Monday, June 30, 2003
Dennis Kucinich on CNN
Dennis Kucincih's response to a question today, put forth Martin Savage, taking the place of vacationing Wolf Blitzer, has everything to do with why I support this man for president. In response to a question concerning our current course in Iraq,
Kucinich said, "How can we trust our current leadership to guide us in the aftermath of war, when they haven't been straight with us in terms of weapons of mass destruction, and why we went into this war to begin with?"
I love this man.
Kucinich said, "How can we trust our current leadership to guide us in the aftermath of war, when they haven't been straight with us in terms of weapons of mass destruction, and why we went into this war to begin with?"
I love this man.
# posted by scorpiorising : 3:06 PM |
More accounts of human rights abuses in Iraq.
I just found this article on yahoo, concerning one man's account of his detention and interrogation in Iraq. Here is a link to the article, and I will print it in its entirety. If this man's account is accurate, then we are sinking to new lows in Iraq :
Amnesty Criticizes U.S. Interrogations
21 minutes ago
By JIM KRANE, Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq - An Iraqi businessman detained during a raid on his home says U.S. interrogators deprived him of sleep, forced him to kneel naked and kept him bound hand and foot with a bag over his head for eight days.
Khraisan al-Abally's story, told to an Associated Press correspondent, comes as an Amnesty International report released Monday harshly criticizes American interrogation techniques.
A U.S. Army officer confirmed receiving a complaint from al-Abally, but coalition officials declined to discuss his account. The activist group Human Rights Watch said it was trying to corroborate his story.
Seeking to quell a burgeoning uprising, U.S. soldiers have detained hundreds of Iraqis — some of whom have endured days of strenuous interrogations, rights groups say. AP journalists have observed prisoners wearing only underwear and blindfolds, handcuffed and lying in the dirt 24 hours after their capture.
Interviewed June 20 and Monday, Al-Abally said U.S. troops stormed his home April 30, shooting his brother and taking al-Abally and his 80-year-old father into custody — apparently believing they had information on the whereabouts of a top official in Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s regime, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri.
The three men were all low-level members of Saddam's Baath Party, but al-Douri was not a family acquaintance, Al-Abally said.
The brother, Dureid, shot at the troops breaking in, apparently mistaking them for looters, the family said. Al-Abally said he was told during his interrogation at Baghdad International Airport that his brother had died.
Al-Abally, 39, said that while he was bound and blindfolded, he was kicked, forced to stare at a strobe light and blasted with "very loud rubbish music."
"I thought I was going to lose my mind," said al-Abally, a burly man whose wrists are still scarred from plastic cuffs more than a month after his release. "They said, 'I want you on your knees.' After three or four days it's very painful. My knees were bleeding and swollen."
The U.S. military said it could not comment on the raid or its methods of interrogation, saying only that its soldiers adhere to the rule of law. Military and intelligence officials have said sleep deprivation, shackling prisoners in uncomfortable positions and noise abuse are considered legal methods.
"This is democracy?" asked al-Abally, whose family operates a shipping business in Lebanon. "No Iraqi would have thought the Americans were capable of this."
The AP interviews with al-Abally were conducted mostly in English.
His interrogation came before a June 26 pledge by the Bush administration that U.S. officials would not use cruel treatment to gain information from detainees.
Several human rights groups — including London-based Amnesty International and New York-based Human Rights Watch — argue that current U.S. interrogation methods violate the pledge.
"When you talk of up to eight days' sleep deprivation, especially with hands and feet bound, that's already entering the realm of ill treatment," said Johanna Bjorken, a Human Rights Watch researcher in Iraq (news - web sites). "When you combine it with loud music, strobe lights and hooding, it's very possible you've inflicted cruel treatment, which is a violation of the Geneva Conventions."
She said her group is investigating al-Abally's allegations to see if the interrogation techniques he described can be corroborated.
A U.S. Army officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said U.S. interrogators routinely used strobe lights. Bjorken said a U.S. military criminal investigator in Baghdad told her that loud music and sleep deprivation were acceptable interrogation techniques.
Amnesty International's report said the U.S. military appeared to subject Iraqi detainees to treatment that violates international law. The group said it was investigating the U.S. military's three-week detention of an 11-year-old boy and an incident in which U.S. shooting during a riot by detainees killed one and wounded seven.
A British spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition, Lt. Col. Peregrine Lewis, denied the coalition violates human rights.
"Coalition soldiers are expected to scrupulously adhere to the rule of law in the conduct of military operations," Lewis wrote in e-mail response to AP questions. "Anything which suggests otherwise is inaccurate."
U.S. Army Maj. Toney Coleman of the 422nd Civil Affairs Battalion said he took a written complaint in May from al-Abally about his treatment and his brother's disappearance. Coleman said he has no knowledge of U.S. interrogation techniques or whether al-Abally's allegations are accurate.
Coleman said he searched military computers for the whereabouts of al-Abally's missing brother, Dureid, a 48-year-old retired diplomat.
"There's no record at all of that individual," Coleman said.
Amnesty International researchers in Baghdad said the techniques cited by al-Abally were similar to those described by Palestinian detainees interrogated by the Israeli military and Irish Catholic prisoners detained by British forces.
"These are known techniques that there have been a lot of debate on for the past 20 years, as to whether they constitute torture," said Elizabeth Hodgkin, Amnesty's Baghdad-based research director.
Britain halted such procedures after a European court in 1982 found they violated human rights law and Israel did so in 1999 when its supreme court banned the practice except in extreme situations, Hodgkin said.
Amnesty's report accuses U.S. forces in Afghanistan (news - web sites) of performing similar "stress and duress" interrogations on detainees, a pair of whom died in U.S. custody. The deaths are being investigated as homicides.
Amnesty Criticizes U.S. Interrogations
21 minutes ago
By JIM KRANE, Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq - An Iraqi businessman detained during a raid on his home says U.S. interrogators deprived him of sleep, forced him to kneel naked and kept him bound hand and foot with a bag over his head for eight days.
Khraisan al-Abally's story, told to an Associated Press correspondent, comes as an Amnesty International report released Monday harshly criticizes American interrogation techniques.
A U.S. Army officer confirmed receiving a complaint from al-Abally, but coalition officials declined to discuss his account. The activist group Human Rights Watch said it was trying to corroborate his story.
Seeking to quell a burgeoning uprising, U.S. soldiers have detained hundreds of Iraqis — some of whom have endured days of strenuous interrogations, rights groups say. AP journalists have observed prisoners wearing only underwear and blindfolds, handcuffed and lying in the dirt 24 hours after their capture.
Interviewed June 20 and Monday, Al-Abally said U.S. troops stormed his home April 30, shooting his brother and taking al-Abally and his 80-year-old father into custody — apparently believing they had information on the whereabouts of a top official in Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s regime, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri.
The three men were all low-level members of Saddam's Baath Party, but al-Douri was not a family acquaintance, Al-Abally said.
The brother, Dureid, shot at the troops breaking in, apparently mistaking them for looters, the family said. Al-Abally said he was told during his interrogation at Baghdad International Airport that his brother had died.
Al-Abally, 39, said that while he was bound and blindfolded, he was kicked, forced to stare at a strobe light and blasted with "very loud rubbish music."
"I thought I was going to lose my mind," said al-Abally, a burly man whose wrists are still scarred from plastic cuffs more than a month after his release. "They said, 'I want you on your knees.' After three or four days it's very painful. My knees were bleeding and swollen."
The U.S. military said it could not comment on the raid or its methods of interrogation, saying only that its soldiers adhere to the rule of law. Military and intelligence officials have said sleep deprivation, shackling prisoners in uncomfortable positions and noise abuse are considered legal methods.
"This is democracy?" asked al-Abally, whose family operates a shipping business in Lebanon. "No Iraqi would have thought the Americans were capable of this."
The AP interviews with al-Abally were conducted mostly in English.
His interrogation came before a June 26 pledge by the Bush administration that U.S. officials would not use cruel treatment to gain information from detainees.
Several human rights groups — including London-based Amnesty International and New York-based Human Rights Watch — argue that current U.S. interrogation methods violate the pledge.
"When you talk of up to eight days' sleep deprivation, especially with hands and feet bound, that's already entering the realm of ill treatment," said Johanna Bjorken, a Human Rights Watch researcher in Iraq (news - web sites). "When you combine it with loud music, strobe lights and hooding, it's very possible you've inflicted cruel treatment, which is a violation of the Geneva Conventions."
She said her group is investigating al-Abally's allegations to see if the interrogation techniques he described can be corroborated.
A U.S. Army officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said U.S. interrogators routinely used strobe lights. Bjorken said a U.S. military criminal investigator in Baghdad told her that loud music and sleep deprivation were acceptable interrogation techniques.
Amnesty International's report said the U.S. military appeared to subject Iraqi detainees to treatment that violates international law. The group said it was investigating the U.S. military's three-week detention of an 11-year-old boy and an incident in which U.S. shooting during a riot by detainees killed one and wounded seven.
A British spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition, Lt. Col. Peregrine Lewis, denied the coalition violates human rights.
"Coalition soldiers are expected to scrupulously adhere to the rule of law in the conduct of military operations," Lewis wrote in e-mail response to AP questions. "Anything which suggests otherwise is inaccurate."
U.S. Army Maj. Toney Coleman of the 422nd Civil Affairs Battalion said he took a written complaint in May from al-Abally about his treatment and his brother's disappearance. Coleman said he has no knowledge of U.S. interrogation techniques or whether al-Abally's allegations are accurate.
Coleman said he searched military computers for the whereabouts of al-Abally's missing brother, Dureid, a 48-year-old retired diplomat.
"There's no record at all of that individual," Coleman said.
Amnesty International researchers in Baghdad said the techniques cited by al-Abally were similar to those described by Palestinian detainees interrogated by the Israeli military and Irish Catholic prisoners detained by British forces.
"These are known techniques that there have been a lot of debate on for the past 20 years, as to whether they constitute torture," said Elizabeth Hodgkin, Amnesty's Baghdad-based research director.
Britain halted such procedures after a European court in 1982 found they violated human rights law and Israel did so in 1999 when its supreme court banned the practice except in extreme situations, Hodgkin said.
Amnesty's report accuses U.S. forces in Afghanistan (news - web sites) of performing similar "stress and duress" interrogations on detainees, a pair of whom died in U.S. custody. The deaths are being investigated as homicides.
# posted by scorpiorising : 2:50 PM |
The imposition of our will.
Everyday it gets uglier and uglier in Iraq. Now we are rounding up supposed extremists and baathists in sweeping raids and house-to-house searches. We know that these people will not have due process. We know this from our record before us, in Afghanistan, Guatanamo Bay, and now in Iraq. These raids will not help our credibility with the Iraqi people. Bremer makes it clear, in this guardian.co.uk article, that it is the goal to "crush" the resistance:
The US military launched a huge operation yesterday to crack down on insurgents in Iraq as the civilian administrator, Paul Bremer, promised that America would "impose" its will upon the country.
The show of force began as the bodies of two US soldiers, missing since Wednesday, were found near the town of Balad, north of Baghdad. They bring the death toll since the official end of major combat to 23 Americans and six Britons.
In a candid interview on the BBC's Breakfast with Frost, Mr Bremer said pockets of resistance in Iraq would be crushed. "We are going to fight them and impose our will on them and we will capture or, if necessary, kill them until we have imposed law and order upon this country," he said.
The mission to quell the resistance to the occupation, operation Sidewinder, started yesterday. Officials in Camp Boom, north-east of Baghdad, said at least 20 raids using ground and air forces were carried out simultaneously to capture people suspected of being loyalists to Saddam Hussein's Ba'athist regime.
Early reports said around 60 Iraqis were picked up, as well as documents and weapons, during the initial sweep. US of ficials said they were going into towns with "overwhelming combat power".
In the midst of continuing scrutiny of our handling of prisoners in Guatanamo Bay, we are going to add to the numbers and in all likelihood, create "permanent" camps similar to Guatanamo Bay in Iraq.
If the U.S. can't be trusted to preserve the rights of our prisoners of war, how long before these tactics come home to roost, and ordinary citizens are harassed and bullied?
The US military launched a huge operation yesterday to crack down on insurgents in Iraq as the civilian administrator, Paul Bremer, promised that America would "impose" its will upon the country.
The show of force began as the bodies of two US soldiers, missing since Wednesday, were found near the town of Balad, north of Baghdad. They bring the death toll since the official end of major combat to 23 Americans and six Britons.
In a candid interview on the BBC's Breakfast with Frost, Mr Bremer said pockets of resistance in Iraq would be crushed. "We are going to fight them and impose our will on them and we will capture or, if necessary, kill them until we have imposed law and order upon this country," he said.
The mission to quell the resistance to the occupation, operation Sidewinder, started yesterday. Officials in Camp Boom, north-east of Baghdad, said at least 20 raids using ground and air forces were carried out simultaneously to capture people suspected of being loyalists to Saddam Hussein's Ba'athist regime.
Early reports said around 60 Iraqis were picked up, as well as documents and weapons, during the initial sweep. US of ficials said they were going into towns with "overwhelming combat power".
In the midst of continuing scrutiny of our handling of prisoners in Guatanamo Bay, we are going to add to the numbers and in all likelihood, create "permanent" camps similar to Guatanamo Bay in Iraq.
If the U.S. can't be trusted to preserve the rights of our prisoners of war, how long before these tactics come home to roost, and ordinary citizens are harassed and bullied?
# posted by scorpiorising : 6:44 AM |
Sunday, June 29, 2003
Issues the democratic candidates aren't talking about, to my knowledge.
The candidates aren't talking about corporate welfare, to my knowledge.
I haven't heard much said about why Martha Stewart has been indicted, and Ken Lay hasn't.
The issues of children, especially children of the working poor, has not been mentioned, to my knowledge, including the attacks on head start.
Heard anything on the issue of homelessness? Particularly homeless single parents, usually women and their children?
I could go on and on.
I haven't heard much said about why Martha Stewart has been indicted, and Ken Lay hasn't.
The issues of children, especially children of the working poor, has not been mentioned, to my knowledge, including the attacks on head start.
Heard anything on the issue of homelessness? Particularly homeless single parents, usually women and their children?
I could go on and on.
# posted by scorpiorising : 4:36 PM |
Friday, June 27, 2003
Josh Marshall is ON IT!
Josh Marshall in Talking Points Memo, is on it, folks. All the president's men knew the Nigerian document was a fake:
Following up on the previous post, let's assume for a moment that neither the president nor any of his top advisors knew that the Niger-uranium documents were bogus when the president delivered his State of the Union speech. (Let's call it an extreme hypothetical.) Let's say it was just a snafu.
If it's really true that folks at the State Department knew the story was bogus, and folks in the intelligence community knew it was bogus, and folks at the NSC were told it was bogus, and folks at the OVP were told it was bogus ... If all those people knew, and somehow the information never got to the president or any of his top advisors, isn't that the kind of Category-5 screw-up that, almost by definition, costs a National Security Advisor her job?
If the president were given information to tell the public, even while many people in his own government knew the information was bogus -- and I think we now know that's true -- don't you figure he'd want some answers or explanations? From someone?
I think this is the sort of mystery Ockham's Razor slices right through.
Josh Marshall is on it folks, in the hillnews.com, but I will disagree with him on one point: I believe the president knew the documents were a forgery, and decided to go with it anyway:
But let’s zoom in on one case of possible deception which is starting to look more and more clear-cut.
Last January, in his State of the Union Address, President Bush told the American people that Iraq had recently tried to purchase uranium from Niger. Later, of course, we discovered that the documents in question were forgeries — a low-budget hoax that the head of International Atomic Energy Agency’s Iraq inspections unit, Jacques Baute, was able to debunk with a few quick Google searches.
So when did the White House discover they were fakes?
On June 8th, Condi Rice conceded that the documents were fraudulent but told Tim Russert that the White House hadn’t known before the speech. “Maybe someone knew down in the bowels of the Agency [i.e., the CIA], but no one in our circles knew that there were doubts and suspicions that this might be a forgery.”
But Rice wouldn’t have had to look too far down into the “bowels of the Agency” since just about everyone in the intelligence community — and at least some people on her own National Security Council staff — had known the documents were phonies for almost a year.
Vice President Cheney had first asked the CIA to look into the matter. And in February 2002 the CIA sent an as-yet-unnamed former US Ambassador to Niger back to the country to investigate.
His report back was unambiguous: the story was bogus.
The White House first claimed that the CIA just hadn’t told them about its findings.
But in the last several weeks lots of people from the national security and intelligence apparatus have been coming forward to say that’s just not true.
Following up on the previous post, let's assume for a moment that neither the president nor any of his top advisors knew that the Niger-uranium documents were bogus when the president delivered his State of the Union speech. (Let's call it an extreme hypothetical.) Let's say it was just a snafu.
If it's really true that folks at the State Department knew the story was bogus, and folks in the intelligence community knew it was bogus, and folks at the NSC were told it was bogus, and folks at the OVP were told it was bogus ... If all those people knew, and somehow the information never got to the president or any of his top advisors, isn't that the kind of Category-5 screw-up that, almost by definition, costs a National Security Advisor her job?
If the president were given information to tell the public, even while many people in his own government knew the information was bogus -- and I think we now know that's true -- don't you figure he'd want some answers or explanations? From someone?
I think this is the sort of mystery Ockham's Razor slices right through.
Josh Marshall is on it folks, in the hillnews.com, but I will disagree with him on one point: I believe the president knew the documents were a forgery, and decided to go with it anyway:
But let’s zoom in on one case of possible deception which is starting to look more and more clear-cut.
Last January, in his State of the Union Address, President Bush told the American people that Iraq had recently tried to purchase uranium from Niger. Later, of course, we discovered that the documents in question were forgeries — a low-budget hoax that the head of International Atomic Energy Agency’s Iraq inspections unit, Jacques Baute, was able to debunk with a few quick Google searches.
So when did the White House discover they were fakes?
