What We Left Behind: Filkins profiles the Maliki "Frankenstein"

Some articles should be required reading for all Americans and What we Left Behind by Dexter Filkins in the April 28 2014 "The New Yorker" is definitely among the essential classics. 

In a nutshell, Filkins describes what, in my mind, is the creation of a Frankenstein version of an Iraqi leader named Nuri al Maliki. It's beyond a non-fiction tragedy, because so much of America's youth and money have been misplaced in this terrible creation. 

Filkins profiles the emergence of Maliki, selected by the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency), to prop up the American invasion of the sovereign Iraq nation and create the illusion of forming a Constitutional government. Maliki's reign of terror is just as miserable a failure as Frankenstein was at becoming a human being - only, of course, Iraq is not Shelley's fiction. In fact, he's worse.

How Americans got wrapped up in the invasion of Iraq under the guise of "we must never forget", a smoke and mirrors offshoot of a misunderstood anti-terrorism retaliation, is something future historians will definitely autopsy. An attack on New York City's World Trade Center and the Washington DC Pentagon building, on September 11, 2001, became fodder for the invasion of Iraq, while the terrorists who initiated these attacks were nestled in the mountains of Afghanistan and remote regions of Pakistan.

But that's not what Filkins writes about.  

Instead, "What We Left Behind" describes the creation of the monster leadership of Nuri al Maliki, to create the illusion of a new Iraq.  In reality, there's only misery, tyranny, corruption and continued violence in Iraq, post the American invasion. 

What's most sickening is how the Iraqi city of Falluja, where over a thousand Americans died while defending, is now in the hands of an Al Qaeda splinter group of men, who fought against the Americans. In other words, the fight for control of Falluja has, ultimately, been lost.

It now appears the Iraqi government is more aligned with Syria than with the US, meaning there's potentially Russian, behind the scenes, influence (but Filkins doesn't hint at this concept in his article, except for one reference to the Syrian-Iraqi connection). 

If Maliki wins a third term as Iraq's prime minister, the prediction is that he will never leave. In fact, his son Ahmed Maliki is being groomed as his successor. This real possibility of a third term makes Maliki no better, maybe even worse, a dictator than, Saddam Hussein.   

How did this happen?

"The capture of Iraqi territory by Islamic extremists, barely two
years since the last American soldiers left, prompted an extraordinary wave of soul-searching in Iraq and the United States, which lost more than thirteen hundred men and women in Anbar Province," writes Filkins.

In my opinion, the answer to the rhetoric question about "how this happened?", is tragically unsolvable. Nevertheless, just asking the question underscores the underlying difficult issue for the historical medical examiners to unravel. Future historians, those unleashed from the shackles of misplaced patriotic emotions, will undoubtedly determine that it was completely unnecessary for Americans to invade Iraq, in the first place.  

Meanwhile, the Maliki "Frankenstein" reign of "in your face America", appears to be heading toward the point of no return.  If Maliki wins a third term, his nation will then take up arms against the Kurds, who are trying to set up a civilized government in northern Iraq and may well secede from the Iraqi nation. Any move toward Kurdish independence will be perceived and reacted to like Russian president Putin re-claiming the Crimea. Furthermore, I predict, America's response will be just as lame.  

Nevertheless, in my opinion, Iraq's fiasco isn't because of President Obama's leadership. It was President George Bush (41) who prevented the first Iraq War from finishing off the dictator Saddam Hussein. Then, his son President George W. Bush (43) claimed "mission accomplished!", although, it never was accomplished.....and still isn't.  President George Bush(41) didn't follow up with General Swarskopf's leadership and President George W. Bush created a blood bath in Iraq, trying to clean up what his father left undone. (I know that's a brutal synopsis, but it's how I see it.)

Obviously, I'm not the historical medical examiner, trying to determine how Iraq has deteriorated, when America was supposed to have saved it under George W. Bush's banner of "freedom". 

Neither do I have any idea how America can un-create Maliki's Frankenstein leadership.  

One thing Filkin makes clear in his exceptionally well written report is that America's lack of presence in Iraq is a huge mistake.

Americans created this Frankenstein Maliki, in my opinion. Therefore, it's essential for us to make the monster Maliki disappear, back into his test tube. 

But, we're no longer in Iraq. As a result, the CIA created Maliki monster, supported by the Bush administration, lives on.

All Americans must take the time to become educated by reading "What We Left Behind - An increasingly authoritarian leader, a return of sectarian violence and a nation worried for its future," by Dexter Filkins in the April 28, 2014 The New Yorker.  

In other words, the Bush administration's misguided leadership to free Iraq, by both Presidents 41 and 43, as influenced by Vice-President Dick Cheney, were miserable and embarrassing failures.

Fanatics, Terrorism and Addictive Drug Use Among Enemy Combatants

Americans should know more about the probability that terrorist enemy combatants in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere, are often fed by drug addiction.

US Navy Seal, the late Kris Kyle (1974-February 2, 2013) writes a vivid account of his experiences fighting to hunt down and kill terrorists in his best seller, "American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in US Military History".  (Unfortunately, Kyle and a colleague were killed by a gunman in a tragic incident when they thought they were in the process of helping a fellow veteran who experienced post traumatic stress disorder.)

Kyle wrote explicitly about his fighting experiences during the war on terror.  Beyond his graphic stories, the reader learns about how the combatants Kyle faced were often heavily drugged zealots.  In other words, US Navy Seals, writes Kyle, are often fighting against men who are addicted to drugs.  

"The fanatics we fought valued nothing but their twisted interpretation of religion.  And half the time they just claimed they valued their religion - most didn't even pray. Quite a number were drugged up so they could fight us", he writes (page 86).

Drug crazed terrorists are described in oral accounts recently shown in "Fight for Falluja", shown on The Military Channel.  In the interviews, US Marines provided first person accounts of fighting in Falluja in Iraq (December 2004) when they were attacked by frenzied combatants who continued fighting while they were mortally wounded.  These Marines realized they were fighting men who were high on drugs.

In another account of drugged terrorists, a 60-Minutes interview with American citizen Jessica Buchanan spoke about her horrific experience as a kidnapped humanitarian worker, who was captured and rescued by US Navy Seals, in Somalia.  She described a few of her captors as being addicted to cocaine.

This series of revelations about drugged terrorists seems to be evolving slowly from first person accounts, told by Kyle, US Marines in Falluja and by Buchanan.  Additionally, there's a reference to terrorist addiction by the author of "No Easy Day", the story about the killing of Osama Bin Laden.  

Obviously, drug addiction on the scale that must be subsidized to keep an entire terrorist network high, requires plenty of money.  Weapons cost money.  Ammunition costs more money.  Drugs are costlier still.  

Therefore, cutting off the money used by terrorists to sustain their drug habits must be essential to defeating them.

Where do terrorist networks find this extraordinary amount of money?  Of course, it's highly likely the US National Security Agency is tracking the source of the money train that's funding terrorism.  It's entirely possible the recent leaks to the media about the dragnet of electronic surveillance are somehow a ruse, intended to flush out the trails leading to the drug money.  

It doesn't take much imagination to figure out how separating terrorists from addictive drugs will evoke a monumental addiction withdrawal problem.  

Rather than combat terrorists in deadly battles like Falluja, the smarter war on terrorism will be focused on their money supply and forcing their drug addicted fighters to die from cocaine withdrawal.

But, I wonder why Americans don't know more about the drug addiction among terrorist enemy combatants?  It just seems odd to learn about this situation from our own troops and a rescued humanitarian worker, rather than from our government spokespersons.  Curious.