Everything is going great now, right? From a BBC Correspondent: Iraqi ship ploughs on in choppy waters (news.bbc.co.uk, 12/27/05):

So the Shias dominate, the Kurds are a strong minority, the secular are suffering but the Sunnis are protesting. Indeed the main Sunni grouping, the Iraq Accord Front, claiming fraud, is threatening to boycott the assembly if there is no re-run vote in some areas. Since there will be no re-run, it remains to be seen if this threat will be put into practice.

...And even if the Sunnis do join the assembly, it may be that they are simply opening up a new front to urge the removal of US and other foreign forces. It does not mean that the insurgency will end.

The election may be over but the war is not.

All of this makes you wonder why the Sunnis showed up for the election at all, doesn't it? They claim fraud, the correspondents shrug; the ticket that won the initial election won on an anti-occupation platform, but there's no way to make that happen under the system the Americans imposed...

I'm not including a quote from an American about how the country is likely to tear itself apart. But it's now being acknowledged at official levels to adjust American expectations.

The Iraqi election is supposed to be another victory and vindication of Bush, but... BBC NEWS | World | Middle East | Iraqis condemn 'election fraud' (news.bbc.co.uk, 12/27/05)

Thousands of Iraqis have staged a protest in Baghdad about results from the recent parliamentary elections, which they say were tainted by fraud.

Of course, the US has been suffering from the same sort of electoral problems, so that's not really news here.

And now, a little levity. Voice Of God Revealed To Be Cheney On Intercom | The Onion - America's Finest News Source.

Freedom, democracy and other things we don't understand

Do you ever read the news, and think you're actually reading a clever parody? I've been having that experience quite a bit lately. I think my favorite recent experience was reading a New York Times article in which the paper - the paper of Judith Miller - expressed shock and horror at the idea of the US Government paying off Iraqi news outlets to print propaganda stories. This was on the front page - NOT, as you might think, on the "Irony" pages.

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If I had to choose the top stories about the moral, ethical, and political disaster that the war in Iraq has become, my top choice would surely be CIA Holds Terror Suspects in Secret Prisons, by Dana Priest (washingtonpost.com, 11/2/05). This article has inspired international investigations, carefully worded denials by foreign governments (some of which amount to selective confessions), court actions, and some dramatic concessions from the Bush Administration's Department of State about international law.

The gist of this report is that the U.S. now maintains a "hidden global internment network" beyond the reach of law.

[T]he CIA has not even acknowledged the existence of its black sites. To do so, say officials familiar with the program, could open the U.S. government to legal challenges, particularly in foreign courts, and increase the risk of political condemnation at home and abroad.

But the revelations of widespread prisoner abuse in Afghanistan and Iraq by the U.S. military -- which operates under published rules and transparent oversight of Congress -- have increased concern among lawmakers, foreign governments and human rights groups about the opaque CIA system. Those concerns escalated last month, when Vice President Cheney and CIA Director Porter J. Goss asked Congress to exempt CIA employees from legislation already endorsed by 90 senators that would bar cruel and degrading treatment of any prisoner in U.S. custody.

The CIA's response to these allegations? CIA prisons leak 'to be probed' (news.bbc.co.uk, 11/9/05) - yes, the CIA wants to engage in a criminal inquiry over LEAKING the information, not over the conduct itself. Their plans validate the information - they would not prosecute a leak if the information weren't true.

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I suppose the next topic would be the fact that the U.S. is admitting that Iraqi civilians have been killed. Bush Estimates Iraqi Death Toll in War at 30,000 (washingtonpost.com, 12/13/05) is a strange concession to reality by an administration which, famously, has claimed it is impossible to know how many civilians have died as a result of its invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Bush's number is actually similar to a number tabulated by Iraqbodycount.net. Their figure, made by tabulated various reports, is in the high 20,000s. (See Iraq Body Count: War dead figures, news.bbc.co.uk, 12/14/05).

However, both figures are a fraction of the likely number of dead, as they are tabulated from media reports, which record very little of what happens to civilians. The BBC article also notes:

One study, published by the Lancet medical journal in October 2004, suggested that poor planning, air strikes by coalition forces and a "climate of violence" had led to more than 100,000 extra deaths in Iraq.

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The U.S.' nearly complete abandonment of Afghanistan has not been considered much of a news story. Even looking at the BBC link site, "Afghanistan's Future", there are a lot of discouragingly old articles.

It's as if that failed experiment in U.S. interventionism ceased to exist when things went bad. Current elections with dismally low turnout aren't making the effort something the U.S. government wants to call attention to right now. Five years in, rebuilding has largely been dropped, and stability isn't near at hand.

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U.S. Troop deaths are obviously news. Back in October, when the 2000th death was recorded, there was quite a fuss. (Americans are, after all, rather superstitious about numbers.) Death toll an awkward yardstick on Iraq (news.bbc.co.uk, 10/25/05) didn't give much hope that things would improve.

Meanwhile, a leading military think tank said continuing violence and instability was likely to mean US troops would probably have to remain in Iraq until well after the US presidential elections in 2008.

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The continually poor conditions in Baghdad are no longer news: they aren't new, by definition.

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Saddam Hussein's trial is also big news, but nothing is really happening in it, so far as can be interpreted from the news we get here.

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Scandals associated with the new Iraqi government and police forces engaging in prisoner abuses, sowing distrust and reminding everyone of the corrupt old regime, are a topic I posted about previously. I haven't noticed any "new" allegations, but it appears that the populace are coming to dread their police as they once dreaded the ousted regime's police.

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And then there are the elections in both Afghanistan and Iraq. I've posted a few links about those today (below): the more you read, the more you doubt that anyone is happy with the outcome.

Enjoy the collection of links below from stories which caught my interest recently. I haven't grouped them in any special order, but I hope you also find them interesting.

t r u t h o u t - Iraq Sunni, Shiite Groups Threaten Boycott of Government (truthout.org, 12/22/05):

Allawi representative Ibrahim al-Janabi took the accusations one step further and described last week's elections in all 18 provinces as 'fraudulent.'

"These elections are fraudulent, they are fraudulent, and the next parliament is illegitimate. We reject all this process," al-Janabi told a news conference.

Iraq parties unite to reject poll (news.bbc.co.uk, 12/22/05). 35 parties are allegeding widespread fraud in the current elections. The allegations from "Sunni Arab and secular parties" are being dismissed by other groups who think they'll gain. Which is a bad sign about the current system not really being set up to benefit everyone.

Not yet enjoying liberation. t r u t h o u t - Dahr Jamail and Arkan Hamed: Iraqis Have Dim Hopes for 2006 (truthout.org, 12/21/05):

The majority of Iraqis in Baghdad now fear the security forces, as dozens of people each week are 'disappeared' by police and soldiers around the city and new torture chambers have been discovered recently. . . .

"Nothing is good in Iraq now," said the doctor. "Torture, detained friends, pillaging of houses, seeing neighbors suffering from poverty, no electricity, no water and gun fights everywhere. We have no relief from this suffering now."

Truth, democracy... Well, okay, just democracy. Sort of.

One of the more interesting stories of recent U.S. persuasion efforts was the news that the US has to pay off the press in Iraq to get the sort of perspectives they want to appear in the newly "free" press. U.S. Military Covertly Pays to Run Stories in Iraqi Press (latimes.com, 11/30/05) provides some unfortunate and fascinating information about the workings of PR firms in the employment of the Pentagon, who generate propaganda, translate it, and distribute it.

[My first thought was that, if they have to TRANSLATE it into Arabic, they're not using the right people. But this is an American operation, so letting actual Iraqis write the propaganda directly probably wouldn't work - because Americans might not think they were "in charge."]

The military's effort to disseminate propaganda in the Iraqi media is taking place even as U.S. officials are pledging to promote democratic principles, political transparency and freedom of speech in a country emerging from decades of dictatorship and corruption.

It comes as the State Department is training Iraqi reporters in basic journalism skills and Western media ethics, including one workshop titled 'The Role of Press in a Democratic Society.

I think my favorite part of the article is this:

"Here we are trying to create the principles of democracy in Iraq. Every speech we give in that country is about democracy. And we're breaking all the first principles of democracy when we're doing it," said a senior Pentagon official who opposes the practice of planting stories in the Iraqi media.

One of the disturbing side effects of this scandal has been a lax attitude toward the entire idea of propaganda in "free" societies. Rather than complete condemnation of this tactic, there are now casual debates on news programs about the relative appropriateness of undermining ACTUAL freedom of speech with purchased government propaganda, which is justified by saying that the purpose is important.

That lesson about the ends justifying the means? We haven't learned that yet.

And that important purpose for which we are disposing of the free press and an open society? Yes, it's part of an extraordinarily belated effort to - say it with me - win hearts and minds. Having the U.S. military bombing Iraqis didn't win their hearts or minds, but manipulating their newspapers will surely make them feel better, according to this logic.

I think the U.S. public has become so accustomed to being lied to by its leaders, that this fails to shock to the extent it should.

It's nice when someone remembers Afghanistan. For profane and passionate commentary and cartoons, see www.mnftiu.cc | get your war on | page 51 and drop down to "published 11/21/05."