On June 8th, Condi Rice conceded that the documents were fraudulent but told Tim Russert that the White House hadn’t known before the speech. “Maybe someone knew down in the bowels of the Agency [i.e., the CIA], but no one in our circles knew that there were doubts and suspicions that this might be a forgery.”
But Rice wouldn’t have had to look too far down into the “bowels of the Agency” since just about everyone in the intelligence community — and at least some people on her own National Security Council staff — had known the documents were phonies for almost a year.
Vice President Cheney had first asked the CIA to look into the matter. And in February 2002 the CIA sent an as-yet-unnamed former US Ambassador to Niger back to the country to investigate.
His report back was unambiguous: the story was bogus.
The White House first claimed that the CIA just hadn’t told them about its findings.
But in the last several weeks lots of people from the national security and intelligence apparatus have been coming forward to say that’s just not true.
# posted by scorpiorising : 10:04 AM |
Is the planting of evidence of wmds a possibility?
In this Truthout interview, a retired CIA analyist notes the possibility of the U.S. planting evidence of wmds in Iraq, given that we have refused to allow the U.N. back into Iraq to continue looking for wmds. He is also focusing on the connection between Vice- President Cheney and the forged Nigerian document used to promote the presence of wmds in Iraq:
McG: My primary attention is on the forgery of the Niger documents that supposedly proved Iraq was developing a nuclear program. It seems to me that you can have endless arguments about the correct interpretation of this or that piece of intelligence, or intelligence analysis, but a forgery is a forgery. It’s demonstrable that senior officials of this government, including the Vice President, knew that it was a forgery in March of last year. It was used anyway to deceive our Congressmen and Senators into voting for an unprovoked war. That seems to me to be something that needs to be borne in mind, that needs to be held up for everyone to see. If an informed public, and by extension an informed Congress, is the necessary bedrock for democracy, then we’ve got a split bedrock that is in bad need of repair.
I have done a good bit of research here, and one of the conclusions I have come to is that Vice President Cheney was not only interested in “helping out” with the analysis, let us say, that CIA was producing on Iraq. He was interested also in fashioning evidence that he could use as proof that, as he said, “The Iraqis had reconstituted their nuclear program,” which demonstrably they had not.
What I’m saying is that this needs to be investigated. We know that it was Dick Cheney who sent the former US ambassador to Niger to investigate. We know he was told in early March of last year that the documents were forgeries. And yet these same documents were used in that application. That is something that needs to be uncovered. We need to pursue why the Vice President allowed that to happen. To have global reporters like Walter Pincus quoting senior administration officials that Vice President Cheney was not told by CIA about the findings of this former US ambassador strains credulity well beyond the breaking point. Cheney commissioned this trip, and when the fellow came back, he said, “Don’t tell me, I don’t want to know what happened.” That’s just ridiculous.
Cheney knew, and Cheney was way out in front of everybody, starting on the 26th of August, talking about Iraq seeking nuclear weapons. As recently as the 16th of March, three days before the war, he was again at it. This time he said Iraq has reconstituted its nuclear weapons program. It hadn’t. It demonstrably hadn’t. There has been nothing like that uncovered in Iraq. As the first President Bush said about the invasion of Kuwait, this cannot stand.
One other thing I’d like to note is the anomaly that President Bush has succeeded Saddam Hussein in the role of preventing UN inspectors from coming into Iraq. He has not even been asked why.
There is no conceivable reason why the United States of America should not be imploring Hans Blix and the rest of his folks to come right in. They have the expertise, they’ve been there, they’ve done that. They have millions of dollars available through the UN. They have people who know the weaponry, how they are procured and produced. They know personally the scientists, they’ve interviewed them before. What possible reason could the United States of America have to say no thanks, we’ll use our own GI’s to do this. Don’t come in here. That needs to be brought out. For the UN to be waiting with those inspectors at the ready, there has got to be some reason why the United States won’t let them back in.
The more sinister interpretation is that the US wants to be able to plant weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Now, most people will say, “Come on, McGovern. How are you going to get a SCUD in there without everyone seeing it?” It doesn’t have to be a SCUD. It can be the kind of little vile vial that Colin Powell held up on the 5th of February. You put a couple of those in a GI’s pocket, and you swear him to secrecy, and you have him go bury them out in the desert. You discover it ten days later, and President Bush, with more credibility than he could with those trailers will say, “Ha! We’ve found the weapons of mass destruction.”
I think that’s a possibility, a real possibility. I think that, since it is a real possibility, the Democrats’ sheepishness on this, their reluctance to get out on a limb and say there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, may be more explainable. But they should come around anyway.
McG: My primary attention is on the forgery of the Niger documents that supposedly proved Iraq was developing a nuclear program. It seems to me that you can have endless arguments about the correct interpretation of this or that piece of intelligence, or intelligence analysis, but a forgery is a forgery. It’s demonstrable that senior officials of this government, including the Vice President, knew that it was a forgery in March of last year. It was used anyway to deceive our Congressmen and Senators into voting for an unprovoked war. That seems to me to be something that needs to be borne in mind, that needs to be held up for everyone to see. If an informed public, and by extension an informed Congress, is the necessary bedrock for democracy, then we’ve got a split bedrock that is in bad need of repair.
I have done a good bit of research here, and one of the conclusions I have come to is that Vice President Cheney was not only interested in “helping out” with the analysis, let us say, that CIA was producing on Iraq. He was interested also in fashioning evidence that he could use as proof that, as he said, “The Iraqis had reconstituted their nuclear program,” which demonstrably they had not.
What I’m saying is that this needs to be investigated. We know that it was Dick Cheney who sent the former US ambassador to Niger to investigate. We know he was told in early March of last year that the documents were forgeries. And yet these same documents were used in that application. That is something that needs to be uncovered. We need to pursue why the Vice President allowed that to happen. To have global reporters like Walter Pincus quoting senior administration officials that Vice President Cheney was not told by CIA about the findings of this former US ambassador strains credulity well beyond the breaking point. Cheney commissioned this trip, and when the fellow came back, he said, “Don’t tell me, I don’t want to know what happened.” That’s just ridiculous.
Cheney knew, and Cheney was way out in front of everybody, starting on the 26th of August, talking about Iraq seeking nuclear weapons. As recently as the 16th of March, three days before the war, he was again at it. This time he said Iraq has reconstituted its nuclear weapons program. It hadn’t. It demonstrably hadn’t. There has been nothing like that uncovered in Iraq. As the first President Bush said about the invasion of Kuwait, this cannot stand.
One other thing I’d like to note is the anomaly that President Bush has succeeded Saddam Hussein in the role of preventing UN inspectors from coming into Iraq. He has not even been asked why.
There is no conceivable reason why the United States of America should not be imploring Hans Blix and the rest of his folks to come right in. They have the expertise, they’ve been there, they’ve done that. They have millions of dollars available through the UN. They have people who know the weaponry, how they are procured and produced. They know personally the scientists, they’ve interviewed them before. What possible reason could the United States of America have to say no thanks, we’ll use our own GI’s to do this. Don’t come in here. That needs to be brought out. For the UN to be waiting with those inspectors at the ready, there has got to be some reason why the United States won’t let them back in.
The more sinister interpretation is that the US wants to be able to plant weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Now, most people will say, “Come on, McGovern. How are you going to get a SCUD in there without everyone seeing it?” It doesn’t have to be a SCUD. It can be the kind of little vile vial that Colin Powell held up on the 5th of February. You put a couple of those in a GI’s pocket, and you swear him to secrecy, and you have him go bury them out in the desert. You discover it ten days later, and President Bush, with more credibility than he could with those trailers will say, “Ha! We’ve found the weapons of mass destruction.”
I think that’s a possibility, a real possibility. I think that, since it is a real possibility, the Democrats’ sheepishness on this, their reluctance to get out on a limb and say there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, may be more explainable. But they should come around anyway.
# posted by scorpiorising : 7:16 AM |
Thursday, June 26, 2003
We are torturing some of our captives.
It is interesting how this information on the torture of captives in Afghanistan and other sites by the CIA, came to light. It seems that national-security officials felt a need to justify the torture, so came forward and reported it to the Washington Post. This goes beyond Freudian slip into the area of the German decision to invade Russia kind of self-defeatism. The Independent.co.uk examines the revelations:
Privately, the Americans admit that torture, or something very like it, is going on at Bagram air base in Afghanistan, where they are holding an unknown number of suspected terrorists.
Al-Qa'ida and Taliban prisoners inside this secret CIA interrogation centre - in a cluster of metal shipping-containers protected by a triple layer of concertinaed wire - are subjected to a variety of practices. They are kept standing or kneeling for hours, in black hoods or spray-painted goggles. They are bound in awkward, painful positions. They are deprived of sleep with a 24-hour bombardment of lights. They are sometimes beaten on capture, and painkillers are withheld.
The interrogators call these "stress and duress" techniques, which one former US intelligence officer has dubbed "torture-lite". Sometimes there is nothing "lite" about the end results. The US military has announced that a criminal investigation has begun into the case of two prisoners who died after beatings at Bagram. More covertly, other terrorist suspects have been "rendered" into the hands of various foreign intelligence services known to have less fastidious records on the use of torture.
What is perhaps most disturbing about all this is that the US officials who have leaked the information have not done so out of a need to expose something that they see as shameful. On the contrary, they have made it clear that they wanted the world to know what is going on because they feel it is justified.
No fewer than 10 serving US national- security officials - including several people who have been witnesses to the handling of prisoners - came forward to speak to The Washington Post, which has published the most graphic account of what is going on in Bagram, and in several other unnamed US interrogation centres across the world. "If you don't violate someone's human rights some of the time, one told the paper, "you probably aren't doing your job". He and the others involved are, in effect, saying: we are doing these things because we have to, and we want the world to know.
Privately, the Americans admit that torture, or something very like it, is going on at Bagram air base in Afghanistan, where they are holding an unknown number of suspected terrorists.
Al-Qa'ida and Taliban prisoners inside this secret CIA interrogation centre - in a cluster of metal shipping-containers protected by a triple layer of concertinaed wire - are subjected to a variety of practices. They are kept standing or kneeling for hours, in black hoods or spray-painted goggles. They are bound in awkward, painful positions. They are deprived of sleep with a 24-hour bombardment of lights. They are sometimes beaten on capture, and painkillers are withheld.
The interrogators call these "stress and duress" techniques, which one former US intelligence officer has dubbed "torture-lite". Sometimes there is nothing "lite" about the end results. The US military has announced that a criminal investigation has begun into the case of two prisoners who died after beatings at Bagram. More covertly, other terrorist suspects have been "rendered" into the hands of various foreign intelligence services known to have less fastidious records on the use of torture.
What is perhaps most disturbing about all this is that the US officials who have leaked the information have not done so out of a need to expose something that they see as shameful. On the contrary, they have made it clear that they wanted the world to know what is going on because they feel it is justified.
No fewer than 10 serving US national- security officials - including several people who have been witnesses to the handling of prisoners - came forward to speak to The Washington Post, which has published the most graphic account of what is going on in Bagram, and in several other unnamed US interrogation centres across the world. "If you don't violate someone's human rights some of the time, one told the paper, "you probably aren't doing your job". He and the others involved are, in effect, saying: we are doing these things because we have to, and we want the world to know.
# posted by scorpiorising : 8:55 AM |
Wednesday, June 25, 2003
Congolese blood on our hands.
When we we learn? When will we keep out of the affairs of other countries? There is much blood on our hands, and on the hand of many industrialized nations, for third world misery, and our corporations are profiting. From the New York Times:
April 20, 2003
Chaos in Congo Suits Many Parties Just Fine
By ADAM HOCHSCHILD
As in the Sherlock Holmes story about the dog that didn't bark in the night, sometimes silence says more than words. About one of the great tragedies of today's world, the silence is telling indeed. In Congo, according to an International Rescue Committee report released earlier this month, at least 3.3 million people have lost their lives in four and a half years of civil war. They have perished in combat, in massacres of civilians (the most recent occurred on April 3) and, most of all, in the disease and famine that strike when millions of desperately poor people are forced to flee their homes.
This number does not include the estimated 2.8 million Congolese who have H.I.V. or AIDS, some of it spread through mass rapes by marauding bands of soldiers. Nor does it encompass the misery of having to live for years in refugee camps that turn into fields of mud during the rainy season.
The war has been marked by a series of ineffective peace agreements among three major factions, one of them the national government in Kinshasa, and several smaller groups. And a token force of United Nations observers is now on the scene.
But Congo's separation into rival segments continues, and last week one faction boycotted talks that are supposed to form a power-sharing government. Few Americans, however, seem to care about stopping a conflict with a death toll larger than any since World War II. Why?
American interest in Africa is erratic, but there is a larger reason that few countries have put much effort into ending this war. Simply, Congo's current situation — Balkanized, occupied by rival armies, with no functioning central government — suits many people just fine. Some are heads of Congo's warring factions, some are political and military leaders of neighboring countries, and some are corporations dependent on the country's resources. The combination is deadly.
To begin with, the warlords of most of Congo's factions are happy to divide up its vast treasure of mineral wealth while spending little on public services. The few schools open are mainly run by the Roman Catholic Church.
The continuing turmoil also suits the various countries nearby, above all Rwanda, Uganda and Zimbabwe, whose troops have long propped up one or another side in the conflict. In return, they have received a stream of timber, gold, diamonds, copper, cobalt and columbium-tantalum, or coltan, a valuable mineral used in cellphones, computers and many other electronic devices. At its peak price a few years ago, coltan was selling for $350 a pound.
Such riches have made the war self-supporting, with profits to spare. Despairing Congolese say they would be better off if they were not so rich.
Finally, the Balkanization and war suit the amazing variety of corporations — large and small, American, African and European — that profit from the river of mineral wealth without having to worry about high taxes, and that prefer a cash-in-suitcases economy to a highly regulated one.
An exhaustive report to the United Nations Security Council last year detailed the dozens of companies now making money from Congo's conflict, based everywhere from Ohio to Johannesburg to Antwerp to Kazakhstan. As a result, neither the United States nor any other nation now seems to have much interest in seeing a strong Congolese central government keep profits from the country's patrimony — the word the White House uses about Iraq's oil — mostly at home.
When Patrice Lumumba, Congo's first and last democratically chosen leader, threatened to do just that after taking office in 1960, the Eisenhower administration secretly sought his overthrow and assassination. Emboldened, Congolese and Belgians then carried out the job.
Congo's current disorder grows directly out of a long, unhappy history. Ethnic groups speaking more than 200 different languages live in the territory. For centuries, it served as raiding grounds for the Atlantic slave trade and the equally deadly slave trade from the east coast of Africa to the Islamic world.
When the colonial era began, the land became the privately owned colony of King Leopold II of Belgium. His army turned much of the male population into forced laborers, working many to death. First the laborers gathered ivory — Joseph Conrad gave an unforgettable image of this in "Heart of Darkness" — and then a still more lucrative crop, wild rubber.
During Leopold's rule and its immediate aftermath, the territory's population was slashed roughly in half. Belgian state colonialism followed; it was less brutal and more orderly, but still the profits flowed overseas.
In 1965, five years after independence, Joseph Mobutu seized power in a military coup, encouraged by Washington. He renamed himself Mobutu Sese Seko and his country Zaire, and ruled as a dictator for 32 years, receiving more than $1 billion in American aid and repeatedly being welcomed at the White House. Meanwhile he looted the national treasury of an estimated $4 billion. Small wonder that his ravaged country has been having a hard time ever since. It has not helped that in the 1990's the United States supplied more than $100 million in arms and military training to six of the seven African countries that have been involved in the fighting of the Congo war.
Even in a magical world where great powers always had good intentions, no outside intervention — whether by American, European, African or United Nations forces — would be likely to solve Congo's problems. "Nation building" by outsiders is inherently arrogant and risky, and there are few success stories. More than 28,000 NATO-led troops are currently keeping the peace in Kosovo; Congo's population is more than 25 times as large as Kosovo's, and its land area more than 200 times bigger.
THERE are other problems as well. In Africa, loyalty to the extended clan or ethnic group is often far stronger than to the nation-state. These divisions have allowed Congo's plunderers to profit so much for so long. In the immediate future, factional leaders, generals and politicians from surrounding countries, and various Western companies are likely to continue making money.
What hope is there for an end to Congo's misery? The United States made one surprising step forward earlier this month when Congress approved American participation in an international agreement not to trade in "conflict diamonds" — the gems coming from anarchic, war-torn areas like Congo. More than 50 other countries have already signed on. The pact will be hard to enforce — but so was the ban on the Atlantic slave trade in its early years. And if conflict diamonds can be made taboo, why not conflict gold or conflict coltan?Adam Hochschild is the author of "King Leopold's Ghost."
April 20, 2003
Chaos in Congo Suits Many Parties Just Fine
By ADAM HOCHSCHILD
As in the Sherlock Holmes story about the dog that didn't bark in the night, sometimes silence says more than words. About one of the great tragedies of today's world, the silence is telling indeed. In Congo, according to an International Rescue Committee report released earlier this month, at least 3.3 million people have lost their lives in four and a half years of civil war. They have perished in combat, in massacres of civilians (the most recent occurred on April 3) and, most of all, in the disease and famine that strike when millions of desperately poor people are forced to flee their homes.
This number does not include the estimated 2.8 million Congolese who have H.I.V. or AIDS, some of it spread through mass rapes by marauding bands of soldiers. Nor does it encompass the misery of having to live for years in refugee camps that turn into fields of mud during the rainy season.
The war has been marked by a series of ineffective peace agreements among three major factions, one of them the national government in Kinshasa, and several smaller groups. And a token force of United Nations observers is now on the scene.
But Congo's separation into rival segments continues, and last week one faction boycotted talks that are supposed to form a power-sharing government. Few Americans, however, seem to care about stopping a conflict with a death toll larger than any since World War II. Why?
American interest in Africa is erratic, but there is a larger reason that few countries have put much effort into ending this war. Simply, Congo's current situation — Balkanized, occupied by rival armies, with no functioning central government — suits many people just fine. Some are heads of Congo's warring factions, some are political and military leaders of neighboring countries, and some are corporations dependent on the country's resources. The combination is deadly.
