Shia militias refuse to stop looting in Tikrit

06 April 2015 
Source: Middle East Monitor

Iraqi security sources have said that the Shia militias in Tikrit have refused to stop mass looting and killings in the city recaptured from ISIS a couple of days ago, Jordan's Al-Sabeelnewspaper reported on Sunday. It was said earlier that Prime Minister Haidar Al-Abadi had sent his forces to the city to end the looting, killing and destruction of houses and shops.

However, claim the sources, these particular militias refused to leave the city along with the "Popular Crowd" militia, which withdrew from the city on Saturday and handed over responsibility for security to the federal police.

Several international media reports allege that the Shia militias have carried out mass executions and widespread looting and destruction of property in Tikrit since it was recaptured last week. As many as 76 people were summarily executed by the militias, it is claimed; their bodies were dragged through the streets.

According to the Wall Street Journal, one Tikrit resident, Waleed Omar, fled the city during the fighting earlier this month. "This looting issue is 100 per cent true," he said, "and it means new suffering for the people of Tikrit." ISIS displaced people in Tikrit after committing horrible crimes against them, he added, and now the militias are looting and burning their homes.

The head of the provincial council of Salahuddin province, Ahmed Al-Kareem, told reporters, "Tikrit is chaotic and things are out of control. The police forces and officials there are helpless to stop the militias."

Both Al-Kareem and the governor of Salahuddin left Tikrit, the provincial capital, on Friday night, in protest at the failure of the Iraqi government to curb looting and murder. "Houses and shops were burnt after they stole everything," Al-Kareem told Reuters. Pointing out that hundreds of buildings have been set on fire, he said: "Our city was burnt down in front of our eyes. We cannot control what is going on."

Meanwhile, Deputy Iraqi Prime Minister Salim Al-Jabbour said that the deterioration of the situation in Diyala province, north-east of Baghdad, ended after an agreement with the head of Al-Sadri militias, in addition to other parties to the political process. Before this agreement, Shia militias were also engaged there in mass looting, property destruction and killing after recapturing the area from ISIS.

Link: www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/middle-east/17895-shia-militias-refuse-to-stop-looting-in-tikrit.

American and Israeli military advisors were arrested while aiding Islamic State terrorists in Iraq.

07.03.2015
Source:sputniknews

Iraqi counter-terrorism forces arrested four foreign military advisors from the United States and Israel who were aiding the Islamic State, Iranian Tasnim News Agency reports.

Three of the arrested military advisors are dual citizens of the United States and Israel, while the fourth advisor is from a Persian Gulf country, Iraq’s Sarma News Agency said.

The foreign military advisors were captured in a headquarters, from where the Islamic State organized its military operations in Iraq’s Northern Province of Nineveh.

Read more: http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20150307/1019201301.html#ixzz3TsgTnlxi

Iraqi Kurdish President Asks Parliament To Plan Independence Referendum

07/03/2014
By Isabel Coles
Source: Huffington Post

ARBIL, Iraq, July 3 (Reuters) - The president of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region asked its parliament on Thursday to plan a referendum on Kurdish independence, signaling his impatience with Baghdad, which is fighting to repel Sunni insurgents and struggling to form a new government.

The United States has urged the Kurds to stand with Baghdad as Iraq faces an onslaught by Sunni Muslim militants led by an al Qaeda offshoot who have seized large parts of the north and west and are threatening to march on the capital.

Iraq's 5 million Kurds, who have governed themselves in relative peace since the 1990s, have expanded their territory by as much as 40 percent in recent weeks as the sectarian insurgency has threatened to split the country.

Kurdish President Massoud Barzani asked lawmakers to form a committee to organize a referendum on independence and pick a date for the vote.

"The time has come for us to determine our own fate and we must not wait for others to determine it for us," Barzani said in a closed session of the Kurdish parliament that was later broadcast on television.

"For that reason, I consider it necessary ... to create an independent electoral commission as a first step and, second, to make preparations for a referendum."

Barzani's call came days after Kurds and Sunnis walked out of the newly-elected Iraqi parliament's first session in Baghdad, complaining that the majority Shi'ites had failed to nominate a prime minister.

Many Kurds have long wanted to declare independence and now sense a golden opportunity, with Baghdad weak and Sunni armed groups in control of northern cities such as Mosul and Tikrit.

Barzani, often at odds with the central government, indicated that his people would not wait on Baghdad forever.

"We will not deal with those who have sabotaged the country," he said. "Iraq has divided itself and we are not responsible for that"

Many see the Shi'ite prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, as the main obstacle to resolving the crisis and hope he will step aside.


"POLITICAL STABILITY NEEDED"

Maliki himself said a political solution went hand-in-hand with the campaign to recapture areas held by insurgents.

"There is no security without complete political stability," he said in a televised address on Wednesday. "We will proceed with our political projects but we will be on high alert and ready for the momentum of the battle."

Security forces are battling fighters led by the Islamic State, which shortened its name from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant this week and named its leader "caliph", the historical title of successors of the Prophet Mohammad who ruled the Muslim world.

Rising concern and pressure from the United States, Iran, the United Nations and Iraq's own Shi'ite clerics has done little to end the paralyzing divisions between Iraq's main ethnic and sectarian blocs.

Mithal al-Alusi, a prominent Sunni politician, said he did not think Maliki was prepared to step aside. "Mr. Maliki wants to continue and he believes ... that without him nothing can be done in Iraq," he said.

In the system put in place after the United States toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003, the premiership is traditionally given to a Shi'ite, while the speaker of the house has been a Sunni and the president, a largely ceremonial role, has been a Kurd.

In his weekly televised address, Maliki said he hoped parliament could get past its "state of weakness" and reach consensus in its next session, planned for Tuesday. But it is far from clear when leaders in Baghdad might do so.

All the main blocs are beset by internal divisions, and none has yet decided who to put forward for its designated position.

Dia al-Asadi, secretary general of the Al-Ahrar bloc, a Shi'ite faction loyal to powerful cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and opposed to Maliki, told Reuters that only Maliki's own State of Law coalition would support his staying on as prime minister.

"There is objection by almost all of the other groups - the Kurds, the Sunnis, and the other Shi'ites," he said.

Each of the blocs has said it wants to know who the others will choose for their posts before naming its own - meaning the nominations will have to be done as a package.