Baghdad Burning, 12/1/05 on Bush's Iraq strategy:

It’s almost as if someone is paying him to intentionally sabotage American foreign policy.

There have been jokes about that. But for people living in Iraq, it's no joke.

A Baghdad resident remarks on the Hussein trial. Baghdad Burning, 12/15/05 (riverbendblog.blogspot.com):

One thing that struck me about what the witnesses were saying- after the assassination attempt in Dujail, so much of what later unfolded is exactly what is happening now in parts of Iraq. They talked about how a complete orchard was demolished because the Mukhabarat thought people were hiding there and because they thought someone had tried to shoot Saddam from that area. That was like last year when the Americans razed orchards in Diyala because they believed insurgents were hiding there. Then they talked about the mass detentions- men, women and children- and its almost as if they are describing present-day Ramadi or Falloojah. The descriptions of cramped detention spaces, and torture are almost exactly the testimonies of prisoners in Abu Ghraib, etc.

It makes one wonder when Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney and the rest will have their day, as the accused, in court.

Riverbend always has something worthwhile to read, when she has electricity to post. She also has a book out now, which is a compilation of her blog posts. She's won several awards for her efforts. If you haven't visited her site, you should have a look.

Old, yet significant news about warlords. For whatever reason (feel free to guess), a minor fuss was made about the "historic" ritual of elections in Afghanistan, but not about the substance of the election. Warlord fears in Afghan elections (news.bbc.co.uk, 8/17/05) provides a bit more substance, reporting that despite widespread concern about warlords participating in government, only 11 of 208 candidates were disqualified because of past acts.

In many areas, 'at least half of those standing are warlords or have some links to these commanders,' claims Prof Wadir Safi of Kabul university. . . .

Those involved in the vetting process say there was only so much they could do.

Furthermore, they say many on the original disqualification list turned in weapons, thereby making them eligible.

Yes, dumping some of your weapons stockpiles, despite atrocities you may have committed with them, was enough to be forgiven for warlordism. And to think we fuss over candidate qualifications here!

Unintended consequences. This is an item from a report by the International Crisis Group's page, Unmaking Iraq (crisisgroup.org), (which I reached by following a link from Get Your War On):

"The constitution is likely to fuel rather than dampen insurgency," says Robert Malley, Director of Crisis Group's Middle East and North Africa Program. "A compact based on compromise and broad consent could have been a first step in a healing process. Instead, [the process that exists instead] is proving yet another step in a process of depressing decline."

The article discusses how the current process is promoting weak documents in a structure that allows certain minorities to be overridden by other groups, leading to deeper splits.

What happens when a government knows it has foreign military backing, and so it can get away with anything? BBC NEWS | World | Middle East | Iraq detainees 'found starving'. (news.bbc.co.uk, 11/15/05)

Abuse of members of the group newly in power against members of the group formerly in power isn't too surprising. And we all already know that abuse - both physical abuses, and the abuse of power - are currently acceptable in the current climate. The US abuses - why shouldn't its proteges? We also know that no one has been punished for the deaths of prisoners at the hands of US allies in Afghanistan, so a very ugly pattern has already been set.

No surprises here.

BBC NEWS | World | Middle East | US death toll in Iraq hits 2,000 (news.bbc.co.uk, 10/25/05).

New Reports Surface About Detainee Abuse (washingtonpost.com, 9/23/05):

'Despite my efforts, I have been unable to get clear, consistent answers from my leadership about what constitutes lawful and humane treatment of detainees,' Fishback wrote in a Sept. 16 letter to McCain, a member of the Armed Services Committee and a former prisoner of war in Vietnam. 'I am certain that this confusion contributed to a wide range of abuses including death threats, beatings, broken bones, murder, exposure to elements, extreme forced physical exertion, hostage-taking, stripping, sleep deprivation and degrading treatment.'

I hope I'm not the only one who thinks there should be no confusion about the appropriateness of torture and murder in any context, but things have been weird here in the US lately. Perhaps he's just using those examples as a method of dramatic understatement.

What the September 11th attacks meant for Iraqis: the dread of being blamed for something they didn't do: Baghdad Burning:

E. looked at me wide-eyed that day and asked the inevitable question, "How long do you think before they bomb us?"

"But it wasn’t us. It can’t be us…" I rationalized.

"It doesn’t matter. It’s all they need."

And it was true. It began with Afghanistan and then it was Iraq. We began preparing for it almost immediately. The price of the dollar rose as people began stocking up on flour, rice, sugar and other commodities.

There's a great deal of sympathy for American suffering in this item, which people who are too defensive about what the US has done there won't take time to read. Hopefully, though, Riverbend's blog is also providing a bit of understanding for a US-centric American readership, who is used to seeing the world news reported just one way: from a perspective of whether or not something benefits us (or our egos) in the short term.

I know in the US we're big on democracy, but seeing it from Riverbend's eyes, you MUST see how undemocratic the world is. To know that an invasion was coming, regardless of fact, and be powerless to stop it. That was not 'spreading freedom.'

Unintended Consequences: A Forum on Iraq and the Mideast (thenation.com, 8/15/05 issue) is a great read from the Nation. It remarks on the instability and animosity the US has engendered for its actions.

My favorite part: an observation that the US seems unusually concerned about foreign fighters, which is ironic - since it is the greatest supplier of foreign fighters to the area.

It's worth reading all four opinions for a range of educated views on what the world has inherited as a result of this war.

The Theater of Cruelty: Reflections on the Anniversary of Abu Ghraib (thenation.com, 7/18/05 issue):

If there is any useful lesson to be drawn from this, it is that now, as ever, means cannot be separated from ends: They are the same thing.

Can the US learn?

Sheehan blog, with lots of great quotes: t r u t h o u t - One Mother's Stand. I especially the 9/11/05 entry on how useless Senator Dianne Feinstein is, and the idea of the Hall of Shame she's developing.

Novel concept! BBC NEWS | Americas | The world four years on from 9/11 (news.bbc.co.uk, 9/9/05):

And the inability of the US to "pacify" Iraq has called into question its ability to act as the policeman for democracy the world over.

The 'world over' has been calling this into question since the US first got the idea. Where have these reporters been?

Catching up on clarifications by those who enjoy becoming the evil we deplore: U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo clarifies 'nuke Mecca' comments - Wikinews (en.wikinews.org, 7/22/05):

Representative Tom Tancredo (R-CO) has clarified his earlier statement that 'you could take out their holy sites,' in the event of a nuclear attack upon the U.S. by Islamic terrorists. Rep. Tancredo has refused to make any apologies, saying 'When we bombed Hiroshima, when we bombed Dresden, we punished a lot of people who were not necessarily (guilty). Not every German was a member of the Nazi Party. You do things in war that are ugly.'

I ask you: is that supposed to make us feel BETTER?!?! That innocents are killed in war?

Setting aside the fact that he clearly does not comprehend that fundamentalists have no one country that one could justify attacking... Here's a question: does he comprehend that saying that it's acceptable for innocents to die in war could justify the killing of innocents HERE, since he finds such terms acceptable?

[Editor's note: clearly not. He's been making public statements about how his remarks 'make America safer.' Seriously.]

No Exit Strategy (thenation.com, 08/01/05) reviews two books from institutional 'insiders' about the way the Iraq war and subsequent occupation were mismanaged. What is refreshing about the review is that it asks the question: who is the US to believe it had the right to manage or mismanage the fate of other nations without their people's consent?

It is a relief to read that the entire project of an invasion/occupation/forced puppet government is fundamentally flawed, NOT merely the way it was carried out.

Update on the World Tribunal On Iraq: The World Speaks on Iraq (thenation.com, 8/01/05 issue):

The World Tribunal on Iraq (WTI) held its culminating session in Istanbul June 24-27, the last and most elaborate of sixteen condemnations of the Iraq War held worldwide in the past two years, in Barcelona, Tokyo, Brussels, Seoul, New York, London, Mumbai and other cities....

The WTI expresses the opposition of global civil society to the Iraq War, a project perhaps best described as a form of 'moral
globalization.'"

I like that. Moral globalization. If people can't organize to hold bully governments accountable, who can? What could be more democratic?

This is a good article on the session.

There's more at worldtribunal.org, including excerpts of speeches given. This is from Arundhati Roy's opening statements at the Istanbul session, which you must read in their entirety.

The Jury of Conscience at this tribunal is not here to deliver a simple verdict of guilty or not guilty against the United States and its allies. We are here to examine a vast spectrum of evidence about the motivations and consequences of the U.S. invasion and occupation, evidence that has been deliberately marginalized or suppressed. Every aspect of the war will be examined - its legality, the role of international institutions and major corporations in the occupation, the role of the media, the impact of weapons such as depleted uranium munitions, napalm, and cluster bombs, the use of and legitimation of torture, the ecological impacts of the war, the responsibility of Arab governments, the impact of Iraq's occupation on Palestine, and the history of U.S. and British military interventions in Iraq. This tribunal is an attempt to correct the record. To document the history of the war not from the point of view of the victors but of the temporarily - and I repeat the word temporarily - vanquished.

I am eager to read her closing statements, which are not posted with the others, but which are surely spectacular: Roy has a crystal clear way of phrasing things that can just knock the wind out of you, and I look forward to reading her remarks.