To begin with, the warlords of most of Congo's factions are happy to divide up its vast treasure of mineral wealth while spending little on public services. The few schools open are mainly run by the Roman Catholic Church.
The continuing turmoil also suits the various countries nearby, above all Rwanda, Uganda and Zimbabwe, whose troops have long propped up one or another side in the conflict. In return, they have received a stream of timber, gold, diamonds, copper, cobalt and columbium-tantalum, or coltan, a valuable mineral used in cellphones, computers and many other electronic devices. At its peak price a few years ago, coltan was selling for $350 a pound.
Such riches have made the war self-supporting, with profits to spare. Despairing Congolese say they would be better off if they were not so rich.
Finally, the Balkanization and war suit the amazing variety of corporations — large and small, American, African and European — that profit from the river of mineral wealth without having to worry about high taxes, and that prefer a cash-in-suitcases economy to a highly regulated one.
An exhaustive report to the United Nations Security Council last year detailed the dozens of companies now making money from Congo's conflict, based everywhere from Ohio to Johannesburg to Antwerp to Kazakhstan. As a result, neither the United States nor any other nation now seems to have much interest in seeing a strong Congolese central government keep profits from the country's patrimony — the word the White House uses about Iraq's oil — mostly at home.
When Patrice Lumumba, Congo's first and last democratically chosen leader, threatened to do just that after taking office in 1960, the Eisenhower administration secretly sought his overthrow and assassination. Emboldened, Congolese and Belgians then carried out the job.
Congo's current disorder grows directly out of a long, unhappy history. Ethnic groups speaking more than 200 different languages live in the territory. For centuries, it served as raiding grounds for the Atlantic slave trade and the equally deadly slave trade from the east coast of Africa to the Islamic world.
When the colonial era began, the land became the privately owned colony of King Leopold II of Belgium. His army turned much of the male population into forced laborers, working many to death. First the laborers gathered ivory — Joseph Conrad gave an unforgettable image of this in "Heart of Darkness" — and then a still more lucrative crop, wild rubber.
During Leopold's rule and its immediate aftermath, the territory's population was slashed roughly in half. Belgian state colonialism followed; it was less brutal and more orderly, but still the profits flowed overseas.
In 1965, five years after independence, Joseph Mobutu seized power in a military coup, encouraged by Washington. He renamed himself Mobutu Sese Seko and his country Zaire, and ruled as a dictator for 32 years, receiving more than $1 billion in American aid and repeatedly being welcomed at the White House. Meanwhile he looted the national treasury of an estimated $4 billion. Small wonder that his ravaged country has been having a hard time ever since. It has not helped that in the 1990's the United States supplied more than $100 million in arms and military training to six of the seven African countries that have been involved in the fighting of the Congo war.
Even in a magical world where great powers always had good intentions, no outside intervention — whether by American, European, African or United Nations forces — would be likely to solve Congo's problems. "Nation building" by outsiders is inherently arrogant and risky, and there are few success stories. More than 28,000 NATO-led troops are currently keeping the peace in Kosovo; Congo's population is more than 25 times as large as Kosovo's, and its land area more than 200 times bigger.
THERE are other problems as well. In Africa, loyalty to the extended clan or ethnic group is often far stronger than to the nation-state. These divisions have allowed Congo's plunderers to profit so much for so long. In the immediate future, factional leaders, generals and politicians from surrounding countries, and various Western companies are likely to continue making money.
What hope is there for an end to Congo's misery? The United States made one surprising step forward earlier this month when Congress approved American participation in an international agreement not to trade in "conflict diamonds" — the gems coming from anarchic, war-torn areas like Congo. More than 50 other countries have already signed on. The pact will be hard to enforce — but so was the ban on the Atlantic slave trade in its early years. And if conflict diamonds can be made taboo, why not conflict gold or conflict coltan?Adam Hochschild is the author of "King Leopold's Ghost."
# posted by scorpiorising : 3:16 PM |
Tuesday, June 24, 2003
Dean vs Kucinich
Sorry folks, but Kucinich would win in the first round when it comes to progressive views. Bob Harris, a Kucinich supporter who did some research on the views and beliefs of both men, contrasted their views and records on this site:
Issue:
Health care plan: Kucinich: Canadian-style single-payer system, extending the successes of Medicare, financed by a tax on employers lower than the current cost of private insurance. Dean: Complex 4-prong plan, extending multiple state and federal programs piecemeal, combined with tax credits and incentives, all of which Dean claims is more likely to become law, but still won't cover everyone
Death penalty: Kucinich: Opposes Dean: Favors for "extreme" crimes like terrorism or the killing of a police officer, although critical of Bush administration's "careless" approach to executions
Roe v. Wade: Kucinich: The only candidate pledged to make Roe v. Wade a "litmus test" for appointing federal judges. Dean: Pro-choice, but refuses to promise not to appoint pro-life federal judges
Kyoto treaty: Kucinich: Supports Dean: Says we must "take another look," but has "concerns" about some provisions
Patriot Act: Kucinich: Only presidential candidate who personally voted against it Dean: Would repeal "parts," but also wants to expand intelligence agencies; praises Russ Feingold as only Senator who opposed the act, ignoring Kucinich's vocal House opposition, falsely implying no other candidate opposed the Patriot Act
NAFTA/WTO: Kucinich: Full withdrawal, to replace with fair trade; opposes "fast track" treatment of any future trade legislation; personally marched in Seattle protests Dean: Notes problems with "free" trade, suggesting the need for inclusion of human rights, environmental, and labor standards in trade agreements -- but still pro-NAFTA
Campaign finance reform: Kucinich: Supports voluntary public financing of public elections and a constitutional amendment to allow full public financing Dean: Proposed defunding state public financing laws, funneling campaign money into the general fund (helping balance the budget)
"Star Wars" ballistic missile system: Kucinich:Would abolish; has sponsored legislation banning weapons from space Dean: Would cut only 1/8 of the funding, transferring it to international threat-reduction programs
Pentagon waste :Kucinich: Would cut Pentagon programs which don't even work, like the V-22, F-22, and "Star Wars," and demand accountability for over a $1 trillion in "lost" funds. Dean: Disagrees with any proposed Pentagon cutbacks, and advocates aggressive expansion of intelligence, police, and special forces
Balanced budget: Kucinich: A long-term goal, but deficits may be necessary in the short run for economic and social investment Dean: A main priority -- even equating it with social progress: "we cannot have social justice without a sound fiscal foundation" -- describing himself as "to the right of Bush" on the issue
Gun control: Kucinich: Sponsored a bill calling for child safety devices on all new handguns Dean: Opposes any new federal regulation, considers it a states' rights issue; an "A" rating from NRA most of his career
Medical marijuana: Kucinich: Supports compassionate use Dean: Adamantly opposed to all use.
War on drugs Kucinich:Proposes European-style treatment of addiction as a medical, not criminal problem, with attendant reductions in crime and violence Dean: Accepts National Governors Association position: more federal funding for all aspects of the drug war
Gay rights: Kucinich: Believes gay and straight couples should be 100% equal before the law, including Social Security and domestic-partner benefits; Dean: supports federal civil union legislation Signed a civil union (not gay marriage) bill behind closed doors; trumpets this as an act of singular political courage; opposes similar national laws as a states' rights issue
Energy Kucinich: Supports investment in solar, wind, ocean, and other clean energy; risked career to prevent a power monopoly in Cleveland, saving taxpayers over $200 million Dean: Supports investment in alternative energy and energy efficiency; however, has sided with Vermont state utilities on most issues
Restoration of estate tax Kucinich: Supports Dean: Considers it a states' rights issue
Political experience Kucinich:Has held local, state, and federal office for a total of 17 years. Four-term member of Congress, since 1997. Currently chair of the Progressive Caucus, largest Democratic caucus in Congress.
Dean: Vermont state legislator, 1982-86; Lieutenant Governor, 1986-91; Governor, 1991-2002
Iraq war Kucinich: Opposed staunchly from the beginning, has never wavered Dean: Opposed; softened his rhetoric once the war began and appeared successful; now again firmly opposed
Personal Kucinich: Lifelong member of the working class. Grew up so poor that his family lived in a car more than once. Currently a vegan. Dean: Patrician upbringing. Speaks harshly about negative environmental impact of SUVs. Drives an SUV (a Chevy Suburban).
Wellstone connections Kucinich: Wellstone was a proud member of the Progressive Caucus, which Kucinich leads Dean: Stole the "democratic wing of the democratic party" line from Wellstone after his death
Ambition Kucinich: Began campaign late, in part because he was busy organizing anti-war voices in Congress Dean: Vermont newspapers had to sue to get Dean's 2002 schedule as Governor; Dean spent almost all of the year out the state, and didn't want his constituents to know
Home state to carry Kucinich: Ohio, 21 electoral votes Dean: Vermont, 3 electoral votes
Issue:
Health care plan: Kucinich: Canadian-style single-payer system, extending the successes of Medicare, financed by a tax on employers lower than the current cost of private insurance. Dean: Complex 4-prong plan, extending multiple state and federal programs piecemeal, combined with tax credits and incentives, all of which Dean claims is more likely to become law, but still won't cover everyone
Death penalty: Kucinich: Opposes Dean: Favors for "extreme" crimes like terrorism or the killing of a police officer, although critical of Bush administration's "careless" approach to executions
Roe v. Wade: Kucinich: The only candidate pledged to make Roe v. Wade a "litmus test" for appointing federal judges. Dean: Pro-choice, but refuses to promise not to appoint pro-life federal judges
Kyoto treaty: Kucinich: Supports Dean: Says we must "take another look," but has "concerns" about some provisions
Patriot Act: Kucinich: Only presidential candidate who personally voted against it Dean: Would repeal "parts," but also wants to expand intelligence agencies; praises Russ Feingold as only Senator who opposed the act, ignoring Kucinich's vocal House opposition, falsely implying no other candidate opposed the Patriot Act
NAFTA/WTO: Kucinich: Full withdrawal, to replace with fair trade; opposes "fast track" treatment of any future trade legislation; personally marched in Seattle protests Dean: Notes problems with "free" trade, suggesting the need for inclusion of human rights, environmental, and labor standards in trade agreements -- but still pro-NAFTA
Campaign finance reform: Kucinich: Supports voluntary public financing of public elections and a constitutional amendment to allow full public financing Dean: Proposed defunding state public financing laws, funneling campaign money into the general fund (helping balance the budget)
"Star Wars" ballistic missile system: Kucinich:Would abolish; has sponsored legislation banning weapons from space Dean: Would cut only 1/8 of the funding, transferring it to international threat-reduction programs
Pentagon waste :Kucinich: Would cut Pentagon programs which don't even work, like the V-22, F-22, and "Star Wars," and demand accountability for over a $1 trillion in "lost" funds. Dean: Disagrees with any proposed Pentagon cutbacks, and advocates aggressive expansion of intelligence, police, and special forces
Balanced budget: Kucinich: A long-term goal, but deficits may be necessary in the short run for economic and social investment Dean: A main priority -- even equating it with social progress: "we cannot have social justice without a sound fiscal foundation" -- describing himself as "to the right of Bush" on the issue
Gun control: Kucinich: Sponsored a bill calling for child safety devices on all new handguns Dean: Opposes any new federal regulation, considers it a states' rights issue; an "A" rating from NRA most of his career
Medical marijuana: Kucinich: Supports compassionate use Dean: Adamantly opposed to all use.
War on drugs Kucinich:Proposes European-style treatment of addiction as a medical, not criminal problem, with attendant reductions in crime and violence Dean: Accepts National Governors Association position: more federal funding for all aspects of the drug war
Gay rights: Kucinich: Believes gay and straight couples should be 100% equal before the law, including Social Security and domestic-partner benefits; Dean: supports federal civil union legislation Signed a civil union (not gay marriage) bill behind closed doors; trumpets this as an act of singular political courage; opposes similar national laws as a states' rights issue
Energy Kucinich: Supports investment in solar, wind, ocean, and other clean energy; risked career to prevent a power monopoly in Cleveland, saving taxpayers over $200 million Dean: Supports investment in alternative energy and energy efficiency; however, has sided with Vermont state utilities on most issues
Restoration of estate tax Kucinich: Supports Dean: Considers it a states' rights issue
Political experience Kucinich:Has held local, state, and federal office for a total of 17 years. Four-term member of Congress, since 1997. Currently chair of the Progressive Caucus, largest Democratic caucus in Congress.
Dean: Vermont state legislator, 1982-86; Lieutenant Governor, 1986-91; Governor, 1991-2002
Iraq war Kucinich: Opposed staunchly from the beginning, has never wavered Dean: Opposed; softened his rhetoric once the war began and appeared successful; now again firmly opposed
Personal Kucinich: Lifelong member of the working class. Grew up so poor that his family lived in a car more than once. Currently a vegan. Dean: Patrician upbringing. Speaks harshly about negative environmental impact of SUVs. Drives an SUV (a Chevy Suburban).
Wellstone connections Kucinich: Wellstone was a proud member of the Progressive Caucus, which Kucinich leads Dean: Stole the "democratic wing of the democratic party" line from Wellstone after his death
Ambition Kucinich: Began campaign late, in part because he was busy organizing anti-war voices in Congress Dean: Vermont newspapers had to sue to get Dean's 2002 schedule as Governor; Dean spent almost all of the year out the state, and didn't want his constituents to know
Home state to carry Kucinich: Ohio, 21 electoral votes Dean: Vermont, 3 electoral votes
# posted by scorpiorising : 3:07 PM |
Sgt. David Borell: Soldier, fighter, patriot
Here is a photo of Sgt. David Borell mourning children injured from unexploded munitions. That was the original caption that I remember seeing of this photo. Now the truth has come out though, that at least two Iraqi children were refused aid from American military doctors when they suffered burns from playing with unexploded munitions, and Sgt. David Borell was a witness. From the toledoblade.com, hometown of Borell:
The children’s parents brought them to the base for treatment, but doctors - according to Sergeant Borell - looked at the children momentarily and turned them away after deciding their injuries were not life-threatening.
Apparently the honest grief expressed by Sgt. Borell is igniting a spark in Americans who become aware of this story:
"This photograph serves to reinforce what I truly believe," wrote Les Elkins, a South Padre Island, Texas, motel owner, in an e-mail to The Blade: "that, in general, Americans, even the biggest, burliest, and toughest of us, are truly caring and compassionate when it comes to the pain and suffering of others."...
Other comments to The Blade came from Iraq, where Sgt. Jeffrey Gottke confirmed Sergeant Borell’s description of the incident.
He called Sergeant Borell "conservative" and "honest" and said he "loves the Army very much."
"To see him take the stand and speak out as he did says to me that this is something very, very important," Sergeant Gottke wrote.
It is an interesting sidepoint that Sgt. Gottke felt it necessary to qualify his description of Sgt. Borell as "conservative".
In this updated article on the story, published on the 19th, the toledoblade.com reports that a congresswoman from Toledo wants more medical aid for the Iraqis, and she gets the "official" response:
Sergeant Borell, of the Toledo-based 323rd Military Police Company, complained that he tried to get medical help on June 13 for the three children - who he said had severe burns on their arms, legs, and faces. After having to send the family on its way without medical help, the 30-year-old sergeant broke down and was comforted by his platoon leader, Sgt. 1st Class Bryan Pacholski.
The scene was captured by an Associated Press photographer and the picture was printed the following day in The Blade and newspapers across the country. After seeing the photograph, Miss Kaptur pledged to speak with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Mr. Rumsfeld sent Dr. Chu and Mr. Wyatt in his place, Miss Kaptur said.
Miss Kaptur advocated yesterday a system of U.S.-operated field hospitals to provide health care for Iraqi citizens. She also offered to help mobilize communities in northwest Ohio, and specifically Toledo, to assist in providing both medical expertise and medical supplies.
"After 10 years of bombing and the embargo [U.N. sanctions], their hospitals are barren anyway," Miss Kaptur said. "So how can you depend on a civilian system that doesn’t even exist? ... It is a very, very dangerous place, and that’s why field hospitals make sense."
Dr. Chu told Miss Kaptur that the top priority right now is security, and that providing health services is difficult because the situation in Iraq is still dangerous. "He agreed with Congresswoman Kaptur about the need to emphasize health care, and especially public health," said Steve Fought, an aide to Miss Kaptur who was present at the meeting.
Dr. Chu told Miss Kaptur that security in the country was probably too unstable for such an operation. He said the World Health Organization has emphasized rebuilding the health-care infrastructure in Iraq.
There it is. It is too dangerous to have health care for the injuries caused to the Iraqi people by our war.
The children’s parents brought them to the base for treatment, but doctors - according to Sergeant Borell - looked at the children momentarily and turned them away after deciding their injuries were not life-threatening.
Apparently the honest grief expressed by Sgt. Borell is igniting a spark in Americans who become aware of this story:
"This photograph serves to reinforce what I truly believe," wrote Les Elkins, a South Padre Island, Texas, motel owner, in an e-mail to The Blade: "that, in general, Americans, even the biggest, burliest, and toughest of us, are truly caring and compassionate when it comes to the pain and suffering of others."...
Other comments to The Blade came from Iraq, where Sgt. Jeffrey Gottke confirmed Sergeant Borell’s description of the incident.
He called Sergeant Borell "conservative" and "honest" and said he "loves the Army very much."
"To see him take the stand and speak out as he did says to me that this is something very, very important," Sergeant Gottke wrote.
It is an interesting sidepoint that Sgt. Gottke felt it necessary to qualify his description of Sgt. Borell as "conservative".
In this updated article on the story, published on the 19th, the toledoblade.com reports that a congresswoman from Toledo wants more medical aid for the Iraqis, and she gets the "official" response:
Sergeant Borell, of the Toledo-based 323rd Military Police Company, complained that he tried to get medical help on June 13 for the three children - who he said had severe burns on their arms, legs, and faces. After having to send the family on its way without medical help, the 30-year-old sergeant broke down and was comforted by his platoon leader, Sgt. 1st Class Bryan Pacholski.
