March 16, 2006 In the news today, as was predicted Bush is escalating
his lost colonial war by many more bombing raids.
That is the way to win hearts and minds alright.


BAGHDAD, Iraq - In a well-publicized show of force, U.S. and Iraqi
forces swept into the countryside north of the capital in 50
helicopters Thursday 'looking' for insurgents in what the American
military called its "largest air assault" in nearly three years.

And of course they claim that the "largest air assault" is not a
bombing war on small towns. We know the ***** lies.

We know the distorted orwellian language of mass murderers and
the subservient mass media exclusively fed by the Pentagon.

Bush is continuing his brutal colonial war and keeps bombing small
towns to smithereens. We have seen it all before, we remember
the senseless bombing and killing in Vietnam, for years on end.


There will be renewed world wide protests against Bush's gory
wars on March 18, 19 and 20. This is 3 years after he launched
his ungodly and unchristian war on another Muslim country.
After 3 years it must be clear he has not liberated anything while
continuing his killing in a land he attacked under false pretenses.



What the war on Iraq is all about and what the mass media are
hiding on purpose: The reality of a colonial war = Crushing native
resistance with massive brutality from the air and hiring natives
to do much of the killing for them, escalating the
hatred all around them. That is Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld's
war alright.


The New Iraq War Strategy:
More Bombings, More Civilian Deaths, Less Likelihood of Success
Michael Schwartz, Professor of Sociology at Stony Brook University, has

written extensively on popular protest and insurgency, and on American
business and government dynamics.

January 3, 2006
Commentary on Seymour Hersh's "Up in the Air"
Seymour Hersh's latest article in the New Yorker is over a month old
by now, and therefore would seem a little like old news. But, like so
much of his reporting, Hersh's article contains at least a few
nuggets that ripen with time and take on more importance as events play

out in Iraq. Two of his key points-one central to the article, the
other almost an afterthought-are of particular importance, and worth
reviewing as the Iraqis endure yet another chapter in the American
effort to crush the resistance.

The first of these key themes is the one that was most prominently
commented upon. Hersh broke the story-which is now all over the
mainstream press-that the U.S. is going to try a new military
strategy in Iraq: more intensive air power and less intensive foot
patrols. This will involve fewer U.S. offensive operations (like those
in western Anbar that involved evacuating whole cities), increased use
of Iraqi armed forces in high resistance areas, and a massive increase
in the use of aerial attacks. In the short time since Hersh wrote the
article, this new policy has been aggressively enacted. the Washington
Post, quoting U.S. military sources, reported that the number of U.S.
air strikes increased from an average of 25 per month during the
Summer, to 62 in September, 122 in October, and 120 in November.

There are several aspects to this new strategy that we need to keep in
mind.

First, this is an attempt to lessen the strain on U.S. troops-the
U.S. military in Iraq is in grave danger of collapsing, as it did in
Vietnam. So the new strategy seeks to reduce the number of patrols
(which are the most grueling and dangerous missions American soldiers
undertake) and compensate with more air raids. The hope is that this
switch in emphasis will make it possible for U.S. troops to endure more

tours of duty in Iraq. But probably this won't work. Here is what one
military officer told Hersh: "if the President decides to stay the
present course in Iraq some troops would be compelled to serve fourth
and fifth tours of combat by 2007 and 2008, which could have serious
consequences for morale and competency levels."

We should not lose track of the importance of this comment. The U.S.
military cannot sustain the war at its current level of intensity. As
Representative John Murtha commented in his press conference calling
for U.S. withdrawal, "Our military is suffering. The future of our
country is at risk. We cannot continue on the present course." In a
very real sense, then, this change in strategy is an act of
desperation.

Second, this change in strategy is an attempt to find a better way to
fight the resistance, since the search and destroy operations have
failed miserably, even while they have inflicted incredible destruction

and carnage in the cities under attack. But it also means a more
explicit use of state terror. The U.S. cannot occupy a city with air
power.

As a military officer told Hersh: "Can you put a lid on the
insurgency with bombing? No. You can concentrate in one area, but the
guys will spring up in another town." The logic of air power (since
Guernica in the Spanish Civil War) has always involved a predominant
element of "bombing the population into submission." The U.S.
military leadership hopes to so injure the population that it cries
"uncle" delivers resistance fighters to the Occupation, and begins
cooperating with the Occupation-all in order to stop the punishment.