Book. One of the Washington Post writers has a new book out. Excerpts are posted at Book: 'Night Draws Near: Iraq's People in the Shadow of America's War' (washingtonpost.com, 8/29/05).

The book focuses on the lives of an ordinary family, headed by a widow. As with most wars, the consequences fall heavily on those who have the fewest resources, and female-headed families appear to bear the brunt of society's problems around the world. Excerpts from an initially-optimistic daughter's diary provide an insider's view.

Occasionally, there are odd comments about how delusional this family was to think that their government would stand: that doesn't really take into account the media environment that all repressive governments manage to maintain.

Excerpt from the later, more pessimistic sections:

"I regret that I went to the elections and voted," Karima said seven months later, as she sat with Amal and her sisters over breakfast. "What did we elect? Nothing."

"If we voted or didn't vote, it's still the same thing," said Fatima, her oldest daughter and most pessimistic. "If the Americans want to do something, they'll do it."

Being the evil we deplore, Part II: Colorado lawmaker: U.S. could "take out" Mecca (msnbc.com, 7/18/05) reveals that Representative Tancredo was asked about appropriate responses to terror. He gave this inappropriate response:

"Well, what if you said something like - if this happens in the United States, and we determine that it is the result of extremist, fundamentalist Muslims, you know, you could take out their holy sites," Tancredo answered.

"You're talking about bombing Mecca," Campbell said.

"Yeah," Tancredo responded.

The congressman later said he was "just throwing out some ideas" and that an "ultimate threat" might have to be met with an "ultimate response."

So if the Oklahoma City bombers had been Christian, he would have attacked Rome? I don't think so.

Bonus awkwardness points: Tancredo still isn't sure why there was a fuss about these remarks.

Some of us LIKE to be the evil we deplore, Part I. While the US has been struggling to assure the world that it's people are fundamentally good after an illegal war based on lies, and after the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, there are folks who think that goodness is a misplaced value. These folks apparently include a few famous commentators. Eric Zorn's Notebook: PAUL HARVEY: AH, GENOICDE AND SLAVERY, NOW THAT'S A GOOD DAY! (6/24/05) (which I found through fair.org) quotes cranky commentator Paul Harvey, who thinks we worry too much about our national image, and recalls the good ol' days:

Once upon a time, we elbowed our way onto and into this continent by giving small pox infected blankets to native Americans.

Yes, that was biological warfare!

And we used every other weapon we could get our hands on to grab this land from whomever. And we grew prosperous.

And, yes, we greased the skids with the sweat of slaves.

And so it goes with most nation states, which, feeling guilty about their savage pasts, eventually civilize themselves out of business and wind up invaded, and ultimately dominated by the lean, hungry and up and coming who are not made of sugar candy.

So, basically, he thinks that was the way to go, but that we're too NICE now.

Because Abu Ghraib and bombing Baghdad was all about "nice."

I wonder what Mr. Harvey is putting on his cereal in the morning.

Sheehan Glad Bush Didn't Meet With Her (washingtonpost.com, 8/30/05):

"I look back on it, and I am very, very, very grateful he did not meet with me, because we have sparked and galvanized the peace movement," Sheehan told The Associated Press. "If he'd met with me, then I would have gone home, and it would have ended there."

Hurricane Cindy. I haven't written about Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq, who became a nationwide peace celebrity by camping outside Bush's Texas ranch, and refusing to leave until either the end of August, or until he spoke with her.

Bush continued his ranch vacation, and didn't speak to her.

BBC NEWS | Programmes | From Our Own Correspondent | In search of an Iraq exit strategy (news.bbc.co.uk, 8/27/05) describes the shift in American politics and opinion polls that has resulted in a bereaved mother being the symbol of a movement to withdraw troops from Iraq.

What's funny to me is that there have been many, many other bereaved mothers who joined the pro-peace side early on. They did not become media darlings. Why not? Because the media perceived the country as heading toward war, and didn't want to interrupt that momentum with dissidents. Not even millions of dissidents worldwide, but certainly not a few mourning mothers.

Timing is a funny thing.

Another contributing factor causing Riverbend to wonder why Americans believe the oddest things: When “Old News” Has Never Been Told - U.S. media produce excuses, not stories, on Downing Street Memo (fair.org, Extra! July/August 2005).

U.S. Lowers Sights On What Can Be Achieved in Iraq (washingtonpost.com, 8/14/05):

The Bush administration is significantly lowering expectations of what can be achieved in Iraq, recognizing that the United States will have to settle for far less progress than originally envisioned during the transition due to end in four months, according to U.S. officials in Washington and Baghdad.The United States no longer expects to see a model new democracy, a self-supporting oil industry or a society in which the majority of people are free from serious security or economic challenges, U.S. officials say.

Who knew.

I never reported on Riverbend's take on the Administration's speech. Baghdad Burning (7/1/05):

In Bush's Iraq, there is reconstruction, there is freedom (in spite of an occupation) and there is democracy.

"He's describing a different country," I commented to E. and the cousin.

"Yes," E. replied. "He's talking about the *other* Iraq... the one with the WMD."

Ouch.

Riverbend's commentary on the speech is quite interesting, and also quite sad: it's sad to know that there are people who believe every word the politician utters, because it's convenient.

How many more nasty revelations are needed? General admits to secret air war (timesonline.co.uk, 6/26/05):

The American general who commanded allied air forces during the Iraq war appears to have admitted in a briefing to American and British officers that coalition aircraft waged a secret air war against Iraq from the middle of 2002, nine months before the invasion began.

The US public is already a bit scandal weary: I'm not sure there's room for this one.

If nothing is successfully being rebuilt, where is all the money going? Oh. Of course. When the tsunami disaster hit southeast Asia last December, I had a sad thought. That sad thought was that the survivors of that tragedy, all those people who had lived along the coast in small villages, would never be able to rebuild their homes there. This would not happen because of safety concerns: this would happen because the disaster was an opportunity for multi-national corporations to demand choice property in exchange for a little 'assistance' in relocating people away from prime tourist beaches.

I was cynical, but I was correct. I didn't make the logical extension to other 'rebuilding' projects around the world, but I should have. Naomi Klein has. The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (thenation.com, 4/14/05):

Three months after the tsunami hit Aceh, the New York Times ran a distressing story reporting that 'almost nothing seems to have been done to begin repairs and rebuilding.' The dispatch could easily have come from Iraq, where, as the Los Angeles Times just reported, all of Bechtel's allegedly rebuilt water plants have started to break down, one more in an endless litany of reconstruction screw-ups. It could also have come from Afghanistan, where President Hamid Karzai recently blasted 'corrupt, wasteful and unaccountable' foreign contractors for 'squandering the precious resources that Afghanistan received in aid.' Or from Sri Lanka, where 600,000 people who lost their homes in the tsunami are still languishing in temporary camps. One hundred days after the giant waves hit, Herman Kumara, head of the National Fisheries Solidarity Movement in Negombo, Sri Lanka, sent out a desperate e-mail to colleagues around the world. 'The funds received for the benefit of the victims are directed to the benefit of the privileged few, not to the real victims,' he wrote. 'Our voices are not heard and not allowed to be voiced.'

But if the reconstruction industry is stunningly inept at rebuilding, that may be because rebuilding is not its primary purpose. According to Guttal, 'It's not reconstruction at all--it's about reshaping everything.' If anything, the stories of corruption and incompetence serve to mask this deeper scandal: the rise of a predatory form of disaster capitalism that uses the desperation and fear created by catastrophe to engage in radical social and economic engineering. And on this front, the reconstruction industry works so quickly and efficiently that the privatizations and land grabs are usually locked in
before the local population knows what hit them.

(Bold emphasis mine.) Klein is making a POSIWID connection - what is the purpose of the rebuilding system? Is it to rebuild things for locals, or for large entities to pocket large sums of disaster aid?

This is probably the single best article I've read on the profits of destruction. Not since I read a construction magazine article gloating about the lucrative contracts won by American countries to rebuild schools and hospitals US forces had bombed in the former Yugoslavia (!!!) have I read something this direct in connecting what I read in the paper with names of the big beneficiaries of the spoils of war.

If you read just one article about war profiteering this month, choose this one.

Elections!?! No, not that... Well, if they must. Yaaay, elections! That is my excessively short summary of what happened in Iraq earlier this year. But Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting has a much more detailed report, which is worth reading in its entirety. Defeated by Democracy (www.fair.org, May/June 2005 issue of Extra!) details how the Bush Administration fought tooth and nail against elections, but eventually gave in. Here is an excerpt:

From the very start, the administration was determined to install its handpicked favorites in positions of power in Baghdad and to exclude Iraqis with broader public support. For nearly a year, it watched helplessly as that strategy gradually came unglued. Only after its preferred game-plan decisively collapsed - in the face of an armed Sunni insurgency, the popular rejection of U.S.-supported Iraqi exiles, and crucially, the threat of a massive Shiite uprising - did the Bush administration reluctantly bow to pressure from Islamists and allow a free vote.

This article is made extra-creepy by the quotes from pundits who had opposed democracy in Iraq - which they knew was unlikely to lead to a government friendly to US interests - suddenly claiming great victory for Bush in his massive concession to popular Iraqi demand.

