crossposted from
unbossed
Last night we had a live blog at unbossed on the situation in Iraq based on Iraqi blogger Abu Khaleel's new book.
The guest of honor was a little late due to generator and connectivity problems but did respond to questions about the violence, about dividing Iraq into separate countries, about the condition for Iraqis.
You can read the discussion here and add comments or questions. It will stay open for a couple more days.
I am including below a new excerpt from Abu Khaleel's A Glimpse of Iraq called Shock and Awe
Shock & Awe
Shocking tactics to intimidate adversaries into submission are probably as old as human history. They were carried out by most nations throughout mankind's troubled and bloody history. I will restrict my post to recent "Shock & Awe" campaigns relating to Iraq.
Shock & Awe I
This was the official US army tactic during the Iraq war. The idea is to shock the opponent by an awesome show of force and superiority into submission. It is also argued that this may well result in a minimization of losses on both sides (some people still argue that the use of nuclear weapons in Japan also served this purpose of resulting in fewer final casualties - more people would have died if those nuclear bombs weren't used). You can find many references to this type of logic in neocon literature.
What is surprising is that many people in the States were not (and many still are not) appalled by what such a campaign really means in terms of human suffering.
If you come to think of it, that campaign was justified in the minds of many Americans by an earlier "Shock & Awe" campaign that was directed at the US in 9/11. To justify the campaign against Iraq, the US administration claimed that there were links between Saddam's Iraq and al Qaeda. Apparently it didn't make much difference to many of those people that those claimed links turned out mostly to be unfounded.
One little example: On the second day of the American army's "Shock & Awe" campaign to "liberate" Iraqis from tyranny and to secure the world from weapons of mass destruction, 3000 assorted bombs, missile and other explosive gadgets were dropped on Baghdad on a single day!
It was awesome! But what was awesome turned into something awful with the random killings, the Abu Ghraib grotesque abuses, the Fallujah-I, Najaf, Sadr City and Fallujah-II bombings. Some people would claim that the Abu Ghraib episode was the private "Shock & Awe" campaign of a few bad apples - some of those people got up to a year of imprisonment for it, some were even discharged from the army. It may however be argued that those episodes were seen to be merely a continuation of the original "Shock & Awe" strategy.
All truly shocking... and awful.
Shock & Awe II
Instead of producing the required result of total submission as neocon theory predicts, it produced a great deal of resentment and hatred (not unlike the reaction of many Americans to 9/11). This reaction fuelled what may be called the nationalist resistance. I maintain that this was mostly due to mistakes and blunders (and probably even some ill-intentions) by the current US administration in handling the occupation. In the days to come, this may well be related to the loss of the whole campaign.
However, other forces of darkness, lured by the US policy of taking the War on Terror to "them" started using Iraq as a base for their operations against the US.
Those people started using "Shock & Awe" methods in Iraq under the name of "resistance": Killing civilians at random, targeting innocent children, ugly slaughtering and beheading of Iraqis and foreigners, including international aid workers, etc. Video clips of these ugly things were produced and distributed for maximum effect! Incidentally, they also managed to discredit the above mentioned nationalistic resistance in the minds of much of the world and even in the minds of many Iraqis.
You have to admit that these barbaric acts were also shocking... and awful!
*
Both "Shock & Awe" campaigns have shocked decent people around the world. However, many people in the States were only shocked by the second campaign. Why? Because the first was conducted by respectable professionals who were doing it for a noble cause. Besides, pressing a button to send death to scores of people, or ordering such an act, is definitely more "civilized" than beheading them with a knife and recording the proceedings on video, isn't it?
The result is that the American "Shock & Awe-I" campaign and the "Shock & Awe-II" campaign being conducted by those forces of darkness have caused a great deal of suffering for the Iraqi people. In both cases, innocent people were the fodder in the tactics of "great" men in pursuit of what they regard as "noble" goals.
We have been shocked & awed, thank you very much indeed!