The scene was captured by an Associated Press photographer and the picture was printed the following day in The Blade and newspapers across the country. After seeing the photograph, Miss Kaptur pledged to speak with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Mr. Rumsfeld sent Dr. Chu and Mr. Wyatt in his place, Miss Kaptur said.
Miss Kaptur advocated yesterday a system of U.S.-operated field hospitals to provide health care for Iraqi citizens. She also offered to help mobilize communities in northwest Ohio, and specifically Toledo, to assist in providing both medical expertise and medical supplies.
"After 10 years of bombing and the embargo [U.N. sanctions], their hospitals are barren anyway," Miss Kaptur said. "So how can you depend on a civilian system that doesn’t even exist? ... It is a very, very dangerous place, and that’s why field hospitals make sense."
Dr. Chu told Miss Kaptur that the top priority right now is security, and that providing health services is difficult because the situation in Iraq is still dangerous. "He agreed with Congresswoman Kaptur about the need to emphasize health care, and especially public health," said Steve Fought, an aide to Miss Kaptur who was present at the meeting.
Dr. Chu told Miss Kaptur that security in the country was probably too unstable for such an operation. He said the World Health Organization has emphasized rebuilding the health-care infrastructure in Iraq.
There it is. It is too dangerous to have health care for the injuries caused to the Iraqi people by our war.
# posted by scorpiorising : 6:10 AM |
Deadly games and deadly indifference.
Eric Alterman in his Altercations yesterday posted this link to an article concerning the deaths and injuries of Iraqi children from exploding munitions. According to the article, in just one week, 52 children were killed and 63 were injured. View the article at your own risk; there are graphic pictures of injured and dying children. In my worse moments of righteous anger, I would love to smear these pictures in the faces of conservatives when they champion this war; and anyone who continues to champion this war, I must question their basic humanity.
# posted by scorpiorising : 5:43 AM |
Monday, June 23, 2003
The intelligence down under
One has to wonder at the sort of apathy found in Australia. To my knowledge, there is no strong christian movement to bond with the values of Australians, and blur the line between religion and government, as has happened in this country, lending to a much too important prominence of government, in the wrong areas, in the lives of Americans right now. Whew, I got that out.
This article suggests Australians are apathetic because their government has lied, and has lied often. From the guardian:
No surprise there, a cynic might say. The Australian public have grown used to their government lying, most scandalously during the xenophobic campaign for the 2001 federal election.
In a masterpiece of innuendo and misinformation, ministers told the public that refugees on a stricken ship off the northwest coast of Australia were throwing their own children into the sea in an attempt to force the coastguard to pick them up and take them ashore. A photograph was given to the media purporting to show those children floating in the water.
Ministers hinted that Islamist terrorists might be choosing this hazardous route to get into Australia, particularly absurd claim given that western-qualified English-speakers such as Mohammed Atta are precisely the sort of Muslim immigrants that Australia's immigration department is still happy to welcome.
In fact, the photograph showed an Australian coastguard rescuing adult refugees after their ship sank. The "children overboard" claim was inspired by a single, unconfirmed report in which a refugee on deck was seen through binoculars lifting her child into the air.
Or is it the Australian panache for good times; a kind of happy-go-lucky decadence, that leaves little room for the sometimes dark and messy game of politics.
If national stereotypes are anything to go by, Australians might be expected to concentrate on their desire for good times, rather than worry about what's going on in Canberra. And true to form, public reaction from third member of the coalition of the willing has largely been one of ennui.
However, it appears Australians are getting their wake-up call, and indeed, the Australian wake-up call is going to England.
This week he is in London, where the foreign affairs select committee will question him further about the subterfuge used to sell the war. His testimony is likely to be explosive. Governments in Washington, London and Canberra, he will say, were simply lying to the public about Iraq.
Who is this man?
The revelation came with the resignation of Andrew Wilkie, a senior analyst at Australia's top intelligence body, the office of national assessment (ONA). A former soldier with an open, affable manner, Wilkie used to sit in his Canberra office reading raw intelligence reports from Australian and international spy agencies, weighing them up and then boiling them down into briefings for the prime minister and cabinet.
And what "revelation" might this be?
Evidence about that missing stockpile of weapons of mass destruction was similarly unreliable. "It was clear before the war that some of the evidence on WMD coming out of Britain and America was garbage," he says. "It was being skewed by political information from Iraqis who were trying to encourage a US invasion."
And why was this invasion wanted?
I know for a fact that in Australia, the government was being well advised that WMD was not the sole reason for Washington going to war," he says. "In fact, it wasn't even the most important reason ... The British and Australian governments were well aware of the real reasons for the war."
Unbelievably, the guardian article pretty much ends there. I don't know if Wilkie is going to reveal what he believes to be the reason. I am looking foward to his testimony before the English foreign affairs select committee. In the meantime, fill in the blanks.
This article suggests Australians are apathetic because their government has lied, and has lied often. From the guardian:
No surprise there, a cynic might say. The Australian public have grown used to their government lying, most scandalously during the xenophobic campaign for the 2001 federal election.
In a masterpiece of innuendo and misinformation, ministers told the public that refugees on a stricken ship off the northwest coast of Australia were throwing their own children into the sea in an attempt to force the coastguard to pick them up and take them ashore. A photograph was given to the media purporting to show those children floating in the water.
Ministers hinted that Islamist terrorists might be choosing this hazardous route to get into Australia, particularly absurd claim given that western-qualified English-speakers such as Mohammed Atta are precisely the sort of Muslim immigrants that Australia's immigration department is still happy to welcome.
In fact, the photograph showed an Australian coastguard rescuing adult refugees after their ship sank. The "children overboard" claim was inspired by a single, unconfirmed report in which a refugee on deck was seen through binoculars lifting her child into the air.
Or is it the Australian panache for good times; a kind of happy-go-lucky decadence, that leaves little room for the sometimes dark and messy game of politics.
If national stereotypes are anything to go by, Australians might be expected to concentrate on their desire for good times, rather than worry about what's going on in Canberra. And true to form, public reaction from third member of the coalition of the willing has largely been one of ennui.
However, it appears Australians are getting their wake-up call, and indeed, the Australian wake-up call is going to England.
This week he is in London, where the foreign affairs select committee will question him further about the subterfuge used to sell the war. His testimony is likely to be explosive. Governments in Washington, London and Canberra, he will say, were simply lying to the public about Iraq.
Who is this man?
The revelation came with the resignation of Andrew Wilkie, a senior analyst at Australia's top intelligence body, the office of national assessment (ONA). A former soldier with an open, affable manner, Wilkie used to sit in his Canberra office reading raw intelligence reports from Australian and international spy agencies, weighing them up and then boiling them down into briefings for the prime minister and cabinet.
And what "revelation" might this be?
Evidence about that missing stockpile of weapons of mass destruction was similarly unreliable. "It was clear before the war that some of the evidence on WMD coming out of Britain and America was garbage," he says. "It was being skewed by political information from Iraqis who were trying to encourage a US invasion."
And why was this invasion wanted?
I know for a fact that in Australia, the government was being well advised that WMD was not the sole reason for Washington going to war," he says. "In fact, it wasn't even the most important reason ... The British and Australian governments were well aware of the real reasons for the war."
Unbelievably, the guardian article pretty much ends there. I don't know if Wilkie is going to reveal what he believes to be the reason. I am looking foward to his testimony before the English foreign affairs select committee. In the meantime, fill in the blanks.
# posted by scorpiorising : 12:56 PM |
Sunday, June 22, 2003
Political Forum Today
I just watched a political forum sponsored by the Rainbow Coalition on C-Spann. The candidates Dean, Gephardt, Kerry, Kucinich, Sharpton, Braun and Leiberman participated.
I'm tired folks, worked today, so this is going to be a simple review of the forum.
I am immensly encouraged by what I saw today, seven candidates speaking with a seemingly united voice. There may be some difference in the beliefs and platforms of these candidates, but I didn't sense much difference in their values.
The candidates were awesome. The forum dealt with intelligent questions, intelligent answers, and there was much room for passion. At times the forum felt more like a revival.
I'm going to say this: our current crop of candidates is the best that I have seen since I started voting, 26 years ago. Now you know my age.
These are exactly the people we need running at this particular point in time, and I am going to speak on each of them. I am greatly appreciative of what they all bring to the debate.
Let me start with Kerry. He lends gravity to the debate. He speaks with an almost presidential aplomb, a seemingly solid knowledge of the issues. Leiberman is getting on the bandwagon of challenging recent economic policies that favor the rich. He is beginning to find his voice in this ongoing debate.
Dean was more than solid, and very impressive. My friends at the Daily Kos ought to be proud.
Gephardt had a great line today. "Let's kick the money changers out of the temple of government". He brought the house down. All of the candidates played off of each other points and issues raised.
At one point Kerry couldn't contain himself and reached over and patted Sharpton's arm after Sharpton gave a rousing speech.
Which leads me to Sharpton. He was positively brilliant today. His answers were sharp and right on. The man is an orator. He has a brilliant command of language and metaphor and uses humor with an ease that none of the other candidates can match. We need him in the debate.
Braun was good today. Clear, softly passionate. I imagine she gives much courage to women and particularly, African-American women, to let their voices be heard. She is not perfect. She doesn't have a perfect history. But I could see from today she has something to add to the debate. Comparing her record to the robber barons we have in office today, and we know that her sins were small change compared to these looters. I hope she has learned her lesson, and will be around for many years to come adding the female, black voice to the political debate that needs to be heard.
This leads me to my favorite candidate, Kucinich. I noticed people laughing at times when he spoke. My mother and I giggled at times when he was his most forceful, and I realized why we are all laughing. We were delighted at the firm confidence with which he challenges the powers that be, with a clear vision and firm determination that he will accomplish.
We are no longer used to politicians that aren't wishy-washy. That's why we all giggle when he speaks. Shear delight. He alone, with candidate Sharpton, have taught the other candidates to be better speakers, more passionate speakers, and to take on the issues directly.
He said he will use the Justice Department, if elected, to file suit against media, energy and agriculture monopolies. The man means business, and he means to practically and pragmatically apply the values of this country to his actions to try to actualize our most cherished beliefs. Is he unelectable? I have no idea, but he brings a level of discourse to the debate that we desperately need at this time.
We can't afford to beat around the Bush any longer. I believe this election is life or death for this republic. Will you lend your voice?
I'm tired folks, worked today, so this is going to be a simple review of the forum.
I am immensly encouraged by what I saw today, seven candidates speaking with a seemingly united voice. There may be some difference in the beliefs and platforms of these candidates, but I didn't sense much difference in their values.
The candidates were awesome. The forum dealt with intelligent questions, intelligent answers, and there was much room for passion. At times the forum felt more like a revival.
I'm going to say this: our current crop of candidates is the best that I have seen since I started voting, 26 years ago. Now you know my age.
These are exactly the people we need running at this particular point in time, and I am going to speak on each of them. I am greatly appreciative of what they all bring to the debate.
Let me start with Kerry. He lends gravity to the debate. He speaks with an almost presidential aplomb, a seemingly solid knowledge of the issues. Leiberman is getting on the bandwagon of challenging recent economic policies that favor the rich. He is beginning to find his voice in this ongoing debate.
Dean was more than solid, and very impressive. My friends at the Daily Kos ought to be proud.
Gephardt had a great line today. "Let's kick the money changers out of the temple of government". He brought the house down. All of the candidates played off of each other points and issues raised.
At one point Kerry couldn't contain himself and reached over and patted Sharpton's arm after Sharpton gave a rousing speech.
Which leads me to Sharpton. He was positively brilliant today. His answers were sharp and right on. The man is an orator. He has a brilliant command of language and metaphor and uses humor with an ease that none of the other candidates can match. We need him in the debate.
Braun was good today. Clear, softly passionate. I imagine she gives much courage to women and particularly, African-American women, to let their voices be heard. She is not perfect. She doesn't have a perfect history. But I could see from today she has something to add to the debate. Comparing her record to the robber barons we have in office today, and we know that her sins were small change compared to these looters. I hope she has learned her lesson, and will be around for many years to come adding the female, black voice to the political debate that needs to be heard.
This leads me to my favorite candidate, Kucinich. I noticed people laughing at times when he spoke. My mother and I giggled at times when he was his most forceful, and I realized why we are all laughing. We were delighted at the firm confidence with which he challenges the powers that be, with a clear vision and firm determination that he will accomplish.
We are no longer used to politicians that aren't wishy-washy. That's why we all giggle when he speaks. Shear delight. He alone, with candidate Sharpton, have taught the other candidates to be better speakers, more passionate speakers, and to take on the issues directly.
He said he will use the Justice Department, if elected, to file suit against media, energy and agriculture monopolies. The man means business, and he means to practically and pragmatically apply the values of this country to his actions to try to actualize our most cherished beliefs. Is he unelectable? I have no idea, but he brings a level of discourse to the debate that we desperately need at this time.
We can't afford to beat around the Bush any longer. I believe this election is life or death for this republic. Will you lend your voice?
# posted by scorpiorising : 5:56 PM |
Thursday, June 19, 2003
A tale of two countries.
There are protests in Baghdad, and riots in Michigan. I see a painful relationship between the two. The most recent protest in Baghdad occurred on Wednesday, and resulted in a "nervous" soldier shooting into the crowd and killing two people. What were they protesting?
They were unemployed soldiers who haven't been payed since March. One unemployed soldier said bluntly, "The Americans are going to get hurt if the situation remains as it is."
What is the unemployment level in the 92% black Benton, Michigan, site of the recent riots? The unemployment level in Benton, Michigan is 25%. That's right. 25%. Contrast it with 90% white city of St. Joseph just across the river, with an unemployment rate of 2%.
The two cities were chronicled by Alex Kotlowitz in this 1999 book, The Other Side of the River: A Story of Two Towns, a Death, and America's Dilemma, an account of a mysterious drowning of a black teenager from St. Joseph.
The 25% unemployed on Benton must see St. Joseph just across the river as a constant reminder of what they don't have,and may never have: jobs and a secure future. The Iraqi protesters marching to the Republican Palace, site of the U.S. headquarters and round-the-clock meetings behind heavy barbed wire, must see the off-limits U.S. officials behind the barbed wire as holding the key to the end of their suffering, and refusing to share it.
Is Michigan a sign of things to come in this country? Will we follow the path of civil unrest in Iraq? People hungry become desperate people. People with no hope become desperate people. Is this an administration that can offer hope to the unemployed people of Iraq, and the unemployed people of America?
Their record holds no promise for this.
They were unemployed soldiers who haven't been payed since March. One unemployed soldier said bluntly, "The Americans are going to get hurt if the situation remains as it is."
What is the unemployment level in the 92% black Benton, Michigan, site of the recent riots? The unemployment level in Benton, Michigan is 25%. That's right. 25%. Contrast it with 90% white city of St. Joseph just across the river, with an unemployment rate of 2%.
The two cities were chronicled by Alex Kotlowitz in this 1999 book, The Other Side of the River: A Story of Two Towns, a Death, and America's Dilemma, an account of a mysterious drowning of a black teenager from St. Joseph.
The 25% unemployed on Benton must see St. Joseph just across the river as a constant reminder of what they don't have,and may never have: jobs and a secure future. The Iraqi protesters marching to the Republican Palace, site of the U.S. headquarters and round-the-clock meetings behind heavy barbed wire, must see the off-limits U.S. officials behind the barbed wire as holding the key to the end of their suffering, and refusing to share it.
Is Michigan a sign of things to come in this country? Will we follow the path of civil unrest in Iraq? People hungry become desperate people. People with no hope become desperate people. Is this an administration that can offer hope to the unemployed people of Iraq, and the unemployed people of America?
Their record holds no promise for this.
# posted by scorpiorising : 11:23 AM |
The Rabbit Hole.
Anyone scanning the articles on Iraq the last few days must have experienced an acute case of cognitive dissonance. Today, we are in a guerrilla war, from FinancialTimes.com:
US forces are facing a "guerrilla war" in Iraq but the American public is prepared to accept the growing death toll, Pentagon officials said yesterday.
Yesterday, we were fighting the "dying remnants" of the past regime, according to the U.S. military :
Deadly attacks on Americans in Iraq - the latest killing a soldier on Wednesday - are carried out by regional groups with no national network, an Iraqi police official said. The U.S. military insisted the resistance is the "last dying breath" of enemy forces.
Today, Rumsfeld is comparing the murder rate of Baghdad to that of Washington D.C., in an effort to downplay the violence in Iraq:
You've got to remember that if Washington, D.C., were the size of Baghdad, we would be having something like 215 murders a month," Rumsfeld said. "There's going to be violence in a big city."
If I were the parents, wives, sons and daughters of the soldiers fighting and dying in Iraq, I'd be hopping mad at that ludicrous comment. If I were the mayor of D.C., I'd ask for military assistance to stem the violence.
US forces are facing a "guerrilla war" in Iraq but the American public is prepared to accept the growing death toll, Pentagon officials said yesterday.
Yesterday, we were fighting the "dying remnants" of the past regime, according to the U.S. military :
Deadly attacks on Americans in Iraq - the latest killing a soldier on Wednesday - are carried out by regional groups with no national network, an Iraqi police official said. The U.S. military insisted the resistance is the "last dying breath" of enemy forces.
Today, Rumsfeld is comparing the murder rate of Baghdad to that of Washington D.C., in an effort to downplay the violence in Iraq:
You've got to remember that if Washington, D.C., were the size of Baghdad, we would be having something like 215 murders a month," Rumsfeld said. "There's going to be violence in a big city."
If I were the parents, wives, sons and daughters of the soldiers fighting and dying in Iraq, I'd be hopping mad at that ludicrous comment. If I were the mayor of D.C., I'd ask for military assistance to stem the violence.
# posted by scorpiorising : 7:21 AM |
Wednesday, June 18, 2003
So-called sporadic attacks
Salam Pax of Where is Raed?, examines the claims that attacks on Americans are unorganized and sporadic, from the point of view of someone living in the eye of the storm, Baghdad:http:
To get back to the “sporadic attacks”.