It's fascinating. It's great to have this retrospective in one place, even with the creepy quotes. Go read this now.

When governments won't act: The Final Session of The World Tribunal on Iraq Begins in Istanbul (SF Bay Area Indymedia 6/24/05) (indybay.org) reports on citizen's groups assembling to hear testimony and decide what should be done about the crimes of war performed in Iraq.

This is symbolic, but also a very intriguing idea. What if people around the world were permitted to pass judgment on the occupation of Tibet by China? Or on the Chechan demand for a separate nation? Or on any number of current situations in which bully nations get their way unlawfully, merely because they are large? This was the idea behind the United Nations, but with the Security Council filled only with the big nations, and with the big nations willing to 'look the other way' at each others' indiscretions toward weaker countries, the system is rigged against democracy.

This is an idea worth thinking about.

Intermissions: There have been big gaps in my messages here, because so little has really changed. Am I surprised that American forces are abducting and torturing people, just like the despot they replaced? No. Am I thrilled that two of the three Iraqi groups turned out to vote for pro-fundamentalist parties who want the US out ASAP and religious-based law? No. Can I bear to read the daily death tolls? No. Is it thrilling that Americans, happy to claim the election as their sole victory, are now eager to wash their hands of the country and leave it in ruins, with a few massive military bases in place (complete with bowling alleys, apartments, movie theaters, and other things for US personnel only)?? Guess.

There are headlines enough of 'more of the same,' and so I've just been tagging those that have interested me, rather than trying to link to ALL of the major stories.

I'm tired of looking at what the warmongers achieved: war, death, ruin, hate, and hopelessness. It hurts.

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Speaking of hurting, I finally had a chance to see the film Hotel Rwanda, about the genocide there. European colonizers chose to divide their subjects along imaginary ethnic lines, sowing division and playing favorites and encouraging intergroup exploitation. When they left (and at the time the movie is set in), the masses were able to act out their hatreds. When waves of retribution killings began, the US and other nations chose to do nothing. Millions died.

Now, the same conflict has spilled over into neighboring countries, and the US... doesn't care. The US government has been too busy denying that genocide is occurring in the Sudan to pay much attention. The US is also still pretending to be really upset about massacres Saddam Hussein engaged in during the Reagan Administration, even though at the time the US was eager to appease Iraq, and in response to the massacres only signed a UN resolution from condemning chemical weapons attacks generally, refusing to name Iraq (gwu.edu) or the specific, cruel massacres that come up so often in rhetoric now.

Also, the US doesn't seem too upset about Turkey doing bad things to Kurds: only the former Iraqi government's crimes seem worth attending to.

Having no credibility on humanitarian grounds, I'd like the phrase "humanitarian grounds" to simply stop appearing in reports on Iraq, lest the reporting be perceived as sarcasm.

Who's Paying for Our Patriotism? By Uwe E. Reinhardt (washingtonpost.com, 08/01/05) notes that very few Americans are DIRECTLY affected by the war in Iraq. It's easy to "stay the course" when others are sacrificing on your behalf -- such as all those National Guard troops who have lost their jobs (if not their lives), and whose families are hurting financially -- and when you can simply ignore their plight.

The comments about how little fundraising for military has been done by people who claim to 'support our troops' is harsh, but makes an interesting point. If "support" doesn't mean anything but buying a cheap, foreign-made sticker, OF COURSE it's easy.

Slightly misleading title: Documents Tell of Brutal Improvisation by GIs (washingtonpost.com, 08/03/05) isn't just about soldiers acting creatively to do bad things. It discusses the involvement of "OGAs" ("Other Government Agencies"), including the CIA, PLUS US-funded mercenaries, in the routine interrogation and torture of detainees, using tactics employed in multiple US-military-controlled locations.

The particular story described is of an alleged insurgent leader who turned himself in to negotiate the release of his sons, and was later beaten and suffocated to death by U.S. forces. The government attempted to classify details of the killing. Now that criminal charges are pending, those involved insist that the killing - no, too active, let's just say "death" - was unfortunate, the beating and suffocation that caused the death were completely appropriate.

As a side note: this is how they treat people who turn themselves in!! The heck with winning hearts and minds - someone should just persuade these folks not to kill people who show up to talk, even if the US doesn't like what they say.

Another sad benchmark: Seven U.S Marines killed in Iraq, toll passes 1,800 (ca.today.reuters.com, 08/02/05).

Sadr quotes Bush? BBC NEWS | Resistance in Iraq 'legitimate' (07/19/05):

'Resistance is legitimate at all levels be it religious, intellectual and so on,' Mr Sadr said, in his first interview with Western media.

'The first person who would acknowledge this is the so-called American President Bush who said 'if my country is occupied, I will fight'.'

BBC NEWS | 25,000 civilians 'killed in Iraq' (07/19/05).

The Dossier on Civilian Casualties in Iraq 2003-2005 says 37% of all non-combatant deaths were caused by US-led forces.

Insurgents are said to have caused 9% of the deaths, while post-invasion criminal violence was responsible for another 36%....

"On average, 34 ordinary Iraqis have met violent deaths every day since the invasion of March 2003," said Mr Sloboda.

"It remains a matter of the gravest concern that, nearly two-and-a-half years on, neither the US nor the UK governments have begun to systematically measure the impact of their actions in terms of human lives destroyed."

A Scholarly Look at Terror Sees Bootprints In the Sand (washingtonpost.com, 07/09/05) describes some research into certain styles of attacks by Robert A. Pape, a professor who does a bit of consulting for the military.

'Well, I was actually surprised' to discover that 'what over 95 percent of all suicide attacks around the world since 1980 until today have in common is not religion, but a clear, strategic objective: to compel a modern democracy to withdraw military forces from the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland.'

This is a worthwhile read about potential causes for terrorism. Which make a lot more sense than 'they hate us because we love freedom/fries/rock/whatever.'

It's also one of those articles with odd opposing viewpoints. Pape's analysis is on suicide bombers, and so one of his critics points out that suicide bombers can't exist in occupied country A because they don't exist in occupied country B under similar conditions. And then misses the entire sideline about U.S. military bases in places with unpopular regimes.

I'm not sure if criticism that makes no sense is intended to help or hurt. Surely there are other, more substantive, competing theories than are quoted here. 'Still, it's worth reading.

How do YOU define a terrorist act? Greenpeace Commemorates 1985 Ship Bombing (washingtonpost.com, 07/09/05). For those of you who don't recall this, back in 1985 the French government, hostile over interference and publicity from Greenpeace over their nuclear activities in the Pacific, planted bombs in the Greenpeace ship 'Rainbow Warrior,' then docked in New Zealand, killing one person. (This was a ship that I, as a small child, had enjoyed during a school field trip years earlier.) The article describes all that and more. But this is the part that caught my eye:

New Zealand branded the attack 'an act of state-sponsored terrorism' and, after years of open hostility with France, won a multimillion-dollar reparations payment and what Greenpeace has called an 'unconvincing apology.'

Pierre Lacoste, who headed France's counter-espionage agency at the time, said in an interview last week with The New Zealand Herald that the drowning of photographer Pereira was an accident that weighed heavily on his conscience. 'I would perfectly understand it if New Zealanders considered this act to be an act of terrorism, to sink a boat in a port where there are just yachtsmen, peaceful people,' he told the newspaper. 'It does not really deserve to be called that, but if it is felt in that way, that is reality,' he said.

So, Mr. Lacoste doesn't think that blowing up an unarmed, advocacy group's ship in a civilian harbor is a terrorist act?? SERIOUSLY??

If only the reporter asked Mr. Lacoste what he WOULD have met that qualification!

I think this is one of those unfortunate examples of 'terrorism is in the eyes of the beholder,' which makes the moral posturing of nations against some acts, but not others, seem so hollow.

Another tragedy, and another debate: BBC NEWS | UK | UK Politics | London bombs: The Iraq question:

In February of the following year the same committee reported: 'The war in Iraq has possibly made terrorist attacks against British nationals and British interests more likely in the short term.'

And it was later revealed that, before the war, the Joint Intelligence Committee had also warned that military action against Iraq might 'heighten', rather than reduce, the terrorist threat to western interests.

Sad state of affairs, supposedly reflecting 'freedom being on the march': BBC NEWS | World | Middle East | Iraq rebuilding fails to deliver (06/22/05):

In the last few days, for example, more than 40 Iraqis have been killed in bomb attacks against police trainees, and at a Baghdad restaurant.

It has become so commonplace the rest of the world hardly notices any more.

I fear that some of this indifference is caused by the brief, manufactured, pseudo-euphoria that came when many Americans justified all the suffering in Iraq with the appearance of elections there, and now feel that 'our work there is done' and we need not be concerned with either the outcome of the elections, nor the state of the nation.

Conservatives taste sour grapes: Molly Ivins has some creepy samples of war supporters, now on the defensive, insisting that they are being gloated at over the war.

I personally am willing to take out billboards which say, "We told you so. Love, The Peace Movement." But it turns out some of the war cheerleaders are making the odd suggestion that, even if the peace movement was right, those of us opposed are somehow ENJOYING the current carnage. Ms. Ivins makes a respectable response. Star-Telegram | 06/23/2005 | Memo to us: It's appalling (sanluisobispo.com and elsewhere).

