markfromireland

The division between Sunni and Shia in Iraq is nowhere near as profound as western commentators — particularly American journalists would have you believe.

As a religion of law, Islam is and always has been inherently involved with governance and is thus innately political. For the majority of Muslims, Islam is “the blueprint of a social order” [Gellner], which:

1. Postulates a community of believers (the umma).
2. Contains and transmits a body of legal prescriptions.
3. Contains and transmits a body of moral injunctions.

For present purposes it is sufficient to understand that the dispute between the Shia and the Sunni is primarily one of governance. a legal one about who is the legitimate successor to the prophet Mohammed. At the time of Mohammed’s death the majority of Muslims favoured Abu Bakr as his successor passing over Ali ibn Abu Talib (Imam Ali). A minority of the Muslim community felt that Ali ibn Abu Talib was the rightful successor and remained loyal to him and to his successors. Indeed the term Shia literally means “the Party” or “the faction” and in early days the Shia were referred to as “Shi’at Ali,” — “The Party of Ali.”

Sectarian bitterness between Shia and Sunni in Iraq intensified under Ottoman rule. The Ottomans were devoutly Sunni and highly militaristic. Their empire wasn’t a state in the way in which we think of a state, rather it was a series of interlocking military commands. that saw itself as a frontier state dedicated to protecting the Muslim heartlands. It saw itself as being surrounded on all sides and under threat on its western frontiers by Christian Europe, to the north by Christian Russia, while the rise of the Saffavid dynasty in Persia (Iran) their military rivalry with the Ottomans and their declaration of Shiism as the state religion intensified the Ottoman feeling of being surrounded. This led to Ottoman oppression of the Shia within their domains.

The dismemberment of the Ottoman empire by the victorious allies at the end of World War I led to the British taking over Iraq.

The British adopted their standard technique for governing their colonial subjects of “divide and rule.” They deliberately fostered divisions by favouring the minority communities such as the Sunni, Iraqi Christians, Iraqi Jews, Assyrians, Shabaks,and Mandaeans, while discriminating against the Shia and the Kurds, and often treating them very harshly.

The British colonial policy of “divide et impera” by fostering sectarian and or ethnic bitterness was notably less successful in Iraq than elsewhere. Iraqis had then and have now, a strong sense of being specifically Iraqi, and referred to themselves as “Iraqis” and the country in which they lived as “Iraq.”

Thus while the British colonialists did manage to deepen ethnic/sectarian divisions to an extent the policy failed to prevent the rise of secular nationalism and their expulsion in 1958. The nationalists successfully appealed to a specific national identity which transcended communal considerations and developed a powerful support for national unity. However the fact that most of the officer corps, civil service, and the business elite were Sunni, meant that under Saddam Hussein the Ba’athist regime quickly turned to discriminating in favour of the minority communities much as the British done.

Saddam Hussein’s secular regime deliberately used emphasising ethnic and religious differences as a strategy of rule. The Saddam regime reserved its worst treatment for the Kurds, who with intermittent support from Iran, Israel and Washington engaged in armed struggle for autonomy.

Saddam’s regime also suppressed a Shiite uprising in the South of the country after the 1991 Gulf War. The Shiites and the marsh Arabs rose at the urging of the American government who promptly abandoned them to their fate.

There are times when you’ve got to love the Italians. Truly there are times when you just have to say:

“mio cuore, mia anima, mia vita…”

to each and every Italian you happen to bump into on the street. Why? Well there’s this matchless piece of reporting from the New York Times’ very own Sabrina Tavernise and Qais Mizher (with a bit help from two brown people living in Iraq.)

Chaos overtakes once-peaceful Basra
By Sabrina Tavernise and Qais Mizher The New York Times

THURSDAY, JUNE 1, 2006

[ follow the “more” link to read what I freely confess is a long article - markfromireland.]
(more…)

200,000 Ak-47 Assault Rifles Missing In Iraq? - It’s Business As Usual - Thanks Rummy

How can it happen that four planeloads of Kalashnikov assault rifles vanish from Bosnia and apparently wind up in Iraq? Put it another way 200,000 AK-47s have gone missing and there’s very good grounds to believe that the US government paid handsomely to have them delivered to person or persons unknown in Iraq, and by person or persons unkown I do not mean the Iraqi government.

HAVE 200,000 AK47S FALLEN INTO THE HANDS OF IRAQ TERRORISTS?
FEARS OVER SECRET U.S. ARMS SHIPMENT

SOME 200,000 guns the US sent to Iraqi security forces may have been smuggled to terrorists, it was feared yesterday.