FIGHTING IN DIYALA

Maliki's government, bolstered by civilian volunteers and Shi'ite militias, has managed to stop the militant advance short of the capital, but has been unable to take back the cities that government forces abandoned.

The army failed last week to take back Tikrit, 160 km (100 miles) north of Baghdad, and remained on the outskirts of the city on Thursday, according to the prime minister's military spokesman Lieutenant General Qassim Atta.

In the northeasterly province of Diyala, 14 militants were killed in fighting with security forces, local police said.

The head of the region's police, Jamil Al-Shimmeri, said security forces had taken back control of the village of Showhani near the town of Muqdadiya, 80 km northeast of Baghdad.

Insurgents have been present in Diyala for the past several weeks, following their rapid seizure of Mosul, one of Iraq's largest cities, to the north.

Saudi-owned al-Arabiya television said Saudi Arabia had deployed 30,000 soldiers to its border with Iraq after Iraqi soldiers withdrew from the area, but Iraq denied the report.

Al-Arabiya broadcast footage of what it said were Iraqi soldiers in the desert area east of the city of Karbala after pulling back from the border. But the army spokesman said the border was still under the full control of Iraqi forces.

Far from the heart of the Sunni insurgency, tensions among Shi'te factions burst into violence on Wednesday when security forces clashed with followers of a radical cleric in Karbala.

Security sources said up to 45 people had been killed in clashes when police and army loyal to Maliki tried to arrest the cleric, Mahmoud al-Sarkhi.

Atta, the spokesman, said on Thursday the crisis was finished. (Reporting by Isabel Coles in Arbil, Isra' al-Rubei'i, Raheem Salman, Maggie Fick and Alexander Dziadosz in Baghdad; Writing by Maggie Fick; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Link:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/03/iraq-kurdish-independence-referendum_n_5554967.html?cps=gravity.

Israel Is Challenging America to Support Kurdish Independence

By Dov Friedman and Gabriel Mitchell 

Source: New Republic

  

The ongoing crisis in Iraq has revived fervid calls for Kurdish independence, and yet the immediate viability of a future Kurdish state depends overwhelmingly on a single factor: stable oil exports.

Baghdad froze the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) budget allocation at the beginning of March, in retaliation to Erbil signing an oil export deal with Turkey. This threw the KRG’s economy into turmoil, and explains why the recent sale of Kurdish oil from Turkey’s Ceyhan port—and Israel’s purported purchase—is so contentious. Though the first tanker carrying Kurdish oil still sits at anchor off the Moroccan coast, Reuters reported two weeks ago that the SCF Altai unloaded at Israel’s southwestern port of Ashkelon. Days later, the KRG confirmed receipt of sale revenues in its accounts at Turkey’s Halkbank.

Reactions were as swift as they were predictable. Hussain al-Shahristani, Iraq’s deputy prime minister for energy, called the sale a conspiracy. The Kurds denied selling Israel oil “directly or indirectly.” For its part, Israel kept mum—citing its policy not to comment on energy imports to private refineries. The independent dealer, which has a vested interest in not baring itself to Baghdad’s retribution, remains anonymous.

The story, as reported, leaves several questions unanswered. Did Israel purchase the oil, and did Kurdistan know Israel was the buyer? What does the purchase signify about the Israel-KRG relationship, and how might it complicate Israel’s relations with the U.S.? Sifting through the narrative clarifies the material and strategic benefits for both Israel and the KRG, and augurs the beginning of a vocal Israeli policy that defies the U.S’s declared interests in Iraq.

The KRG denied direct or indirect sales to Israel for obvious reasons. Though Kurdistan has pursued bolder, more autonomous policies in recent years, foreign policy remains the exclusive domain of Baghdad. Iraq maintains neither diplomatic nor economic relations with Israel, and flouting this policy might be deemed incendiary. Therefore, Kurdistan requires plausible deniability, and its oil sales through independent broker-dealers are as much precautionary as they are convenient. The “directly or indirectly” denial may have led every news story, but KRG officials left themselves considerably more wiggle room. The KRG sold to “different, reputable buyers,” with the goal “to maximize revenues for Kurdistan and Iraq.”

More plainly, the KRG sold to distributors, with neither control nor concern over the final destination. This formulation—denial of sale to Israel, followed by mannered obliviousness vis-à-vis the end buyer—has been reiterated by multiple government officials. Kurdistan’s primary objective is to lubricate the market for its product, and one reliable end purchaser may be all that is required to drive other dealers and countries into this lucrative market for competitively priced oil.
The view from Israel is hazier, but begins with the SCF Altai’s port of call—Ashkelon, Israel. Ashkelon is located a mere 20 kilometers south of Ashdod, the main commercial port in the area. So why would the SCF Altai unload at a secondary port? Because Ashkelon boasts one distinguishing feature: oil storage facilities.

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If Israel received Kurdish oil with the intention of storing it, two scenarios are plausible. In the first, Israeli companies—with government consent—purchased the oil because the price was simply too good to pass up. Currently, Israel receives most of its 280,000 barrels-per-day from Azerbaijan, Russia, and some undisclosed sources. Since Kurdish oil arrived at a substantial discount—due to the Kurds’ eagerness to sell and the shallowness of the market—Israeli companies may have purchased and stored the oil for domestic consumption.

If Kurdish oil develops into a reliable source, Israel gains negotiating power in its future energy contracts. And if Kurdistan’s relations with the Iraqi government continue to devolve—or if Iraq continues its descent into violent chaos—the Kurds may substitute access to Basra’s ports for an Israeli route to the Red Sea, via the Trans-Israel pipeline between Ashkelon and Eilat, and onward to the lucrative, energy-thirsty markets of Asia.

In the second scenario, the sale of Kurdish oil may be technically correct yet effectively misleading. Israel may be storing the oil because the Kurds have not yet found an end buyer. The money transferred to KRG accounts at Halkbank would then mean Israel has either informally loaned KRG money or Israel has assumed the liquidity risk of the Kurdish oil shipment.

Both scenarios suggest that the Kurdish-Israel relationship has matured significantly. At least since the 1960s, Israel has provided intermittent security assistance and military training to the Kurds. This served mostly as an anti-Saddam play—keeping him distracted as Israel fought two wars against coordinated Arab neighbors—but mutual understanding of their respective predicaments bred Israeli-Kurdish affinity as well. All signs point to this security cooperation continuing today. Israeli procurement of affordable Kurdish oil would not only indicate a strengthening of economic ties, but also an Israeli lifeline to budget-starved Erbil that suggests a strategic bet on the Kurds in an evolving region.