Someone with a spine! Someone with a spine! A fun read: May 18, 2005 Galloway v the US Senate: transcript of statement, by Times Online (timesonline.co.uk). One of my favorite parts:

As a matter of fact, I have met Saddam Hussein exactly the same number of times as Donald Rumsfeld met him. The difference is Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns and to give him maps the better to target those guns. I met him to try and bring about an end to sanctions, suffering and war, and on the second of the two occasions, I met him to try and persuade him to let Dr Hans Blix and the United Nations weapons inspectors back into the country - a rather better use of two meetings with Saddam Hussein than your own Secretary of State for Defence made of his.

WORLD VIEWS: New 'Downing Street Memo' says Bush, Blair agreed on 'regime change' in 2002; and more. (sfgate.com, 06/14/05). The sequel to the first Downing Street Memo may be as hot as the next Harry Potter book.

Now [Britain's Sunday] Times has scooped its rivals again with the news -- and the text of -- a leaked, extremely secret British Cabinet Office briefing paper dated July 23, 2002.

Prepared for Blair and his closest advisers, this newly discovered document clearly states that "since regime change was illegal, it was 'necessary to create the conditions' which would make it legal."

If you haven't already caught up on this story (I'm posting these June links in July), this is a great place to start. Mr. Gomez provides great quotes and links to many other source articles, as he does in every one of his columns.

In this particular instance, the material provided is not only about the memo and its political implications, but also from media sources remarking on U.S. media's docility in the face of this story.

Another interesting link: AfterDowningStreet.org | For a Resolution of Inquiry (afterdowningstreet.org).

A good site about Britain's now-famous, smoking-gun-like memorandum: The Downing Street Memo :: Seeking the Truth since May 13, 2005 (downingstreetmemo.com).

Trying to start trouble. WORLD VIEWS: 'Downing St. Memo' reporter says U.S., Britain goaded Saddam (sfgate.com, 06/21/05) notes this:

Now, in his latest news report in The Times, Smith has reported that 'leaked ... legal advice' to the Foreign Office (Britain's counterpart to the U.S. State Department) indicated that American and British bombing raids over southern Iraq, which began in May 2002, almost a year before the full-scale, U.S.-led attack, were illegal. (Times)

At that time, Smith says, U.S. Air Force and Royal Air Force jets 'began 'spikes of activity' designed to goad Saddam Hussein into retaliating and giving the allies a pretext for war.' The Pentagon named the bombing campaign the 'Blue Plan.'

The only silly part is the plan's name, even though it is not as ridiculous as most military names.

I love this observation about our media, and the fuss the US has made in attempting to refute an Amnesty International report about abuses at Guantanamo Bay by Adam Felber in Fanatical Apathy: Light Years Ahead (felbers.net). Of course, you should go read the whole thing, but here's a hint:

First, bear in mind that the summary on the US from the Amnesty International annual report does not contain the word “gulag.” Nor does an exhaustive specific report released a couple of weeks ago. The phrase “gulag of our times” comes from a speech made two weeks ago that refers to the reports.

That’s where our stunning advantage in spin technology began to assert itself. By the middle of last week, there wasn’t a single member of the Bush administration who wasn’t pushing his or her way towards a microphone in order to denounce Amnesty International for their ridiculous, unfounded, absurd, unfair “gulag” statement. They likened Gitmo to a gulag! Do they even know what went on at those gulags? What kind of gulag gulag says that we gulag our gulag with the gulag gulag still at gulag? Our technicians stuffed the foreign and domestic press’ ears so full of gulag that it became the story, the lead that consigned the actual report to the background.

This is the same point being discussed by Jefferson Morley in The Guantanamo Debate Comes Home (washingtonpost.com, 06/20/05)

In the U.S. media, the debate about Guantanamo often focuses on the propriety of the language used to describe the treatment of prisoners. The White House, conservative columnists and his Senate colleagues criticized Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) for saying U.S. interrogation techniques were reminiscent of Nazi Germany. The Post's Anne Applebaum, a Guantanamo critic, rebuked Amnesty International for likening the prison camp to the Soviet gulag.In the foreign media, the debate is more likely to focus on the propriety of the treatment itself.

Imagine that! Focusing on the treatment of the prisoners! What a novel idea.

When the going gets tough, inadvertently offend your allies by flushing copies of their holy books down the toilet: BBC NEWS | South Asia | Dismay at US Koran 'desecration' (05/08/05).

t r u t h o u t - Bob Herbert | Lifting the Censor's Veil on the Shame of Iraq (truthout.org, 05/05/05) describes some of the disturbing photos taken by soldiers in Iraq that we have NOT seen on the national news.

It's not necessarily something you need to read, - it is upsetting - but I found it interesting that the Abu Ghraib torture photos were such a media sensation... and then, nothing. I didn't believe that soldiers stopped taking photos, or that the only photos they had were from that one prison. And, it turns out, there are a lot more out there.

That raises some questions about the U.S. news media, and what motivates them to publicize, or not publicize, that kind of information.

t r u t h o u t - Naomi Klein | How to End the War (truthout.org, 05/07/05): is one of several articles that discusses how profitable war can be, and how that is always encouragement for those who profit to make new wars.

There are several articles which have detailed how the US government has attempted to subvert efforts at "democracy" in Iraq, with puppet governments, payola, and other tricks. This discusses the motivation for doing so:

The reality is the Bush administration has fought democracy in Iraq at every turn.

Why? Because if genuine democracy ever came to Iraq, the real goals of the war - control over oil, support for Israel, the construction of enduring military bases, the privatization of the entire economy - would all be lost. Why? Because Iraqis don't want them and they don't agree with them. They have said it over and over again - first in opinion polls, which is why the Bush administration broke its original promise to have elections within months of the invasion.

...They protested that 500,000 people had lost their jobs. They protested the fact that they were being shut out of the reconstruction of their own country, and they made it clear they didn't want permanent US bases.

That's when the administration broke its promise and appointed a CIA agent as the interim prime minister. In that period they locked in - basically shackled - Iraq's future governments to an International Monetary Fund program until 2008.

Democracy without actual FINANCIAL control for the people is a foreign capitalist corporation's dream!

[I'm compiling a large collection of clippings, but haven't been posting because... well, really, nothing has changed. It's all still terrible, and the media is still largely cheerleading. But I will post here again in the short term, to repeat this in a longer way. :-) ]

Al-Jazeera Puts Focus on Reform (washingtonpost.com, 05/08/05) reveals that the Bush Administration likes Al-Jazeera when it reports news that Bush likes!! Who knew!

Interesting: If you want to know how representatives of Iraq's Kurdish minority, the U.S. occupation's greatest beneficiaries and allies, perceive the current conflicts in Iraq officially, read What Do the Insurgents Want? by Hiwa Osman (washingtonpost.com, 05/08/05).

It's an amazing coincidence that the position Osman reflects matches almost exactly with press releases from Washington. Amazing.

Hey, Homeland Security: Will ya just listen to this, please? by Omar Khan (csmonitor.com, 05/03/05) is one of those sensible proposals to make currently boneheaded Homeland Security airport practices efficient and sensible.

Which it currently isn't.

I like the part of this article in which one of the security supervisors is getting delayed by such checks, and there is NOTHING the security personnel can do about it, because the current system is so pathetic.

This is a good, short read.

Baghdad Burning: the hostage crisis (riverbendblog.blogspot.com) is about the non-existent hostage crisis that was covered in western media as if it were a real event. I've read references to the alleged hostage taking of dozens of Shias in a town in the western press, and am shocked that no one investigated to be sure it was real, despite the conditions in Iraq. GO READ THIS. Yes, the BBC recently put out some articles explaining that bodies recently found in a river aren't those of any alleged hostages, because no one has been reported missing where the hostages were allegedly taken.

Riverbend's blog is very informative, and she has some great insights of the sort that never make it to the U.S. newspapers.

Marla died. Marla was a young activist who founded a group to help Iraqi civilians called CIVIC Worldwide. She recently died in Iraq, along with others from her organization. Raed in the Middle: Remembering Marla Ruzicka has more information.

This is extremely sad. As is so much news from Iraq...

*

One sad thing is all of the unproductive hate mail Raed received in response to his tribute to Marla. Not only is poor Raed risking his life to document civilian losses in Iraq, but he has people demanding that he make loyalty oaths and denounce all Iraqi resistance, especially so-called insurgents. The demands and insults are pointless and unproductive: they won't make Raed safer, they won't bring Marla back, they won't help move their non-profit's work forward.

It's unfortunate that he has to deal with nutcases on all sides.

Who are the random Iraq checkpoints working for? Christian Science Monitor Blog | Notebook: Iraq Archive March, 2005 describes a foreign journalist's frightening experiences with American checkpoints.

"You're driving along and you see a couple of soldiers standing by the side of the road - but that's a pretty ubiquitous sight in Baghdad, so you don't think anything of it. Next thing you know, soldiers are screaming at you, pointing their rifles and swiveling tank guns in your direction, and you didn't even know it was a checkpoint.

