Civilian casualties mount in Hilla.

At least several dozen civilians are believed to have been killed in the area in the past few days, and the wards at Hilla's hospital are filled with hundreds of bleeding, moaning patients.

But the ones who may be remembered long after the war sweeps past this place are those who appeared to have been maimed by cluster bombs -- the tiny, unpredictable munitions notorious for the toll they took on civilians in the conflicts in Afghanistan, Kosovo and the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

[Just an aside here: how many of you remember reading reports of Kosovars being injured by our weapons? Or seeing photos of that in the papers? Me neither.]

The Pentagon admitted for the first time Wednesday that American forces are now using cluster bombs in the Iraq conflict...

Reporters who have visited Hilla's hospital since then have left with the strong impression that cluster munitions may have been responsible for many of the injuries there -- shrapnel driven into eyes, legs, breasts, brains and backs.

Residents of surrounding hamlets described a rain of the tiny explosives, which detonated either in the air, upon impact on buildings and -- most chillingly -- later on when they were bumped into on the ground by people or animals....

Pointing at six other beds occupied by youngsters with bloodstained bandages and bruises, she cried, "What did these little children do to the Americans? What did they do to Bush?"

This article continues to describe an attack against a civilian bus, which decapitated most of the occupants. The U.S. is trying to cast doubt on how these injuries took place. The reporter notes that the reports about houses being bombed are "vague," because the victims didn't get a good look at the bombs.

Seriously. The U.S. is dropping hundreds of thousands of bombs, shooting missiles, and firing from tanks, but whenever anyone is injured, the U.S. government suggests that it was SOMEONE ELSE's BOMB. This is completely implausible. The attempts of the U.S. regime to cast doubt that their massive bombing and shelling campaign is responsible for injuries defies all reason.

Intelligent life on this planet should be insulted.

*

Iraqometer has added two new categories. The 'cost per taxpayer' is on the lowest side of estimates I've read so far.

What does it mean when a large chorus of criticism from retired and current military officers angers the Bush Administration? General Myers (chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) calls the criticism of Rumsfeld's meddling, understaffing, and some poor scheduling decisions "bogus." Myers says the criticism was made by people who "either weren't there, don't know, or they're working another agenda."

Moreover, Myers added, "It is not helpful to have those kind of comments come out when we've got troops in combat because, first of all, they're false, they're absolutely wrong, they bear no resemblance to the truth, and it's just harmful to our troops that are out there fighting very bravely, very courageously."

(I think this is a nice addition to the earlier theme about the government not really having all that much respect for veterans.)

I find this interesting, because it sounds a bit paranoid to say that current and retired veterans/officers are both completely misguided AND may be "working another agenda," which is completely unspecified. What agenda might these conspiratorial veterans be working? Inquiring minds want to know!

Also, I like the continued myth that domestic criticisms are freely available to the soldiers in combat. Because the NY Times is being delivered to their tent doors, and they have enough time to read it all?

*

Reports expressed concern that a maternity hospital in Baghdad may have been 'bombed' by US forces.

In Baghdad, Red Crescent official Abdel-Hameed Salim told Reuters: "There were air raids. Some 25 people who work and live in the area were wounded. Three of our Red Crescent staff were also wounded." ...

Iraqi authorities said on Wednesday that at least 55 civilians had been killed by coalition forces in attacks on Baghdad and other cities in the past 24 hours.

At least 33 of the victims are reported to have died when US helicopter gunships strafed a residential neighbourhood in the city of Hilla on Tuesday....

[International Committee of the Red Cross] spokeswoman Nada Doumani said the team "witnessed a vehicle transporting bodies of men, women and children to the [Hilla] hospital and in the hospital they saw also some 300 injured people and it was very clear that this was the result of heavy fighting and bombings".

The Red Cross said the hospital was completely unable to cope....

The United States has admitted shooting dead seven women and children after their vehicle failed to stop at a checkpoint in Najaf on Monday, but said "the climate established by the Iraqi regime" had contributed to the incident.

Of course, that same bad climate wouldn't have caused these deaths in the absence of U.S. soldiers, but I think we're not supposed to know that.

*

Here are photos of more international protests for peace.

*

I should post more links to reporting by the Iraq Peace Team, a group of Canadian and American peace workers observing the impact of the war on the Iraqi people, and reporting it to all. They are featured in a Reuters story on the confusion of Baghdad residents over US intentions.

"People just ask why? They stress the point that they are not criminals and never wanted to attack the United States. It doesn't make logical sense to them," said Kathy Kelly, head of a group of activists who have been in Baghdad since October.

Speaking to Reuters by telephone, she said ordinary Iraqi's were struggling to understand Washington's talk of liberating Iraq, given the "viciousness" of the strikes, now in their seventh day...

"We met one woman last night who was so distraught, she had to be restrained," Breen said. "She had just lost one daughter and her three other children were in hospital. It is a fearful situation."

On Wednesday, a Reuters Television correspondent reported seeing 15 burned corpses in a poor residential part of Baghdad following a U.S. air raid....

"They have become like family to me and it is all the more inconceivable that we could be doing this to them," she said. "Especially now, it becomes increasingly hard to face these people who look so imploringly at me and just ask why this is happening.

"More than the bombs, I fear more for the soul of my own country and what we are doing as a nation. This is the time to turn around what is happening and change the course of history."

The Guardian Unlimited somehow was omitted from my weekly visit list. It is also the source of many great articles.

*

Wait a minute, I keep hearing that soldiers are fighting for my rights to free speech (which I admittedly don't believe anyway), but then how can this be possible? This Indymedia summary of a Reuters article is frightening: OREGON LAW WOULD JAIL WAR PROTESTERS AS TERRORISTS: "An Oregon anti-terrorism bill would jail street-blocking protesters for at least 25 years in a thinly veiled effort to discourage anti-war demonstrations, critics say.... lawmakers still expect a debate on the definition of terrorism and the value of free speech before a vote by the state senate judiciary committee, whose Chairman, Republican Senator John Minnis, wrote the proposed legislation. Dubbed Senate Bill 742, it identifies a terrorist as a person who "plans or participates in an act that is intended, by at least one of its participants, to disrupt" business, transportation, schools, government, or free assembly." There are links to the full article (which can be found at Findlaw and elsewhere).


*

How is Arundhati Roy so consistently great? This essay has so many good parts, I'm not sure which to quote to entice you to read the rest. But I'll choose this:

Finally [criticics of all that is American or British] should remember that right now, hundreds of thousands of British and American citizens are on the streets protesting the war. The Coalition of the Bullied and Bought consists of governments, not people. More than one third of America's citizens have survived the relentless propaganda they've been subjected to, and many thousands are actively fighting their own government. In the ultra-patriotic climate that prevails in the US, that's as brave as any Iraqi fighting for his or her homeland.

While the "Allies" wait in the desert for an uprising of Shia Muslims on the streets of Basra, the real uprising is taking place in hundreds of cities across the world. It has been the most spectacular display of public morality ever seen.

Most courageous of all, are the hundreds of thousands of American people on the streets of America's great cities - Washington, New York, Chicago, San Francisco. The fact is that the only institution in the world today that is more powerful than the American government, is American civil society. American citizens have a huge responsibility riding on their shoulders. How can we not salute and support those who not only acknowledge but act upon that responsibility? They are our allies, our friends.

Sites I now visit every day:
Text

• BBC News World Edition
  
• San Francisco's Independent Media Center, a collaborative news publishing project run by ordinary, yet very talented and dedicated, people
  
• Indymedia.org, the international Independent Media Center
  
• SFGate (San Francisco Chronicle Online), and its Day In Pictures Feature
  

Audio

BBC World News Live (audio, real player, other versions available)

Enemy Combatant Radio, a webcast of local news and a wild variety of music

Sites I visit every week or so:

• This Modern World, a web log by the author of the comic strip of the same name
  
• Truthout.org, because someone is always sending me a great article from this site about the war
  
• Der Spiegel (in German) with cover stories summarized in English
  
• German Indymedia (in German), along with Cleveland Indymedia, Mumbai Indymedia, and other locales from which I'm wildly unlikely to hear opinions reflected in the mainstream media
  
• Not quite weekly, but increasingly often: The New York Times Multimedia page
  
• Al Jazeera, the post-hacker link, to see what the rest of the world sees.
  