The 99-tonne cache of AK47s was to have been secretly flown out from a US base in Bosnia. But the four planeloads of arms have vanished.

Orders for the deal to go ahead were given by the US Department of Defense. But the work was contracted out via a complex web of private arms traders.

And the Moldovan airline used to transport the shipment was blasted by the UN in 2003 for smuggling arms to Liberia, human rights group Amnesty has discovered.

It follows a separate probe claiming that thousands of guns meant for Iraq’s police and army instead went to al-Qaeda

[snip]

A Nato spokesman said: “There’s no tracking mechanism to ensure they don’t fall into the wrong hands. There are concerns that some may have been siphoned off.”

[snip]

Meanwhile, Aerocom, the Moldovan air firm at the centre of the 200,000 missing AK47s, was stripped of its licence by its national authorities a day before the first shipment.

Two other companies in the complicated sale claim to have papers proving the guns were delivered in Iraq but refuse to show them.”

Full report here [This link and all exterior links open in new windows - markfromireland].

US in secret gun deal

Small arms shipped from Bosnia to Iraq ‘go missing’ as Pentagon uses dealers

Ian Traynor in Zagreb
Friday May 12, 2006
The Guardian

The Pentagon has secretly shipped tens of thousands of small arms from Bosnia to Iraq in the past two years, using a web of private companies, at least one of which is a noted arms smuggler blacklisted by Washington and the UN.

According to a report by Amnesty International, which investigated the sales, the US government arranged for the delivery of at least 200,000 Kalashnikov machine guns from Bosnia to Iraq in 2004-05. But though the weaponry was said to be for arming the fledgling Iraqi military, there is no evidence of the guns reaching their recipient.

Full story here

The AK-47 is a superbly well-designed weapon:

• It’s simple and cheap to manufacture.
• It’s very easy to clean and maintain.
• It’s very rugged.
• It’s very reliable.

It has these desirable characteristics because of several features of its design. It has a large gas piston, lots of clearance between its moving parts, and a tapered cartridge case. All of which mean that it can take a lot of abuse and a lot of foreign matter and fouling and still cycle properly. - The down side of this reliability is that it’s not the most accurate weapon in the world.

Depending on where it’s made the factory cost of a new AK-47 is in the region of US$75.00 [seventy five US dollars]. AKs are in heavy demand and the demand is rising for example:
Last year [2005] the US bought the following to equip the new “Iraqi” army:

• 100,000 Kalashnikov rifles,
• 100,000 flak jackets,
• 110,000 pistols,
• 6,000 cars and pickup trucks,
• 230 million rounds of ammunition.

- That was before the program to build an “Iraqi” army really began to get off the ground, and was also at the time when the desertion rate was very high nor does that figure include supplies for the various militias and “security agencies.”

Nor is Iraq the sole source of demand. Venezuela is building up its defenses against an American attack and it’s not just interested in high tech weaponry of the sort it can acquire from Spain or of the deal that Israel was forced to drop or their recent deal with Russia. For obvious reasons the Venezuelan is interested in asymetric warfare defense and is actively acquiring expertise in that field:

“Instructors made comparisons to Viet Cong guerrilla attacks on U.S troops, including the use of secret tunnels, poisons and home-made weapons.

Venezuelan officers have also been sent to Havana to learn civilian-military cooperation from the Cubans as part of the training, said National Guard Gen. Juan Alberto Hernandez

[snip]

“They will guarantee resistance against an invading force in their areas. They’ll be trained in weapons and other home-made artifacts,” said instructor Benavides. “They can be confused with the populace and that is part of asymmetric war.”

Reuters via Herald-Sun 06 Mar 06 “Venezuelans prepare for invasion”

That’s just one source of the rise in demand, there are lots of promising little wars brewing in Africa as well.

However back to Iraq. Quite aside from “official demand” and the demand from various militias there’s a further source of demand, ordinary householders. Under a “law” passed by Bremer every Iraqi household is entitled to one weapon. American troops do NOT confiscate them during searches. By no means all households have a weapon yet, but as the American occupiers continue to engage in policies that actively encourage the break up of Iraq, that’s an oversight that many Iraqis are rushing to correct. After the Samarra bombing the average price of a Russian-made AK-47 went from from US$112 to US$290 literally overnight while bullets jumped to 33 cents up from 24 cents again literally overnight. It’s continuing to climb somewhat and even a large influx of AKs aimed purely at this civilian market will not depress the price enough for arms dealers to make windfall profits.

The temptation to “mislay” a large consignment and make a hefty profit is clear. But how could it have happened? The answer lies here:

“And the Moldovan airline used to transport the shipment was blasted by the UN in 2003 for smuggling arms to Liberia, human rights group Amnesty has discovered.”