If it's confusing for me - and I'm an American - what is it like for Iraqis who don't speak English?"

US (mostly) lets Iraq form its cabinet (csmonitor.com, 04/28/05). This is a great article on how the U.S.' past meddling with Iraq is impacting the ongoing efforts to form an Iraqi government, though it doesn't put it that way.

It describes current meddling - phone calls, political pressure, chiding from Condi.

It describes past meddling, though not in enough detail to make it clear that the current interim government is set up based on rules laid out by the U.S., and the inherent weakness of using a U.S. structured system to prevent majority rule is complicating the government's legitimacy.

It mentions that "government by the numbers," the factionalized system inherited by the U.S., may result in years of instability. It even mentions that historical U.S. support for the Kurds is complicating negotiations by allowing the Kurds to bargain out of proportion to their numbers, confident in U.S. backing.

I am not saying that proportional representation is an evil thing: I'm saying it's going to be difficult to legitimize because it was imposed by a self-interested foreign power with a minority ally. I'm saying it's unusual among democracies, which complicates its acceptance by majorities who will experience minority veto. I'm saying it raises questions about why different groups forced together by the British years ago must be forced to act as one nation now, even though some groups (most notably the Kurds) want their own country.

While we're on the subject of how tough it is for women in Afghanistan, let's look at this: Taliban coming in from cold (csmonitor.com, 04/28/05).

President Karzai offered an olive branch to rank-and-file Taliban fighters last year and said all but a core group of 150 militants wanted for human-rights violations would be able to rejoin the political process. 'Not only the Taliban but all Afghans who are afraid of their past political affiliation can return home and resume their normal lives,' says Jawed Luddin, a Karzai spokesman. 'It is the time to rebuild our country.'

On the surface, this sounds like a nice step toward peace. However, peace generally requires that war criminals be brought to justice, and it's highly unlikely that the myriad atrocities done during the Taliban's long reign were performed by a mere 150 militants.

Other nations, such as Argentina, which let war criminals on the loose who had been prematurely forgiven by the government have failed to advance: the burdens of the crimes left unresolved have been too much for civil society to bear. The Afghan people have surely been through enough of an ordeal already, and don't need to bump into their torturers and the people who executed their relatives walking free in the streets.

The current Afghan government may think that it cannot afford to hold people accountable for their crimes during this tenuous and decisive time, but if it can't now, it may never be able to.

Why things haven't improved much for women in Afghanistan since the election: To understand why things are still dismal, you need to go back and look at how the candidates ran. BBC NEWS | World | South Asia | Silence over Afghan women's rights (news.bbc.co.uk, 10/07/04) describes the horrific societal conditions which lead to women's lives being ruined by male relatives and husbands (or their lack), yet which weren't touched upon by politicians for fear of backlash. In a country with 40% of voters being female, one would hope that there would be some movement toward improved conditions. But no. No one stuck their proverbial neck out, figuring women didn't have a choice.

That doesn't say much about democracy. Not much that's good, anyway.

Still winning hearts and minds around the world: BBC NEWS | World | South Asia | Afghan civilians die in air raid (news.bbc.co.uk). Yes, this is a small incident, but it's one of many, and they're adding up in the public's list of things to be angry about.

One of the more entertaining things about this article is this quote:

"All possible efforts are taken to prevent non-combatant injuries and deaths," the US military said in a statement issued from their base at Bagram.

All possible efforts, EXCEPT for wildly throwing bombs when civilians are around, it appears.

The U.S. is losing its popularity (such that it was) and influence in the region, and small incidents like this are contributing to that decline.

Why does popular protest work elsewhere in the world, but not in the U.S.?
t r u t h o u t - Mexico's Lopez Obrador Wins Round One: "People Power Rattling Politics of Latin America" by Danna Harman of The Christian Science Monitor (truthout.org, post dated 04/29/05). I'll provide a sample of this article since I'm reviewing and recommending it, but only to induce you to read the entire thing.

Mexico City - First came the indignation, then the street protests and the disapproving comments from foreign countries. It culminated last Sunday with an estimated 1.2 million Mexicans marching silently through center of the capital. But President Vicente Fox moved to defuse the political crisis Wednesday night by accepting the resignation of his attorney general, who had been leading the criminal case against popular Mexico City Mayor and 2006 presidential hopeful Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

Chalk up another victory for Latin American people power. In the 1990s, what politicians feared most was apathy. But lately, Latin Americans from Mexico City to Quito, Ecuador - much like the citizens of Ukraine and Lebanon - have been taking to the streets in unprecedented numbers. Civic protest is emerging as an increasingly effective - if controversial - political tool....

Since 1990, 10 South American leaders have had to step down before their terms ended, many eased out by mass protests against them, according to the Argentine think tank Nueva Mayoria. A popular uprising brought down Bolivian President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada in 2003, and then almost toppled his replacement, President Carlos Mesa, earlier this year; Peru and Argentina have all seen their governments fall, with angry crowds thronging the capital. In Ecuador, Mr. Guti[e]rrez is the third president in a decade to be forced from office. And Haiti has seen several elected leaders brought down by mass protests.

Go read it all, and then figure out what is different - why it is possible for mass protest to work elsewhere.

Of course, you should know that authoritarians HATE these popular revolts - they think that the public is a mob, and that any mass action to exert pressure is mob rule, no matter how peaceful. They don't explicitly say that they prefer secret rule by elites, which is tidier because it isn't democratic or inclusive, but I am suspicious.

t r u t h o u t - Pressured by FOIA Demands, Pentagon Releases Coffin Photos (truthout.org/latimes.com, 04/29/05)

Explain this: t r u t h o u t - Iraq Gets Partial Cabinet, Chalabi Deputy PM (truthout.org/AP, 04/28/05):

Ahmad Chalabi, a Shiite Arab and former Pentagon favorite, will be one of four deputy prime ministers and acting oil minister.

Actually, don't explain this if your explanation includes the phrase "pact with Satan."

Duh. t r u t h o u t - Tenet Admits WMD 'Slam-Dunk' Remark "Dumbest Ever" (truthout.org/repost from cnn):

Former CIA Director George Tenet said he regretted assuring President Bush in 2002 that he had 'slam dunk' evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

'Those were the two dumbest words I ever said,' Tenet told about 1,300 people at a Kutztown University forum Wednesday.

It's different in England: In England, people are still concerned about the legality of invading Iraq, and some are using the word "impeachment" with regard to legal memoranda that were kept secret by the government on that same topic. UK Election 2005 | Iraq war legal advice published (news.bbc.co.uk, 04/28/05).

In the This Modern World by Tom Tomorrow: Life During Wartime (thismodernworld.com, 04/17/05) Tom Tomorrow excerpts transcripts from Meet the Press which describe how heavily guarded American media representatives are, how it costs $35,000 for a semi-secure ride to the airport, and how the government is paying a fraction of the value of destroyed homes in Fallujah...

For a big picture discussion of what Bush and his allies really want from the region, see this entry, immediately prior to the one above.

Really, there are no WMDs: US closes book on Iraq WMD hunt (news.bbc.co.uk, 04/26/05).

The qualifiers about how someone in Iraq MIGHT KNOW how to make WMDs under theoretically better conditions is just pathetic.

Also not a surprise: Top [US] brass cleared over Iraq abuse (news.bbc.co.uk, 04/23/05).

No surprise here: US troops cleared over shooting (news.bbc.co.uk, 04/25/05):

US military investigators have cleared American soldiers of any wrongdoing over the death of an Italian agent, who was shot at a checkpoint in Baghdad.

There are several follow up articles with the Italian saved-from-Iraqis-shot-by-US hostage saying she thinks this is bull, and you can find those on your own. They abound.

The funny thing, for people who read the whole article, is realizing that the military clears everyone of wrongdoing with a very special technique: they make up a rule ('shoot whoever you want' could be a theoretical example), and then say that anyone who was complying with THEIR OWN RULE could not POSSIBLY have engaged in any "wrongdoing," because "wrongdoing" can only be defined relative to their own rule.

This is one reason the US is terrified of international laws: they actually involve REAL rules.

Saying sorry is SO difficult: The New York Times: Rice Ordered Release of German Sent to Afghan Prison in Error (nytimes.com, 04/23/05). What is the appropriate apology for a man who was wrongly imprisoned for months, tortured, and photographed naked by the U.S. -- who took him from the Serbian-Macedonian border to AFGHANISTAN?

Note to the Administration: "Don't sue us" is not an apology.

History lost in dust of war-torn Iraq (news.bbc.co.uk, 04/25/05) talks about the massive damage looting has caused to the cultural antiquities of Iraq.

It points out the shame of people looting the sites made by their ancestors... but also notes that many of the looted items are turning up in such nations as Italy and The United States. Plus, it provides this quote from a representative of the British Museum:

"US military vehicles crushed 2,600-year-old brick pavements, archaeological fragments were scattered across the site, more then 12 trenches were driven into ancient deposits and military earth-moving projects contaminated the site for future generations of scientists."

There is more. It is bad.

If you recall, the U.S. press initially reported looting, then recanted when the U.S. Administration said it could not have been that bad, and has been ambivalent about reporting it since. So this is a useful update.

