Who is General Petraeus?

AMY GOODMAN: Tell us who David Petraeus is. Arun, you’re the first person to mention General Petraeus on our show years ago.

ARUN GUPTA: Yeah. What we were talking about two-and-a-half years ago was Petraeus’s role in helping to set up the Special Police Commandos. In 2004, 2005, he was given the mission to train all Iraq military and police forces. And, in fact, in July 2004, Newsweek had this cover of him, saying that Petraeus was going to train Iraqis to take over the fight. Now, the reality is, is that was, of course, a failure, because three years later he was back with an escalation of US forces.

Now, one of the key things that Petraeus did was they decided—him and his command decided—that they were going to create this paramilitary force, the Special Police Commandos. They armed them. They funded them. They trained them. And they also issued the usual denials: “Oh, we’re not giving them any weapons. This is an Iraqi initiative.” And so, now he’s saying the same thing with the Sunni militias.

So, anyway, the Special Police Commandos quickly morphed into Shiite death squads that were used against the Sunni insurgency and against Sunnis, in general, throughout Iraq. And this played a key role in terms of stoking and fomenting the civil war, because you had these death squads wearing government uniforms, being armed and trained by the US, going around killing Sunnis randomly. It generally alienated the Sunni Arab population from the government and drove them into the arms of the resistance.

Now what Petraeus is doing is he’s funding and arming these Sunni militias. And there are reports that have stated clearly with these militias saying, like, “Yes, we’re getting weapons from the US government.” And part of it is, is that they do want to fight al-Qaeda in Iraq, which is another Sunni-based group. It’s an Iraqi-based group. But their main purpose is they want this money and weapons and aid to fight the Shiite militias.

So here we have them, like in 2004, setting up these Shiite militias, and now he’s setting up these Sunni militias to fight these Shiite militias. And what it portends is just an absolute disaster for Iraq. And, of course, it will also be used as justification: “Well, we can’t leave because a bloodbath will result.” But we’re not looking at the fact that it’s the US that’s creating this bloodbath.

Sources:

DemocracyNow, A Look At How Petraeus Helped Arm Warring Sunni and Shia Militias in Iraq, September, 12 2007.

Sattar Abu Risha: Former US Contractor, Conman

At least 15,000 Shiite households were forced out of Anbar Province in a fifteen day ethnic cleansing purge some time ago. They now live in a slum near Baghdad.

According to Rick Rowley, independent filmmaker with Big Noise films who visited Anbar and the slums:

"The road home for the Shiite families of Taji is made more difficult by the Americans' new strategy. The refugees say they know exactly who it was that bombed their houses and cleansed the Shia from the region: Sunni tribes American soldiers are working with."

We are told by the Bush propaganda machine that a man named Sattar Abu Risha has unified the Sunni tribes in Anbar. Captain Martin Wohlgemuth, operating on the ground in Anbar calls Sattar Abu Risha, "a living legacy in his own right. He's probably better known as Lawrence of Arabia to the Americans.

According to Sattar Abu Risha, "I am head of the Iraq Awakening Council, leader of all the Iraqi Arab Tribes." Rawly found him in Jordan, where Abu Rissha said, "And to the terrorists, I say that I will be in Anbar in five days, and if they want to see me, I am ready for them."

Someone was ready for Abu Risha. He was assassinated a few days ago. According to Rowley, "Sheikh Ali Hathem from the Dulaimi tribe, the largest and most important tribe in Anbar, ... claims Risha [was] a conman who has received millions of dollars in construction contracts from the Americans who have tried to turn him into a symbol of their success."

Ali Hathem continues, [translated] "This is nothing new for us. The Americans like to create characters, like Disney cartoon heroes." The only difference is these cartoon characters don't walk away when their faces are blackened by a bomb.

Sources:

DemocracyNow, "U.S. Fueling Sectarian Civil War in Anbar by Funding Former Insurgents to Fight Al Qaeda," September 11, 2007.

Will the World Sit by and Watch if the US Attacks Iran?

In July 2006, the world sat by and watched Israel destroy much of Lebanon's civilian infrastructure including roads and bridges, water systems, electric power plants telecommunications towers, government buildings and thousands of businesses and residential homes.

