The Longbow Papers

What do we call the enemy? George and Laura Bush were the guests on Larry King Live this Sunday. In the context of the latest fighting in Najaf, King said to the President: "We've had more today, there are more eruptions in Iraq. And it seems never-ending, does[n't] it? What does it do to you?"

The President replied:

"We've got a great leader in Prime Minister Allawi. He's a tough guy who believes in free societies. And more and more Iraqis are being trained. And more and more Iraqis are stepping up to do the hard work of bringing these terrorists, these former Baathist and some foreign fighters to justice. And that's why we are going to prevail."

So the President thinks that in Najaf we're up against Baathists, foreign fighters, and terrorists. In a similar vein, Secretary of State Colin Powell said the following of the fighting in Najaf at a recent press conference:

"In this case, the violence is being perpetrated by outlaws and by former regime elements and by terrorists who respect no truce, respect nothing except force. And as long as those individuals don't understand the spirit of peace and reconciliation, are not willing to work for democratic, free Iraq, they have to be dealt with. And so your question really should not be addressed to us. It should be addressed to those who are causing the violence, who are setting off the bombs, who are destroying the hopes of the Iraqi people."

Now statements like Powell's tend to be reported quite straightforwardly in our press even though the one thing you certainly couldn't say about the Mahdi Army in Najaf is that it's made up of former "regime elements" or "Baathists." These are, after all, the Shiites of southern Iraq whom Saddam brutally repressed in 1991 and whom we claimed our invasion was meant to liberate. It should be remembered, in fact, that the last army to reach the Imam Ali Shrine with intent to harm was Saddam's.

Should you want to imagine what the present situation looks like from the point of view of many Shiites and you're willing to search, you can probably find the odd comment buried somewhere in our torrent or Iraq reportage ("Saddam made mass graves in 1991," Abbos fumed. "Now the Americans are making mass graves in 2004, filled with Shiites again."), or you can go offshore or into cyberspace, where, for instance, Jim Lobe of Inter Press Service offers the following in the Asia Times on-line, quoting (the ubiquitous) Juan Cole:

"'What's going on right now looks a lot like April 1991, when it was [Iraqi president] Saddam [Hussein] who was crushing a Shi'ite uprising. But now it's the Marines who are playing the role of the Republican Guard,' Cole told Inter Press Service, adding that US policy in Iraq was looking increasingly like 'Ba'ath-lite,' particularly under Allawi."

Or you can read the piece (mentioned above) by Scott Balduff, who has done some superb on-the-spot reporting from Najaf, and writes:

"If the Americans and Iraqi Army do end up assaulting the Shrine of Ali, they will not be the first. Hussein threw the full force of his military against the shrine in 1991 after Shiite rebels launched an abortive rebellion. Artillery barrages damaged the shrine complex and special-forces soldiers killed the rebels inside the complex itself. The brutality of this crackdown at such a holy site turned most Shiites against Hussein, even those who had defended him in the past."

Of course, the labeling of guerrillas, rebels, and insurgents, religious or otherwise, as "outlaws" and "terrorists" has a long history in European colonial wars as also, for instance, in Japanese depredations in China in the 1930s. Similarly the language in the statements coming out of our military in Iraq these days has a familiar ring for anyone who knows something of the history of counterinsurgency warfare. For instance, here's part of a statement quoted in the Washington Post by Brig. Gen. Erv Lessel, identified by the Post reporter as "Deputy Director for Operations of the U.S. led multi-national force":

"Clearing operations by Iraqi Security Forces and Multi-National Forces today in Najaf continue to further isolate the militia and restore control of the city to the government and people of Najaf… The combined Iraqi and multi-national security forces continue to operate in strict compliance with guidance from the Prime Minister [interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi] to safeguard and prevent possible harm to these holy shrines as well as protect the citizens and future of Iraq."

Our operations involving Predator drones, Apache helicopters, and jets in downtown Najaf, then, are "clearing operations" (though who exactly is being "cleared" isn't made particularly clear), and the forces, almost totally American, conducting these clearing operations are dubbed "multinational," and all this is supposedly being done under the "guidance" of Prime Minister Allawi to "safeguard… these holy shrines." Of course, it's obviously in the interest of American policy makers and military men to put forward such lies even at a moment when the only non-American troops fighting on our side in Najaf, the sparse Iraqi battalions we've trained, are evidently deserting in droves, as Hannah Allam, Tom Lasseter and Dogen Hannah of Knight Ridder have recently reported. ("'I'm ready to fight for my country's independence and for my country's stability,' one lieutenant colonel said. 'But I won't fight my own people.'") But if this sort of language is simply reproduced without comment in our news, then Americans will have little way to grasp the nature of what's happening in Iraq.