The Washington Post delivers again: Eyes On Iraq: Second Impressions (flash slideshows with audio) (washingtonpost.com) provides the photographs and words from 11 photojournalists in Iraq. Each has a different perspective, based on their experiences; each provides interesting insights.

Highlights: Observations by several reporters that kidnappings and violence against Iraqis is underreported in favor of publicity for foreign kidnap victims; Ron Haviv's report on prison conditions, and the ongoing abuses still reported by recent prisoners, resulting in what locals describe as "you go in as an innocent man, and come out as an insurgent;" Anja Niedringhaus' report on a children's hospital's dismal conditions, and her surprise that foreign doctors and citizens are still attempting to help directly. None of these topics are emphasized in most American newspapers.

Even the optimists among these reporters, who believe that Iraq will soon be better off, provide comments which reflect the serious problems plaguing occupied Iraq. It's worth listening to all of these reports to get the diversity of opinion provided.

That which I have read jokes and comic strips about is true: 04/15/2005 | Bush administration eliminating 19-year-old international terrorism report (realcities.com):

WASHINGTON - The State Department decided to stop publishing an annual report on international terrorism after the government's top terrorism center concluded that there were more terrorist attacks in 2004 than in any year since 1985, the first year the publication covered.

Go read the entire article.

And then, if you like profane comics, read the 2nd and 3rd Get Your War On (Page 36) strips here. (mnftiu.cc)

You knew this: Iraqis 'suffer a lack of rights' (news.bbc.co.uk, 04/12/05). Particularly, lacks of rights guaranteed by international law for occupied nations.

It's a shame the U.S. only believes in international law when it's time to invade!

Iraq cannot produce enough drinking water to meet its needs. So how is the U.S. helping? Iraq blighted by poor services (news.bbc.co.uk,04/05/05).

The Americans have allocated $18.4bn dollars for reconstruction in Iraq, but Mr Misocni says more than 70% of the money his ministry was originally granted has now been reallocated to spending on defence and security.

Since the Iraqis don't have security, where is the money going?

Oh. To keep Americans safe. Americans, who should not BE there.

This approach will not get the water clean.

"The Americans brought the terrorists here. They weren't here before." This is from BBC NEWS | In pictures: Iraqi lives two years after Saddam, photos of Iraqis and commentary about what their situation is currently like. Many express optimism that a new government can help them, but nearly all also mention that there is no security, and corruption is now rampant, including among the police.

Where U.S. tax money is going: Fury at 'shoot for fun' memo (guardian.co.uk, 04/03/05). Private contractors doing the U.S.' dirty work abroad are embarrassing.

Dated 7 March and bearing the name of Blackwater's president, Gary Jackson, the electronic newsletter adds that terrorists 'need to get creamed, and it's fun, meaning satisfying, to do the shooting of such folk.'

The essential information that is lacking in the memo, but which would reveal much more about this sentiment expressed by a major mercenary agency, is what they define as a "terrorist."

The suspicion of many of us is that it is a) anyone who is not white, b) anyone who one is paid to shoot.

Speaking of laws that Bremer dissolved, read this: Squatters in ruins of Iraq build hopes on new government (guardian.co.uk, 04/04/05). It tells of how Iraqis who support the elected government wound up homeless and squatting in the ruins of Baghdad.

When the US-led invasion toppled the Ba'athist regime in April 2003, the system of price controls which kept rents artificially low evaporated.

Landlords across the country seized the opportunity to increase rents and to evict those who could not pay. Within weeks thousands of families were homeless and trekking to the capital in search of accommodation.

Yaay, capitalism?

Juan Cole is quoted in the BBC! Iraqi compromise fuels angry debate (news.bbc.co.uk, 04/06/05) discusses how the transitional laws put in place by the U.S. prevent majority rule from occurring in the someday "democratic" Iraq.

Under the U.S.'s rules, a 2/3 majority is required for all sorts of actions to pass, unlike in other democracies which require just 51%. So Iraq is held to a different standard than democracies in the rest of the world, and coincidentally, one of the minority parties that favors US involvement gets veto power over anti-US positions held by other groups.

It is an interesting case of social engineering and foreign intervention for many purposes. This article provides a good overview.

The occupation of Iraq by U.S. corporations: The BBC has a good article covering a few of the odd occupation orders issued by the U.S.' representative in Iraq that don't relate to the immediate well-being of the Iraqi people. US legal legacy for Iraqi economy (news.bbc.co.uk, 04/07/05) describes a few of the big items that the occupation saw fit to change, despite the limits on occupying powers in wartime. They are all economic, and all benefit U.S. and other multinational corporations. Excerpt:

Orders 37 and 49 slash top tax rates from 45% to 15% - one of the lowest rates in the world. Order 54 erases all duties on imports to Iraq. Order 39 allows 100% foreign ownership of Iraqi companies except in the oil, gas and banking sectors.

There are also quotes by pro-free-market-capitalist publications describing this arrangement as a "capitalist's dream."

The inherently undemocratic nature of having an occupying military authority issuing economic edicts favoring foreign control of local resources doesn't bother the cheerleaders, who believe that capitalism and democracy are inherently intertwined, even when only capitalism is in evidence.

Perhaps because the cheerleaders are foreign corporations.

It looks like the UK's odds are slightly better than the US': Hundreds arrested, few convicted (news.bbc.co.uk, 03/11/05). Out of 201 arrests on terrorism charges, 17 have been convicted of terrorism-related offenses, and some of those were related to the IRA or crimes committed Sikkhim or Sri Lanka. They found a few who had "Islamic" ties, but considering the number of people arrested...

Well, it's still not as bad as the U.S.' figures.

The U.S. isn't agonizing over smuggling suspects to torture-using nations as much as the British are agonizing over being used as an airport for the practice: Does UK turn a blind eye to torture? (news.bbc.co.uk, 04/05/05).

It's really difficult to have a vision of positive futures for your country and the world, and see others driving people apart for greed and empire. REALLY difficult. As if the only way to live in the world is through the violent, military oppression of others.

I guess it's easy to think like that if you assume everyone is violent and greedy, but the people who usually argue that usually appear to be projecting.

Just in case you haven't looked at images from the last country the U.S. "liberated," look at these images reflecting the status of women in Afghanistan: BBC NEWS | In pictures: The darkness within. (news.bbc.co.uk). Recall that Afghan women were *supposed* to be the major beneficiaries of U.S. intervention.

Yes, I was paying attention to the peace marches & protests around the world on the anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. And I've been paying attention to how protests still work in governments that still claim to be representative, like Ukraine or Kyrgyzstan, where threats to democracy, like the dubious elections that the U.S. has had in recent years, are overturned promptly after popular protest.

I think protest hasn't been working as effectively in the United States, because the ruling classes that dominate both of the official political parties feel completely insulated from any consequences of their actions. Having a media run by the same interests that own the politicians, plus a federal judiciary with partisan outbursts, enables all sorts of unpleasant facts to be kept from the public or made to look legitimate, whose votes may or may not be counted anyway.

I haven't been writing because I've been trying to find a positive way to present a solution to this, but it isn't materializing.

I do believe that, what little democracy remains in the U.S. will have to be very heavily nursed by a lot of people to survive. That people who were used to saying that they 'aren't political' and 'just want to do their own thing' will actually have to work to maintain the right to live that way by SOME active involvement in the nation, beyond shopping, partying, and praying.

If I can find a way to present this sensibly, I'll post it here.

Well, at least the genetic engineering companies feel safe in Iraq: With all the unrest in Iraq, you'd think that the U.S. would stay focused on what it claims it is there to do, which is currently maintaining order.

This would be more compelling if there was some evidence that it was what the U.S. was doing. But it looks like occupation authority's attention has been elsewhere: Plowing for Profits: U.S. agribusiness eyes Iraq's fledgling markets -- In These Times (inthesetimes.com, 03/28/05 issue) describes some strange things, including one of the legal orders Bremer left behind.

Order 81 paves the way for genetically modified crops (GMOs), stating: "Farmers shall be prohibited from reusing seeds of protected varieties." The order... etches into Iraqi law WTO-style patent protections for genetically engineered crops -- assuring U.S. GMO-producing firms a legally protected niche in the country's future.

Yes, while the Iraqi people were looking for safe drinking water, Bremer was concerned with corporate patent rights for products which haven't even been forced on the Iraqi people yet.

It's just amazing.

This was discussed in the foreign press and blogosphere ages ago, but now it's hitting the mainstream: US held youngsters at Abu Ghraib (bbc.co.uk, 03/11/05). Yes, there were kids as young as 11 in the prison where abuses occurred. Yes, there are documented incidents involving drunken American soldiers and underaged female detainees. And this:

In her interview, she said Maj Gen Walter Wodjakowski, then the second most senior army general in Iraq, told her in the summer of 2003 not to release more prisoners, even if they were innocent.

'I don't care if we're holding 15,000 innocent civilians,' she said Maj Gen Wodjakowski told her. 'We're winning the war.'

There's an attitude for you.

I think when the U.S. said that it wanted to "liberate" the Iraqi people, it really should have provided a definition of what "liberate" means to a country that until recently executed juveniles, had a big debate about executing the retarded, and who aren't concerned about whether incarcerated Iraqis are innocent or not.