Fast forward to Iran. According to a recent, well documented article by By Michel Chossudovsky [1]:

... the planned air strikes are by no means limited to Iran's nuclear facilities. Central Command Headquarters in Florida (CENTCOM) has already selected a comprehensive list of military and civilian targets. Industrial sites, civilian infrastructure including roads, water systems, bridges, electric power plants telecommunications towers, government buildings are part of the assumptions underlying the Blitzkrieg. "A single raid could result in 10,000 targets being hit with warplanes flying from the US and Diego Garcia."[2]

In retrospect, the 2006 US/Israel assault on Lebanon's civilian infrastructure looks like a practice run for the pending attack on Iran. Will the world sit by and watch it done to Iran?

Iran, itself, is likely to respond. According to Chussudovsky, Iran could respond "in the form of targeted strikes on US military facilities in the Iraq and the Gulf States," and Israel. Iran also has intelligence assets around the world who could take action. Deeper assessments of the Iranian response are provided in a 2004 paper by the Center for Nonproliferation Studies [5], and an article by Wayne White. [6]

But, will the rest of the world sit by and just watch? Maybe. However, several reactions are conceivable.

First, Israel could be drawn into the conflict, that is, if they are not involved from the beginning.

Second, united by American aggression against the predominantly Shia Iran, many Shia factions in Iraq might not sit by and watch. Even if the Iraqi Shia don't rediscover common cause with the predominantly Sunni Iraqi insurgency, they could find common cause with Iran. In the past, there were signs of a growing unified Shia/Sunni resistance to US occupation. Many believe the US promoted sectarian violence in Iraq to "divide and conquer" this growing unity between Shia and Sunni. However, even without renewed unity, the Shia connections to Iran are strong, and Shia resistance to the US is a real possability as described at length in the CNS paper [5].

Third, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, founded by Russia, China and several "stan" nations, is considered to be a counter balance to NATO. Although SCO claims it isn't a military bloc, it does have a security cooperation component. Iran is an observer nation to SCO. The SCO nations might not sit by watching. China and Russia held joint military exercises in 2005, and both have significant economic and military sales relationships with Iran. [3] (Asia Times Link). Finally, Russia does have a military alliance with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan under the Collective Security Treaty Organisation, (CSTO). They conducted war games on August 24, 2006.

These war games, officially tagged as part of a counter terrorism program, are in direct response to US military threats in the region including the planned attacks against Iran. [4]

Fourth, global terrorist attacks could be conducted by those who sympathize with Iran, or simply want to use the US attack as a pretext.

Fifth, the world economy might not "sit by and watch." Oil corporations will, yet again, reap windfall profits as oil prices soar. However, businesses that are sensitive to oil prices, like trucking and airlines, will be shocked. Other businesses and consumers will feel the impacts. Whether or not a systemic chain reaction will undermine the global economy must always be a concern.

Sixth, although my faith in Senator Joe Biden is thin, he has promised a "constitutional confrontation" if Bush attacks Iran. My understanding of the constitution, based on the Supreme Court decision in Campbell vs Clinton, is that Congress has to pass an explicit law before it even has standing for a "constitutional confrontation."

They must, pursuant to Section 5(c) of the War Powers Resolution, preclude any additional deployment of United States Armed Forces to the operations in Iran. Congress must explicitly refused to authorize or appropriate the use of funds for an operation on Iran. This is necessary to establish an actual confrontation between the legislative and executive branches sufficient to confer standing to Congress in the U.S. Supreme Court should the President disobey their directive and should they seek intervention of the judicial branch. (Campbell vs Clinton).

So, in the end, we can expect protests in the US and other countries, an initial US military "success," dutifully portrayed by the corporate media, followed by a replay of the Iraq unraveling on a regional scale. Zbigniew Brzezinski recently told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that, if Bush continues on his current path, we can anticipate

military action against Iran that plunges a lonely America into a spreading and deepening quagmire eventually ranging across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

Sources:

1. "Theater Iran Near Term" (TIRANNT), Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, February 21, 2007. (Updated February 23, 2007).

2. Gulf News, February 21, 2007.

3. Asia Times, June 4, 2005, "The ties that bind China, Russia and Iran," Jephraim P Gundzik.

4. Russia and Central Asian Allies Conduct War Games in Response to US Threats Michel Chossudovsky, Global Resarch, August 24, 2006.

5. "A Preemptive Attack on Iran's Nuclear Facilities: Possible Consequences," Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Sammy Salama and Karen Ruster, August 12, 2004.

6. "U.S. attack on Iran would be huge mistake," February 11, 2007, Wayne White, former deputy director of the State Department’s Intelligence and Research Office, focusing on Middle East issues, especially Iraq and Iran.
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