to control sunni; baghdad is to control shi'ite; and kurds aren't really playing ball with either.

but never mind me; how do american troops feel about being part of a "decisive period" in this area of emergent business services?

• Army Staff Sgt. Jose Sixtos considered the simple question about morale for more than an hour....
• "Think of what you hate most about your job. Then think of doing what you hate most for five straight hours, every single day, sometimes twice a day, in 120-degree heat," he said. "Then ask how morale is."
• Frustrated? "You have no idea," he said....
• "It sucks. Honestly, it just feels like we're driving around waiting to get blown up. That's the most honest answer I could give you," said Spec. Tim Ivey, 28, of San Antonio, a muscular former backup fullback for Baylor University. "You lose a couple friends and it gets hard."
• "No one wants to be here, you know, no one is truly enthused about what we do," said Sgt. Christopher Dugger, the squad leader. ('Waiting to Get Blown Up', Some Troops in Baghdad Express Frustration With the War and Their Mission, By Joshua Partlow Washington Post Staff Writer, Thursday, July 27, 2006)
  

but at least the folks that sent them over there, those that see the big picture, are still optimistic, yes?

• Faced with almost daily reports of sectarian carnage in Iraq, congressional Republicans are shifting their message on the war from speaking optimistically of progress to acknowledging the difficulty of the mission and pointing up mistakes in planning and execution.
• Rep. Christopher Shays (Conn.) is using his House Government Reform subcommittee on national security to vent criticism of the White House's war strategy and new estimates of the monetary cost of the war. Rep. Gil Gutknecht (Minn.), once a strong supporter of the war, returned from Iraq this week declaring that conditions in Baghdad were far worse "than we'd been led to believe" and urging that troop withdrawals begin immediately. (GOP Lawmakers Edge Away From Optimism on Iraq By Jonathan Weisman and Anushka Asthana Washington Post Staff Writers Thursday, July 20, 2006)

perhaps we ought to begin considering what iraqis think and think of some new options.

and the privatization answer to this balkanization in iraq is...?

i don't think we can do much more than note the reporting at this point.

• Iraqi leaders have all but given up on holding the country together and, just two months after forming a national unity government, talk in private of "black days" of civil war ahead.
• Signalling a dramatic abandonment of the U.S.-backed project for Iraq, there is even talk among them of pre-empting the worst bloodshed by agreeing to an east-west division of Baghdad into Shi'ite and Sunni Muslim zones, senior officials told Reuters.
• Tens of thousands have already fled homes on either side.
• "Iraq as a political project is finished," one senior government official said -- anonymously because the coalition under Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki remains committed in public to the U.S.-sponsored constitution that preserves Iraq's unity....
• "The parties have moved to Plan B," the senior official said, saying Sunni, ethnic Kurdish and majority Shi'ite blocs were looking at ways to divide power and resources and to solve the conundrum of Baghdad's mixed population of seven million.
• "There is serious talk of Baghdad being divided into east and west," he said. "We are extremely worried."
• On the eve of the first meeting of a National Reconciliation Commission and before Maliki meets President George W. Bush in Washington next week, other senior politicians also said they were close to giving up on hopes of preserving the 80-year-old, multi-ethnic, religiously mixed state in its present form.
• "The situation is terrifying and black," said Rida Jawad al -Takki, a senior member of parliament from Maliki's dominant Shi'ite Alliance bloc, and one of the few officials from all the main factions willing to speak publicly on the issue.
• "We have received information of a plan to divide Baghdad. The government is incapable of solving the situation," he said. (By Mariam Karouny, BAGHDAD, July 21, Reuters)
  

pmcs will save the world (not)

i'd like to know more about which pmcs the general had in mind, but, folks, we have a problem here:

• The most senior British military commander in Afghanistan yesterday described the situation in the country as "close to anarchy" with feuding foreign agencies and unethical private security companies compounding problems caused by local corruption.
• The stark warning came from Lieutenant General David Richards, head of Nato's international security force in Afghanistan, who warned that western forces there were short of equipment and were "running out of time" if they were going to meet the expectations of the Afghan people....
• He described "poorly regulated private security companies" as unethical and "all too ready to discharge firearms"....
• Afghanistan is now one of the poorest countries with an economy and infrastructure in ruins. (Richard Norton-Taylor, Saturday July 22, 2006, The Guardian)

of course, it has long been known that karzai holds sway over just a small area around kabul and the warlords and their armies hold the rest:

• In the absence of effective security forces of the central government, private armies and militias continue to hold sway over most of the countryside (Chairmen’s Report of an Independent Task Force Cosponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations and the Asia Society, June 2003)

but the general's wording suggests that it is not warlord militias but private sector, western-style, pmcs that are proving to be a greater and greater impediment to peace and reconstruction. let's see: we didn't do afghanistan right so we decided to go fix iraq; that policy is now in tatters (time for the pmcs!), so it looks like it is on to iran; but wait, maybe we'll fix lebanon first....

bomb 'em all: and other points made by very small minds

two small quotes that indicate, for all the tentativeness of the leadership of the democratic party of the usa, it is light years ahead of republican thinking on world affairs. The first is from newt gingrich, who, besides giving my name a bad name, is a former everything.

• Gingrich says America is in World War III and President Bush should say so....
• He lists wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, this week's bomb attacks in India, North Korean nuclear threats, terrorist arrests and investigations in Florida, Canada and Britain, and violence in Israel and Lebanon as evidence of World War III. He said Bush needs to deliver a speech to Congress and "connect all the dots" for Americans....
• "This is World War III," Gingrich said. And once that's accepted, he said calls for restraint would fall away. (Seattle Times, July 15, 2006, Posted by David Postman)

uhhh..., ok. so it turns out he is right and there are enemies in florida, canada, britain, india, etc. we bomb them? we go out on scrap drives so we can build ships to go, uhhh....where? it turns out we are not at war with another country (though israel appears to be veering closer to that); we cannot just bomb them. terrorist groups exist. but they don't hold territory, etc. if they do, they soon cease to be terrorists. that was/is the problem of hezbollah's leadership: they were settling down to rule southern lebanon, and then hamas stole their thunder, and, most probably, the young turks (small joke there) among hezbollah got bolshie.

but we can't attack sovereign nations just because they have criminals amongst them. and we can't keep operating as if it is a manichean world with no grey area. and we have to stop operating as if all terrorists are connected to some bond-like s.p.e.c.t.r.e. which was my other quote.

• Bush: You see, the ... thing is what they need to do is to get Syria, to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit and it's over.

i doubt that syria controls hezbollah at this point. i doubt that hezbollah (old leaders) controls hezbollah (young turks) at this point. syria needs to be involved (wouldn't the usa rather have syria than a fundamentalist islamic state there?); iran needs to be involved. but to ignore that there is no united "arc of evil" is to be self-deceived. and, given the reports from iraq and afghanistan these days, is whistling past the graveyard.

whoops: pmcs seeking a bottom line better start diversifying

what is it like in iraq? according to Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the U.S. Army chief of staff:

• "I think I would answer that by telling you I don't think we're losing....
• "The challenge … is becoming more complex, and it's going to continue to be.... That's why I'll tell you I think we're closer to the beginning than we are to the end of all this." (Is U.S. Winning? Army Chief Is at a Loss, By Peter Spiegel, Times Staff Writer, July 15, 2006)

not to put too fine a point on it: "Violence in Iraq spinning out of control" (By Robert H. Reid, Associated Press Writer, July 18, 2006)

so it is not too surprising to see those private military contractors (mercenaries) who work so hard to defend our freedoms running for cover:

• Specialist security company ArmorGroup has seen particularly strong growth from its activities in Afghanistan and the oil and gas industry in Nigeria, which is good news for those hoping it would diversify away from reliance on Iraq....
• ArmorGroup provides protective security services such as guarding embassies and oil rigs and training police and security personnel. Naturally its services have been much in demand in Iraq, which led the percentage of business from the region last year to rise as high as 60% of turnover. This also led ArmorGroup to issue a profits warning a year ago when increased insurgent activity in Iraq meant delays to new contracts being signed and also led to increased costs for ArmorGroup. (ArmorGroup firm as Afghanistan helps decrease dependence on Iraq, July 13, 2006)

indeed, fewer of the footsoldiers of the pmcs supposedly fulfilling usa policy are actually usa citizens, as two recent articles on outsourcing by filipinos in iraq make clear:

• July 18, 2006, US outsources war to Filipinos, By Cher S Jimenez
• July 3, 2006, Life in a private army in Iraq, Posted in Malaya, By Ellen Tordesillas

bottom line: it appears that pan-muslim terrorists are not succeeding in iraq. but they have been replaced by shia, sunni, and kurd nationalists and violence is increasing not decreasing there. what is definitely not succeeding is usa policy and the billions thrown at pmcs.

good news (if you have stock in halliburton)

small ax entered good news about halliburton having to re-bid a little too quickly. as one blogger has pointed out, halliburton has all the infrastructure in place; it is unlikely that another company will be able to underbid them, even if they wanted to enter into the war zone which is iraq in the red zone (there are, of course, various websites devoted to investigating halliburton, such as halliburtonwatch).

i have a little trouble understanding amounts over a million dollars (not that i understand a million dollars), but, in any case, can someone tell me how the u.s. taxpayers can afford the iraqi war now or in the future?

• The Iraq war could cost U.S. taxpayers between $202 billion and $406 billion more over the next 10 years, depending on how quickly U.S. force levels can be reduced, congressional budget experts said on Thursday.
• The Congressional Budget Office offered two cost scenarios for the war, which it said so far has cost almost $300 billion. (US Iraq war costs may rise by $406 billion by 2016, Thu Jul 13, 7:59 PM ET, WASHINGTON, Reuters)
  

it is not all bad news

greetings. small ax is back after a two-month-long break. this blog began as an attempt to make sense of:

1. the case for the balkanization of iraq. british and usa policy towards the area for 3 years has cost billions of pounds, dollars, and dinars, and expended or damaged tens of thousands of lives in part on the untenable attempt to keep shias, sunnis, and kurds in a country which, as works like Christopher Catherwood, Churchill's Folly: How Winston Churchill Created Modern Iraq (2004) suggest, was a rather mistaken 20th-century european creation. the policy was a mistake, it appears to be changing, but it is worth considering why policy makers didn't see this problem at the outset, and what might happen now.
2. the dangers of outsourcing military and military intelligence. this is directly related to iraq and afghanistan as that is where the bulk of the outsourcing in the us government now occurs. is it always bad to outsource what the government should be controlling? is there a way to make outsourcing of state-power a good thing? how?
3. the fallacy of thinking the world outside the government--the world of business--is the free market. the military-industrial complex noted by eisenhower continues and thrives. the no-bid contracts threaten to dwarf both the free-market economy (if such a thing exists outside mom-and-pop stores) and "big" government. is there a way for such a thing to be good? what exactly is bad about it.

so, small ax continues in part as a way for its author to make sense of the world. it is less concerned to promote a conspiracy-theory-driven view of the world (though i am sure conspiracies abound; they just rarely work), than to understand what, in a clearly imperfect world, might be a "good" policy.

the following appears to be a "good thing":

• The Army will rebid the multibillion-dollar contract under which a Halliburton Co. subsidiary has been providing services to troops around the world after years of complaints over how the deal has worked in Iraq.
• Critics of the contract said the move was overdue and that hundreds of millions of dollars had probably been wasted. (Army won't extend Halliburton contract, by Pauline Jelinek, Associated Press Writer Thu Jul 13, 7:56 AM ET, WASHINGTON)

day late and a dollar short (well make that 2.5 years and several billion), but is there any other good news coming out of mesopotamia?