Take the events in Mushaheda village: Nine U.S. Soldiers Are Wounded Battling Pockets of Iraqi
[NY Times, requires registration]
A convoy goes thru the village and gets attacked, RPGs or Kalashnikovs are fired. It is night and the visibility is pretty low, as a retaliation and self-defence you have the convoy shooting left and right down the road for the next couple of kilometers (that if if they didn’t decide to stop and go into attack-mode - see what happened in Hir).
Now when you go ask the people in the village, district or neighborhood about the attacks they tell you the attackers were strangers, not from the area.
Think of it for a moment. If I wanted to instigate anti-american sentiments in a neighborhood which was until now indifferent towards the Americans what would be the best thing to do?
I would find a way to get the Americans to do bad things in that neighborhood, for example shoot indiscriminately at houses and shops
Sabaa Khalifa Makhmoud, 26, had finished cleaning his blue and white bus on the opposite side of the road from the American convoy and had just stepped out of the vehicle when the soldiers began shooting in response to the attack. One of his daughters, a toddler, was outside with him, and he scooped her up and ran inside their house. The shooting blasted out two windows in his bus and left a ragged hole in one of the bus curtains.
make them go on house to house searches, tie up the men and put sacks on their heads and scare all the children.
this would tilt your American-o-meter from the “I-don’t-really-care” position to the “what-the-fuck-do-they-think-they-are-doing?” position.
take a look at the attacks the last week and their aftermath. This sort of thing repeats itself and kind of snowballs from grumbles to calls for Jihad, just like what happened in the Adhamiya district near the abu-Hanifa mosque after the confrontation between Iraqis and American soldiers ended with two dead Iraqis.
what else?
There are rumors that a couple of high-tension electricity towers in the north have been sabotaged. Electricity has gotten worse, we get 5 hours of electricity a day in my neighborhood; it was so much better one week ago. People start grumbling again about the promises the Americans made and have not fulfilled.
more?
Two tank mines exploded on the streets of Baghdad, this is the third one. They are putting them in black garbage bags, the first exploded under a truck which was part of an Army convoy. One soldier got hurt.
The other two both exploded yesterday. The first in an underpass right in the middle of baghdad’s Tahrir square. It exploded under a taxi, no one was killed but two people got injured. The second exploded in Ghazalia district killing a girl and injuring her mother. Now this second mine was laid on the street after the American check point left that same street and the people there are saying that the mine was left by the Americans, which is complete bullshit.
(Sorry, I am all over the place and I was never too good in formulating an argument, but I hope I am making some sense there)
What I want to say is that these attacks might be sporadic and unorganized; but they do what the Ba’athists want to do, creating a very tough situation for the American administration to do anything good or to keep their promises, changing people's sentiments. adding more heat to a summer which is too hot already.
:: salam 8:59 PM [+] :: ...
To get back to the “sporadic attacks”.
Take the events in Mushaheda village: Nine U.S. Soldiers Are Wounded Battling Pockets of Iraqi
[NY Times, requires registration]
A convoy goes thru the village and gets attacked, RPGs or Kalashnikovs are fired. It is night and the visibility is pretty low, as a retaliation and self-defence you have the convoy shooting left and right down the road for the next couple of kilometers (that if if they didn’t decide to stop and go into attack-mode - see what happened in Hir).
Now when you go ask the people in the village, district or neighborhood about the attacks they tell you the attackers were strangers, not from the area.
Think of it for a moment. If I wanted to instigate anti-american sentiments in a neighborhood which was until now indifferent towards the Americans what would be the best thing to do?
I would find a way to get the Americans to do bad things in that neighborhood, for example shoot indiscriminately at houses and shops
Sabaa Khalifa Makhmoud, 26, had finished cleaning his blue and white bus on the opposite side of the road from the American convoy and had just stepped out of the vehicle when the soldiers began shooting in response to the attack. One of his daughters, a toddler, was outside with him, and he scooped her up and ran inside their house. The shooting blasted out two windows in his bus and left a ragged hole in one of the bus curtains.
make them go on house to house searches, tie up the men and put sacks on their heads and scare all the children.
this would tilt your American-o-meter from the “I-don’t-really-care” position to the “what-the-fuck-do-they-think-they-are-doing?” position.
take a look at the attacks the last week and their aftermath. This sort of thing repeats itself and kind of snowballs from grumbles to calls for Jihad, just like what happened in the Adhamiya district near the abu-Hanifa mosque after the confrontation between Iraqis and American soldiers ended with two dead Iraqis.
what else?
There are rumors that a couple of high-tension electricity towers in the north have been sabotaged. Electricity has gotten worse, we get 5 hours of electricity a day in my neighborhood; it was so much better one week ago. People start grumbling again about the promises the Americans made and have not fulfilled.
more?
Two tank mines exploded on the streets of Baghdad, this is the third one. They are putting them in black garbage bags, the first exploded under a truck which was part of an Army convoy. One soldier got hurt.
The other two both exploded yesterday. The first in an underpass right in the middle of baghdad’s Tahrir square. It exploded under a taxi, no one was killed but two people got injured. The second exploded in Ghazalia district killing a girl and injuring her mother. Now this second mine was laid on the street after the American check point left that same street and the people there are saying that the mine was left by the Americans, which is complete bullshit.
(Sorry, I am all over the place and I was never too good in formulating an argument, but I hope I am making some sense there)
What I want to say is that these attacks might be sporadic and unorganized; but they do what the Ba’athists want to do, creating a very tough situation for the American administration to do anything good or to keep their promises, changing people's sentiments. adding more heat to a summer which is too hot already.
:: salam 8:59 PM [+] :: ...
# posted by scorpiorising : 4:52 PM |
Weapons of Mass Depression
Arriana Huffington has the digs on the psychology of fanaticism, and the weapons of mass depression, from Alternet:
HUFFINGTON: WMDs and the Psychology of Fanaticism
By Arianna Huffington, AlterNet
June 18, 2003
By all accounts, the behind-the-scenes battle within the Bush administration over just what information should be used, or spun, or hidden, to make the case that Saddam Hussein posed an imminent threat to America and the rest of the world was a knockdown, drag-out fight between the facts and a zealous, highly politicized, "who needs proof?" mindset. And, at the end of the day, the truth was left writhing on the floor.
Hey, why let the facts get in the way of a perfectly good war?
This pathological pattern of disregarding inconvenient reality is not just troubling – it's deadly. And it's threatening to drag us into a Sisyphean struggle against evildoers in Syria, Iran, North Korea, or whatever locale Karl Rove thinks would best advance "Operation Avoid 41's Fate."
Since I'm not a psychiatrist, I consulted the work of various experts in the field in order to get a better understanding of the fanatical mindset that is driving the Bush administration's agenda – and scaring the living daylights out of a growing number of observers.
Dr. Norman Doidge, professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto, has identified among the telltale symptoms of fanatics: an intolerance of dissent, a doctrine that is riddled with contradictions, the belief that one's cause has been blessed or even commanded by God, and the use of reinforcement techniques such as repetition to spread one's message.
Sound like anyone you know? George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Karl Rove, Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle... come on down!
According to Doidge, one of the essential features of fanatics is their certainty that not only is their cause good "but that it is the only good, an absolute good." Or as President Bush famously declared: "There is no in-between, as far as I'm concerned. Either you're with us, or you're against us."
This absolute intolerance of dissent, says Doidge, often extends beyond the fanatics' enemies – frequently leading to a "campaign of terror" against those within their own ranks. If you're wondering what this has to do with the Bush administration, you might want to give a call to Republican Sens. Olympia Snowe and George Voinovich.
After having the temerity to question the wisdom of the president's massive tax cut plan, the senatorial pair became the targets of withering TV attack ads, sponsored by allies of the White House, that portrayed them as "so-called Republicans" and compared their opposition to the latest round of tax cuts to France's opposition to the war in Iraq. It was a Night of the Long Knives, GOP-style.
HUFFINGTON: WMDs and the Psychology of Fanaticism
By Arianna Huffington, AlterNet
June 18, 2003
By all accounts, the behind-the-scenes battle within the Bush administration over just what information should be used, or spun, or hidden, to make the case that Saddam Hussein posed an imminent threat to America and the rest of the world was a knockdown, drag-out fight between the facts and a zealous, highly politicized, "who needs proof?" mindset. And, at the end of the day, the truth was left writhing on the floor.
Hey, why let the facts get in the way of a perfectly good war?
This pathological pattern of disregarding inconvenient reality is not just troubling – it's deadly. And it's threatening to drag us into a Sisyphean struggle against evildoers in Syria, Iran, North Korea, or whatever locale Karl Rove thinks would best advance "Operation Avoid 41's Fate."
Since I'm not a psychiatrist, I consulted the work of various experts in the field in order to get a better understanding of the fanatical mindset that is driving the Bush administration's agenda – and scaring the living daylights out of a growing number of observers.
Dr. Norman Doidge, professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto, has identified among the telltale symptoms of fanatics: an intolerance of dissent, a doctrine that is riddled with contradictions, the belief that one's cause has been blessed or even commanded by God, and the use of reinforcement techniques such as repetition to spread one's message.
Sound like anyone you know? George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Karl Rove, Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle... come on down!
According to Doidge, one of the essential features of fanatics is their certainty that not only is their cause good "but that it is the only good, an absolute good." Or as President Bush famously declared: "There is no in-between, as far as I'm concerned. Either you're with us, or you're against us."
This absolute intolerance of dissent, says Doidge, often extends beyond the fanatics' enemies – frequently leading to a "campaign of terror" against those within their own ranks. If you're wondering what this has to do with the Bush administration, you might want to give a call to Republican Sens. Olympia Snowe and George Voinovich.
After having the temerity to question the wisdom of the president's massive tax cut plan, the senatorial pair became the targets of withering TV attack ads, sponsored by allies of the White House, that portrayed them as "so-called Republicans" and compared their opposition to the latest round of tax cuts to France's opposition to the war in Iraq. It was a Night of the Long Knives, GOP-style.
# posted by scorpiorising : 4:28 PM |
Censorship in Iraq
It is outrageous how it is going in Iraq. It is outrageous that this war ever happened based on the flimsiest of sand castles. It is outrageous this link posted by the Agonist, from the CS Monitor, that Bremer has decreed press censorship for budding newspapers in Iraq. And I am disappointed that Ichtaca of the Agonist would describe the language of outrage at this censorship, as "incendiary", and not the action of censorship itself (and to be fair, he seems to be quoting directly from the article, although he doesn't credit it):
"L. Paul Bremer, the top US official in Iraq, says a new edict prohibiting the local media from inciting attacks on other Iraqis - and on the coalition forces - is not meant to put a stopper on the recently uncorked freedom of speech. Iraqi journalists are not taking kindly to the restrictions. In a front-page editorial Wednesday, widely-read broadsheet As-Saah's senior editor let readers know what he thought of the country's liberators: "Bremer is a Baathist," the headline reads.
In an interview, editor Ni'ma Abdulrazzaq says the press edict decreed by Bremer lays out restrictions similar to those under Mr. Hussein. Not long ago, an uppity writer could easily be accused of being an agent for America or Israel.
"Now they put plastic bags on our heads, throw us to the ground, and accuse us of being agents of Saddam Hussein," the editorial reads. "In other words, if you're not with America, you're with Saddam."
"Mr. Bremer, you remind us of Saddam," the column continues. "We've waited a long time to be free. Now you want us to be slaves." It is not clear whether or not such incendiary language would be considered a violation of the new media policy that Bremer recently introduced.
Ichtaca @ 04:43 PM EDT | Visit News Board | TrackBack
Here is the article itself from the CS Monitor:
In volatile Iraq, US curbs press
US issues an order against inciting attacks on minorities or US troops.
By Ilene R. Prusher | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
BAGHDAD – The once occasional attacks on US soldiers here are growing deadlier, and more frequent: Wednesday, a US soldier was killed and another wounded in a drive-by shooting. And outside the former Republican Palace, now the headquarters of the US administration, US troops killed two Iraqis during a protest by former Iraqi soldiers that spiraled out of control.
At least some of the fuel for the anti-American fire, US officials here charge, is being pumped out by new Iraqi media outlets.
Paul Bremer, the top US official here, says a new edict prohibiting the local media from inciting attacks on other Iraqis - and on the coalition forces - is not meant to put a stopper on the recently uncorked freedom of speech.
"It is intended to stop ... people who are trying to incite political violence, and people who are succeeding in inciting political violence here, particularly against women," Bremer said at a press conference Tuesday.
Iraqi journalists are not taking kindly to the restrictions. Among the scores of new publications that have flooded Iraq's newsstands since the US-led overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime, the broadsheet As-Saah is one of the most widely read. In a front-page editorial Wednesday, the paper's senior editor let readers know what he thought of the country's liberators: "Bremer is a Baathist," the headline reads.
In an interview, editor Ni'ma Abdulrazzaq says the press edict decreed by Bremer lays out restrictions similar to those under Mr. Hussein. Not long ago, an uppity writer could easily be accused of being an agent for America or Israel. "Now they put plastic bags on our heads, throw us to the ground, and accuse us of being agents of Saddam Hussein," the editorial reads. "In other words, if you're not with America, you're with Saddam."
"Mr. Bremer, you remind us of Saddam," the column continues. "We've waited a long time to be free. Now you want us to be slaves."
It is not clear whether or not such incendiary language would be considered a violation of the new media policy that Bremer, as head of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), recently introduced. According to CPA Order Number 14, media are prohibited from broadcasting or publishing material that incites violence against any individual or group "including racial, ethnic, religious groups, and women"; encourages civil disorder; or "incites violence against coalition forces." Violators, if convicted, will be fined up to $1,000 or sentenced to up to one year in prison.
To be sure, many papers are full of scathing rebuke for the US forces, and sometimes peppered with far-fetched and incendiary reports. The average Iraqi reader might be led to believe that American soldiers are raping Iraqi girls, and undressing Iraqi women with night-vision goggles. Other reports allege that soldiers steal money during house searches.
For decades, Iraqis have lived in a state in which all news outlets were controlled by Mr. Hussein, and by his son Uday in particular. Testing the waters, the first papers to start publishing after the regime's fall tended to be affiliated with formerly exiled political parties. But now the market is awash in newspapers, some of them put out by journalistic novices. "Candy merchants in the markets have become publishers, and junior writers have become senior editors," says Mr. Abdulrazzaq, sitting in his newspaper office, his television tuned to al-Manar, a satellite channel run by Lebanon's Hizbullah movement.
Not unlike al-Manar, which reports with a fundamentalist Islamic slant, As-Saah was founded in late April under the aegis of a Muslim religious movement. But the paper recently decided to break away from the Unified National Movement, a Sunni Muslim group, says Abdulrazzaq, so it could be totally independent of pressures to conform to its outlook.
For Abdulrazzaq, working as a journalist under Hussein's regime was like writing in a self-imposed straight jacket. Abdulrazzaq says he was arrested "only" twice. Reporters knew where the red lines were and wouldn't dare cross them, he says, but even reporters who praised Hussein would sometimes wind up in jail - or dead. Now, he fears, journalists who should be learning how to break out of the boundaries of the past are learning to keep practicing self-censorship.
For example, he says, he had already pulled two articles which he feared would result in action against his newspaper. A story he postponed but plans to run this Saturday, he says, centers on "American soldiers saying bad things about the Koran and insulting it."
Criticism of the new guidelines has grown, although some of the frustration may be based more on rumor about what the policy entails, rather than on reality. The edict on "Prohibited Media Activity" was released last week in English - but only Wednesday in Arabic.
Bremer has reiterated that the point of the new press policy is not to hamper free speech or stifle criticism of the US-led administration here. "We very much believe that the freedom of expression should apply to Iraq," Bremer said. "But we need to balance that with a need to protect minorities from violence."
"L. Paul Bremer, the top US official in Iraq, says a new edict prohibiting the local media from inciting attacks on other Iraqis - and on the coalition forces - is not meant to put a stopper on the recently uncorked freedom of speech. Iraqi journalists are not taking kindly to the restrictions. In a front-page editorial Wednesday, widely-read broadsheet As-Saah's senior editor let readers know what he thought of the country's liberators: "Bremer is a Baathist," the headline reads.
In an interview, editor Ni'ma Abdulrazzaq says the press edict decreed by Bremer lays out restrictions similar to those under Mr. Hussein. Not long ago, an uppity writer could easily be accused of being an agent for America or Israel.
"Now they put plastic bags on our heads, throw us to the ground, and accuse us of being agents of Saddam Hussein," the editorial reads. "In other words, if you're not with America, you're with Saddam."
"Mr. Bremer, you remind us of Saddam," the column continues. "We've waited a long time to be free. Now you want us to be slaves." It is not clear whether or not such incendiary language would be considered a violation of the new media policy that Bremer recently introduced.
Ichtaca @ 04:43 PM EDT | Visit News Board | TrackBack
Here is the article itself from the CS Monitor:
In volatile Iraq, US curbs press
US issues an order against inciting attacks on minorities or US troops.
By Ilene R. Prusher | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
BAGHDAD – The once occasional attacks on US soldiers here are growing deadlier, and more frequent: Wednesday, a US soldier was killed and another wounded in a drive-by shooting. And outside the former Republican Palace, now the headquarters of the US administration, US troops killed two Iraqis during a protest by former Iraqi soldiers that spiraled out of control.
At least some of the fuel for the anti-American fire, US officials here charge, is being pumped out by new Iraqi media outlets.
Paul Bremer, the top US official here, says a new edict prohibiting the local media from inciting attacks on other Iraqis - and on the coalition forces - is not meant to put a stopper on the recently uncorked freedom of speech.
"It is intended to stop ... people who are trying to incite political violence, and people who are succeeding in inciting political violence here, particularly against women," Bremer said at a press conference Tuesday.
Iraqi journalists are not taking kindly to the restrictions. Among the scores of new publications that have flooded Iraq's newsstands since the US-led overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime, the broadsheet As-Saah is one of the most widely read. In a front-page editorial Wednesday, the paper's senior editor let readers know what he thought of the country's liberators: "Bremer is a Baathist," the headline reads.
