Antiwar.com Blog

It’s been a busy week, and it’s going to be an even busier weekend: I’ll be speaking in Mountain View, California, this Saturday. Go here for information. I’ve also been blogging up a storm at Taki‘s Top Drawer — go here, here, and here, for starters. Oh, and here‘s my piece on “Ron Paul: The Conscience of Conservatism.”

Andrew Sullivan comes down off his high horse long enough to answer my recent blog on Christopher Hitchens’ 1976 article, recently unearthed and posted by the New Statesman, valorizing Saddam Hussein as “perhaps the first visionary Arab statesman since Nasser.” Sullivan quotes only that snippet from the entire article, which goes on to present the Butcher of Baghdad as a model of socialist idealism and ideological “fervor.” Says Sullivan of his warmongering and perpetually tipsy friend:

“Look, we all have a right to change our minds. I see no reason to believe that Christopher’s evolution has not been completely genuine. And he noted the torture and barbarism at the time.”

Yes, change is possible: witness Sullivan’s own transformation from the Savonarola of the War Party to the avowed enemy of the neoconservative project (although when it comes to Iran, he seems quite prepared to go along with the neocons just as he did in the case of Iraq). Yet no one is saying that the evolution of Hitchens, from “third camp” Trotskyist to left-neocon-with-a-flaming-sword, isn’t “genuine,” whatever that may mean. This history is pretty common in neocon circles. What Sullivan doesn’t address is the real point I was trying to make: that intellectuals of Hitchens’ sort — ideologues — tend to be seduced by power, and are quite willing to overlook all those pesky little atrocities that “leaders” make when they think they’re making History with a capital “H”.

I even cited Sullivan’s favorite writer, George Orwell, whose essay on James Burnham (actually, two essays) is the definitive take-down of this type. So, yes, Hitchens did note the torture and repression carried out by the Ba’athists, but this didn’t deter him from painting Saddam as a towering, heroic figure: it just added to Saddam’s mystique as a powerful leader, at least in Hitchens’ eyes.

In 1976, when Hitchens’ piece was published, Saddam had yet to formally assume the office of Iraqi president, although he had already acquired a fearsome reputation. The future Iraqi dictator had spearheaded Iraq’s literacy campaign, promoted modernization, and done all the things a militantly secular socialist like Hitchens would (and did) admire, including playing a key role in the nationalization of major industries and handing out land to peasants during the Ba’athist “land reform” program. Hitchens saw a man on the move, a man of power who was leading the charge against Muslim religious obscurantism and holding high the banner of socialism. That he was also setting up a police state didn’t concern Hitchens in the least.

I expect Sullivan refuses to confront these issues — the tendency of intellectuals to excuse the worst abuses in order to score ideological points — because they bring into focus his own motivations for helping to lead the charge for a war he now abhors.

David Beito calls him prophetic.

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/07_07_13_silverstein.mp3]

Ken Silverstein, Washington Editor of Harper’s magazine, and author of the Washington Babylon blog discusses the heroic character of “the other” Scott Horton and Silverstein’s undercover investigative work in reporting the role of powerful DC lobbying firms in propagandizing the American people and determining American foreign policies.

MP3 here. (39:39)

Ken Silverstein is the Washington Editor for Harper’s Magazine and writes Washington Babylon for Harper’s online.

I get a lot of letters, and read them all. Sometimes I get one so smart that I wan to run it on the site as an article. Of course, we have “Backtalk,” our letters-to-the-editor column, but perhaps I’d better start excerpting the smartest, most interesting letters, as I get them, such as this one, responding to today’s column:

“Obviously, the Sunni-Shia conflict in Iraq is a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, with US troops attempting to act as referee even as they fight both sides (and commit atrocities of their own). Saudi Arabia, as the richest Sunni state, is likely the main financial backer of the Sunni insurgency.

“Since the end of WWII, the Saudi Arabian regime has accepted the US Dollar as the reserve currency for oil transactions in exchange for US protection. The Saudis may be wavering on this now as part of a test strategy. As of 7/13/07, the US Dollar is in free fall against the Euro, Pound, Canadian Dollar, and oil.

“This past week, a US “counterterrorism official” met with Saudi government officials, according to news reports.

“Has the U.S. cut a deal with Saudi Arabia to stop financial support of the Sunni insurgency in Iraq and continue accepting the US Dollar as the reserve currency for oil purchases, in exchange for a US attack on Iran? A drop in US casualties this past week may indicate this is the case, or it may just be a lull. Watch the oil and currency markets over the next week or two. There may be a lag time for the strengthening of the dollar.”

AP reports:

BAGHDAD (AP) – U.S. forces battled Iraqi police and gunmen Friday, killing six policemen, after an American raid captured a police lieutenant accused of leading an Iranian-backed militia cell, the military said.

Seven gunmen also died in the fight, a rare open street battle between American troops and policemen. Washington has demanded the government purge its police force of militants, and U.S. and Iraqi authorities have arrested officers in the past for militia links. But the Bush administration said in an assessment Thursday that progress on that front was “unsatisfactory.”

The lieutenant was captured before dawn in eastern Baghdad, but the soldiers came under “heavy and accurate fire” from a nearby Iraqi police checkpoint, as well as intense fire from rooftops and a church, the military said in a statement.

As the Americans fired back, U.S. warplanes struck in front of the police position, without hitting it directly, “to prevent further escalation” of the battle, it said. There were no casualties among the U.S. troops, but seven gunmen and six of the policemen firing on the Americans were killed, the statement said.

Meanwhile, USA Today has gotten its hands on an Army report of the results of the investigation into the Karbala ambush last January that killed five US soldiers. The new details:

•Iraqi police suddenly vanished from the government compound before the shooting started.

•Attackers, evidently briefed on how U.S. forces would defend themselves, bottled up more than three dozen soldiers in a barracks and headquarters complex using a combination of smoke and fragment grenades and satchel charges to blow up Humvees.

•Gunmen knew exactly where to find and abduct U.S. officers.

•Iraqi vendors operating a PX and barbershop went home early.

•A back gate was left unlocked and unguarded.

Is there any rational response to this, other than GET OUT? Yet here are the recommendations from the Army investigation:

Investigators recommended several changes to toughen defensive positions, including the installation of closed-circuit cameras to provide better early warnings, “duress devices” that can allow overrun outposts to signal headquarters, and requirements that any arriving convoy provide identification.

Wow. Sure you can harden up “defensive” positions, but what does it say about the whole project that you’re defending against the police?

For another bizarre aspect of this war between the US and Iraqi police, Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh today said Iraqi security forces “have advanced to a level that it now depends on itself in leading operations against terrorists and outlaws, with backing from Multinational forces. They are in continuous progress to reach the point of totally depending on themselves.”

The mind boggles. Get. Out. Now.