*

Last week there were huge demonstrations for peace around the world. Indymedia's figures:

Spain (many cities) - 1,000,000 - M26
Syria, Damascus - 500,000 to 1,000,000 - M25
Indonesia, Jakarta - 300,000 to 500,000 - M30
Morocco, Rabat - 200,000 - M30
Algeria, Algiers -200,000 - M27
India, Calcutta - 150,000 - M30
Iran, Tehran - 100,000s - M29
Pakistan, Peshawar - 100,000 - 200,000 - M29
Germany (across various cities) - 100,000 - 150,000 - M30
Yemen, Saana - 100,000 - M27
Spain, Rota - 60,000 - M30
Bangladesh, Bazar - 50,000 - M30
France, Paris - 50,000 - M29
Greece, Athens - 50,000 - 100,000 - M29
Lebanon, Tripoli - 40,000 - M28
Massachusetts, Boston - 30,000 - 50,000 - M29
South Korea - 30,000 - M29

How many of those did you see on TV?

*

Speaking of TV journalism, I wish I had attended the protest against Fox News' biased reporting. (I had to work that lunch hour.) It keeps getting worse:

Fox News had its own response to the demonstrators. The news ticker rimming Fox's headquarters on Sixth Avenue wasn't carrying war updates as the protest began. Instead, it poked fun at the demonstrators, chiding them.

"War protester auditions here today ... thanks for coming!" read one message. "Who won your right to show up here today?" another questioned. "Protesters or soldiers?"

Since we established our own darned right to free speech and assembly when we both protested againts and then fought against England for our independence, I would say both. Or, I would say, 'a lot of dead guys a really long time ago, who wouldn't watch Fox News.' But that might sound biased.

*

While visiting The Fatal Second Banana: Vice Presidents and How They Suck, I realized that the author has a rather entertaining web log. It includes a well expressed commentary on why every single person in the military is NOT, in fact, defending our freedom. This seems especially obvious in instances in which we are attacking countries which have never, in fact, attacked us, yet it still needs to be said.

I support our troops, in that I want them to come home alive, have good health care, and live in decent housing.

Other people support our troops by wanting to send them into harm's way in distant countries that have never attacked us, where they are unwelcome.

But we can use the same words, and the latter group has first dibs on the meaning of 'support' as reported in the media.

Politics corrupts language.

*

What timing: a colleague just forwarded this Iraq War Quiz by Stephen R. Shalom, which features a similar theme:

1. The anti-war movement supports our troops by urging that they be brought home immediately so they neither kill nor get killed in a unjust war. How has the Bush administration shown its support for our troops?

a. The Republican-controlled House Budget Committee voted to cut $25 billion in veterans benefits over the next 10 years.

b. The Bush administration proposed cutting $172 million from impact aid programs that provide school funding for children of military personnel.

c. The administration ordered the Dept. of Veterans Affairs to stop publicizing health benefits available to veterans.

d. All of the above.

Unfortunately, the correct answer is D. Visit Truthout to read its many, many excellent articles.

*

S mentioned to me yesterday that Peter Arnett has been fired AGAIN, this time for going on Iraqi television with his personal opinions that the war isn't going as smoothly as U.S. forces had planned. In the last Gulf War, he was fired for visiting a baby formula factory that had been bombed and reporting on it. That sounds benign, but the official U.S. line was that the factory was making chemical weapons, and the fact that he tasted the baby formula and brought packets of it from the ruins to hand out to locals was considered dangerous anti-propaganda. (See my earlier entry on this event).

While going on Iraqi TV was something he likely thought could get him some good interviews later, and which would benefit him under other circumstances, it was a gesture the U.S. propaganda war (which, apparently, we're also losing OUTSIDE of the U.S.) could not afford.

I suppose the U.S. government will eventually give up on having journalists stationed anywhere, and just have a military press office make announcements for the network news talking heads to read aloud. Much like last time.

*

Photos: unhappy civilians flee Basra; scenes from international protests on March 30th; and anti-war protesters without a permit are pepper-sprayed, just because.

There is a very sad article in the excellent Observer called This is the reality of war. We bomb. They suffer. I haven't read anything in a U.S. paper quite like this. Should I wonder why? Or are children U.S. bombs paralyze not news? (Or at least, not as worthy news as the latest playstation game, or who wore what at the Oscars?) No, don't answer that.

I took a nearly two-day vacation from reading war-related media, yet war still disturbs my dreams.

*

I was reading this May 2002 Time Magazine article on Bush's obsession with Iraq. It suggests that Bush has been planning this war since he was sworn in.

Rumsfeld has been so determined to find a rationale for an attack that on 10 separate occasions he asked the CIA to find evidence linking Iraq to the terror attacks of Sept. 11. The intelligence agency repeatedly came back empty-handed. The best hope for Iraqi ties to the attack - a report that lead hijacker Mohamed Atta met with an Iraqi intelligence official in the Czech Republic - was discredited last week....

But other Administration principals fear that Saddam is working his own U.N. angle for the return of weapons inspectors to Iraq, whose presence could make the U.S. look like a bully if it invades. "The White House's biggest fear is that U.N. weapons inspectors will be allowed to go in," says a top Senate foreign policy aide.

From the moment he took office, Bush has made noises about finishing the job his father started. Sept. 11 may have diverted his attention, but Iraq has never been far from his mind. By the end of 2001...the communications team was plotting how to sell an attack to the American public. The whole purpose of putting Iraq into Bush's State of the Union address, as part of the "axis of evil," was to begin the debate about a possible invasion.

Yes, that is from May 2002.

It's not so much the fact that Bush has been determined to start a war that bothers me about the tone of the article - my hopes for this Administration's intentions have always been low. It's the fact that the article never questions for a moment the idea of the United States unilaterally forcing a regime change. Perhaps it is an attempt at 'objectivity,' but there are serious ethical questions that should always be considered when OVERTHROWING the head of a sovereign nation, and none of those are raised at all.

*

From a colleague: Iraqometer.com, with its tallies of civilian casualties (currently at 580), WMDs found (gee, at zero, who would have thought), and with its cool graphics. Some of the best material is on the About page, including a scary quote from Bush Sr. as to why occupying Iraq is a terrible idea, and these stats:

Percentage of Americans who currently support this war: 72%

Percentage of Americans who believe Iraq attacked the World Trade Center: 51%

Percentage of Americans who cannot locate Iraq on a world map: 65%

How did all these stupid people wind up living in MY home country? What the heck went wrong?

*

Here's a good reason not to fly Delta: "the U.S. government is assembling dossiers on American citizens and then assigning them each their own Threat Assessment Color -- red, yellow or green. Under a pilot program, from March until June the dossiers are being collected as soon as anyone buys a ticket on Delta Airlines to fly via a handful of unspecified airports...

No citizen will be able to challenge a dossier, or even see it; or even to learn whether he or she has been labeled a yellow citizen or a green, much less why. Green citizens are to be waved through airline boarding with the usual scrutiny, red citizens to be detained as likely terrorists; the big question is yellow citizens, who will be searched more suspiciously but then allowed onto the plane -- with their "yellow" designation winging through cyberspace ahead of them, to who knows whom and with what effect.

More information at Boycottdelta.org.

*

From the 'oh, and I thought I was having enough nightmares' file, this item from the English-language edition of Der Spiegel:

According to a classified document leaked from the Pentagon last month, the Bush administration is planning a secret meeting in August at the "Strategic Command" headquarters in Omaha, Nebraska, and the topic on the agenda will be further development of the US nuclear program. The objective is to develop smaller, tactical nuclear weapons and neutron bombs, weapons to be deployed in preventive attacks against "rogue nations." According to Pentagon chief Rumsfeld, potential targets include North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Libya.

I joked at work about selling T-shirts with the US flag and the words "rogue nation" underneath, but... but... the very thought...

The article also quotes former president Carter in words I had not previously read: "Now a group of conservatives, under the cover of war, is attempting to pursue the ambitions it has harbored for years."