In an interview, editor Ni'ma Abdulrazzaq says the press edict decreed by Bremer lays out restrictions similar to those under Mr. Hussein. Not long ago, an uppity writer could easily be accused of being an agent for America or Israel. "Now they put plastic bags on our heads, throw us to the ground, and accuse us of being agents of Saddam Hussein," the editorial reads. "In other words, if you're not with America, you're with Saddam."
"Mr. Bremer, you remind us of Saddam," the column continues. "We've waited a long time to be free. Now you want us to be slaves."
It is not clear whether or not such incendiary language would be considered a violation of the new media policy that Bremer, as head of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), recently introduced. According to CPA Order Number 14, media are prohibited from broadcasting or publishing material that incites violence against any individual or group "including racial, ethnic, religious groups, and women"; encourages civil disorder; or "incites violence against coalition forces." Violators, if convicted, will be fined up to $1,000 or sentenced to up to one year in prison.
To be sure, many papers are full of scathing rebuke for the US forces, and sometimes peppered with far-fetched and incendiary reports. The average Iraqi reader might be led to believe that American soldiers are raping Iraqi girls, and undressing Iraqi women with night-vision goggles. Other reports allege that soldiers steal money during house searches.
For decades, Iraqis have lived in a state in which all news outlets were controlled by Mr. Hussein, and by his son Uday in particular. Testing the waters, the first papers to start publishing after the regime's fall tended to be affiliated with formerly exiled political parties. But now the market is awash in newspapers, some of them put out by journalistic novices. "Candy merchants in the markets have become publishers, and junior writers have become senior editors," says Mr. Abdulrazzaq, sitting in his newspaper office, his television tuned to al-Manar, a satellite channel run by Lebanon's Hizbullah movement.
Not unlike al-Manar, which reports with a fundamentalist Islamic slant, As-Saah was founded in late April under the aegis of a Muslim religious movement. But the paper recently decided to break away from the Unified National Movement, a Sunni Muslim group, says Abdulrazzaq, so it could be totally independent of pressures to conform to its outlook.
For Abdulrazzaq, working as a journalist under Hussein's regime was like writing in a self-imposed straight jacket. Abdulrazzaq says he was arrested "only" twice. Reporters knew where the red lines were and wouldn't dare cross them, he says, but even reporters who praised Hussein would sometimes wind up in jail - or dead. Now, he fears, journalists who should be learning how to break out of the boundaries of the past are learning to keep practicing self-censorship.
For example, he says, he had already pulled two articles which he feared would result in action against his newspaper. A story he postponed but plans to run this Saturday, he says, centers on "American soldiers saying bad things about the Koran and insulting it."
Criticism of the new guidelines has grown, although some of the frustration may be based more on rumor about what the policy entails, rather than on reality. The edict on "Prohibited Media Activity" was released last week in English - but only Wednesday in Arabic.
Bremer has reiterated that the point of the new press policy is not to hamper free speech or stifle criticism of the US-led administration here. "We very much believe that the freedom of expression should apply to Iraq," Bremer said. "But we need to balance that with a need to protect minorities from violence."
# posted by scorpiorising : 3:30 PM |
Secret Agreements
What do Egypt, Mongolia, Nicaragua, the Seychelles and Tunisia have in common? They have all signed a secret agreement with the United States exempting U.S. personnel from prosecution in the International Criminal Court, according to a state department document, via Reuters:
"The State Department said last week that several governments that signed the agreements had asked not to be named. Their identities will become public at some stage because the administration has to inform the U.S. Congress.
Congressional sources said the administration had already informed Congress of the agreement with Egypt, which they said was signed on March 5. Congress has not received notice of any other agreements, the sources said.
The Egyptian Embassy declined to comment on the report. Officials at the other embassies had no immediate comment or were not immediately available.
A State Department official said Togolese Foreign Minister Roland Kpotsra signed a public agreement with U.S. ambassador Gregory Engle in Lome last Friday.
That would bring to 44 the number of governments that have exempted U.S. personnel from prosecution in the court, set up to try war crimes and acts of genocide.
The Bush administration objects to the court on the grounds it could launch politically motivated prosecutions of U.S. civilian and military leaders. But other countries see it as a powerful tool for enforcing the rules of war.
The United States is seeking similar agreements, known as Article 98 agreements after the relevant article in the law setting up the court, with as many countries as possible.
Under the American Service Members Protection Act of 2002, many countries that recognise the International Criminal Court will not be eligible for U.S. military assistance, unless the president issues a waiver on grounds of national security.
The other countries which have signed agreements are: Albania, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bhutan, Bolivia, Bosnia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, the Dominican Republic, East Timor, El Salvador, Madagascar, Gabon, Gambia, Georgia, Ghana, Honduras, India, Israel, the Maldives, the Marshall Islands, Mauritania, Micronesia, Nauru, Nepal, Palau, the Philippines, Romania, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Thailand, Tonga, Tuvalu, Uganda and Uzbekistan."
Now, what do the USA, China, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Qatar and Yemen have in common? They all voted against the ratification of the International Criminal Court in Rome in 1998:
A substantial amount of criticism of the ICC came, surprisingly for many, from the United States, who are proud to proclaim themselves as upholders of democracy and freedom. In that context, some in the U.S. point out that their own insitutions are strong enough to handle issues that an ICC would handle. The irony of this though, is that on the international level, they don't wish to support such an institution. Many raised fears that the U.S. has been trying to become more isolationist by appearing to refuse to take part in, or undermine, yet another international treaty. It should be stressed that this has not been a clear cut issue in the U.S., (or in any other nation). Many in the U.S. have also supported it as well. Even the U.S. President at the time, Bill Clinton, was facing growing pressure from the Republicans as well as military/Pentagon to oppose the ICC.
It was even more ironic when you realize that the ICC was given the vote by 120 to 7. The seven who voted against were USA, China, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Qatar and Yemen. All of USA's allies voted for the ICC and some of the nations that the United States has branded as "rogue states" were on par with the US on this issue. (This article, as well as the previous link offers a different perspective to how we define a "rogue state" and who else would therefore fit into such labels.)
"The State Department said last week that several governments that signed the agreements had asked not to be named. Their identities will become public at some stage because the administration has to inform the U.S. Congress.
Congressional sources said the administration had already informed Congress of the agreement with Egypt, which they said was signed on March 5. Congress has not received notice of any other agreements, the sources said.
The Egyptian Embassy declined to comment on the report. Officials at the other embassies had no immediate comment or were not immediately available.
A State Department official said Togolese Foreign Minister Roland Kpotsra signed a public agreement with U.S. ambassador Gregory Engle in Lome last Friday.
That would bring to 44 the number of governments that have exempted U.S. personnel from prosecution in the court, set up to try war crimes and acts of genocide.
The Bush administration objects to the court on the grounds it could launch politically motivated prosecutions of U.S. civilian and military leaders. But other countries see it as a powerful tool for enforcing the rules of war.
The United States is seeking similar agreements, known as Article 98 agreements after the relevant article in the law setting up the court, with as many countries as possible.
Under the American Service Members Protection Act of 2002, many countries that recognise the International Criminal Court will not be eligible for U.S. military assistance, unless the president issues a waiver on grounds of national security.
The other countries which have signed agreements are: Albania, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bhutan, Bolivia, Bosnia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, the Dominican Republic, East Timor, El Salvador, Madagascar, Gabon, Gambia, Georgia, Ghana, Honduras, India, Israel, the Maldives, the Marshall Islands, Mauritania, Micronesia, Nauru, Nepal, Palau, the Philippines, Romania, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Thailand, Tonga, Tuvalu, Uganda and Uzbekistan."
Now, what do the USA, China, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Qatar and Yemen have in common? They all voted against the ratification of the International Criminal Court in Rome in 1998:
A substantial amount of criticism of the ICC came, surprisingly for many, from the United States, who are proud to proclaim themselves as upholders of democracy and freedom. In that context, some in the U.S. point out that their own insitutions are strong enough to handle issues that an ICC would handle. The irony of this though, is that on the international level, they don't wish to support such an institution. Many raised fears that the U.S. has been trying to become more isolationist by appearing to refuse to take part in, or undermine, yet another international treaty. It should be stressed that this has not been a clear cut issue in the U.S., (or in any other nation). Many in the U.S. have also supported it as well. Even the U.S. President at the time, Bill Clinton, was facing growing pressure from the Republicans as well as military/Pentagon to oppose the ICC.
It was even more ironic when you realize that the ICC was given the vote by 120 to 7. The seven who voted against were USA, China, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Qatar and Yemen. All of USA's allies voted for the ICC and some of the nations that the United States has branded as "rogue states" were on par with the US on this issue. (This article, as well as the previous link offers a different perspective to how we define a "rogue state" and who else would therefore fit into such labels.)
# posted by scorpiorising : 6:49 AM |
Monday, June 16, 2003
Major Barbara, the tireless worker
Gotta say this, Major Barbara has been tirelessly tracking who's making a killing on killing in Iraq, even before the war started, when the vultures (Halliburton, Bechtel, etc.) were starting to circle. Here he posts on Iraq as a goldmine for the middleman, via the Wall Street Journal:
"Mr. McClelland describes himself as a "bit player" in the Iraq gold rush. But even for the bit players, there's the potential for big money. "If 10 percent of the projects come through, I'll have made enough to retire twice over," he says. A couple of big ones, such as the food contract, could make his year.
"Middlemen and go-betweens with strong military contacts always appear wherever there's a war and wherever there's money to be made supplying the U.S. armed forces. What makes Iraq different is the size of the rebuilding effort the U.S. has taken on and the huge number of U.S. troops involved. The U.S. government is spending several billion dollars a month on troop support, fuel, equipment and, to a lesser extent, reconstruction
"Mr. McClelland describes himself as a "bit player" in the Iraq gold rush. But even for the bit players, there's the potential for big money. "If 10 percent of the projects come through, I'll have made enough to retire twice over," he says. A couple of big ones, such as the food contract, could make his year.
"Middlemen and go-betweens with strong military contacts always appear wherever there's a war and wherever there's money to be made supplying the U.S. armed forces. What makes Iraq different is the size of the rebuilding effort the U.S. has taken on and the huge number of U.S. troops involved. The U.S. government is spending several billion dollars a month on troop support, fuel, equipment and, to a lesser extent, reconstruction
# posted by scorpiorising : 5:29 PM |
The Unbranding of America
I was cruising top blogs, and stumbled upon this site through Warren Ellis (die puny humans blog). The Unbranding of America speaks to my heart and my head, and my core belief that in order to address the root of the "problems" we are dealing with, Iraq, the Middle East, environmental degradation, the rich versus the poor and the poor in ever greater numbers, we must address the core of our own society: Consumerism and global capitalism.
Do we really want a global economy based on greed? If capitalism is based on the American model as practiced today, greed is its driving force. Not every country that practices capitalism is fashioned after the American model. Sweden for instance. Can I say that dirty word, socialism? (I saw Bulworth recently.) We must be unafraid to speak of a form of socialism that will address the needs of our community, that will address the chasm between the rich and the poor. We can't go on like this folks. We are destroying our earth for the sake of a certain way of life. We are victimizing our most vulnerable, our children our elderly, our chronically poor, for the sake of the right of a few individuals to accumulate vast amounts of wealth. It is a form of insanity that the earth's eco-structure will not tolerate much longer. It is what I wanted to address in my sacrifice post.
Geez I'm tired. Little sleep last night. But this is an issue I am going to address. It is why I am drawn to Kucinich as a presidential candidate. I think he offers real hope for core value changes, though not everyone, of course, is responsive to this need for change.
Do we really want a global economy based on greed? If capitalism is based on the American model as practiced today, greed is its driving force. Not every country that practices capitalism is fashioned after the American model. Sweden for instance. Can I say that dirty word, socialism? (I saw Bulworth recently.) We must be unafraid to speak of a form of socialism that will address the needs of our community, that will address the chasm between the rich and the poor. We can't go on like this folks. We are destroying our earth for the sake of a certain way of life. We are victimizing our most vulnerable, our children our elderly, our chronically poor, for the sake of the right of a few individuals to accumulate vast amounts of wealth. It is a form of insanity that the earth's eco-structure will not tolerate much longer. It is what I wanted to address in my sacrifice post.
Geez I'm tired. Little sleep last night. But this is an issue I am going to address. It is why I am drawn to Kucinich as a presidential candidate. I think he offers real hope for core value changes, though not everyone, of course, is responsive to this need for change.
# posted by scorpiorising : 4:46 PM |
Sunday, June 15, 2003
War crimes?
I am going to print this article in its entirety, in case it disappears from the online nethersphere. From yahoo, a story of Iraqis handcuffed and shot in the back of the head after an American raid. Thanks to Mike Jones and his 18and1/2 Minute Gap blog for the article:
Mideast - AFP
US army kills 82 fighters in Iraqi training camp: witnesses
Sat Jun 14, 9:22 PM ET Add Mideast - AFP to My Yahoo!
SAHL, Iraq (AFP) - A massive US army attack on a desert training camp in Iraq (news - web sites) earlier this week killed 82 fighters, some of who appeared to have been summarily executed, according to witness reports.
"In total 82 people died in the camp" including at least one non-Iraqi, AFP was told by the imam of the main mosque in the village of Rawa, near the camp at Sahl, near Iraq's border with Syria.
Rawa villagers who went to the camp had found the corpses of seven people who had been handcuffed and shot in the forehead, chest or in the back of the head, the imam, Sheikh Gharbi Abdul Aziz, said.
He said the villagers had found another 50 bodies all in a line at the camp, which appears to have been used as a training ground by die-hard supporters of ousted leader Saddam Hussein (news - web sites).
"What I saw was unspeakable. I can't get over the sight of all these young people dead. Some were handcuffed," Abd al-Wujud, a driver who said he helped carry the corpses out of the camp, told AFP.
The imam said he had taken part in the burial of the 82 bodies, "some were in pieces or totally burnt".
The fighting erupted at dawn on Thursday at the camp, which included an arms dump, and lasted 13 hours, according to residents from Rawa, 350 kilometers (210 miles) northwest of Baghdad.
They said the camp had been bombed and that a gunbattle between US troops and the fighters had followed shortly afterwards.
The US army had fired at least six cluster bombs, they added.
The imam said villagers had carried 60 bodies from the camp and seven more from a site nearby, where a US helicopter had come down on Thursday. They were all buried at Rawa cemetery.
An AFP correspondent saw 15 more graves at the camp marked by wooden sticks.
"When the bombing stopped on Thursday and when the Americans left, residents came and picked up loads of flesh and gore," said Abd al-Hadi Mahmud, a local garage owner.
"Some bodies were completely torn to pieces -- feet, legs, skulls."
"When they came to the village, they never did us any harm. They were polite," he added.
Bloodstained mattresses and pieces of discarded weaponry seen at the camp testified to the remorselessness of the attack.
The 15 graves seen at the camp were marked by bottles bearing the names of those among the dead whose bodies had been identified.
They included Osama Mahfudh Salem from Yemen and Abd as-Sattar Mohammad from Fallujah, a conservative Sunni Muslim town west of the Iraqi capital, which has seen sustained anti-US violence.
Mideast - AFP
US army kills 82 fighters in Iraqi training camp: witnesses
Sat Jun 14, 9:22 PM ET Add Mideast - AFP to My Yahoo!
SAHL, Iraq (AFP) - A massive US army attack on a desert training camp in Iraq (news - web sites) earlier this week killed 82 fighters, some of who appeared to have been summarily executed, according to witness reports.
"In total 82 people died in the camp" including at least one non-Iraqi, AFP was told by the imam of the main mosque in the village of Rawa, near the camp at Sahl, near Iraq's border with Syria.
Rawa villagers who went to the camp had found the corpses of seven people who had been handcuffed and shot in the forehead, chest or in the back of the head, the imam, Sheikh Gharbi Abdul Aziz, said.
He said the villagers had found another 50 bodies all in a line at the camp, which appears to have been used as a training ground by die-hard supporters of ousted leader Saddam Hussein (news - web sites).
"What I saw was unspeakable. I can't get over the sight of all these young people dead. Some were handcuffed," Abd al-Wujud, a driver who said he helped carry the corpses out of the camp, told AFP.
The imam said he had taken part in the burial of the 82 bodies, "some were in pieces or totally burnt".
The fighting erupted at dawn on Thursday at the camp, which included an arms dump, and lasted 13 hours, according to residents from Rawa, 350 kilometers (210 miles) northwest of Baghdad.
They said the camp had been bombed and that a gunbattle between US troops and the fighters had followed shortly afterwards.
The US army had fired at least six cluster bombs, they added.
The imam said villagers had carried 60 bodies from the camp and seven more from a site nearby, where a US helicopter had come down on Thursday. They were all buried at Rawa cemetery.
An AFP correspondent saw 15 more graves at the camp marked by wooden sticks.
"When the bombing stopped on Thursday and when the Americans left, residents came and picked up loads of flesh and gore," said Abd al-Hadi Mahmud, a local garage owner.
"Some bodies were completely torn to pieces -- feet, legs, skulls."
"When they came to the village, they never did us any harm. They were polite," he added.
Bloodstained mattresses and pieces of discarded weaponry seen at the camp testified to the remorselessness of the attack.
The 15 graves seen at the camp were marked by bottles bearing the names of those among the dead whose bodies had been identified.
They included Osama Mahfudh Salem from Yemen and Abd as-Sattar Mohammad from Fallujah, a conservative Sunni Muslim town west of the Iraqi capital, which has seen sustained anti-US violence.
# posted by scorpiorising : 9:44 AM |
Thousands of Tragedies
If there is anyone who doubts that our integrity has been stripped by the horrors of this war, read this, from the Washington Post. The last shreds of our humanitarian beliefs and intentions in Iraq are being destroyed and reduced to the wailings of the relatives of the dead:
THULUYA, Iraq -- Along orange groves and orchards of figs and pears watered by the timeless churn of the Tigris River, Hashim Mohammed Aani often sat before a bird cage he built of scrap wood and a loose lattice of chicken coop wire.