Moldova has the unenviable distinction of being the second poorest country in Europe (some say it’s the poorest.) Its bureaucracy is notoriously corrupt and the airline in question is owned by Victor Bout. Bout whose links to blood diamond trade and willingness to supply arms to everybody and anybody are notorious was designated by the US Treasury under Executive Order 13348 [PDF] on April 26th last year. Bout who is a fugitive from justice in two countries is also strongly suspected of smuggling arms to the Taleban. But has been selling to the US PX in Iraq since at least 2004 (he’s cheap) as well as ammunition (same reason.)

By now my readers won’t be surprised to learn that the main contractors who carried out the deal on behalf of the US Government be said to be above reproach:

“The Pentagon commissioned the US security firms Taos and CACI - which is known for its involvement in the Abu Ghraib prison controversy in Iraq - to orchestrate the arms purchases and shipments. They, in turn, subcontracted to a welter of firms, brokers, and shippers, involving businesses based in Britain, Switzerland, Croatia, Moldova, and Bosnia” [Guardian report cited above - mfi]

Nor will I suppose will my readers be surprised to learn that people have been writing about and reporting on for a long time now. Nothing seems to be have done.

How could it happen? Greed, corruption, cronyism, the Bush administration’s omnipresent incompetence, and of course a government not overly concerned with what happens to the country they invaded and are now occupying. The fact that Rumsfeld’s “reforms” meant the decimation of US logistical capacity to make room for contractors made this sort of scandal inevitable. Who could all those weapons have gone to? Everybody and anybody, and that includes householders, assorted militants, and of course all the assorted variations on a peshmerga theme.

Heck of a job Rummy, heck of a job, I’m surprised that US casualties are as low as they are.

markfromireland

PS: The cost of an Ak-47 in Beirut has still not dropped.

Gin Soaked Raisin Brain Dilletante vs. Patriot

Go read.

markfromireland

Postscript: As of today 2407 US service personnel and uncounted innocent Iraqi civilians, Kurd, Turkoman, Arab, Christian, and Jew alike have died in the war for which Hitchens whored out the pathetically tiny remnants of his credibility and conscience. To hell with him.

mfi

Crossposted to Gorilla’s Guides

Earlier this month Turkey deployed an additional 40,000 troops in the southeast.

“the Kurdistan Workers Party is trying to send half of its 4,900 militants (based) in northern Iraq here and preparing for attacks in Turkey’s cities.”

See also;

KURDISH INTIFADA?

Clashes in Southeastern Turkey on the Rise

Violence is on the rise in southeastern Turkey as the Kurdistan Worker’s Party increases its guerilla activity. The government in Ankara is worried about a Kurdish intifada.

Rice offers modest aid to Turkey
By Anne Gearan
Associated Press

ANKARA, Turkey - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pledged only modest U.S. help yesterday as Turkey tries to counter a threat from Kurdish rebels using bases across its border with Iraq. She asked for patience with the new Iraqi government.

Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said the Turkey-based Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) had free run of a swath of northern Iraq and had set up training camps and bases. Turkey fears that civil unrest in Iraq could lead to the fragmentation of the country and often has called on the United States to stop PKK fighters from using Iraq as a base to stage attacks inside Turkey.

“We’ve shared our expectation that we expect more from them,” Gul said. “Especially, I have shared with Rice that the terrorist organization, benefiting from the power vacuum in northern Iraq, has started to damage Turkey again.”

Rice did not dispute that, but she chose her words carefully.

“We believe that it is important that we make joint efforts, through information-sharing and other means, to prevent… any vacuum from being used as a way to inflict harm here in Turkey,” Rice said after meeting with Gul in Ankara. “We need to work with the new Iraqi government, and we will do that.”

She said the United States, Turkey and Iraq could revive a three-way discussion of the PKK once the Iraqi leadership selected last weekend has formed a new, permanent government.

The United States wants Turkey to hold back from crossing the Iraq border to pursue rebels.

Rice met large and sometimes violent protests against the war in Iraq and U.S. foreign policy during diplomatic visits yesterday to Greece and Turkey

Readers with good memories will recall that Turkey refused to allow its territory to be used to invade Iraq. There seems to be absolutely no level of incompetence below which the Bush administration cannot sink.

See also Juan Cole today 27/04/2006.

and:

Turkey Masses Troops on Iraqi Border by Aaron Glantz (antiwar.com)

and:

Susan at News About Iraq has links to several stories here and accurately characterises this administration as delusional.

markfromireland
(crossposted from my other blog where the title is exapanded somewhat to reflect just how bad this news is.)