With the U.S. still adamant about a unified Iraq, Israel’s strategy places it at loggerheads with its foremost ally. As has been the case with the negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program, Israel’s leaders have not hesitated to highlight their policy divergence from the U.S. over Iraq, too. President Shimon Peres, in his meeting with President Obama, spoke of recognizing true friends and holding them close, and included the Kurds as a prime example. Days later, in a speech at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “It is upon us to support the Kurds’ aspiration for independence. They deserve it.”

It is implausible that Israel believed it could lead international opinion on Kurdish independence; more likely, Israel aimed its statements at the U.S. When the 80,000-ton SCF Altai docked in Ashkelon, it remained in port for more than two and a half days—a moderately protracted stay for a tanker of that size unloading a shipment. Did Israel face U.S. pressure not to receive the Kurdish crude, with the tanker idling in port? It is one plausible explanation. If so, the dual Peres-Netanyahu statements constitute a sharp riposte. Israel proclaimed its support for a longtime covert friend. With so few reliable friends remaining, it seems to have publicly challenged the U.S. to do the same.

Dov Friedman is a graduate student at Yale University’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs. He is currently in Kurdistan researching foreign policy in emerging energy states with support from the Coca-Cola World Fund. Gabriel Mitchell is the Israel-Turkey Project Coordinator for Mitvim—The Israeli Institute for Regional Foreign Policies and an editor for the Kurdistan Review. He is an incoming PhD candidate in Governance at Virginia Tech University.

Link:  .newrepublic.com/article/118549/israel-and-kurdistans-alleged-oil-deal-putting-us-notice.

Turkey against a Kurdish state in Iraq, says official

01 July 2014
Source:Middle East Monitor

 Turkish officials said that Turkey rejects the establishment of an independent Kurdish state in northern Iraq, Reuters reported Monday.

According to a Turkish official, as quoted by Reuters, the Turkish government supports a unity government in Baghdad to counter the threat of Sunni fighters who have recently seized large swathes of Iraqi territory.

"Turkey's position is to support the security and political unity in Iraq," the official said.
The statement came after remarks by Huseyin Celik, a spokesman for Turkey's ruling AK Party, published in the Financial Times on Saturday, have been cited as evidence that Turkey would accept the establishment of an independent Kurdish state if Iraq were to fall apart.

Iraqi Kurds have benefited from the recent turmoil in the country by seizing lands from which the government withdrew after the advance of ISIS fighters in June.

Turkey is concerned that Kurkish independence would stir up separatist sentiments among Turkish Kurds whose conflict with the Turkish government has left at least 40,000 killed over the past few decades. Peace talks have eventually led to a cease fire agreement between the two sides last year.
Furthermore, Turkey has recently allowed Iraqi Kurds, for the first time, to pump oil via a pipeline into a Turkish port to export it, amid opposition from Baghdad.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu voiced his support for Kurdish independence, unlike US position which supports unity of Iraq.

Link:  www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/europe/12471-turkey-against-a-kurdish-state-in-iraq-says-official.

U.S. could train elite Iraqi forces in Jordan

January 9, 2014
By Missy Ryan
Source: Yahoo News

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration is considering providing new training to elite Iraqi forces in Jordan as U.S. officials seek ways to help the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki repel an al Qaeda campaign near its western border.

Earlier this week, U.S. officials said the United States was in discussions with Iraq about training its elite forces in a third country, which would allow Washington to provide a modest measure of new support against militants in the absence of a troop deal allowing U.S. soldiers to operate within Iraq.

"There is discussion about this, and Jordan is included in the discussions," a U.S. defense official said.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that a privately run special operations training center near Amman was one of the sites being considered.

Jordan, grappling with the mounting impact of the grinding conflict in neighboring Syria, is one of the United States' closest allies in the Middle East.

It was not immediately clear who exactly would provide the new training to Iraqi forces, but it might include U.S. special forces soldiers or contractors.

U.S. officials have grown increasingly worried about Iraq in recent weeks as al Qaeda has staged a comeback in western Anbar province, where the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, an al Qaeda affiliate, is seeking to set up a Sunni religious state straddling Iraq and Syria.

Two years after the Obama administration pulled all U.S. troops from Iraq, the U.S. response to mounting sectarian tensions and surging violence in Iraq has been limited by reluctance to further empower Maliki, a Shi'ite increasingly at odds with minority Sunnis, and by a widespread desire to ensure U.S. soldiers aren't involved in another Middle Eastern war.

The United States is already sending Hellfire missiles, surveillance aircraft and other gear that Maliki has requested.

But at a time when many U.S. lawmakers see the Iraqi prime minister as an aspiring authoritarian with close ties to Iran, the Obama administration has not yet provided Iraq with the attack helicopters that Maliki has requested.

Some in the U.S. Senate say the United States should not move ahead with plans to sell and lease several dozen Apache helicopters to Iraq without adequate assurances about how the attack aircraft will be used.
Because U.S. soldiers cannot conduct military activities in Iraq without a Status of Forces Agreement, providing new support to Iraqi forces outside of Iraq is one way the Obama administration can try to help Iraq beat back what appears to be a growing militant threat.

The troop agreement the United States negotiated with Maliki's government in 2008 expired at the end of 2011 as U.S. forces withdrew.

(Reporting By Missy Ryan; Editing by Ken Wills)

Syria war widens rift between Shi'ite clergy in Iraq, Iran

30 minutes ago
By Suadad al-Salhy | Reuters
Source: Yahoo News

NAJAF, Iraq (Reuters) - The civil war in Syria is widening a rift between top Shi'ite Muslim clergy in Iraq and Iran who have taken opposing stands on whether or not to send followers into combat on President Bashar al-Assad's side.

Competition for leadership of the Shi'ite community has intensified since the U.S.-led invasion of 2003 toppled Saddam Hussein, empowering majority Shi'ites through the ballot box and restoring the Iraqi holy city of Najaf to prominence.

In Iran's holy city of Qom, senior Shi'ite clerics, or Marjiiya, have issued fatwas (edicts) enjoining their followers to fight in Syria, where mainly Sunni rebels are fighting to overthrow Assad, whose Alawite sect derives from Shi'ite Islam.

Shi'ite militant leaders fighting in Syria and those in charge of recruitment in Iraq say the number of volunteers has increased significantly since the fatwas were pronounced.