*

Last Thursday I heard a radio item on the every so excellent BBC World Service. The speaker said that Rumsfeld referred to the chemical weapons treaty as a "straightjacket" in February, and wants to use chemical weapons in Iraq. The US considers the weapons legal, but most of the world doesn't. The BBC host wondered if the US could possibly anticipate the 'hypocrisy' other countries would view the use of such agents by the US as, since it's chemical weapons that we claim were our motivation for rushing into Iraq in the first place.

I was in shock and awe. Would the US really use chemical weapons?

Do you really want me to answer that question? This is from, of all places I never personnally look, Fox Marketwire:

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons oversees countries' moves to stop developing, stockpiling, transferring and using chemical weapons. The treaty even bans using these harmful agents during military operations. It specifies: "Each state party undertakes not to use riot-control agents as a method of warfare."

That provision came under hot debate during the 15 years it took to craft the treaty. It arose as an objection to the United States' reliance on tear gas to flush out Viet Cong fighters and kill them during the Vietnam War.

[I had no idea the U.S. did that. The chemical agent used was non-lethal, but the end result was quite lethal...]

Army Major General David Grange ordered his troops to use tear gas on hostile crowds of Serbs in Bosnia six years ago but complained that red tape prevented him from using it more often.

"We didn't kill anyone," Grange, who is retired, told The Associated Press. "It saved lives."

And now, the part that I fear earned this a mention in the BUSINESS section, rather than, say, news or world affairs or ethics:

A Pennsylvania State University institute prepared a 50-page report with Pentagon funding in October 2000 that explored a range of drugs - including Prozac, Valium and Zoloft - for use as "calmatives" for crowds.

The researchers found "use of non-lethal calmative techniques is achievable and desirable." Despite the endorsement, Marine Capt. Shawn Turner of the non-lethal weapons directorate said the military stopped "calmative" research because such drug-weapons could violate international law.

I'm sure pharmaceutical stocks rose one and a quarter percent upon this news. @#$%^&*!!

More on media complaints, on an article about the United Way of Florida cancelling Sarandon's speaking engagement for them because of her anti-war views.

Meanwhile, anti-war groups in the US say their advertisements are being blocked by the country's broadcasters.

CNN, Fox, MTV, and Comedy Central, turned down spots featuring celebrities like Susan Sarandon talking with "experts" about war issues, said one group, TrueMajority.org, while other groups also complained about being refused airtime.

*

In BBC correspondent Paul Wood's latest missive, "Resigned Baghdad struggles on", a sad tone:

The Americans may hope they will be welcomed as liberators, and that the Iraqi regime is not popular.

But it is the Americans who are not popular here.

It's a culmination of 12 years of crushing sanctions, two years of Israeli-Palestinian fighting in which the United States has been seen as supporting the Israeli side, and because it's widely believed that the US has come to Iraq to steal its oil....

The bombing in the Baghdad city market was another propaganda coup for the Iraqi regime.

I went to the scene and it was really quite terrible.

There were two huge holes in the ground, cars and trees were still on fire, and body parts thrown everywhere.

These images were shown on Iraqi television, and printed in Iraqi newspapers.

On the back page of one of the main Iraqi newspapers, there was a whole page of photographs showing a severed torso and a head cut in half.

These images have an enormous impact.

Whether or not the market was hit by an American missile, it is believed to be an American missile by the Iraqi population.

*

I wish I could have attended the vigil and funeral procession led by Interfaith Witness for Peace in the Middle East this morning in front of the Federal Building. "80 dissidents (including several priests and rabbis) were arrested for engaging in civil disobedience. All were reportedly released without charges after signing release of liability forms from the Department of Homeland Security."

Let me set a theme for today's posting: media manipulation of the news that the American people receive is a major problem.

Krugman's article, 'Channels of Influence' reveals that "Most of the pro-war demonstrations around the country have, however, been organized by stations owned by Clear Channel Communications, a behemoth based in San Antonio that controls more than 1,200 stations and increasingly dominates the airwaves."

Experienced Bushologists let out a collective "Aha!" when Clear Channel was revealed to be behind the pro-war rallies, because the company's top management has a history with George W. Bush. The vice chairman of Clear Channel is Tom Hicks, whose name may be familiar to readers of this column. When Mr. Bush was governor of Texas, Mr. Hicks was chairman of the University of Texas Investment Management Company, called Utimco, and Clear Channel's chairman, Lowry Mays, was on its board. Under Mr. Hicks, Utimco placed much of the university's endowment under the management of companies with strong Republican Party or Bush family ties. In 1998 Mr. Hicks purchased the Texas Rangers in a deal that made Mr. Bush a multimillionaire.

There's something happening here. What it is ain't exactly clear, but a good guess is that we're now seeing the next stage in the evolution of a new American oligarchy. As Jonathan Chait has written in The New Republic, in the Bush administration "government and business have melded into one big `us.' " On almost every aspect of domestic policy, business interests rule: "Scores of midlevel appointees . . now oversee industries for which they once worked." We should have realized that this is a two-way street: if politicians are busy doing favors for businesses that support them, why shouldn't we expect businesses to reciprocate by doing favors for those politicians - by, for example, organizing "grass roots" rallies on their behalf?

We used to mock government-run radio in other countries. But now that corporations are running the government AND the airwaves, no one is mocking. I'm certainly not laughing.

This harkens back to my post about the Biotic Baking Brigade member's recent comments on the pro-war slant of the media. To paraphrase again, he said that many progressive groups think that Big Media is being 'unfair' by omitting progressive views, but don't realize that Big Media is not concerned with fairness: it is concerned with consistently representing its own corporate/defense contractor/nuclear power generator/pop music owning/political interests.

That is not democratic. Capitalistic, yes, but not part of a "free" culture with "free" access to information.

*

I attended a lunch time protest at CNN's San Francisco Bureau at 50 California Street yesterday, to protest their gung-ho, blood-free coverage of the war.

At the protest, some non-corporate media resources were shared, including Electronic Iraq (a site with reports from those staying in Iraq, and peace groups) and IraqBodyCounty.net ("The B-2 bomber carries sixteen 2'000 lb. JDAM bombs. If all goes 100% as planned (the bomb does not fall outside of its specified margin of error of 13 meters, and the GPS guidance system is not foiled by a $50 radio jammer kit, easily purchased), then here is what one such bomb does: everyone within a 120 meter radius is killed; to be safe from serious shrapnel damage, a person must be at least 365 meters away; to be really safe from all effects of fragmentation, a person must be 1000 meters away, according to Admiral Stufflebeem. The B-2s will be used upon targets within Baghdad.")

The Chronicle's report on the protest preserves the cheer I'd forgotten to write down: "Independent journalism is dead and gone when the media is in bed with the Pentagon." And also provides the understatement of the day: "Media really has played an uncritical role that has not helped America make the most democratic decisions," said Global Exchange spokesman Ted Lewis.

It was great that Global Exchange, Media Alliance and Code Pink Women for Peace organized this gathering, brought bullhorns, and coordinated people to present a consistent and clearly articulated viewpoint.

*

Another good international news link: BBC Monitoring, " based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages." They're the source of good world view summaries on BBC news.

Another good local, independent resource: Waterman's March 2003 photographs of anti-war signs. This page represents a good collection of images.

*

The civilian deaths in the marketplace that was hit by two missiles are 'unresolved.' The U.S., which admitted it was firing missiles into Baghdad at the time, is denying it's likely culpability. The Us has alleged that it must have been Iraq's anti-aircraft guns that shelled the area, but the BBC reports that explanation is "unlikely because we simply haven't heard any anti-aircraft fire in the city for the past four days".

*

Today: protests continue in New York against media and corporate profiteering from the war. Complaining about inadequate access to the media, one protester remarked:

"Nothing else gets attention," said protester Johannah Westmacott. "It's not news when people voice their opinions."

(This means I've succeeded in choosing items that fit the media theme!)

More photos of Anti-war rallies around the world.

*

More commentary on CNN and the inadequate media, this from an editorial posted to Indymedia Mumbai:

They're still talking about the impact on Airlines! God!!!!! FUCK!!!!!!!! STOP!!!!!!!!!! I cant take this any more!!!!!! This is the pinnacle of western civilization!!!!! 3 hours before the biggest war we're going to see in a long time, and they're talking about how its effecting the airline industry and wallowing in sadness!!! Do they even know what war is? Do they know what death is? What are they smoking? How do they numb themselves like this?....