Image of the Day: New Liberty.

Getting the Purple Finger, by Naomi Klein (thenation.com, 02/10/05) explains that the Iraqis voted for continued public investment, guarantees of jobs for all who need them, subsidized housing, and a U.S. withdrawal. That's not what they're going to get, according to U.S. officials who are contradicting 'the will of the people,' and instead feigning pride at the vote itself, not what was voted for.

It's amazing. Go read this.

This sucks: Agent Orange legal case dismissed (bbc.co.uk, 03/10/05). All the people who believe they were poisoned by the scary herbicide 'Agent Orange' during the American military operation in Vietnam (Vietnam War to Americans, American War to the Vietnamese) have been told by a U.S. judge that they no valid claims ANYWHERE (something of a reach). This long after the maker of the herbicide settled with American veterans for health problems they suffered.

For those of you paying attention, you may remember that Iraq is paying reparations to American corporations for projected profits they lost during the war that followed Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. Why is war-torn Iraq giving $190,000 to Toys R Us?, by Naomi Klein (guardian.co.uk and elsewhere, 10/16/04) So it's okay for the loser of one war to pay reparations for IMAGINARY BUSINESS LOSSES, but NOT okay for the loser of a devastating invasion in SE Asia to pay damages for health problems they actually caused?

What?

Creepy quote:

The US justice department had urged the federal judge to dismiss the lawsuit.

In a brief filed in January, it said opening the courts to cases brought by former enemies would be a dangerous threat to presidential powers to wage war.

All that talk about responsibility and morality, and THIS is what the U.S. government does?

Pretend to be surprised.

"Ramadi Madness?" US troops 'made Iraq abuse video' (bbc.co.uk) Yes, another abuse video. This one with titles for each sequence.

What is wrong with this people? Our military is good at brainwashing our troops to dehumanize our opponents, and Americans are already terrified of everyone else in the world, but still.

Things are not really improving in the U.S.' posture for war. I read a good interpretation this morning: that the Democrats are afraid that our wholly tabloid media will blame them for losing the war in Iraq if they criticize it, say anything negative about it, or (heaven forfend) demand that the U.S. forces leave Iraq, either immediately OR on ANY timetable.

That's exactly the sort of thing our (tabloid posing as news) media would do.

But it's created a gridlock legislatively, where the few Dems who stand up for troop withdrawals are attacked by other Dems trying to look good to a media which will never be their friend. Go figure.

Are you following this story? About how the US shot up the car containing rescued Italian hostage Guiliana Sgrena, injuring her and killing the secret service agent who had negotiated her release? Funeral for Italian shot in Iraq is the understated headline today. (bbc.co.uk, 03/07/05), though earlier articles on Ms. Sgrena's belief that there's no way such an incident could be accidental, were more lively.

The U.S. has been killing people in cars in Iraq near its checkpoints, including entire families, for some time, but most of their victims have been Iraqis, and the press has largely excused such behavior. Now that it is Italians dying under wild U.S. fire, the practice is coming under greater scrutiny.

The U.S. responded that it's ridiculous to believe that U.S. soldiers would target her. The quote from the article is: "It's absurd to make any such suggestion, that our men and women in uniform would target individual citizens." That's one of those strange, selectively worded answers which suggests that it IS perfectly reasonable to suggest that the uniformed US personnel DO target groups of citizens.

I suppose the U.S. will try to offer a few hundred dollars to this intelligence officer's family, the way they do to the bereaved in Iraq?

US comes to grips with 1500 dead (bbc.co.uk, 03/04/05).

Pitt's blog now has audio! Check out the Truth Out Overview with Will Pitt. (truthout.org)

Committee to Protect Bloggers announces its first campaign: Free Arash and Mojtaba. This is a campaign to free dissidents in Iraq and elsewhere who have been imprisoned for blogging about their situation. While the campaign is about 'bloggers' specifically, the concerns are human rights and freedom of speech - blogging is just a tool for speech, not the focus of this campaign.

Must read item of the day: as the U.S. media maintains its sunny outlook on the future of Iraq - perhaps because, regardless of who won, the corporate tax rate is permanently capped at 15 percent? - things are going to hell for moderates, secularists, and women who live there. Go read this at Riverbend's blog: Baghdad Burning: Groceries and Election Results. (riverbendblog.blogspot.com, 02/18/05).

Having recently read Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis, Riverbend's conversation and worries on what it's like for women in Iran, with the men saying it's not so bad, is especially creepy.

A nice, long explanation about how the Sunnis may not benefit from even the tiny consolation of a constitutional veto: Informed Comment's Guest Editorial by Andrew Arato points out that the alleged protection for Sunnis, the right to veto the constitution put forth by the people elected in the election they boycotted or couldn't get to, isn't guaranteed. This is a little long, but good, as everything on Dr. Cole's website is.

Also of interest, from his summary of Chalabi's recent interview, this quote:

“The agreement will deal with the right or how those U.S. forces detainees Iraqis. There are thousands of Iraqis now detained by U.S. forces. We don't know why. We don't know how. And we don't know under what legal structure they are being detained. I believe that this process should be an Iraqi process.”

Chalabi is a spooky guy, with a lot of ambition, and some undemocratic tendencies. (Cole accurately describes him elsewhere as a "corrupt expatriate financier and Iranian asset.") I'm surprised that even he is concerned about the U.S.' mass arrests, but it's worth noting.

Actually, there are so many informative things to read at juancole.com that you should just go, now, and read until your brain is full. He reports on the low turnout, the dubious assertions by the western press that various elected Iraqis are secular even though they espouse fundamentalist views publicly, etc.

Elections In Iraq: I like how the U.S. press, despite the fact that turnout wasn't very good, now pretend that everything is fine in Iraq because they had an election.

I mean, only 2% of Sunnis turned out in some areas, but that's FINE! (Fine for whom?) And now we can pretend that, even if the U.S. government pre-approved who could run in the election, that everyone will accept the results - even all those Sunnis who didn't vote - and all is legitimate now.

I have no idea why they think that. An optimistic guess would be that they think it will go over simply because fundamentalist-led, anti-occupation parties won seats far and away beyond the puppet government's. Yet, whenever someone is quoted about how great it is, the person quoted is never an Iraqi. So it comes across as a bit... off.

For those of you, like me, who need a short recap, the BBC FAQ about the election is here: BBC NEWS | World | Middle East | Q&A: Iraqi election (bbc.co.uk, 02/13/05).

Remember Afghanistan? That other country we invaded? Want to know how they're doing? Read this: UN warns of fresh Afghan chaos (bbc.co.uk, 02/21/05). The answer: things are extremely bad, getting worse, and may pose a threat to its neighbors.

It makes you think other nations might think twice before accepting U.S. "help."

Elections in Iraq. I'm not sure I understand the glowing reports about the recent elections in Iraq.

Firstly, the initial returns I've read about demonstrate that the result will be very much anti-occupation. Which is good, but not what the U.S. had in mind.

Secondyly, I'm unclear on how this is a step forward for democracy. If we were invaded by a foreign nation, and they picked out a slate of parties we could vote for in an election, without specific people being on the ballot, we'd call it a joke. A farce. Not legit. And then, when the election is held without international observers... Well. WE would never put up with such nonsense here.

And do we need to discuss Negroponte's role in this? His history of saying, 'death squads? I don't see any death squads?'

The International Action Center (iacenter.org) folks have written some good articles on this topic. This is from The Antiwar Movement and the Iraqi Elections:

This election is being conducted at gunpoint, administered by a war criminal, and stage-managed by CIA front companies. To pretend that this has anything to do with democracy is outrageous. The Iraqi people recognize this --among expatriates, 90 percent haven't even bothered to register to vote on Sunday.


What, then is the purpose of the phony election? It is actually directed at the U.S. public, which is growing increasingly disillusioned with the war. The sole intent of the election is to provide legitimacy for the occupation, to marginalize the resistance movement, and create an illusion of progress. The election, like the phony transfer of power, will change nothing on the ground in Iraq. On January 31, the day after the election, more than 150,000 U.S. troops will still occupy Iraq, the torture chambers of Abu Ghraib will still be full of Iraqi prisoners, and CIA employee Iyad Allawi will still be the U.S.-appointed dictator.

I've been told that many Americans are feeling better about the invasion, the massive civilian casualties, and the absence of WMDs now that an election for non-specific candidates has been held.

There must be something in the water.

I also found this interesting, from the IAC's statement on the elections in Iraq (also at iacenter.org, within frames I can't link directly to):

Returning Iraq to 1955. It is telling that the Bush Administration is claiming this is the first democratic election to be held in Iraq in fifty years. The election referred to as the last democratic election was held under a U.S. & British appointed monarchy to select an advisory body that had no executive or legislative power. Its only function was to provide a façade of legitimacy to the puppet regime; the election did not change the fact that the people of Iraq were under the thumb of U.S. and British oil companies. Less than 3 years later, a massive popular revolutionary upheaval overthrew the corrupt monarchy and, since that time, the U.S. and Britain have been trying to return Iraq to the same semi-colonial status. This election is part of their plan.

I will be interested to know how our media reports the election results, especially if they are going as I've read.