Tehran, Assad's staunchest defender in the region, has drawn on other Shi'ite allies, including Lebanese militia Hezbollah.

Hezbollah's open intervention earlier this year hardened the sectarian tone of a conflict that grew out of a peaceful street uprising against four decades of Assad family rule, and shifted the battlefield tide in the Syrian government's favor.

The Syrian war has polarized Sunnis and Shi'ites across the Middle East - but has also spotlighted divisions within each of Islam's two main denominations, putting Qom and Najaf at odds and complicating intra-Shi'ite relations in Iraq.

In Najaf, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who commands unswerving loyalty from most Iraqi Shi'ites and many more worldwide, has refused to sanction fighting in a war he views as political rather than religious.

Despite Sistani's stance, some of Iraq's most influential Shi'ite political parties and militia, who swear allegiance to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have answered his call to arms and sent their disciples into battle in Syria.

"Those who went to fight in Syria are disobedient," said a senior Shi'ite cleric who runs the office of one of the top four Marjiya in Najaf.

"SHI'ITE CRESCENT"

The split is rooted in a fundamental difference of opinion over the nature and scope of clerical authority.

Najaf Marjiiya see the role of the cleric in public affairs as limited, whereas in Iran, the cleric is the Supreme Leader and holds ultimate spiritual and political authority in the "Velayet e-Faqih" system ("guardianship of the jurist").

"The tension between the two Marjiiya already existed a long time ago, but now it has an impact on the Iraqi position towards the Syria crisis," a senior Shi'ite cleric with links to Marjiiya in Najaf said on condition of anonymity.

"If both Marjiiya had a unified position (toward Syria), we would witness a position of (Iraqi) government support for the Syrian regime".

The Shi'ite-led government in Baghdad says it takes no sides in the civil war, but the flow of Iraqi militiamen across the border into Syria has compromised that official position.

Khamenei and his faithful in Iraq and Iran regard Syria as a important link in a "Shi'ite Crescent" stretching from Tehran to Beirut through Baghdad and Damascus, according to senior clerics and politicians.

Answering a question posted on his website by one of his followers regarding the legitimacy of fighting in Syria, senior Iraq Shi'ite cleric Kadhim al-Haeari, who is based in Iran, described fighting in Syria as a "duty" to defend Islam.

Militants say that around 50 Iraqi Shi'ites fly to Damascus every week to fight, often alongside Assad's troops, or to protect the Sayyida Zeinab shrine on the outskirts of the capital, an especially sacred place for Shi'ites.

"I am following my Marjiiya. My spiritual leader has said fighting in Syria is a legitimate duty. I do not pay attention to what others say," said Ali, a former Mehdi army militant who was packing his bag to travel from Iraq to Syria.

"No one has the right to stop me. I am defending my religion, my Imam's daughter Sayyida Zeinab's shrine."

A high-ranking Shi'ite cleric who runs the office of one of the four top Marjiiya in Najaf said the protection of Shi'ite shrines in Syria was used as a pretext by Iran to galvanize Shi'ites into action.

"SHI'ITE PROJECT"

In the 10 years since Saddam's fall, Iran's influence in Iraq has grown and it has sought to gain a foothold in Najaf in particular.

Senior Iranian clerics have opened offices in Najaf, as well as non-governmental organizations, charities and cultural institutions, most of which are funded directly by Marjiiya in Iran, or the Iranian Embassy in Baghdad, local officials said.

The Iranian flag flies over a two-storey building in an upscale neighborhood of Najaf, which houses the "Imam Khomeini Institution", named after the Islamic Republic's founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

The Imam Khomeini Institution is one of many Iranian entities that have engaged in social activities in Iraq, focusing on young men, helping them get married, and paying regular stipends to widows, orphans and students of religion.

Some institutions also support young clerics and fund free trips for university students to visit Shi'ite shrines in Iran, including a formal visit to Khamenei's office in Tehran, Shi'ite politicians with knowledge of the activities say.

"We have a big project in Iraq aimed at spreading the principles of Velayet e-Faqih and the young are our target," a high-ranking Shi'ite leader who works under Khamenei's auspices said on condition of anonymity.

"We are not looking to establish an Islamic State in Iraq, but at least we want to create revolutionary entities that would be ready to fight to save the Shi'ite project".

(Editing by Isabel Coles and Mark Heinrich)

Will Syria's Kurds benefit from the crisis?

10 August 2012
By Jonathan Marcus
source:BBC News Magazine

In any assessment of the potential winners and losers from the political chaos in Syria, the country's Kurdish minority could be among the winners.

The Kurds make up a little over 10% of the population. Long marginalised by the Alawite-dominated government, they are largely concentrated in north-eastern Syria, up towards the Turkish border.

Aaron David Miller, a distinguished scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington DC, believes that the Kurds could be one of the main beneficiaries of the demise of the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

"Syria is coming apart, and there's not much chance it will be reassembled with the kind of centralised authority we saw under the Assads."

For the Syrian Kurds, whom he describes as "part of the largest single ethnic grouping in the region that lacks a state", there is "an opportunity to create more autonomy and respect for Kurdish rights".

"They have the motivation, opportunity, and their Kurdish allies in Iraq and Turkey to encourage them. But what will hold them back is Turkey's determination to prevent a mini-statelet in Syria along with the Kurds own internal divisions," he says.

"It is unlikely," he believes, "that Syria's Kurds will be able to establish a separate entity in Syria. Nor will the United States, nor the international community accept that."

"At the same time, the several dimensions of the Kurdish problem - the Iraqi Kurds' growing determination to remain a separate entity; Turkish determination to avoid another mini-Kurdistan along the Syrian-Iraqi border; and the issue of the PKK, the armed Kurdish insurgents fighting the Turkish Army - will create a real flashpoint."

There in a nutshell is the scale of the problem.

The Kurds' future in Syria will have an important bearing upon what sort of country it is going to become.
Turkish worry

But the fate of the Syrian Kurds also has ramifications well beyond the country's borders. These processes are already under way.

Fawaz Gerges, professor of Middle Eastern Politics at the London School of Economics, told me that "the Syrian Kurds have already seized the moment and are laying the foundation for an autonomous region like their counterparts in Iraq".

"The exit of Assad's forces from the Kurdish areas has complicated the crisis and deepened Turkey's fears that its borders with Iraq and Syria will be volatile for years to come," he says.