I thought it'll be at least interesting 3 hours before armageddon, but apparently we're going to go down in a splattering of market forces. shit. ok, when do we come to the impact of war on people? shit - we've got the impact on the airline industry, on london markets, on asian markets, on vivendi, shit!!!! haha - he just said that in asia, public has been against war, but then proudly saying how all governments are supporting iraq - how indicative of the democracies in which we live, and he doesn't even get the irony...

More stuff you won't see on CNN: photos of the police using water cannons at a protest in Hamburg, Germany on Tuesday. Yes, the protests continue around the world, while mainstream media coverage ignores it.

This site, Indymedia Germany, also has great photos from Saturday's protest in Berlin, Frankfurt, and many other cities.

*

Here's a new link for Al Jazeera(h). The link I posted and articles I reviewed at english.aljazeera.net have all gone away, for reasons unknown.

*


Two explosions killed more than a dozen in Baghdad this morning.

The BBC's Rageh Omaar said: "On either side of the road in the main bit of al-Shaab district I saw several destroyed houses and apartment blocks.

"I saw human remains, bits of severed hands, bits of skull.

"Al-Shaab is a residential district. I saw people in apartment blocks throwing out their belongings attempting to leave.

"It was a scene of confusion as emergency services tried to rush to the scene."

Our correspondents were unable to find an obvious military target in the area....

"What seemed to be two missiles have landed in a busy shopping parade in the suburb of al-Shaab - we could see the craters."...

"Residents insisted there was no military target nearby and indeed, we couldn't see any."

The video associated with this on the BBC's website said they'd counted 15 corpses.

It will be interesting to see how this is handled. On the radio, it sounded like the US government had admitted to bombing the city, but not THAT part of the city.

In print, first: "US Central Command said it could not confirm the report that a civilian area was bombed." Then later, "1838: US Central Command in Qatar admits coalition forces used precision guided weapons to attack Iraqi missile installations near a residential area of Baghdad, where Iraqi authorities say 14 civilians were killed. The US says the missiles were positioned less than 90 metres (300 feet) from homes." But in my local paper, the government is hotly denying any association with this incident.

It's bad PR. Is even the debate over it too bad to appear on American television at all?

*

[For the first time, I saw this announcement at the bottom of a BBC item: "The movements of those reporting from Baghdad are restricted and their reports are monitored by the Iraqi authorities." It would be amusing to see a similar disclaimer from the 'embedded' journalists, whose reports and movements are limited by the U.S. military.]

*

The Chronicle's Jeanne Carstensen runs a "war blog" with links that others recommend to her about the war. Good links she provides that I especially like: Newseum's 'Today's Front Pages' -- 227 scanned images of the front page of newspapers from 27 countries (it's great - you can open the image, and if you want a closer look to read all the text, an Adobe PDF window opens. The resolution is great!! Plus, links to the newspapers' official websites are provided); and the Guardian World News Guide, which provides links, organized regionally, to news sources around the world. It's great stuff!

*

The Guardian reports on March 26th's anti-war protests, and has an additional ongoing Special report on the anti-war movement, with articles about demonstrations for peace around the world, plus evaluations of the groups and events.

Act surprised: contractors who made big campaign donations are getting contracts to rebuild Iraq. I am especially charmed by the employees who mock the protesters, noting that their own company isn't destroying the things they plan to rebuild. They don't as clearly note that they bought their rights to the work, nor that the sorts of facilities they plan to rebuild should not have been destroyed in the first place.

Reporter Robert Fisk visits Baghdad hospitals and is mortified by civilians with shrapnel wounds. It's a rather sad article. Sad and angry that history is repeating itself once again, in a place that has been invaded and conquered entirely too many times, always at the expense of innocents.

Noteworthy are his comments about how invaders always attempt to blame civilian casualties on the locals, especially local defense forces. The President, you may have noticed, has been trying to warm the country up for this in his speeches, implying that Hussein might use terrible weapons against his own people. We're dropping bombs in civilian areas and have acknowledged that civilian "casualties" (people being casual?) are likely, but are suggesting that anything REALLY bad must be caused by the locals.

*

Also very sad: reports from the Peace team of observers living in Baghdad. They, too, visit hospitals. They also see rooms full maimed children. They post photographs of the injured (which we should not be afraid to see) and comments like this:

"One father held up the x-ray of his son's body, which we could see was filled with pieces of metal. And holding his son's hand, he told us: "I want the world to see my son. I want America to see his face. Maybe then they will stop this madness. What crime has he done? We did not attack the US, why do they attack our children?"

(They are much less bitter than I would likely be, bearing witness to such violence to people. I would be tempted to post something terrible and sarcastic, like the roadwork signs you see near construction sites: "Your tax dollars at work!" This is too horrific.)

Their goals are:

* We will live among the Iraqi people during any aggression directed at them, including continued economic sanctions.
* We will use our presence and non-violent actions to witness, understand and expose the situation of both the civilian population of Iraq and highlight the importance of facilities such as water purification plants that are critical to daily life.
* We will report on our experiences in Iraq through this website, our support teams, and all who will listen.

Their reporting seems very necessary, as the world's media spends its time celebrating the 'nearly indestructible' tanks, and couching the targets of the glorious American guns in euphemisms (mechanized units and enemy tanks, rather than PEOPLE who we know must be there). People really are there. People really are living under terrible conditions. People are getting hurt and killed. No matter how sanitized reporting in the US is, people must KNOW that.

"Embeds" or "In Bed"? That's the sensible question asked about the attitudes of the reporters traveling with soldiers in Iraq. Of course they bond with the soliders, upon whom they rely for safety. Of course they begin to share an interest in mutual well being. Of course this slants the sort of news they report, especially in isolation, when the officers feed them information that they cannot verify.

It's a brilliant plan on the part of the Pentagon.

*

Here in San Francisc, focused protests continued Monday. About 2,300 people have been arrested so far.

Anti-war demonstrators are turning away from the widespread protests that disrupted San Francisco last week and are instead using smaller actions focusing on the government and businesses that contribute to the U.S. war effort, activists said Monday....

On Monday, a few hundred protesters organized by Direct Action to Stop the War chose two sites in San Francisco to test the new strategy -- the Federal Building and the Carlyle Group, a politically connected investment firm with offices in the Transamerica Pyramid.

In a separate action at San Francisco State University, several hundred students held a peace rally that ended with a sit-in at the school's administration building....

...Downtown, the action started around 7 a.m. at Justin Herman Plaza, where a couple of hundred people gathered before walking up Market Street in a mock funeral procession to mourn people killed in the first days of the war -- U.S. soldiers and Iraqis alike.

I can't help but find this witty:

Compared to some of the other arrestees over the past week, this was kind of nice," said Police Department spokesman Bob Mammone.

"They're not yelling epithets at us," he said. "It's a real peaceful, serene scene here, especially with the chanting. And the yoga was nice to watch, but unfortunately, they're still getting arrested."

And this:

"There were no fights, no struggles, and nobody resisted arrest," [Deputy Chief] Bruce said. "Yoga for Peace has been out here every day. They are very nice, and they are extremely limber."

*hysteria*

*

At about 3:43 my time, a BBC newscaster misspoke on BBC World Services. He talked about a new opinion poll saying that up to half of people polled support the military action by the "Coalition of the United States and America." That's about how I've been thinking of the so-called "coalition," overwhelmingly made up of U.S. forces. The U.S. government emphasizes that more than 30 nations support the attack, but omit the 130 or so that oppose it.

One of my colleagues of British ancestry notes that American casualties have just caught up with British casualties, despite the fact that the British wildly outnumber the Americans in the attack on Iraq.

He also noted that, in the last Gulf War, the Americans killed more British soldiers than the Iraqis did. This included incidents of anti-tank weapons being used against lightly armored British vehicles, the survivors of which were killed by American gun fire.

"Friendly fire" may be the world's strangest euphemism.

*

Meanwhile, US forces have come to Basra, yet there is no cheering in the streets.

Consider what happened in Basra last Saturday when there were air raids. The Qatari television channel al-Jazeera had a team in the city and it sent back graphic pictures of dead and wounded civilians which were widely shown in the Arab world.