With 500 and 2000 pound bombs that destroy everything-buildings and
people- in up to a 700 diameter area, air power does have a powerful
terrorizing effect, and it is altogether plausible that such a strategy

could work. Even U.S. military reports of recent air attacks give a
sense of the brutality involved, as independent reporter Dahr Jamail
recently documented. And Washington Post reporter Ellen Knickmeyer
recounted chilling accusations from medical personnel and local
civilians as a result of the American offensive in early November,
including 97 civilians killed in Husaybah, 40 in Qaimone, 18 children
in Ramadi, with uncounted others in numerous other cities and towns in
Western Anbar province.

Whether or not the targets were insurgents, the disregard for the lives

of civilians trapped inside the buildings demolished by air attacks is
part of a larger pattern articulated by an American officer to NY Times

reporter Dexter Filkins early in the war: "the new strategy must
punish not only the guerrillas, but also make clear to ordinary Iraqis
the cost of not cooperating."

This is terrorism by definition-attacking the civilian population to
get it to withdraw support from the enemy. The change in strategy,
therefore, represents the embrace of terrorism as the principle tactic
for subduing the Iraqi resistance.

Third, Hersh mentions that American officials and other observers are
concerned that this new air strategy will give Iraqi troops
responsibility for calling in U.S. bombers, and therefore could result
in the use of U.S. air power for revenge against rivals and/or for
ruthless and wanton attacks on civilians. However, these fears are
misplaced, for two reasons.

First, all Iraqi units are under the
ultimate command of the U.S. forces (they are integrated into the
larger Occupation military structure) and are not allowed to act
autonomously. The U.S. places American officers with each Iraqi
military unit (even platoons), and these officers have ultimate control

of any actions taken. No air strikes could be ordered without Americans

approving them.

Second-and far more important-the American policy
is already maximally ruthless, as the quote above makes clear. The
rules of engagement are that any resistance at all from any location
(house, commercial shop, mosque, school) should be met by overwhelming
force, air power if tanks or artillery are not available. Nothing the
Iraqis could do would be worse, even if they select different targets.
They might, in fact, be less vicious (if they could actually control
the air strikes), since they might avoid schools and mosques.

As if this new policy would not add enough mayhem to the already brutal

mix in Iraq, Hersh gestures at another negative dynamic that the U.S.
presence is animating. Speaking of the accusations that U.S. withdrawal

would facilitate or unleash a civil war, Hersh writes:

'In many areas, that[civil] war has, in a sense, already begun, and
the United States military is being drawn into the sectarian violence.
An American Army officer who took part in the assault on Tal Afar, in
the north of Iraq, earlier this fall, said that an American infantry
brigade was placed in the position of providing a cordon of security
around the besieged city for Iraqi forces, most of them Shiites, who
were "rounding up any Sunnis on the basis of whatever a Shiite said to
them." The officer went on, "They [the U.S. troops] were killing
Sunnis on behalf of the Shiites," with the active participation of a
militia unit led by a retired American Special Forces soldier. "People
like me have gotten so downhearted," the officer added.'

Hersh is understating American culpability. It is the Americans who
recruited, trained and then stationed the Shiites in these Sunni areas,

and-as this quote indicates-the Iraqi units are part of an American
sweep, and the bulk of the killing was done by Americans "on behalf
of the Shiites."

This is not an Iraqi policy-it is an American one. This very
policy-of using Shiites and Kurds against Sunnis-has been the
trigger for the long wave of car bombings by Sunnis against Shia
targets. And, moreover, the U.S. is running the parts of the Ministry
of the Interior, that commands the Wolf Brigade and other special
forces that commit terrorist attacks against Sunni clerics who support
the resistance, as well as other Sunni leaders. The use of Shia and
Kurdish forces in Sunni areas has become a linchpin of U.S. military
policy, and it is the key provocation that has redirected Sunni anger
toward Shia and Kurds. That sectarian violence is the chief dynamic
leading to civil war.

So what do we conclude? As U.S. military strategy in Iraq has begun to
unravel, our military has adopted progressively more vicious methods to

attempt to maintain its control of the country. In the current
iteration, this involves escalated bombing attacks against densely
populated urban areas in an attempt to bomb the Sunnis into submission,

and the development of anti-Sunni brigades of Shia and Kurdish troops
to inflict punishment on resisting cities. The American role in Iraq
continues to get uglier.