"The Kurdish factor in the Syrian crisis will prove to be as significant as the Kurdish question in Iraq."

Prof Ofra Bengio, head of the Kurdish Studies programme at the Moshe Dayan Centre at Tel Aviv University, agrees.

"The Kurdish dimension is likely to become a potent factor in the near future because of the weakening of each of the states in which they live, because co-operation among the states for curbing the Kurds is non-existent, and because the Kurds have made headway in the United States and in the West, where they proved their loyalty and lack of religious extremism.

"In a word, the West might like to support them."

If a Kurdish spectre is stalking the region then it is probably Turkey that has most reason to be worried.

Even as Ankara has watched developments in Syria with unease, its own struggle with guerrilla fighters of the Kurdish PKK has flared up again - Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davotoglu insisting that the Syrian government is encouraging the PKK, to get its own back for Turkey's insistence that President Assad must go.

But it is even more complicated than this. The dominant Kurdish faction inside Syria is a close ally - some say even an off-shoot - of the PKK. It has little love for the mainstream Syrian opposition championed by the Turks.
Colonial borders

Whilst fighting the PKK on one front, Turkey is desperately trying to curb the political ambitions of Syria's Kurds by political means.

Indeed the ramifications of the Kurdish issue go even further. Prof Gerges insists that the Kurdish question "is here to stay".

"It transcends national borders and has the potential to redraw the Sykes-Pico agreement, which, after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1918, established existing nation-state boundaries.

Kurds in Syria have long complained of discrimination by the government

"Although it is too early to talk about the emergence of a greater Kurdistan, an imagined community of Kurds resonates deeply among Kurds across Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran."

It is in this sense the upheavals associated with the "Arab Spring" take on their full regional significance.

The Sykes-Picot Agreement (named not surprisingly after the two negotiators, Mr Georges Picot and Sir Mark Sykes) was a secret understanding made between France and Britain in 1916 for the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire.

The agreement led to the division of Turkish-held areas of the Levant into various French and British administered territories which eventually gave rise to the modern-day states of Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and ultimately Israel.

Fawaz Gerges asserts that the events in Syria and their potential repercussions risk over-turning this familiar world; a broader re-ordering of the region in which Kurdish aspirations are just one part of a very complex picture.

"Many of the problems in the contemporary Middle East are traced to that colonial-era Sykes-Picot map, which established the state system in the region. The Palestine and Kurdish questions are cases in point."

"National borders do not correspond to imagined communities. Although the state system has established deep roots in the Middle East in the last nine decades, the current uprisings have starkly exposed the fragility of the colonial system imposed on the region.

"My take is that the great powers, together with their local partners, will fight tooth and nail to prevent the redrawing of the borders of the state system in the Middle East.

"For once the map is re-drawn, where would the limits be? There would be a real danger of perpetual instability and conflict," he says.

Sowing chaos?

The Kurds of Syria, of course, are not in quite the same position as their brothers in Iraq and would find it much harder to break away.

Noted Syria expert Joshua Landis of the University of Oklahoma says that while Syria's Kurds are a compact minority they are not a majority even in the north eastern border area with Turkey - where they constitute some 30-40% of the population.

They have sometimes tense relations with local Sunni Arab tribes who see this as an integral part of Syrian territory, reinforced by the fact that this is an area rich in oil resources vital to the Syrian economy.

Prof Landis argues that what is going on in the Kurdish north-east offers a useful pointer to President Assad's "Plan B" should his control over key cities like Damascus and Aleppo crumble.

He says that the "embattled president withdrew government forces from the north-east because he couldn't control it and wanted to focus on the most important battles in Aleppo and Damascus".

"But in the back of the president's mind, there may be the thought that empowering the Kurds is a way of weakening the Sunni Arab majority and underlining the risks of fragmentation should his government fall. It's a strategy of playing upon divisions to sow chaos," he said.

This way, says Prof Landis, "the Syrian Army - which is rapidly becoming an Alawite militia, whilst still the strongest military force - may lose control over large swathes of the country, but will remain a vital factor in determining the political outcome in Syria".

It is a bleak prospect.

Prof Landis asserts that President Assad "may lose Syria, but could still remain a player, and his Alawite minority will not be destroyed".

"That's the future of Syria," he says, with little enthusiasm. "It's what Lebanon was and what Iraq became."

Crisis in Syria boosts Kurdish hopes

18 August 2012
By Orla Guerin
Source:BBC News Magazine

With Syrian forces focused on the fighting in the big cities, Kurdish leaders say they now control half of their region in the north-east. Travelling undercover, the BBC's Orla Guerin found many already looking forward to autonomy in a democratic Syria.

With gold-rimmed glasses, a neat black moustache and a pinstripe shirt, the middle-aged man who came to meet us could have been a bank manager.

He was unmarried, he explained, and had no children. He wanted us to know that was a choice, not a twist of fate.

"As a Kurd I am not free," he said. "I couldn't father a child who was also a prisoner."

Instead of becoming a husband and a father, he became a guerrilla fighter, and an activist.
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We Kurds are in charge here. We'll have no problems.”

Amer Syrian Kurd in Qamishli

He has spent 15 years fighting for self-rule for the Kurds. These days he feels it is getting a lot closer.

In parts of Syria's Kurdish north-east, that is how it seems.

Under a hot sun, we travelled through dusty villages and towns, passing hillsides where shepherds still tend their flocks.

And we found something missing - the dark shadow of the security forces.

After a wave of protests in late July, President Bashar al-Assad loosened his grip on the Kurdish region, probably so that he could try to tighten it elsewhere.

Kurdish leaders say they now control about half their territory. Kurdish flags have replaced Syrian ones. Kurdish language schools have opened.

And though the government's security forces are not gone completely, they are lying low.

Over glasses of tamarind juice in the city of Qamishli, a former law student turned politician summed it up. "These days," said Amer, sitting cross-legged on the carpet, "the police wouldn't show up even if someone was killed."

On our undercover journey through the region, bumping into the Syrian military was not part of our plan.

But we had a telling close encounter as we filmed outside a courthouse. Our local guide had assured us it was safe.

"We Kurds are in charge here," he said. "We'll have no problems."

Then a young Syrian soldier emerged from inside. In a vest, and sandals, he was not dressed for combat. He stood in silence, looking a bit scared of us.