A chubby 15-year-old with a mop of curly black hair and a face still rounded by adolescence, he was quiet, painfully shy. Awkward might be the better word, his family said. For hours every day, outside a house perched near the riverbank, the youngest of six children languidly watched his four canaries and nightingale. Even in silence, they said, the birds were his closest companions.
On Monday morning, after a harrowing raid into this town by U.S. troops that deployed gunships, armored vehicles and soldiers edgy with anticipation, the family found Aani's body, two gunshots to his stomach, next to a bale of hay and a rusted can of vegetable oil. With soldiers occupying a house nearby, his corpse lay undisturbed for hours under a searing sun.
Lt. Arthur Jimenez, who commanded a platoon of the 4th Infantry Division near the house, said he did not know the details of Hashim's death. But he feared the boy was unlucky. "That person," he said, "was probably in the wrong place at the wrong time."
Are we winning over the Iraqi people? In my view, anyone still asking this question, and expecting an affirmative, is simply not in touch with their own basic humanity. From the same article:
By this weekend, the largest military operation since the war's end -- one involving 4,000 troops -- had wound down in this prosperous village 40 miles northwest of Baghdad, with no U.S. soldiers killed and little resistance. But in the aftermath, Thuluya has become a town transformed.
With grief over the death of Hashim and two others, the Sunni Muslim population here speaks of revenge. Those sentiments are mixed with confusion. A vast majority belonged to the Baath Party and now worry about how far the United States will cast a net to root out its former members. Bound together by clan and tribe, many have been uneasy since the U.S. forces tapped informers from Thuluya. One of them wore a burlap bag over his head as he fingered residents for the troops to question, igniting vows of bloody vendettas.
"I think the future's going to be very dark," said Rahim Hamid Hammoud, 56, a soft-spoken judge, as he joined a long line in paying his respects to Hashim this week. "We're seeing each day become worse than the last."
The echoes of Apache helicopters and F-16, A-10 and AC-130 warplanes soon after midnight Monday woke the four families of Hashim's relatives and signaled the start of the military thrust, dubbed Operation Peninsula Strike. The goal was to find elements of resistance fighters who have been ambushing U.S. troops, the military said. Within minutes, armored vehicles plowed down the dirt road to the families' compound. Humvees and troop transports followed.
From the other direction, on the banks of the Tigris near a reed-shrouded island, soldiers hurried from camouflage boats. They ran up a hill, near a small garden of okra and green beans and past a patch of purple flowers known as "prophet's carpet."
"We came here ready to fight," Jimenez recalled.
At the sound of their arrival, Hashim's cousin, Asad Abdel-Karim Ibrahim, said he went outside the gate with his parents, brother and two sisters. In his arms was his 7-month-old niece, Amal. They raised a white head scarf, but soldiers apparently did not see it. Ibrahim was shot in the upper right arm. He dropped the baby, who started screaming. Days later, Ibrahim was still wearing a piece of soiled tape placed on his back by the soldiers that read: "15-year-old male, GSW [gunshot wound] @ arm."
"The Americans were shouting in English, and we didn't know what they were saying," he said.
Around the corner, residents said soldiers searched the house of Fadhil Midhas, 19. Mentally retarded, he started shouting when soldiers put tape over his mouth, fearful that he would suffocate. Women there tried to explain -- more with hand gestures than words -- and residents said soldiers finally splashed water over Midhas's face in an attempt to quiet him.
In the commotion, Hashim ran away, headed toward the thick groves behind his house. Relatives said he was unarmed.
"He was trying to hide," said his brother, Riyadh, who was detained for four days. "He didn't know what to do."
U.S. troops and residents say about 400 residents were arrested in the sweep. By week's end, residents said, all but 50 were released from a makeshift detention center at an abandoned air base known as Abu Hleij, seven miles to the north. At the entrance, guarded by two soldiers who said no one was available to comment, graffiti painted in English read, "Welcome to Camp Black Knight."
U.S. officials described Operation Peninsula Strike as the centerpiece of a newly aggressive military campaign in a region of northwestern Iraq dominated by Sunni Muslims, who have long played a leadership role in Iraq and were the backbone of ousted president Saddam Hussein's three-decade rule. Since the beginning of May, 11 U.S. soldiers in Iraq have been killed in action, many of them in sniper shootings, hit-and-run attacks and ambushes along the Sunni crescent, which stretches west along the Euphrates and north along the Tigris.
"We understand animosity can be a result, but as we get bad actors and the quality of life improves, people will understand what we're trying to do," a U.S. military spokesman said today.
In Thuluya, many residents complained that the entire town felt punished by the operation. In their conversations about the wadhaa, or situation, there was a hint of anxiety over their future. While Iraq's Shiite majority often looks to its clergy, and the Kurds in the north are represented by two parties with warm relations with the United States, Sunnis are, to a degree, disenfranchised, many falling back on tribes whose authority has risen over the past decade.
"They carried out the raid here because we're Sunni and because Saddam was Sunni," said Ibrahim Ali Hussein, 60, a farmer with a white scarf tied loosely over his head. "After this operation, we think 100 Saddams is better than the Americans."
"We're not criminals," added Hussein Hamoud Mohammed, 54, a veterinarian and Baath Party member. "If they don't come in peace, then we'll attack them with our fists and feet. We'll even bite them."
THULUYA, Iraq -- Along orange groves and orchards of figs and pears watered by the timeless churn of the Tigris River, Hashim Mohammed Aani often sat before a bird cage he built of scrap wood and a loose lattice of chicken coop wire.
A chubby 15-year-old with a mop of curly black hair and a face still rounded by adolescence, he was quiet, painfully shy. Awkward might be the better word, his family said. For hours every day, outside a house perched near the riverbank, the youngest of six children languidly watched his four canaries and nightingale. Even in silence, they said, the birds were his closest companions.
On Monday morning, after a harrowing raid into this town by U.S. troops that deployed gunships, armored vehicles and soldiers edgy with anticipation, the family found Aani's body, two gunshots to his stomach, next to a bale of hay and a rusted can of vegetable oil. With soldiers occupying a house nearby, his corpse lay undisturbed for hours under a searing sun.
Lt. Arthur Jimenez, who commanded a platoon of the 4th Infantry Division near the house, said he did not know the details of Hashim's death. But he feared the boy was unlucky. "That person," he said, "was probably in the wrong place at the wrong time."
Are we winning over the Iraqi people? In my view, anyone still asking this question, and expecting an affirmative, is simply not in touch with their own basic humanity. From the same article:
By this weekend, the largest military operation since the war's end -- one involving 4,000 troops -- had wound down in this prosperous village 40 miles northwest of Baghdad, with no U.S. soldiers killed and little resistance. But in the aftermath, Thuluya has become a town transformed.
With grief over the death of Hashim and two others, the Sunni Muslim population here speaks of revenge. Those sentiments are mixed with confusion. A vast majority belonged to the Baath Party and now worry about how far the United States will cast a net to root out its former members. Bound together by clan and tribe, many have been uneasy since the U.S. forces tapped informers from Thuluya. One of them wore a burlap bag over his head as he fingered residents for the troops to question, igniting vows of bloody vendettas.
"I think the future's going to be very dark," said Rahim Hamid Hammoud, 56, a soft-spoken judge, as he joined a long line in paying his respects to Hashim this week. "We're seeing each day become worse than the last."
The echoes of Apache helicopters and F-16, A-10 and AC-130 warplanes soon after midnight Monday woke the four families of Hashim's relatives and signaled the start of the military thrust, dubbed Operation Peninsula Strike. The goal was to find elements of resistance fighters who have been ambushing U.S. troops, the military said. Within minutes, armored vehicles plowed down the dirt road to the families' compound. Humvees and troop transports followed.
From the other direction, on the banks of the Tigris near a reed-shrouded island, soldiers hurried from camouflage boats. They ran up a hill, near a small garden of okra and green beans and past a patch of purple flowers known as "prophet's carpet."
"We came here ready to fight," Jimenez recalled.
At the sound of their arrival, Hashim's cousin, Asad Abdel-Karim Ibrahim, said he went outside the gate with his parents, brother and two sisters. In his arms was his 7-month-old niece, Amal. They raised a white head scarf, but soldiers apparently did not see it. Ibrahim was shot in the upper right arm. He dropped the baby, who started screaming. Days later, Ibrahim was still wearing a piece of soiled tape placed on his back by the soldiers that read: "15-year-old male, GSW [gunshot wound] @ arm."
"The Americans were shouting in English, and we didn't know what they were saying," he said.
Around the corner, residents said soldiers searched the house of Fadhil Midhas, 19. Mentally retarded, he started shouting when soldiers put tape over his mouth, fearful that he would suffocate. Women there tried to explain -- more with hand gestures than words -- and residents said soldiers finally splashed water over Midhas's face in an attempt to quiet him.
In the commotion, Hashim ran away, headed toward the thick groves behind his house. Relatives said he was unarmed.
"He was trying to hide," said his brother, Riyadh, who was detained for four days. "He didn't know what to do."
U.S. troops and residents say about 400 residents were arrested in the sweep. By week's end, residents said, all but 50 were released from a makeshift detention center at an abandoned air base known as Abu Hleij, seven miles to the north. At the entrance, guarded by two soldiers who said no one was available to comment, graffiti painted in English read, "Welcome to Camp Black Knight."
U.S. officials described Operation Peninsula Strike as the centerpiece of a newly aggressive military campaign in a region of northwestern Iraq dominated by Sunni Muslims, who have long played a leadership role in Iraq and were the backbone of ousted president Saddam Hussein's three-decade rule. Since the beginning of May, 11 U.S. soldiers in Iraq have been killed in action, many of them in sniper shootings, hit-and-run attacks and ambushes along the Sunni crescent, which stretches west along the Euphrates and north along the Tigris.
"We understand animosity can be a result, but as we get bad actors and the quality of life improves, people will understand what we're trying to do," a U.S. military spokesman said today.
In Thuluya, many residents complained that the entire town felt punished by the operation. In their conversations about the wadhaa, or situation, there was a hint of anxiety over their future. While Iraq's Shiite majority often looks to its clergy, and the Kurds in the north are represented by two parties with warm relations with the United States, Sunnis are, to a degree, disenfranchised, many falling back on tribes whose authority has risen over the past decade.
"They carried out the raid here because we're Sunni and because Saddam was Sunni," said Ibrahim Ali Hussein, 60, a farmer with a white scarf tied loosely over his head. "After this operation, we think 100 Saddams is better than the Americans."
"We're not criminals," added Hussein Hamoud Mohammed, 54, a veterinarian and Baath Party member. "If they don't come in peace, then we'll attack them with our fists and feet. We'll even bite them."
# posted by scorpiorising : 9:11 AM |
Saturday, June 14, 2003
Sacrifice
I'm exploring the definition of sacrifice. In the Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, tenth edition, sacrifice means "the giving of something precious to a diety". That is the first meaning. The third meaning, and I'll review the second in a moment, is "the destruction of something for the sake of something else".
These definitions are wide open, in the sense of what isn't defined of this word, sacrifice. What isn't defined is what "should" or "ought" to be sacrificed. There is no narrow selection of choices that one can choose from with which to sacrifice.
The definition implies that it is our choice what we offer to our diety in sacrifice. It is our choice in sacrifice what we destroy, for the sake of something else. There is an implication, that it is we who define the nature of the sacrifice.
There is a time and a place for sacrifice. We would not ask a mother to surrender food for her children, as part of a sacrifice, would we? Sacrifice is one of the oldest rituals on this planet, that the ancients sacrificed in order to please their deities, so that the deities would smile favorably on the community. Individuals gave sacrifice so the gods would smile favorable on them and their loved ones.
What do we sacrifice? Do we discern between what is necessary to our survival, and what we need to let go of, for the sake of our survival? What are we willing to let go of for the sake of our community? What are we not willing to let go of, and why?
More importantly, what do we want to save? What do we want to create?
As creatures sharing this planet, it is vital we begin to explore these questions for ourselves, and begin to learn what is really important to us, to our children, to our families, for our survival. If we don't begin to make these choices for ourselves, then others will continue to make them for us. As we know from experience, they may or may not have our best interests at heart.
These definitions are wide open, in the sense of what isn't defined of this word, sacrifice. What isn't defined is what "should" or "ought" to be sacrificed. There is no narrow selection of choices that one can choose from with which to sacrifice.
The definition implies that it is our choice what we offer to our diety in sacrifice. It is our choice in sacrifice what we destroy, for the sake of something else. There is an implication, that it is we who define the nature of the sacrifice.
There is a time and a place for sacrifice. We would not ask a mother to surrender food for her children, as part of a sacrifice, would we? Sacrifice is one of the oldest rituals on this planet, that the ancients sacrificed in order to please their deities, so that the deities would smile favorably on the community. Individuals gave sacrifice so the gods would smile favorable on them and their loved ones.
What do we sacrifice? Do we discern between what is necessary to our survival, and what we need to let go of, for the sake of our survival? What are we willing to let go of for the sake of our community? What are we not willing to let go of, and why?
More importantly, what do we want to save? What do we want to create?
As creatures sharing this planet, it is vital we begin to explore these questions for ourselves, and begin to learn what is really important to us, to our children, to our families, for our survival. If we don't begin to make these choices for ourselves, then others will continue to make them for us. As we know from experience, they may or may not have our best interests at heart.
# posted by scorpiorising : 6:09 PM |
Friday, June 13, 2003
The small god within.
Oh boy, the news isnt' good from Liberty Hill. Liberty Hill Foundation churns out activists in several arenas in the Los Angelas county, and the news from the City of Angels may reflect a budding national trend, from TomPaine.Commonsense.com:
Los Angeles now has the sharpest economic divide in the nation -- fourth in the world after Calcutta.
One guy who has been working on Skid Row for 20 years told me he's never seen so many women and children on the Row -- 82,000 people in Los Angeles County are now homeless each day of the year.
At the day laborer center that we fund, a man recently said to me, "I came from a Third World country for a chance for my family, and found another Third World country -- no housing, no jobs, no health care."
A South L.A. organizer talks about her community's "ghost population" -- the men coming home from prison at a rate of 98 a day. Half of them can't read, and most have untreated drug problems. Almost none will find work, at least not legal work. The majority will return to prison.
These may be local problems, but they reflect national trends, priorities and policies.
82,000 homeless in Los Angelas County; the sharpest economic divide in the nation, 4th only to Calcutta.
Are we peering into America's future when we look at statistics like that? I wonder if our definitions of nation would survive those numbers.
Yet, even from the vantage point of Liberty Hill, there is hope:
Sometimes, when the view from Liberty Hill reveals what I fear could become the destruction of the dream called America, I recall what Dr. Martin Luther King said: "Let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows.... The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."
And indeed, from Liberty Hill I can also see the sparks of leadership, organizing and vision that could someday reclaim our America. Our America, where we delight in difference, expand opportunity and invest in our young people. Our America, where we know that true patriotism is not imperial arrogance or blind nationalism. Our America, where we take shared responsibility for each other, and honor higher values, like liberty and justice for all.
The vision from Liberty Hill is that of the individual taking responsibility for the kind of world that he or she wants to live in:
L.A. is also now the most diverse place on the planet, and this emerging force for justice cuts across all lines of class, culture and community. It holds huge potential for pointing the way toward reclaiming our country, but it's still centered in the small, specific battles fought every day by those whom the Indian writer Arundhati Roy calls "our small heroes."
Roy writes: "Who knows? Perhaps what the 21st century has in store for us all is the dismantling of the big -- big ideologies, big contradictions, big wars, big heroes, big mistakes.... Perhaps this will be the century of the small. Perhaps right now, this very minute, there is a small god up in heaven readying herself for us."
The small god within.
Los Angeles now has the sharpest economic divide in the nation -- fourth in the world after Calcutta.
One guy who has been working on Skid Row for 20 years told me he's never seen so many women and children on the Row -- 82,000 people in Los Angeles County are now homeless each day of the year.
At the day laborer center that we fund, a man recently said to me, "I came from a Third World country for a chance for my family, and found another Third World country -- no housing, no jobs, no health care."
A South L.A. organizer talks about her community's "ghost population" -- the men coming home from prison at a rate of 98 a day. Half of them can't read, and most have untreated drug problems. Almost none will find work, at least not legal work. The majority will return to prison.
These may be local problems, but they reflect national trends, priorities and policies.
82,000 homeless in Los Angelas County; the sharpest economic divide in the nation, 4th only to Calcutta.
Are we peering into America's future when we look at statistics like that? I wonder if our definitions of nation would survive those numbers.
Yet, even from the vantage point of Liberty Hill, there is hope:
Sometimes, when the view from Liberty Hill reveals what I fear could become the destruction of the dream called America, I recall what Dr. Martin Luther King said: "Let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows.... The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."
And indeed, from Liberty Hill I can also see the sparks of leadership, organizing and vision that could someday reclaim our America. Our America, where we delight in difference, expand opportunity and invest in our young people. Our America, where we know that true patriotism is not imperial arrogance or blind nationalism. Our America, where we take shared responsibility for each other, and honor higher values, like liberty and justice for all.
The vision from Liberty Hill is that of the individual taking responsibility for the kind of world that he or she wants to live in:
L.A. is also now the most diverse place on the planet, and this emerging force for justice cuts across all lines of class, culture and community. It holds huge potential for pointing the way toward reclaiming our country, but it's still centered in the small, specific battles fought every day by those whom the Indian writer Arundhati Roy calls "our small heroes."
Roy writes: "Who knows? Perhaps what the 21st century has in store for us all is the dismantling of the big -- big ideologies, big contradictions, big wars, big heroes, big mistakes.... Perhaps this will be the century of the small. Perhaps right now, this very minute, there is a small god up in heaven readying herself for us."
The small god within.
# posted by scorpiorising : 4:15 PM |
Thursday, June 12, 2003
Back in Baghdad
I've been reading Where is Raed? today. Fantastic from the heart of Baghdad stuff. He referred readers to another Baghdad blogger, new, G. in Baghdad, who is also excellent. Here is an excerpt from Where is Raed? This man is real and right on:
I really need to get something out of my system.