March 16, 2006 In the news today, as was predicted Bush is escalating
his lost colonial war by many more bombing raids.
That is the way to win hearts and minds alright.

March 16, 2006 In the news today, as was predicted Bush is escalating
his lost colonial war by many more bombing raids.
That is the way to win hearts and minds alright.


BAGHDAD, Iraq - In a well-publicized show of force, U.S. and Iraqi
forces swept into the countryside north of the capital in 50
helicopters Thursday 'looking' for insurgents in what the American
military called its "largest air assault" in nearly three years.

And of course they claim that the "largest air assault" is not a
bombing war on small towns. We know the ***** lies.

We know the distorted orwellian language of mass murderers and
the subservient mass media exclusively fed by the Pentagon.

Bush is continuing his brutal colonial war and keeps bombing small
towns to smithereens. We have seen it all before, we remember
the senseless bombing and killing in Vietnam, for years on end.


There will be renewed world wide protests against Bush's gory
wars on March 18, 19 and 20. This is 3 years after he launched
his ungodly and unchristian war on another Muslim country.
After 3 years it must be clear he has not liberated anything while
continuing his killing in a land he attacked under false pretenses.



What the war on Iraq is all about and what the mass media are
hiding on purpose: The reality of a colonial war = Crushing native
resistance with massive brutality from the air and hiring natives
to do much of the killing for them, escalating the
hatred all around them. That is Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld's
war alright.


The New Iraq War Strategy:
More Bombings, More Civilian Deaths, Less Likelihood of Success
Michael Schwartz, Professor of Sociology at Stony Brook University, has

written extensively on popular protest and insurgency, and on American
business and government dynamics.

January 3, 2006
Commentary on Seymour Hersh's "Up in the Air"
Seymour Hersh's latest article in the New Yorker is over a month old
by now, and therefore would seem a little like old news. But, like so
much of his reporting, Hersh's article contains at least a few
nuggets that ripen with time and take on more importance as events play

out in Iraq. Two of his key points-one central to the article, the
other almost an afterthought-are of particular importance, and worth
reviewing as the Iraqis endure yet another chapter in the American
effort to crush the resistance.

The first of these key themes is the one that was most prominently
commented upon. Hersh broke the story-which is now all over the
mainstream press-that the U.S. is going to try a new military
strategy in Iraq: more intensive air power and less intensive foot
patrols. This will involve fewer U.S. offensive operations (like those
in western Anbar that involved evacuating whole cities), increased use
of Iraqi armed forces in high resistance areas, and a massive increase
in the use of aerial attacks. In the short time since Hersh wrote the
article, this new policy has been aggressively enacted. the Washington
Post, quoting U.S. military sources, reported that the number of U.S.
air strikes increased from an average of 25 per month during the
Summer, to 62 in September, 122 in October, and 120 in November.

There are several aspects to this new strategy that we need to keep in
mind.

First, this is an attempt to lessen the strain on U.S. troops-the
U.S. military in Iraq is in grave danger of collapsing, as it did in
Vietnam. So the new strategy seeks to reduce the number of patrols
(which are the most grueling and dangerous missions American soldiers
undertake) and compensate with more air raids. The hope is that this
switch in emphasis will make it possible for U.S. troops to endure more

tours of duty in Iraq. But probably this won't work. Here is what one
military officer told Hersh: "if the President decides to stay the
present course in Iraq some troops would be compelled to serve fourth
and fifth tours of combat by 2007 and 2008, which could have serious
consequences for morale and competency levels."

We should not lose track of the importance of this comment. The U.S.
military cannot sustain the war at its current level of intensity. As
Representative John Murtha commented in his press conference calling
for U.S. withdrawal, "Our military is suffering. The future of our
country is at risk. We cannot continue on the present course." In a
very real sense, then, this change in strategy is an act of
desperation.

Second, this change in strategy is an attempt to find a better way to
fight the resistance, since the search and destroy operations have
failed miserably, even while they have inflicted incredible destruction

and carnage in the cities under attack. But it also means a more
explicit use of state terror. The U.S. cannot occupy a city with air
power.

As a military officer told Hersh: "Can you put a lid on the
insurgency with bombing? No. You can concentrate in one area, but the
guys will spring up in another town." The logic of air power (since
Guernica in the Spanish Civil War) has always involved a predominant
element of "bombing the population into submission." The U.S.
military leadership hopes to so injure the population that it cries
"uncle" delivers resistance fighters to the Occupation, and begins
cooperating with the Occupation-all in order to stop the punishment.