A moment later a plain-clothes Syrian official strode into view - the type of man who could have detained us or dispatched us to Damascus. But he was more interested in hurrying us away.

Schools teaching the Kurdish language have opened across in north-east Syria

Travel among the Kurds and you get enmeshed in a web of hospitality. It seems every door is open, every hand is outstretched.

And over plates of figs and grapes, and cups of cardamom-flavoured coffee, every family has a story of suffering to tell.

In the home of Said Hameh, we sat in a circle on the floor, in the Kurdish way. "Just to gather here like this would have been impossible a month ago," he said. "We couldn't dare talk to a journalist."

Recalling how the regime had fired him from his teaching job, Said beat the patterned rug in frustration with his fist.

He and many others want the government erased from the region altogether.

"They are not killing us," he said "but we are not completely free. Freedom means more than just existence. If I go somewhere, I could still be arrested."

The Kurds insist they want peaceful change, but they are ready for a fight if it comes to it. District by district, they have been setting up armed self-defence units. And a militia has sprung up, though it is media-shy.

"Those guys are everywhere, but they are not under our control," said Saleh Mohamed, the softly spoken leader of the Kurdish Democratic Union - the most powerful party here.

He also denies having operational links to the guerrillas of the Kurdish Workers' Party, or PKK, who have been fighting for self-rule across the border in Turkey for decades.

Mohamed is a veteran of the struggle for Kurdish rights, with the CV to prove it.

I asked how long he had spent in prison. "Not long," he said, with a laugh.

"Just two or three months a year - every year - since 2003. And it was the Middle East-type of prison with the underground rooms for torture."

Mohamed talked about the past and the future of his ancient people with an unhurried air. "I believe our struggle is beginning to have results," he said, voicing a feeling shared by many Kurds.

It is unclear what will emerge from the broken jigsaw of Syria but the Kurds are already benefiting from the chaos. They are pushing for autonomy in a new Syria.

But ultimately many yearn for Greater Kurdistan - an independent state for all the Kurds.

Iraq rejects US request to maintain bases after troop withdrawal

21 October 2011
by Ewen MacAskill
Source: The Guardian


Obama announces the full withdrawal of troops from Iraq but fails to persuade Nouri al-Maliki to allow US to keep bases there

Obama presented the troop withdrawal as the fulfilment of one of his election promises Link to this video

The US suffered a major diplomatic and military rebuff on Friday when Iraq finally rejected its pleas to maintain bases in the country beyond this year.

Barack Obama announced at a White House press conference that all American troops will leave Iraq by the end of December, a decision forced by the final collapse of lengthy talks between the US and the Iraqi government on the issue.

The Iraqi decision is a boost to Iran, which has close ties with many members of the Iraqi government and which had been battling against the establishment of permanent American bases.

Obama attempted to make the most of it by presenting the withdrawal as the fulfilment of one of his election promises.

"Today I can report that, as promised, the rest of our troops in Iraq will come home by the end of the year. After nearly nine years, America's war in Iraq will be over," he told reporters.

But he had already announced this earlier this year, and the real significance today was in the failure of Obama, in spite of the cost to the US in dollars and deaths, to persuade the Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki to allow one or more American bases to be kept in the country.

Obama was formally told of Maliki's final decision on Friday morning in a video conference.

Speaking later to reporters, Obama glossed over the rejection, describing it as Iraq shaping its own future.

He told reporters that the "tide of war is receding", not only in Iraq but in Afghanistan and in Libya.

"The United States is moving forward to a position of strength. The long war in Iraq will come to an end by the end of this year. The transition in Afghanistan is moving forward and our troops are finally coming home," he said.

Obama rose to political prominence on the back of his opposition to the Iraq war.

"Over the next two months, our troops in Iraq, tens of thousands of them, will pack up their gear and board convoys for the journey home," he said.

"The last American soldier will cross the border out of Iraq with their heads held high, proud of their success, and knowing that the American people stand united in our support for our troops," he said. "That is how America's military efforts in Iraq will end."

But Republicans criticised the failure to secure a deal with the Iraqis, describing it as a setback for the US.

John McCain, one of the leading foreign affairs specialists in the Senate and Obama's Republican opponent in the 2008 White House race, said: "Today marks a harmful and sad setback for the United States in the world. I respectfully disagree with the president: this decision will be viewed as a strategic victory for our enemies in the Middle East, especially the Iranian regime, which has worked relentlessly to ensure a full withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq."

Mitt Romney, front-runner in the race to take on Obama in the 2012 White House race, said: "The unavoidable question is whether this decision is the result of a naked political calculation or simply sheer ineptitude in negotiations with the Iraqi government."

One of the sticking points in the negotiations with Iraq was a US demand that American forces remaining in the country after December would enjoy the same immunity from prosecution as they do now. The Iraqi government, conscious of public anger over many controversial incidents involving US troops and defence contractors over the last decade, refused.

The Pentagon had wanted the bases to help counter growing Iranian influence in the Middle East. Just a few years ago, the US had plans for leaving behind four large bases but, in the face of Iraqi resistance, this plan had to be scaled down this year to a force of 10,000. But even this proved too much for the Iraqis.

Denis McDonough, the White House deputy national security adviser, speaking to reporters after Obama's press conference, denied that the withdrawal was a sign of growing Iranian influence.

"You see an Iran that is weaker and more isolated," he said, noting various incidents such as a sense of international outrage over an alleged plot by Iran to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington.

Although the US is pulling out all troops, it will keep its embassy in Baghdad and two consulates. There will also be about 4,000-5,000 defence contractors, White House aides said.

Since the invasion in 2003, 1 million members of the US military have been deployed to Iraq, of whom 4,482 have been killed and 32,200 wounded.

Obama said there were 180,000 troops deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan when he took office in January 2009, and that number has been halved and will continue to fall.

A few US military personnel will be based in Iraq temporarily from time to time, just as they are in other countries with links to the US such as Egypt and Jordan, White House aides said. These would primarily be trainers helping out with new equipment bought from the US, such as F-16 fighters Iraq purchased last month.

Maliki, though he has been criticised in the past for being too close to Iran, had wanted to keep some US troops in Iraq to help train Iraqi security forces and to help in the event of a resurgence of sectarian violence. But he had to bow to pressure from pro-Iranian politicians and others in his coaliton government who wanted all US troops out.

Obama was ambivalent on the issue, seeing a total withdrawal as a good sell to a US public tired of war. But the Pentagon had wanted the bases, and the president reluctantly sided with the military staff.