I got an email. After throwing everything and the kitchen sink at me they ask:
"How are your parents doing?
Ah yes, your parents. Salam, people are wondering."
Actually they are doing very well, thank you. My father was invited to an informal dinner attended by Garner the second week he was in Baghdad; he also met some of Bodine’s aides and has met some of Bremer’s aides a couple of times too. Not to mention many of your top military people south of Baghdad.
Seriously, not joking there.
Let me make a suggestion. Do not assume, not even for a second, that because you read the blog you know who I am or who my parents are. And you are definitely not entitled to be disrespectful. Not everything that goes on in this house ends up on the blog, so please go play Agatha Christy somewhere else.
My mother, a sociologist who was very happy in pursuing her career at the ministry of education decided to give up that career when she had to choose between becoming Ba’ath party member and quitting her job, she became a housewife. My father, a very well accomplished economist made the same decision and decided to become a farmer instead.
You are being disrespectful to the people who have put the first copy of George Orwell’s 1984 in my hands, a heavy read for a 14 year old with bad English. But that banned book started a process and gave me the impulse to look at the world I live in a different way.
go fling the rubbish at someone else.
Then here is an excerpt from G. in Baghdad, who impresses me as eloquent and a keen observer:
If we were in Beirut, grozny or Tehran with the same set of events we just had in Baghdad, We would have half of the politicians around us assassinated by rival factions, at least 10 suicide bombers, half of the American journalists here taken as hostages and sectarian / ethnic fighting’s in the streets.
Instead of that what we see around us, is a city going back to life some times grudgingly but other times with fast speed.
Electricity is almost as normal as in the days of Saddam, the markets are just beautiful, people are going out shopping for clothes, satellite dishes, or just buying cokes, you have families in the streets, Americans in humviees surrounded by kids, security is much better and people are still selling beer on the side walks in some districts of Baghdad in spite of all the fiery sermons by Shi’a / Sunni clerics calling for a virtuous – read alcohol free - society).
I don’t want to give the impression here that every thing is all right and there is no crisis in Iraq, I just want to say that the Americans had - and still have - a perfect opportunity in Iraq, an opportunity they won’t have anywhere else, they could have won the hearts and minds of the Iraqis from the first week after the toppling of the regime, but instead they just provided the extremists with all the pretexts they need - as if they needed any- to attack the Americans they have wasted a good deal of good intensions and hope.
please stop and start doing your homework properly, I don’t want my country to be another breeding place for Osamas and lunatic terrorists.
I really need to get something out of my system.
I got an email. After throwing everything and the kitchen sink at me they ask:
"How are your parents doing?
Ah yes, your parents. Salam, people are wondering."
Actually they are doing very well, thank you. My father was invited to an informal dinner attended by Garner the second week he was in Baghdad; he also met some of Bodine’s aides and has met some of Bremer’s aides a couple of times too. Not to mention many of your top military people south of Baghdad.
Seriously, not joking there.
Let me make a suggestion. Do not assume, not even for a second, that because you read the blog you know who I am or who my parents are. And you are definitely not entitled to be disrespectful. Not everything that goes on in this house ends up on the blog, so please go play Agatha Christy somewhere else.
My mother, a sociologist who was very happy in pursuing her career at the ministry of education decided to give up that career when she had to choose between becoming Ba’ath party member and quitting her job, she became a housewife. My father, a very well accomplished economist made the same decision and decided to become a farmer instead.
You are being disrespectful to the people who have put the first copy of George Orwell’s 1984 in my hands, a heavy read for a 14 year old with bad English. But that banned book started a process and gave me the impulse to look at the world I live in a different way.
go fling the rubbish at someone else.
Then here is an excerpt from G. in Baghdad, who impresses me as eloquent and a keen observer:
If we were in Beirut, grozny or Tehran with the same set of events we just had in Baghdad, We would have half of the politicians around us assassinated by rival factions, at least 10 suicide bombers, half of the American journalists here taken as hostages and sectarian / ethnic fighting’s in the streets.
Instead of that what we see around us, is a city going back to life some times grudgingly but other times with fast speed.
Electricity is almost as normal as in the days of Saddam, the markets are just beautiful, people are going out shopping for clothes, satellite dishes, or just buying cokes, you have families in the streets, Americans in humviees surrounded by kids, security is much better and people are still selling beer on the side walks in some districts of Baghdad in spite of all the fiery sermons by Shi’a / Sunni clerics calling for a virtuous – read alcohol free - society).
I don’t want to give the impression here that every thing is all right and there is no crisis in Iraq, I just want to say that the Americans had - and still have - a perfect opportunity in Iraq, an opportunity they won’t have anywhere else, they could have won the hearts and minds of the Iraqis from the first week after the toppling of the regime, but instead they just provided the extremists with all the pretexts they need - as if they needed any- to attack the Americans they have wasted a good deal of good intensions and hope.
please stop and start doing your homework properly, I don’t want my country to be another breeding place for Osamas and lunatic terrorists.
# posted by scorpiorising : 11:30 AM |
Wednesday, June 11, 2003
A-bloggin' and A-bloggin'
Representative Henry Waxman, a democrat from California, wants to know why the administration used documents that were known to be forged as part of its intelligence evidence on wmds:
"When I saw that, it really blew me away," Thielmann told Newsweek. Thielmann knew about the source of the allegation. The CIA had come up with some documents purporting to show Saddam had attempted to buy up to 500 tons of uranium oxide from the African country of Niger. INR had concluded that the purchases were implausible - and made that point clear to Powell's office. As Thielmann read that the president had relied on these documents to report to the nation, he thought, "Not that stupid piece of garbage. My thought was, how did that get into the speech?"
Whew, chasing this rabbit down the rabbit hole keeps getting more and more...interesting.
"When I saw that, it really blew me away," Thielmann told Newsweek. Thielmann knew about the source of the allegation. The CIA had come up with some documents purporting to show Saddam had attempted to buy up to 500 tons of uranium oxide from the African country of Niger. INR had concluded that the purchases were implausible - and made that point clear to Powell's office. As Thielmann read that the president had relied on these documents to report to the nation, he thought, "Not that stupid piece of garbage. My thought was, how did that get into the speech?"
Whew, chasing this rabbit down the rabbit hole keeps getting more and more...interesting.
# posted by scorpiorising : 5:06 PM |
"Politics of Vengence"--liquidlist
I've been blogging today like there's no tomorrow. The liquidlist.com has the scoop on the "politics of vengence", and why Martha Stewart and Sam Waskal have been targeted for indictment, and not Ken Lay and Bernie Ebbers:
Check out the numbers from the FEC. Sam Waksal, who was sentenced to seven years for insider trading, donated more than $90,000 to Democrats for state or federal Democratic party organizations in the last few electoral cycles. Martha Stewart made $100,000 in straight soft money donations to Democratic organizations, and gave an additonal $65,000 in joint fundraising to Democratic organizations.
What about Bernie Ebbers, who helped to perpetrate one of the biggest frauds and biggest bankruptcies in corporate history? The WorldCom multimillionaire hasn't been charged with a crime, even though two recent reports clearly lay the blame at his feet. And what's his giving portfolio like? Ebbers gave more than $50,000 in political donations, the vast majority of which went to Republicans (and to a couple Democrats who, surprise, surprise, sit on committees that oversees telecommunications).
Ken Lay, who presided over another massive fraud, incorporating a great deal of lying and cheating, and possibly helped to bring about the energy market collapse in California, is surely a target for investigations, right? Wrong. Uncharged with any crime, Lay lives free while his victims mortgage homes and empty savings accounts just to survive after losing all their savings in Enron stock. In soft money alone, Lay put out $350,000, almost all of it to the RNC, except for a $25,000 election week 2000 donation to John Ashcroft's Senate campaign, wherein he lost his seat to a corpse. Kenny Boy's hard money is hard to add up, but barring a contribution to the Democratic Enron hometown Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, Lay's contributions are all to Republican candidates, officeholders or PACs.
Check out the numbers from the FEC. Sam Waksal, who was sentenced to seven years for insider trading, donated more than $90,000 to Democrats for state or federal Democratic party organizations in the last few electoral cycles. Martha Stewart made $100,000 in straight soft money donations to Democratic organizations, and gave an additonal $65,000 in joint fundraising to Democratic organizations.
What about Bernie Ebbers, who helped to perpetrate one of the biggest frauds and biggest bankruptcies in corporate history? The WorldCom multimillionaire hasn't been charged with a crime, even though two recent reports clearly lay the blame at his feet. And what's his giving portfolio like? Ebbers gave more than $50,000 in political donations, the vast majority of which went to Republicans (and to a couple Democrats who, surprise, surprise, sit on committees that oversees telecommunications).
Ken Lay, who presided over another massive fraud, incorporating a great deal of lying and cheating, and possibly helped to bring about the energy market collapse in California, is surely a target for investigations, right? Wrong. Uncharged with any crime, Lay lives free while his victims mortgage homes and empty savings accounts just to survive after losing all their savings in Enron stock. In soft money alone, Lay put out $350,000, almost all of it to the RNC, except for a $25,000 election week 2000 donation to John Ashcroft's Senate campaign, wherein he lost his seat to a corpse. Kenny Boy's hard money is hard to add up, but barring a contribution to the Democratic Enron hometown Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, Lay's contributions are all to Republican candidates, officeholders or PACs.
# posted by scorpiorising : 3:42 PM |
Dear Rush,
Since this is an open letter to Rush Limbaugh, courtesy of Common Dreams.org, I hope Margie Burns doesn't mind if I reprint it in full. Within this letter you will find these delicious tidbits: Clear Channel has won an advertising contract in France; Clear Channel has "radio hosts boosting 'I hate France web-sites'. The Paris Air Show, held every other year, is hugely patronized by the U.S. government and military contractors...and on and on and on:
"An Open Letter to Rush Limbaugh
by Margie Burns
Dear Mr. Limbaugh,
I have not heard your widely acclaimed radio broadcasts, but it has come to my attention that you’ve been urging your fans to “PLEASE, BOYCOTT ALL FRENCH PRODUCTS!”
As luck would have it, the perfect target for your boycott is coming up: on June 15 through 22 of this year, France will host the 45th annual Paris Air Show.
The Paris Air Show, as you may know, is a global aviation and arms fair, that takes place in the Paris venue Le Bourget every other year, alternating with another huge trade show for weapons and weapons systems called Eurosatory. You may not have heard that Eurosatory and the Paris Air Show are hugely patronized by the U.S. government and by U.S. military contractors. (http://www.paris-air-show.com)
The list of U.S. exhibitors so far, available from contact person Cara Boulesteix in the Commerce Department, runs 16 pages and more than 200 companies. Many subsidiaries, partnerships and cooperative agreements are not mentioned. Prominently featured are giant military contractors General Electric Co., Boeing, Honeywell, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon. Indeed, the list is a virtual who’s who of our corporate federal contractors who are also feverishly hawking (no pun intended) their wares abroad, including Kaiser Aluminum, Goodrich, Teleflex and Bell Helicopter. A glossy tradition of cosmopolitanism in arms and “dual-use” transactions has long been established here, of course: You may recall that Honeywell, Rockwell and Bell Helicopter also were among the dozens of U.S. corporations whose products ended up in Saddam’s Iraq. (www.thememory-hole.org/corp/iraq-suppliers.htm)
Some of the merchant-of-death networking might surprise the public. Several states, including Virginia, are exhibiting at the venue, including Jeb Bush’s Florida, which will be amply represented by “Southwest Florida,” and “Enterprise Florida,” each advertising cheap Florida labor. Speaking of security, Tampa International Airport also is an exhibitor. But then, the Federal Aviation Administration itself attends the air show, as does the American Association of Airport Executives. So any purchases of security systems, military data recorders, night-vision searchlights, cargo and baggage handling systems, communications systems and other devices designed to elude them, take place figuratively under their noses.
Thus far, the FAA has not been grounded. This year, though, the administration is limiting the number of officials attending the show to 150.
Not that the rubbing elbows is confined to current officeholders. Another U.S. exhibitor is Aviall Inc., a giant aviation-parts distributor owned partly by the Carlyle Group, in which the Bush family possesses a substantial interest through former President George H. W. Bush. Not much new there. This would be the same Carlyle Group formerly associated with Saudi Arabia’s giant industrial complex, the Bin Laden Group.
Mr. Limbaugh, I know what you may say: These corporate networks are so intertwined in our lives that no person, even equipped with a conscience, can avoid entanglement. You may point out that even Clear Channel, the communications behemoth whose hundreds of radio stations proudly advertise your talk show, does multimillion-dollar business in France annually. Clear Channel itself, you will say, which banned the Dixie Chicks’ songs on its channels, has radio hosts boosting I-hate-France Web sites and puts you and your boycott on the airwaves, has live entertainment venues in France, and recently won a 12-year, $35 million advertising contract in France. The company owns French subsidiaries (www.clearchannel.ie/ccworldwide.htm) that, in turn, do business with French performers, distributors and sponsors. In fact, Clear Channel does enough French business yearly to buy almost any of the small towns over which your program broadcasts.
Clear Channel also owns six radio stations in Richmond, Va., including WRVA-AM (1140), home of host Michael Graham — yes, the same Michael Graham who vilified the Byrd Theatre for flying the French flag during VCU’s French Film Festival and encouraged Richmonders to complain. (“Now, the two largest flags flying in Carytown are both French!”) Now might be a good time to call Graham and remind him that his employer does more business in France than the theater does.
Mr. Limbaugh, I have a promise for you: If you will demand through your outlets that the public boycott Clear Channel, I shall willingly give credit where credit is due. I will fully and fairly disclose, if someone tells me about it, that you went beyond your immediate self-interest, to take a position on grounds of conscience. I shall even join with you in calling for the boycott.
Best of luck to you in every good thing.
Sincerely,
Margie Burns"
"An Open Letter to Rush Limbaugh
by Margie Burns
Dear Mr. Limbaugh,
I have not heard your widely acclaimed radio broadcasts, but it has come to my attention that you’ve been urging your fans to “PLEASE, BOYCOTT ALL FRENCH PRODUCTS!”
As luck would have it, the perfect target for your boycott is coming up: on June 15 through 22 of this year, France will host the 45th annual Paris Air Show.
The Paris Air Show, as you may know, is a global aviation and arms fair, that takes place in the Paris venue Le Bourget every other year, alternating with another huge trade show for weapons and weapons systems called Eurosatory. You may not have heard that Eurosatory and the Paris Air Show are hugely patronized by the U.S. government and by U.S. military contractors. (http://www.paris-air-show.com)
The list of U.S. exhibitors so far, available from contact person Cara Boulesteix in the Commerce Department, runs 16 pages and more than 200 companies. Many subsidiaries, partnerships and cooperative agreements are not mentioned. Prominently featured are giant military contractors General Electric Co., Boeing, Honeywell, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon. Indeed, the list is a virtual who’s who of our corporate federal contractors who are also feverishly hawking (no pun intended) their wares abroad, including Kaiser Aluminum, Goodrich, Teleflex and Bell Helicopter. A glossy tradition of cosmopolitanism in arms and “dual-use” transactions has long been established here, of course: You may recall that Honeywell, Rockwell and Bell Helicopter also were among the dozens of U.S. corporations whose products ended up in Saddam’s Iraq. (www.thememory-hole.org/corp/iraq-suppliers.htm)
Some of the merchant-of-death networking might surprise the public. Several states, including Virginia, are exhibiting at the venue, including Jeb Bush’s Florida, which will be amply represented by “Southwest Florida,” and “Enterprise Florida,” each advertising cheap Florida labor. Speaking of security, Tampa International Airport also is an exhibitor. But then, the Federal Aviation Administration itself attends the air show, as does the American Association of Airport Executives. So any purchases of security systems, military data recorders, night-vision searchlights, cargo and baggage handling systems, communications systems and other devices designed to elude them, take place figuratively under their noses.
Thus far, the FAA has not been grounded. This year, though, the administration is limiting the number of officials attending the show to 150.
Not that the rubbing elbows is confined to current officeholders. Another U.S. exhibitor is Aviall Inc., a giant aviation-parts distributor owned partly by the Carlyle Group, in which the Bush family possesses a substantial interest through former President George H. W. Bush. Not much new there. This would be the same Carlyle Group formerly associated with Saudi Arabia’s giant industrial complex, the Bin Laden Group.
Mr. Limbaugh, I know what you may say: These corporate networks are so intertwined in our lives that no person, even equipped with a conscience, can avoid entanglement. You may point out that even Clear Channel, the communications behemoth whose hundreds of radio stations proudly advertise your talk show, does multimillion-dollar business in France annually. Clear Channel itself, you will say, which banned the Dixie Chicks’ songs on its channels, has radio hosts boosting I-hate-France Web sites and puts you and your boycott on the airwaves, has live entertainment venues in France, and recently won a 12-year, $35 million advertising contract in France. The company owns French subsidiaries (www.clearchannel.ie/ccworldwide.htm) that, in turn, do business with French performers, distributors and sponsors. In fact, Clear Channel does enough French business yearly to buy almost any of the small towns over which your program broadcasts.
Clear Channel also owns six radio stations in Richmond, Va., including WRVA-AM (1140), home of host Michael Graham — yes, the same Michael Graham who vilified the Byrd Theatre for flying the French flag during VCU’s French Film Festival and encouraged Richmonders to complain. (“Now, the two largest flags flying in Carytown are both French!”) Now might be a good time to call Graham and remind him that his employer does more business in France than the theater does.
Mr. Limbaugh, I have a promise for you: If you will demand through your outlets that the public boycott Clear Channel, I shall willingly give credit where credit is due. I will fully and fairly disclose, if someone tells me about it, that you went beyond your immediate self-interest, to take a position on grounds of conscience. I shall even join with you in calling for the boycott.
Best of luck to you in every good thing.
Sincerely,
Margie Burns"
# posted by scorpiorising : 2:40 PM |
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