With 500 and 2000 pound bombs that destroy everything-buildings and
people- in up to a 700 diameter area, air power does have a powerful
terrorizing effect, and it is altogether plausible that such a strategy

could work. Even U.S. military reports of recent air attacks give a
sense of the brutality involved, as independent reporter Dahr Jamail
recently documented. And Washington Post reporter Ellen Knickmeyer
recounted chilling accusations from medical personnel and local
civilians as a result of the American offensive in early November,
including 97 civilians killed in Husaybah, 40 in Qaimone, 18 children
in Ramadi, with uncounted others in numerous other cities and towns in
Western Anbar province.

Whether or not the targets were insurgents, the disregard for the lives

of civilians trapped inside the buildings demolished by air attacks is
part of a larger pattern articulated by an American officer to NY Times

reporter Dexter Filkins early in the war: "the new strategy must
punish not only the guerrillas, but also make clear to ordinary Iraqis
the cost of not cooperating."

This is terrorism by definition-attacking the civilian population to
get it to withdraw support from the enemy. The change in strategy,
therefore, represents the embrace of terrorism as the principle tactic
for subduing the Iraqi resistance.

Third, Hersh mentions that American officials and other observers are
concerned that this new air strategy will give Iraqi troops
responsibility for calling in U.S. bombers, and therefore could result
in the use of U.S. air power for revenge against rivals and/or for
ruthless and wanton attacks on civilians. However, these fears are
misplaced, for two reasons.

First, all Iraqi units are under the
ultimate command of the U.S. forces (they are integrated into the
larger Occupation military structure) and are not allowed to act
autonomously. The U.S. places American officers with each Iraqi
military unit (even platoons), and these officers have ultimate control

of any actions taken. No air strikes could be ordered without Americans

approving them.

Second-and far more important-the American policy
is already maximally ruthless, as the quote above makes clear. The
rules of engagement are that any resistance at all from any location
(house, commercial shop, mosque, school) should be met by overwhelming
force, air power if tanks or artillery are not available. Nothing the
Iraqis could do would be worse, even if they select different targets.
They might, in fact, be less vicious (if they could actually control
the air strikes), since they might avoid schools and mosques.

As if this new policy would not add enough mayhem to the already brutal

mix in Iraq, Hersh gestures at another negative dynamic that the U.S.
presence is animating. Speaking of the accusations that U.S. withdrawal

would facilitate or unleash a civil war, Hersh writes:

'In many areas, that[civil] war has, in a sense, already begun, and
the United States military is being drawn into the sectarian violence.
An American Army officer who took part in the assault on Tal Afar, in
the north of Iraq, earlier this fall, said that an American infantry
brigade was placed in the position of providing a cordon of security
around the besieged city for Iraqi forces, most of them Shiites, who
were "rounding up any Sunnis on the basis of whatever a Shiite said to
them." The officer went on, "They [the U.S. troops] were killing
Sunnis on behalf of the Shiites," with the active participation of a
militia unit led by a retired American Special Forces soldier. "People
like me have gotten so downhearted," the officer added.'

Hersh is understating American culpability. It is the Americans who
recruited, trained and then stationed the Shiites in these Sunni areas,

and-as this quote indicates-the Iraqi units are part of an American
sweep, and the bulk of the killing was done by Americans "on behalf
of the Shiites."

This is not an Iraqi policy-it is an American one. This very
policy-of using Shiites and Kurds against Sunnis-has been the
trigger for the long wave of car bombings by Sunnis against Shia
targets. And, moreover, the U.S. is running the parts of the Ministry
of the Interior, that commands the Wolf Brigade and other special
forces that commit terrorist attacks against Sunni clerics who support
the resistance, as well as other Sunni leaders. The use of Shia and
Kurdish forces in Sunni areas has become a linchpin of U.S. military
policy, and it is the key provocation that has redirected Sunni anger
toward Shia and Kurds. That sectarian violence is the chief dynamic
leading to civil war.

So what do we conclude? As U.S. military strategy in Iraq has begun to
unravel, our military has adopted progressively more vicious methods to

attempt to maintain its control of the country. In the current
iteration, this involves escalated bombing attacks against densely
populated urban areas in an attempt to bomb the Sunnis into submission,

and the development of anti-Sunni brigades of Shia and Kurdish troops
to inflict punishment on resisting cities. The American role in Iraq
continues to get uglier.