But these images have been all but ignored in the West, which seems more interested in pictures of the American prisoners of war.

People do not take kindly to being bombed, even by "friendly forces"....

[A foreign correspondent]quoted another man, a farmer named Said Yahir, as saying that the marines had come to his house and had taken his son, his rifle and 3m dinars (£500; $800).

"This is your freedom that you're talking about? This is my life savings," he said.

A BBC article notes that the people of Basra have gone for four days without drinking water.

*

Another valuable media link: Al Jazeera's English-language web pages.

*

Here's a report from Monday evening's small march through town.

This movement may well not be enough to stop this war: I'm not sure that it can. But we do not march simply to stop the war: we march because we cannot sit idly by while our country engages in such a flawed policy. We cannot go about our normal business-as-usual, while Iraqi men, women and children are murdered, with our tax dollars.

In short, we march to be true to ourselves.

Won't you join us? There's room, for everyone.

*
Emil Guillermo praises the protesters.

When you don't have 30 seconds on a worldwide Oscar telecast, like documentary filmmaker Michael Moore does, to denounce the president's "fictitious war," the next best thing is to take to the streets with a few thousand like-minded folks.

Nothing un-American about that.

You've got to get attention and be heard.

Besides, who else is there to remind us, whether we acknowledge it or not, that the real embedding that's taken place these last few days has been the war into our lives?

And yet, how many try to move on with their day, pretending that the war is being waged at our convenience? That it's somewhere over there, and that we really are as disconnected from, and blameless about, the violence and killing as we'd like to think?

You can always turn CNN off by remote control and watch the Cartoon Network, where the bad guys fall with a single punch. And then you can go about your business.

But the protesters keep us from forgetting the truth.

We need them now more than ever. The debate over the morality and legality of war isn't over.

*

It is interesting that, even though the US sold a variety of WMDs to Iraq of the years, it's really mad at Russia for alleged sales to Iraq for such goods as night vision goggles. It's more interesting that the allegations surface as disputes break out between Russia and the US over such things as whether the Iraq war is legal.

What a coincidence. Russia does something that angers the US, and suddenly the US has information that Russia has done something illegal. Golly. (Russia has its own allegations of US misdeeds.)

*

Today's World View's column in the Chron is worthwhile, as always.

More mildly, a Chinese expert in foreign affairs told the China Daily, "It is distressing and regretful to see military actions when the people around the world are longing for peace." A political scientist at a Beijing think tank more forthrightly stated that the U.S. attacks "on a sovereign nation, without U.N. approval, reflect its contempt [for] the international order, the international security system and the United Nations.... The United States may win the war, but it will lose the support of the world."

Mr. Gomez's World Views homepage has a fabulous collection of links to news periodicals all over the world.

It's not just me: Russia wants the security council to decide whether the US attack on Iraq is legal. I think this is great, but also worrisome. The UN has been a force to move the world toward order and justice throughout its existence. It hasn't quite gotten there, but it's been moving world governments in the right direction. Now, as implications that the US is engaging in a variety of activities in violation of international conventions, including those against torture and the public display of POWs (that's the image that a network news personality said shows "incredible American compassion")... Well, I fear the consequences.

On the one hand, the unilateral attack violates international law, and the UN should say so. But I fear that the US will react very badly to such a decision, and become even more self-serving and isolated. That wouldn't be the UN's fault, but it would be good to avoid.

*

"Footage of captured US soldiers broadcast on Iraqi television violates the Geneva Convention, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which says neither side in the conflict should show pictures of prisoners of war....The ICRC says the same rules apply to the pictures of Iraqis surrendering to American and British forces shown all over the world over the last few days.

Those rules should have also been applied to images of PoWs at the US base of Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.


"At that time, we approached the US authorities to ask them not to use these pictures," she says.


For more than a year now, the American Government has been criticised for the way it has treated hundreds of prisoners from the fighting in Afghanistan, says the BBC's diplomatic correspondent Barnaby Mason.

It has denied that those held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba have the rights of PoWs - instead Donald Rumsfeld came up with the description "unlawful combatants".

Pictures of some of them hooded and kneeling have been shown on television.

*

So SF: protesters practicing yoga while waiting to be arrested at today's protest.

*

19 more Afghans have been freed from US 'enemy combatant' camps, according to the BBC. "Last October three Afghans held in Guantanamo Bay were returned home. Two were believed to be in their seventies. They told the BBC they had been locked in tiny cells in sweltering heat for long periods, but had not been beaten."

*

Here's a nice report from the streets about how the protests go, generally. Friendly, non-violent, and requiring comfortable shoes.

*

Photos of damage to Iraq's civilian facilities are out there, which is good. It means that all of our news isn't being censored! Even though I found this on a British site, it's a good sign that the flow of information is relatively free. Unlike during Gulf War I.

According to the folks at MoveOn.org, "The White House didn't request a single dollar for humanitarian aid to Afghanistan in this year's budget -- Congress had to take the unusual step of adding in $300 million."

Oh, wait, that was last year's war, so it's over, and we don't have to worry about the well being of the Afghans any more. Never mind.

*

More worldwide protests spring up everywhere. Even in Switzerland! (Since when do the Swiss protest?) At protests breaking out around Africa, "Archbishop Desmond Tutu said the attack on Iraq was an 'immoral' war in which America was abusing its power."

*

I haven't listed any cool Quaker peace groups yet, have I? the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) is a very worthy group.

*

I still love Move On's anti-war leaflets. They're concise, and have all the best facts. Of course, their Win Without War site is still great, as are their photos from the March 16th global candlelight vigils.

*

Last link of the night: Mark Fiore's brilliant Blusterizer animation.

Direct Action to Stop the War is another organization I need to add to my list of anti-war groups. They helped coordinate many of this week's massive civil disobedience actions.

*

"Hey, Arlene! Why are people protesting in the street? It's not like the President cares what they do."

I can't speak for anyone but myself, but the point of protesting is not an all-or-nothing, 'change the Bush Administration's policies or bust' action. It has many purposes: it's let's people abroad know that Americans do not all support war over diplomacy; it provides a community outlet for those opposed to the war to join and communicate; and it attracts the attention of the corporate media, who have completely disinfranchised the majority of Americans and who are otherwise unwilling to acknowledge that dissent even exists. All of those are legitimate goals, and protesting accomplishes them.

It's quite uplifting to march with tens of thousands of people who share a strong desire for a peaceful world. I highly recommend it, for those who haven't tried it.

[Ani Di Franco performed for Not In Our Name, and at the concert she related a story about an Australian interviewer, who wanted to know if she penned her songs for the U.S. President. She said something like, 'I'm not sure how it works here in Australia, but I'm pretty sure the President could give a @#$%^ less about my poems. I'm writing these songs for the people who want peace, to support and join THEM.']

"But protesting backs up traffic!"

Pedestrians have no problems. I've been able to move through protest-filled areas with no problems. The police only redirect cars. You're not _driving_ downtown, are you?

"Well... Anyway, I want to get home on time!"

I'm sure people said that during the civil rights marches in the 1960s. But the minor inconvenience to people consenting to an unjust status quo AND to those sympathetic to the cause of civil rights was worth a few minutes stuck in traffic. Trust me on this one.

Things are getting worse: journalists have been evacuated from Baghdad.

Every single building I can see is in flames," said the BBC's Paul Wood as he surveyed the city from his vantage point in the city....

But also:

Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov says he plans to approach the United Nations legal department and ask them to declare the war illegal.

French President Jacques Chirac says he will not accept a US-British post-war administration of Iraq, adding that the UN is the only body which can be responsible for rebuilding the country.

*

A report by a Baghdad resident is a reminder that under the euphemistic language about 'targets' and 'enemy tanks,' there are PEOPLE living there. There are children living in Baghdad. It is their home.

The gee-whiz-cool-toy reporting of the major networks tries to make us forget this. But it's the most important thing.

*

Anti war protests continue around the U.S. and the world. The helicopters circling downtown SF as I write this are distracting. They've been there all morning, since the demonstrators gathered at 7 a.m.

*

Newshour had a nice feature, a discussion between historians about the war. Howard Zinn had quite a bit to say.