It will be a major logistical exercise, moving not only the remaining 39,000 US troops but mountains of equipment from bases that are the size of small American suburbs, complete with coffee-shops, bowling alleys and cinemas.

The Pentagon is wary of a final attack as the final pullout gets under way.

• This article was corrected on 23 October 2011 because it described Nouri al-Maliki as Iraqi's president instead of as its prime minister, and at one point said he had wanted to keep some US troops "in Iran".

Exxon, Shell sign deal for Iraq's W.Qurna Phase One

BAGHDAD, Jan 25 (Reuters) - U.S. oil major Exxon Mobil (XOM.N) and Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L) signed a final contract on Monday for the development of Iraq's 8.7-billion-barrel West Qurna Phase One oilfield.

Stocks

The partners, who will work with an Iraqi state-run oil company, won the right to develop the supergiant field in negotiations with the Oil Ministry last year following Iraq's June oilfield auction, the first since the 2003 U.S. invasion. (Reporting by Ahmed Rasheed, editing by Michael Christie and Amanda Cooper)

A Morally Bankrupt Military: When Soldiers and Their Families Become Expendable

Global Research, November 12, 2009

Truthout - 2009-11-11

The military operates through indoctrination. Soldiers are programmed to develop a mindset that resists any acknowledgment of injury and sickness, be it physical or psychological. As a consequence, tens of thousands of soldiers continue to serve, even being deployed to combat zones like Iraq and/or Afghanistan, despite persistent injuries. According to military records, over 43,000 troops classified as "nondeployable for medical reasons" have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan nevertheless.

The recent atrocity at Fort Hood is an example of this. Maj. Nidal Hasan had worked as a counselor at Walter Reed, hearing countless stories of bloodshed, horror and death from dismembered veterans from the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. While he had not yet served in Iraq or Afghanistan, the major was overloaded with secondary trauma, coupled with ongoing harassment about his being a Muslim. This, along with other factors, contributed towards Hasan falling into a desperation so deep he was willing to slaughter fellow soldiers, and is indicative of fissures running deep into the crumbling edifice upon which the US military stands.

The case of Pvt. Timothy Rich also demonstrates the disastrous implications of the apathetic attitude of the military toward its own. Not dissimilar from Major Hasan, who clearly would have benefited from treatment for the secondary trauma he was experiencing from his work with psychologically wounded veterans, one of the main factors that forced Private Rich to go absent without leave (AWOL) was the failure of the military to treat his mental issues.

Rich told Truthout, "In my unit, to go to sick call for mental health was looked down upon. Our acting 1st Sergeant believed that we shouldn't have mental issues because we were too 'high speed.' So I was afraid to go because I didn't want to be labeled as a weak soldier."

What followed was more harrowing.

"The other problems arose when I brought my girlfriend down to marry her. My unit believed her to be a problem starter so I was ordered not to marry her, taken to a small finance company by an NCO and forced to draw a loan in order to buy her a plane ticket to return home. They escorted her to the airport and through security to ensure that she left. Once the NCO left she turned around and hitchhiked back to Fort Bragg. Before the unit could discover us, we went to the courthouse and got married. We were then summoned by my Commander, Captain Jones, to his office and reprimanded. He called me a dumb ass soldier and a shit bag for marrying her and told my wife that she was a fool to marry someone as stupid as me. Members of my unit started referring to me as Pvt. Bitch instead of Pvt. Rich. The entire episode caused a lot of strain in our relationship. Unable to cope with all this, I bought two plane tickets and went AWOL with my wife."

Rich was later apprehended when a federal warrant was issued against him. After 11 days in a country jail, he was transported back to Fort Bragg in North Carolina. On August 17, 2008, he was wrongly assigned to Echo Platoon that was part of the 82nd Airborne, whereas his unit was part of the 18th Airborne.

Rich recollects, "I was confused when they assigned me to the 82nd. I was dismissed as a liar when I brought this up with my NCO Sgt Joseph Fulgence and my commander, Captain Thaxton. I ended up spending a year at Echo before being informed that I was never supposed to have been in the 82nd."

At Fort Bragg, he was permitted to seek mental health treatment and was diagnosed with schizophrenia, psychosis, insomnia and a mood disorder. This, however, did not stop his commander from harassing him. His permanent profile from the doctor restricted him from being on duty before 0800 (8 AM) hours, but his commander, Sergeant Fulgence, dismissed the profile as merely a guideline and not a mandatory directive. The soldier was accused of using mental health as a pretext to avoid duty. So, Rich was up every morning for first formation at 0545 (5:45 AM). It wasn't until he refused to take his medication because it made him groggy in the morning that his doctor called his commander and settled the matter. By then, Rich had already been forced to violate his profile for six months.

During this period, his mental health deteriorated rapidly. The combined effect of heavy medication and restrictions on his home visits resulted in his experiencing blackouts that led him to take destructive actions in the barracks. When he was discovered talking about killing the chain of command, he was put on a 24-hour suicide watch that seemed to have served little purpose, because on August 17 he was able to elude his guards and make his way to the roof of his barracks.

"I climbed onto the roof of the building and sat up there thinking about my family and my situation and decided to go ahead and end my suffering by taking a nose dive off the building," Rich explained to Truthout.

His body plummeted through the air, bounced off a tree, and he landed on his back with a cracked spine. The military gave him a back brace, psychotropic drugs and a renewed 24-hour suicide watch, measures as effective in alleviating his pain as his failed suicide attempt.

When Truthout contacted him just days after his failed suicide attempt, a fatigued Rich detailed his hellish year-long plight of awaiting a discharge that never came. "I want to leave here very bad. For four months they have been telling me that I'll get out next week. It got to the point that the NCOs would tell me just to calm me down that I'd be going home the next day. They went as far as to call my wife and requesting her to lie that she was coming to get me the next day. I eventually stopped believing them. I didn't see an end to it, so I figured I'd try and end it myself."

The noncommissioned officers in his barracks thought it was hilarious that Rich had jumped, and he was offered money for an encore that could be videotaped.

At the time he was in a "holdover" unit, comprised mostly of AWOL soldiers who had turned themselves in or had been arrested. Others in his unit had untreated mental health problems like him or were suffering from severe PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) from deployments in Iraq and or Afghanistan.

