Orwell in Iraq: Snow Jobs, Zarqawi and Bogus Peace Plans

By Dahr Jamail
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
http://dahrjamailiraq.com

Monday 03 July 2006

"My personal opinion is that the only way we will lose this war is if we
pull out prematurely," said Colonel Jeffrey Snow, who commands a brigade
of soldiers in Iraq. Snow, as reported by AFP on June 30th, fears losing
public support in the US for the ongoing occupation of Iraq because of
"negative perceptions" at home due to news that is "always bad."

Reuters reported, also on June 30th, Snow admitting that resistance
attacks in Baghdad have risen despite the recent security crackdown that
brought tens of thousands of American and Iraqi soldiers, new
checkpoints and curfews in the capital city.

The same Col. Snow, unable (or more likely, unwilling) to provide
statistics on the increased number of attacks, instead used the excuse
that the steps the US military took to tell the Iraqi people about the
new security measures kept resistance fighters informed of the
military's plans. On that note, it couldn't be more obvious that someone
in his position is there for his ability to follow orders, rather than
his aptitude toward the application of logic.

In another dazzling flash of brain activity, Snow, who obviously thinks
"war" is a suitable term for the illegal occupation of Iraq, commented,
"We expected there would be an increase in attacks, and that is
precisely what's happened." He also added, "I believe that these attacks
are going to go down over time. So I remain optimistic."

Snow is obviously annoyed with the fact that select media outlets
continue to report the increasing violence, ongoing deaths of Iraqi
civilians and US soldiers, and that the country is, at this point,
essentially as devastated as it was when Hulagu Khan's Mongols sacked
Baghdad 748 years ago.

Just three days before the flash of brilliant analysis by Snow, the
Iraqi health ministry announced it had received 262 corpses within the
previous four days as the result of armed operations all over the
country. It also reported that 580 people were injured in the same time
period, and did not count people known to have been abducted and
murdered but whose bodies have not yet been found.

But Snow seems to be less concerned with the reality on the ground than
he is with public perception of the hell that Iraq has become. While he
admits that his own troops have come under a greater number of
resistance attacks, he preferred to offer his professional critique of
media coverage on the failed state of Iraq.

"Our soldiers may be in the crosshairs every day, but it is the American
voter who is a real target, and it is the media that carries the message
back each day across the airwaves. So when the news is not balanced and
it's always bad, that clearly leads to negative perceptions back home,"
said the leader of the 1st Brigade of the 10th Mountain Division, which
has been in Iraq nearly one year.

Determined to leave reporters with a warm, fuzzy feeling inside about
the situation in Iraq, as well as to explain his obvious contradictions,
Snow added, "The way I would answer that is that attacks here recently
are up in our area. However, the overall effectiveness is down. So you
may perceive that as double-speak."

While Snow was busy contemplating his gifts of double-speak the next
day, July 1st, a car bomb attacked a police patrol in Sadr City,
Baghdad, killing at least 62 people and wounding over 100.

With the plan to secure Baghdad, "Operation Forward Together," now three
weeks old, and the so-called terror leader in Iraq, Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi, killed, the security situation has only continued to
deteriorate.

"Killing Zarqawi has not improved the situation in Iraq one bit," said
Loretta Napoleoni, Fullbright Scholar at Johns Hopkins University,
author of the books Terror Inc. and Insurgent Iraq. While speaking to an
audience in Seville, Spain, where we both gave lectures about the
situation in Iraq this past weekend, the expert about Zarqawi and terror
groups now operating in Iraq added, "In fact, it might well have made
things worse. There is evidence to back the claim that al-Qaeda gave
information to the Multi-National Forces about Zarqawi to have him
killed, since they had been having problems with him for quite some
time. Thus, killing him may well have strengthened the link between
al-Qaeda and Sunni resistance groups in Iraq."

When I interviewed Napoleoni, she told me that the image of Zarqawi
portrayed by Western media outlets was basically the antithesis of
reality. "He [Zarqawi] was not in control of the Sunni resistance. He
was in control of a very small group of jihadists, predominantly foreign
fighters. He was extremely unpopular among the other factions of Sunni
resistance fighters. Some of the members of the resistance even tried
two times to remove him because he was a negative political influence."