JIM LEHRER: Howard Zinn, what did you think of the president's case for war?

HOWARD ZINN: Well, as Robert Dallek, says it's the usual case but the one thing that is missing in so much of the discussion is that we are going to kill a lot of people in this operation. It's all well and good to talk about the promise of a different Iraq, a democratic and free Iraq, a promise which is very dubious considering the history of the United States.

It's a history in which it has not been very good at creating democracy, a history in which it has rather supported dictatorships around the world, but we are going to kill -- and think of it this way -- we talk about Saddam Hussein and what he's doing to the people of Iraq -- we are going to kill the victims of Saddam Hussein. The civilians of Baghdad are going to be living under terrorism.

We are concerned about terrorism. War is terrorism. The people of Baghdad are going to be terrorized. Shock and all, we are going to unleash enormous numbers of bombs on the cities and villages of Baghdad. Now we can't... that is certain. What is uncertain is the future. When you face certain horrors in war and uncertainties about the outcome, morally you cannot go along with this war.

And I think that's why most of the world is outraged at what the United States is about to do. They are right. President Bush is right now the greatest danger to world peace. He is also the greatest danger to our young men and women whom he is sending into combat. Those who die, not just those who die in Iraq, but those people in our armed forces who die, they will die because President Bush has grandiose ambitions for American power in the world. They will die because of oil. They will die because of politics. They will die because of the need of the United States government to expand its power. Those are not good reasons for people to die -- there or here.

An interesting thing about this interview is the argument by Walter Russell Mead in support of war.

But I'd like to say in terms of the killing of civilians that the sanctions regime actually kills one to five thousand civilians -- children under five -- a month which is the number of people who... civilians who died in the Gulf War. The status quo is not peace in Iraq. The status quo is a slow war and civilians are dying. So I think ending the slaughter of civilians is a legitimate goal of the government.

So, because sanctions are killing civilians, we should bomb them, rather than simply ending the sanctions. Interesting approach.

I tried to watch corporate media. It's all old white men in desert fatigues, oohing and aaahing over how cool tanks are.

Oh, please.

*

Disclaimer: I misspell "protesters" quite a bit. Please forgive me.

*

Agent Apple of the Biotic Baking Brigade ("Speaking Pie to Power"), who was reporting to SF Indymedia on BBB member Tart Classique's pie-ing of a talking head from sensationalistic local TV station KTVU, made a good observation. To paraphrase, 'The corporate media IS the war machine. They have the same boards of directors... It's not just a case of unfairness [in their reporting], it's a case of serving their own basic interests.'

Well put, Agent Apple!

*

Indymedia just reported that Peter Jennings is saying 1400 people have been arrested in SF. While that particular fact hasn't yet been confirmed, the hosts referred to his reporting as his "Dreamcast." They're also savaging the 'tank cam,' and it's shoddy images of the desert. It's refreshing, after the value-free, gee-whiz 'war gadgets are cool' quality of the TV news I glimpsed at.

*

I heard on TV about enemy tanks. Enemy tanks? Tanks with enmity against us? Do they really mean the people in the tanks, and if so, why are they afraid to say so?

*

There's a mythology about protesters.

What do you mean, Arlene?

Well, there's a mythology that protesters aren't normal American people. Sure, NPR is interviewing little old ladies in Kansas who are opposed to the war (but who also clearly point out that they support our troops and want them home safely), but even from people in my office, or in the local paper, I keep hearing wacky characterizations.

Such as what?

Where do I begin? Okay, here's one: all protestors are unemployed. Apparently, all protestors live on air and love, because they don't have jobs.

A guy told McDonald, a 74-year-old retired trial lawyer, to get a job. The three protesters chuckled about that. "Jim works 50 years, and they tell him to get a job," said Roberta McLaughlin.

It's like it's all some people can think of to say. "If you were a real person, you'd be working yourself to death for a big screen TV every hour of the day like I am!"

Next would be that all protesters are old. I've heard even this from my former mentor at work. I've heard this on corporate radio, in a way that implied it was an insult. I've heard people suggest that the only people protesting the war are aging hippies with nothing better to do with their time. Yet, I've attended and photographed four major protests, and I saw people of all ages -- AND most races! -- participating. My cousin's photos of the February and January protests prove that there was age variety. Horror at the thought that older and wiser people expressing dissent against the government is silly. This is a senseless fiction made up by people who don't attend protests.

[I suppose the next myth I'll hear is that all the protesters are too YOUNG. To that I'll just say, 'that's what you get for not funding schools and after school programs properly, old fogies!' :-) But it's good that young people protest war: they're the ones who will have to live longest with its aftermath.]

Then there is the famous "protesters don't support our troops, and their protests will distract our troops and keep them from doing their jobs." PEACE ACTIVISTS, by definition, don't want people to come to harm. "People" includes soldiers. Many peace activists carry very obvious sings that say things like, 'support our troops -- bring them home now!' But this is apparently too subtle. (See my earlier blog entry about 'hating the sin but loving the sinner' for more on the ability to differentiate between soldiers and shooting people. It's possible to support one and not the other, because THEY ARE SEPARATE THINGS.)

The second part of this fiction suggests that troops get uncensored news. Please. (Any of you who listened to the recent reading of This American Life from a Gulf War I memoir know that, even if soldiers see their peers being bombed by their own forces, they are lied to about what the damage is to protect their morale.)

Another wacky fiction is that protesters shirk their duties, or are afraid to go to war. Three words: Veterans for Peace. And a few more words from an article I cited earlier: "Protesters from the Bay Area and elsewhere are expected to arrive within the next few days at the Los Olivos ranch of 78-year-old Elden "Bud" Boothe, who flew 15 bombing missions over Germany during World War II and now regularly protests at Vandenberg...."

A traffic report refutes national underreporting of the protests here in San Francisco. "Authorities had arrested more than 500 demonstrators, but said they expected more throughout the evening. 'These groups vary from 30 to 1000,' [acting police chief] Fagan said." This is a CBS affiliate, yet I'd heard that CBS national news announced 200 people total... Perhaps the national audience or more gullible than those here?

*

The New York Times' Protest Update:

Whatever the outcome on the battlefield, America was being pilloried in the street...

Only hours after the first American fire fell on Baghdad, tens of thousands of demonstrators brought Australia's second-largest city, Melbourne, to a standstill. By this evening, hundreds of thousands of protesters in cities across several continents were angrily denouncing the war as cruel to Iraq's civilian population, unnecessary and illegal....

In France, which is the most vocal opponent of the war, the American embassy and consulate buildings, just off the Place de la Concorde, were under heavy guard. Thousands of demonstrators assembled there, chanting anti-war slogans.

In Berlin, tens of thousands of students and others marched from the Alexanderplatz, in the city center, past the heavily guarded American embassy building and through the Brandenburg Gate, waving banners that read, "Stop the Bush Fire" and "George W. Hitler." Similar protests were reported in Stuttgart, Munich, Rostock and Saarbrücken.

In Italy, tens of thousands of antiwar demonstrators marched in Milan and Venice in the north; in Rome, crowds marched toward the American embassy, at the foot of the broad Via Veneto, but were held back by riot police.

In Athens, an estimated 80,000 demonstrators, mainly students and labor activists, marched peacefully, chanting anti-American slogans. American flags were burned outside the embassy building,

In Britain, thousands of antiwar campaigners blocked roads and traffic in cities throughout England, Wales and Scotland.

In Spain, another supporter of Mr. Bush, hundreds of chanting protesters stood outside the American embassy in Madrid.

I also like quotes from South American leaders, whose views I had not yet heard, in this same article.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, condemned the American position as an act of "disrespect to the United Nations and the rest of the world" that lacks moral legitimacy.

"All of us want for Iraq not to have atomic weapons or weapons of mass destruction," he said in Brasília. "All of us want a world living in peace, but that does not give the United States the right to decide by itself what is good and what is bad for the world."...

"We are against this war and we are not going to support it or take part in it," [said President Eduardo Duhalde of Argentina]....

"It is a tragedy," said Gabriel Valdés, Chile's ambassador to the United Nations. "Another tragedy is going to begin now."