According to Rich, every soldier in his platoon was subjected to abusive treatment of some kind or the other. "It even got to the point when our 1st Sergeant Cisneros told us that if it were up to him we all would all be taken out back and shot, and that we needed to pray to our gods because we were going to pay (for our actions)."

Tim's wife Megan had to bear his never-ending ordeal in equal measure. She witnessed the military's callousness up close. She informed Truthout, "Since February of this year, Tim's unit had been telling him he would be out in two weeks. After two weeks when he asked, they would repeat the same thing. At times he would get excited and start packing his belongings and I would try to figure out how to get him home to Ohio. He would call me crying in relief because he thought we were going to be together again real soon. The military forced me to lie to him too. When he realized they did not mean to release him he grew very destructive during his black out spells. Eventually he simply gave up on coming home."

Megan first realized there was a problem with the way the military was treating her husband when she noticed him doing and saying things that were out of character for him, like apologizing for not being a good husband and father and being openly suicidal. He had also begun to self-medicate with alcohol, an increasing trend among soldiers not receiving adequate mental-health treatment from the military.

She revealed to Truthout, "He had quit for the girls and me but it seems like he could not handle the stress and needed an escape. This caused a huge problem between us and we began to argue about it. He became severely depressed, pulled away from me, and started to do things he normally doesn't do, such as giving away his money and belongings, and telling the recipients that he wouldn't need those things in hell."

She sensed that her husband would be in trouble if he were to stand up for himself, so she began to advocate on his behalf. Her attempts to do so met with fresh abuse from his commanders. The chain of command banned her from the company barracks and had her escorted off post. The couple was commandeered into Sergeant Fulgence's office where they were chastised. The sergeant referred to Megan as "a bad mother" and "a bitch." When Megan attempted to leave the office in protest, the sergeant ordered her to stay and listen to what he had to say.

This was followed by an encounter with the commander of the platoon, Commander Thaxton. The commander in this case ordered Tim to shut up, and threatened him with confinement. He demanded that Megan explain what kind of mother would bring her child to a new location without a place to live. She tried telling him that the AER loan was for her to come to Fort Bragg since they had lost their house after Tim's arrest and loss of job. Although the paperwork for the loan clearly stated that it was for her travel, food and lodging at Fort Bragg, the commander insisted it was for an apartment. When Tim intervened to say that the $785 would not be sufficient to pay rent and bills, especially since he wasn't being paid his wages and his wife couldn't work because of the baby, and according to Tim, both Sergeant Fulgence and Captain Thaxton "had a nice laugh over that" and dismissed the duo, referring to them as "juvenile dumb-asses."

After Tim returned from being AWOL and was brought up on charges, he went through 706 (a psychology board) that declared him mentally incompetent at the time of his being AWOL. It took a painfully long amount of time for the charges to be dismissed without prejudice. The soldier believes that his superiors deliberately refused to do the requisite paperwork for his clearance and subsequent resumption of his pay.

He told Truthout, "Every time I came on base I got arrested even though I was on active duty again. Then my wife and I got an AER loan for her to come down to Fort Bragg. When she got there and my pay continued to be withheld, the AER money ran out and my wife and child had to sleep in the van we owned. When my unit found out they called the Military Police and ordered me to give custody of my daughter to my father."

When Tim refused to do that, they punished him by confining him to the barracks and barring his wife from entering the base. To add insult, the chain of command took away his van keys and said that neither he nor Megan was allowed use it.

The nightmare ended when the military finally released Pvt. Timothy Rich, and by default, Megan. He was discharged and "allowed" to enter the ranks of US citizens searching for jobs and health care. Their traumatic journey to that starting point is what distinguishes them from their civilian counterparts.

Rich's advice to anyone thinking of joining the military today: "Don't join. Everything they advertise and tell you about how it's a family friendly army is a lie."

Sgt. Heath Carter suffered a similar fate at the hands of an indifferent military command. Upon return from the invasion of Iraq, he discovered that his daughter Sierra was living in an unsafe environment in Arkansas under the care of his first wife, who had full custody of the child. Heath and his new wife, Teresa, started consulting attorneys in order to secure custody of Sierra, who also suffered from a life-threatening medical condition. Precisely during this time, the military chose to keep changing Carter's duty station from Fort Polk, Louisiana, to Fort Huachuca, Arizona, then to Fort Stewart, Georgia. Not only did these constant transfers make it difficult for Carter to see his daughter, they also reduced his chances of gaining custody of Sierra. Convinced that this was a matter of life and death for his daughter, he requested compassionate reassignment to Fort Leavenworth, Missouri, about two hours from his first wife's home in Arkansas.

His appeals to the military command, the legal department, chaplain and even to his congressman failed, and the military insisted that he remain at Fort Stewart, Georgia. Having run out of all available avenues, in May 2007 he went AWOL from Fort Stewart and headed home to Arkansas where he fought for and won custody of Sierra, and was able to literally save her life by obtaining needed medical care for her.

However, on January 25 of this year, Carter was arrested at his home by the military police, who flew him back to Fort Stewart where he has been awaiting charges for the past eight months. Being a sergeant, he is in a regular unit and not in a holdover, but that does not help his cause. Initially, his commander told him it would take a month and a half for him to be sent home. Several months later, it was decided he would receive a court-martial.

Carter feels frustrated, "Now I have to wait for the court martial. It's taken this long for them to decide. If we had known it would take this long, my family could have moved down here. Every time I ask when I'll have a trial, they say it is only going to be another two weeks. I get the feeling they are lying. They have messed with my pay. They're trying to push me to do something wrong."

His ordeal has forced Carter to reflect on the wars. He admits that, although his original reason for going AWOL was personal and he had otherwise been proud of his missions, he sees things in Iraq differently today. "I don't think there is any reason for us to be there except for oil."

Yet, both Private Rich and Sergeant Carter were offered deployments to Afghanistan amid their struggles. It is soldiers like these that the military will use to fill the ranks of the next "surge" of troops into Afghanistan, which at the time of this writing, appears to be as many as 34,000 troops.

The stage is set for more tragic incidents like the recent massacre at Fort Hood.

Sarah Lazare contributed to this report.

Dahr Jamail, an independent journalist, is the author of "The Will to Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan," (Haymarket Books, 2009), and "Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches From an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq," (Haymarket Books, 2007). Jamail reported from occupied Iraq for nine months as well as from Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Turkey over the last five years.

Dahr Jamail is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Dahr Jamail