While talking with Napoleoni I wondered if Col. Snow truly believed his
own rhetoric. I asked her what she thought of the constant assertions in
Western corporate media outlets that Zarqawi was the "leader of the
Iraqi resistance."

"Well it's not true. It's absolutely not true," she told me, "I don't
know what they base these kinds of statements on. The resistance in Iraq
is quite complex, including the Shia factions, and of course al-Zarqawi
was not in control of that. Finally, al-Zarqawi was a foreigner. This is
the key element. The Iraqi resistance would never follow a foreigner as
a leader."

Hoping to shed some light on how people like Col. Snow, along with so
many US citizens, remain so ignorant about the reality on the ground in
Iraq, I asked Napoleoni, who lectures regularly on the financing of
terrorism as well as being an economist, another question.

Who is actually conducting the terrorism in Iraq? "The majority of the
suicide missions are carried out by non-Iraqis. There are lots of people
coming from the Gulf. There is a jihadist web site that lists the names
of the martyrs, and you can see that they come from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait
and even from the Emirates. This is the majority of the suicide
missions. Some people come from Syria and Jordan, but the vast majority
of people come from the Gulf."

So much for ongoing attempts by the Cheney administration to implicate
Syria and Iran in collaborating with the Iraqi resistance. All Cheney
needs to do is have his puppet, Mr. Bush, ask his pal, the King of Saudi
Arabia, why they are allowing so many martyrs into Iraq.

Col. Snow take note, because if you really want to know what you are
attempting to hide from people in the US, you should ask Napoleoni.

According to her, the reason why Zarqawi and the few terrorist groups
operating in Iraq are given so much media attention is because the
Cheney administration "needs to personalize the enemy and needs to have
a dichotomy between good and evil. This has been, very much, the Bush
[Cheney] administration's policy right from the beginning. His [Bush's]
first speech after 9/11 was "You are either with us or you are against
us." So he clearly stated there is nothing in between. So al-Zarqawi had
to be an evil individual the same way that Saddam Hussein was portrayed
as an evil individual because, you know, there is a moral battle here."

Col. Snow and other gullible US citizens should heed her conclusion
about why the myth of Zarqawi was blown so large and wide. "Of course
this [moral battle] is the umbrella under which the economic battle and
the hegemonic battles are taking place," she said.

While we were discussing the US-propagated myth of Zarqawi, I decided to
ask Napoleoni to comment on the absurd statements made by Western
corporate media outlets claiming that Zarqawi was in control of Fallujah
during the November 2004 massacre in the city.

"Al-Zarqawi was never in control of Fallujah," she told me, "In fact, he
was never in Fallujah." As we discussed the second US assault on
Fallujah in depth, she mentioned that negotiations between resistance
groups, tribal leaders and the US military were happening right up to
the launching of Operation Phantom Fury against Fallujah.

"The reason why that negotiation failed was because after it was agreed,
the Americans basically demanded to have al-Zarqawi, and of course the
people of Fallujah couldn't give him to the Americans because he was not
in Fallujah," she said, confirming what I'd been told by my sources in
the city.

Another recent clue as to why resistance attacks against US and Iraqi
forces have been on the rise as of late is the "failed" reconciliation
plan put forth by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

The vague plan offered by the Shia-dominated puppet government was
flawed from the beginning, and when I asked Napoleoni what she thought
of the "plan" she said, "I don't think it is going to work at all. I
think it is a window dressing for the West. I think it is one of these
political decisions in order to sell an image to the West saying, "Oh,
the new government in Iraq is actually offering peace. But this peace is
going to be rejected; therefore the new government has no other choice
but to continue repressing the people."

She continued, "I don't think there was anything in that proposal that
was written in order to bring a deal. Because if you look at this, it is
impossible for any of those groups to accept it. It's too vague, for a
start. Also, it basically prohibits amnesty for anybody who has done any
activity motivated by political violence. So of course this was rejected
because there was no way an amnesty is going to be accepted by the Sunni
when we are in a situation where the government is in the hands of the
Shia."

There is one thing that Col. Snow said about the US corporate media that
he and I agree on. Napoleoni, who worked for several banks and
international organizations in Europe and the US as well as having
brought heads of state from around the world together to create a new
strategy for combating the financing of terror networks, agreed as well.

And that is when Col. Snow told reporters, "It is the American voter who
is a real target."