"In a unique form of opposition, some protesters at the Federal Building staged a "vomit in,'' by heaving on the sidewalks and plaza areas in the back and front of the building to show that the war in Iraq made them sick, according to a spokesman."

See, even bulemics can contribute to the peace movement!

*

How's this for peace and justice: a "shoot-to-kill" warning from the military to anti-war protesters planning to infiltrate the coastal property of Vandenberg Air Force Base near Santa Barbara.

Protesters from the Bay Area and elsewhere are expected to arrive within the next few days at the Los Olivos ranch of 78-year-old Elden "Bud" Boothe, who flew 15 bombing missions over Germany during World War II and now regularly protests at Vandenberg....

"The only time a law-enforcement official should shoot is when his life is in danger," Boothe said. "We are in the peace movement. We are not going to endanger anyone. . . . I suppose they could shoot you, but they would be doing it illegally. But that doesn't help you if you're dead." ...

"If someone hangs a peace flag on one of their communication towers, that is not destruction," Boothe said. "If someone paints a peace sign on one of their buildings, that is not destruction."

A media giant is sponsoring pro-war rallies.

Some of the biggest rallies this month have endorsed President Bush's strategy against Saddam Hussein, and the common thread linking most of them is Clear Channel Worldwide Inc., the nation's largest owner of radio stations.

In a move that has raised eyebrows in some legal and journalistic circles, Clear Channel radio stations in Atlanta, Cleveland, San Antonio, Cincinnati and other cities have sponsored rallies attended by up to 20,000 people....

"I think this is pretty extraordinary," said former Federal Communications Commissioner Glen Robinson, who teaches law at the University of Virginia. "I can't say that this violates any of a broadcaster's obligations, but it sounds like borderline manufacturing of the news."...

Clear Channel is by far the largest owner of radio stations in the nation. The company owned only 43 in 1995, but when Congress removed many of the ownership limits in 1996, Clear Channel was quickly on the highway to radio dominance. The company owns and operates 1,233 radio stations (including six in Chicago) and claims 100 million listeners. Clear Channel generated about 20 percent of the radio industry's $16 billion in 2001 revenues....

In 1987 the FCC repealed the Fairness Doctrine, which required broadcasters to cover controversial issues in their community and to do so by offering balancing views. With that obligation gone, Morris said, "radio can behave more like newspapers, with opinion pages and editorials."

This is the same network that came up with a list of songs, including John Lennon's "Imagine," that it forbid its networks to play after the September 11th attacks.

Protests around the world continue; protests in San Francisco keep getting bigger.

Despite this, I just heard that Tom Brokaw announced on the national news that there is a 'roving band of about 200 people' disrupting SF.

That is BLATANT and extreme misinformation.

*

Not to let loose my anti-car bias in my crowded home town, but as soon as the traffic reports said that there were protests downtown, why did so many people DRIVE TO DOWNTOWN SF?? Are these the same people who complain every year about the marathon and Bay to Breakers foot race, despite the weeks of pre-event publicity? Are they completely incapable of using their feet? [The protestors are blocking the motorized traffic, not the foot traffic. This is extremely obvious from both the reporting and the photos.] The chronicle is interviewing people stuck in traffic as if

Protests around the world continue; protests in San Francisco keep getting bigger.

Despite this, I just heard that Tom Brokaw announced on the national news that there is a 'roving band of about 200 people' disrupting SF.

That is BLATANT and extreme misinformation.

*

Not to let loose my anti-car bias in my crowded home town, but as soon as the traffic reports said that there were protests downtown, why did so many people DRIVE TO DOWNTOWN SF?? Are these the same people who complain every year about the marathon and Bay to Breakers foot race, despite the weeks of pre-event publicity? Are they completely incapable of using their feet? [The protestors are blocking the motorized traffic, not the foot traffic. This is extremely obvious from both the reporting and the photos.] The chronicle is interviewing people stuck in traffic as if

War draws condemnation
"The start of war against Iraq has drawn a barrage of criticism from leaders around the world and brought thousands of demonstrators onto the streets."

Mr Putin urged the US to halt what he called the unjustifiable attack on Iraq - an attack which questioned a basic principle of world order.

"If we install the rule of force in place of international security structures, no country in the world will feel secure," Mr Putin said....

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan said the military operation violated the principles of international law.

"They ignored the opposition of most countries and peoples of the world and went around the UN Security Council to being military action against Iraq," he added.

From the BBC's hourly crisis summary:

0651 China accuses the US of "violating the norms of international behaviour" and calls for its military to stand down before a full-scale attack on Iraq begins.

0110 Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev condemns US military moves, saying the United States was acting as if the world was its fiefdom.

*

I've just reviewed the BBC's international e-mail commentary page. It's a sad day when Russians refer to the US and it's allies as "Poor brainwashed people." But it's true. S tells me that more than half of Americans polled believe there is some connection between Iraq and Al Queda, even though reports from our government say there isn't. (They believe Bush's allegations, which he has never tried to prove.)

S also notes that an educator of his acquaintance hasn't even HEARD of the Guantanamo Bay prisoner of war camp, Camp X-Ray, where people are being held without access to their consulates nor the rights given to prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention. All she could say when she heard that people were imprisoned was, 'well, they must have done something bad, right?'

We used to make fun of Soviet citizens for believing in the flawlessness of their corrupt government. And now it's happening here.

The BBC page's commentary collection runs back and forth, from people celebrating war to those bemoaning it. Some of my selections:

"I just two minutes ago viewed and heard TV's first recordings of the initial airstikes. Those were absolutely the most unpleasant sounds my young ears have heard. What's worst is the feeling that there is really nothing I can do. We Americans could not elect our president, and the guy we ended up with refuses to listen to the people over whom he rules."

"Forgive us for we know not what we do."

"We are seeing today the greatest unilateral military action since Hitler's invasion of Poland. What happens next? We have stepped into an abyss. Now we do not know what we are doing. My only hope is that the people of Iraq will understand that the American people did not wish for this war. It was provoked and created by a government that has ceased to represent the people, a government that has no concern for the will of the people, no concern for human life; a government driven by ideology and economic interest. Today is a sad day in the history of mankind. No longer do the principles of peace, justice, and diplomacy, established after the Second World War exist. They have been replaced by a war that will create fear, suffering, and hatred. And America has ceased to be a beacon of freedom; she no longer has hope."

"Bush, Blair, Howard and company have had to work hard to lower themselves to Saddam Hussein's level. Unfortunately, they have succeeded, and we all will reap the whirlwind."

"I find it very frightening that we can just kill any leader we do not like. A sad day indeed."

And, for the big fans of American imperialism and the plan for US domination hatched by Hawks, some of which are in this Administration, there's this charming comment:

"Can't wait to see the stars and stripes over Baghdad. Let the American Century begin."

*

On the radio this morning, there was a discussion of an early missile strike intended for the Iraqi regime's leaders.

Host: You'd use a missile against one person?

Guest: [long, uncomfortable pause] Well... It would depend on where that person was.

*

"At an afterwork rally near San Francisco's toniest shopping district, thousands of people chanted and drummed before marching off into the rainy night. Police escorted the rain-drenched crowd, which was led by actor Danny Glover and stretched as long as six blocks." That's the protest I attended last night.

The speaker at the rally when we reached 24th Street and Mission made a good point. He said that, if you read the paper, you would think that Arabs had occupied the U.S., so great is the media hysteria. The fact that Iraq has not attacked us has been completely obscured.

The U.S. rules it's own people through fear.

*

I'm currently listening to Enemy Combatant Radio, which is alternating between punk music and cell phone reports from the protests blanketing downtown San Francisco. The hosts are awed by the intensity today, surprised to hear both chanting and police helicopters from their offices.

War draws condemnation
"The start of war against Iraq has drawn a barrage of criticism from leaders around the world and brought thousands of demonstrators onto the streets."

Mr Putin urged the US to halt what he called the unjustifiable attack on Iraq - an attack which questioned a basic principle of world order.

"If we install the rule of force in place of international security structures, no country in the world will feel secure," Mr Putin said....

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan said the military operation violated the principles of international law.

"They ignored the opposition of most countries and peoples of the world and went around the UN Security Council to being military action against Iraq," he added.

From the BBC's hourly crisis summary:

0651 China accuses the US of "violating the norms of international behaviour" and calls for its military to stand down before a full-scale attack on Iraq begins.

0110 Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev condemns US military moves, saying the United States was acting as if the world was its fiefdom.

*

I've just reviewed the BBC's international e-mail commentary page. It's a sad day when Russians refer to the US and it's allies as "Poor brainwashed people." But it's true. S tells me that more than half of Americans polled believe there is some connection between Iraq and Al Queda, even though reports from our government say there isn't. (They believe Bush's allegations, which he has never tried to prove.)

S also notes that an educator of his acquaintance hasn't even HEARD of the Guantanamo Bay prisoner of war camp, Camp X-Ray, where people are being held without access to their consulates nor the rights given to prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention. All she could say when she heard that people were imprisoned was, 'well, they must have done something bad, right?'

We used to make fun of Soviet citizens for believing in the flawlessness of their corrupt government. And now it's happening here.

The BBC page's commentary collection runs back and forth, from people celebrating war to those bemoaning it. Some of my selections:

"I just two minutes ago viewed and heard TV's first recordings of the initial airstikes. Those were absolutely the most unpleasant sounds my young ears have heard. What's worst is the feeling that there is really nothing I can do. We Americans could not elect our president, and the guy we ended up with refuses to listen to the people over whom he rules."

"Forgive us for we know not what we do."

"We are seeing today the greatest unilateral military action since Hitler's invasion of Poland. What happens next? We have stepped into an abyss. Now we do not know what we are doing. My only hope is that the people of Iraq will understand that the American people did not wish for this war. It was provoked and created by a government that has ceased to represent the people, a government that has no concern for the will of the people, no concern for human life; a government driven by ideology and economic interest. Today is a sad day in the history of mankind. No longer do the principles of peace, justice, and diplomacy, established after the Second World War exist. They have been replaced by a war that will create fear, suffering, and hatred. And America has ceased to be a beacon of freedom; she no longer has hope."

"Bush, Blair, Howard and company have had to work hard to lower themselves to Saddam Hussein's level. Unfortunately, they have succeeded, and we all will reap the whirlwind."

"I find it very frightening that we can just kill any leader we do not like. A sad day indeed."

And, for the big fans of American imperialism and the plan for US domination hatched by Hawks, some of which are in this Administration, there's this charming comment:

"Can't wait to see the stars and stripes over Baghdad. Let the American Century begin."

*

On the radio this morning, there was a discussion of an early missile strike intended for the Iraqi regime's leaders.

Host: You'd use a missile against one person?

Guest: [long, uncomfortable pause] Well... It would depend on where that person was.

*

"At an afterwork rally near San Francisco's toniest shopping district, thousands of people chanted and drummed before marching off into the rainy night. Police escorted the rain-drenched crowd, which was led by actor Danny Glover and stretched as long as six blocks." That's the protest I attended last night.

The speaker at the rally when we reached 24th Street and Mission made a good point. He said that, if you read the paper, you would think that Arabs had occupied the U.S., so great is the media hysteria. The fact that Iraq has not attacked us has been completely obscured.

The U.S. rules it's own people through fear.

*

I'm currently listening to Enemy Combatant Radio, which is alternating between punk music and cell phone reports from the protests blanketing downtown San Francisco. The hosts are awed by the intensity today, surprised to hear both chanting and police helicopters from their offices.

We gathered at Powell and Market streets just after 5. The crowd kept growing, filling the sidewalks on both sides of Market, until the police decided to close Market to vehicles. Most people had signs. Many people had bicycles. Danny Glover read a great poem to the crowd about the horrors of having bombed Iraq before, and the indiscriminate nature of the carnage.

It started to rain.

We marched down Market street, all the way to Valencia. We marched down Valencia, turned left, and then right onto Mission. The police escort was efficient: we had no problems with traffic, and drivers honked wild beats in support while waving from their windows. It was pouring rain. People shouted out of windows as we passed, sometimes audibly saying "Viva la Paz!" Sometimes they were drowned out by our shouts and chants, and just waved or signaled with their hands.

It was still pouring rain when we reached 24th Street at Mission, where the sound truck turned on, and asked us to assemble nearby so we could hear.

And there, standing with rain running down my face, holding my big, wet earth flag, I heard the speakers announce that the killing had just begun.

I went on vacation, and when I returned, my country had turned into the People's Republic of Texas. Not just 'old school,' but 'old west school.'

The alleged leader of my country had actually given the leader of a sovereign nation a 48 hour ultimatum to get out of Dodge, under the threat that a posse would come and bomb his ranch and everyone on it. And this same leader, who governed a state that leads the nation in death penalty executions, promised to stop executions once he takes control.

I never would have guessed that it would come to this. Never in a million cartoon years.

*

I got a strange message shortly before setting up this anti-war blog separately from my food blog. It suggested that humanity isn't ready for peace, and war is required because of the existence of ignorance and dictatorships, but that we're evolving and so war will gradually decrease over time.

That last part especially got to me. We've been here on this planet for a very long time, and if there's anything I'm not seeing, it's a constant and measurable progress toward peace, happiness, and fuzzy bunnies.

I'll reprint my commentary here:

-------8<---------

[on ignorance and dictatorships]
There are other, historical/institutional causes of war that should not be forgotten: the unnatural partitioning of land and people by distant and misinformed world powers; the arming of thugs (future dictators) who would otherwise never come to power, also by well-meaning yet misinformed world powers; and perhaps even an inability to achieve freedom through legitimate and peaceful means. (As a citizen of a country which won its freedom through violent revolution, I cannot say it was mere ignorance that led to that war: rather, a lack of an alternative means to reach a just outcome required the American Revolution to occur.)

[on the continuous decrease of violence over time]
This is interesting. WHEN will the world change to decrease the number of wars? I remember reading about 'the war to end all wars' fought by my ancestors in Europe. The war was fought, and yet "war" did not end.

When will the cycle of violence and retribution play itself out?

[on how we shouldn't coddle tyrants]
If only someone had said these wise words when the US government was supplying Saddam Hussein with weapons to use against his domestic enemies and our then-opponent, Iran!

Sadly, supplying Iraq's leader (the enemy of our enemy) with weapons failed to bring peace and stability to the Middle East. Similarly, arming and training the extremists of Afghanistan did not bring peace to the region. Ultimately, it endangered us here at home. War did not solve the problems there....

I believe that, through truly just policies... we can minimize the cycle of violence in the world.

If we are serious about ending war, we will not merely wait for retribution to cease of its own accord, but we will lead the way to alternative solutions: to hold all to the same standards (a fair application of international law and agreements); to protect the weak from those who unfairly exploit them (regardless of the size or politics of the oppressors); and to even-handedly respect the sovereignty of all (rather than supporting some despots while overthrowing others, and giving WMDs like candy to our friends, while punishing others for having them). In a just world, there will be much less to fight about.

I sincerely believe the US can, if it chooses, lead the world to a higher standard of justice, order, and peace through just, orderly, and peaceful means.


-------8<---------

I doubt that I changed the writer's mind, but I do believe that we can do better.

While I can't confirm this story directly, it was forwarded through the auspices of the excellent Project Censored, and so I post it here with a warning that the host site (gulufuture) is otherwise too surreal to deal with diplomatically.

In an interview with highly reputable former BBC chief news correspondent Kate Adie comes reporting on the US military's animosity toward reporters

I was told by a senior officer in the Pentagon, that if
uplinks --that is the television signals out of... Bhagdad, for
example-- were detected by any planes ...electronic media... mediums, of
the military above Bhagdad... they'd be fired down on. Even if they were
journalists....

And this time the Americans are: a) Asking journalists who go with them,
whether they are... have feelings against the war. And therefore if you
have views that are skeptical, then you are not to be acceptable.

Secondly, they are intending to take control of the Americans technical
equipment ...those uplinks and satellite phones I was talking about. And
control access to the airwaves.

And then on top of everything else, there is now a blackout (which was
imposed, during the last war, at the beginning of the war), ...ordered
by one Mr. Dick Cheney, who is in charge of this.

I am enormously pessimistic of the chance of decent on-the-spot
reporting, as the war occurs....

Here's a link to an article on French disappointment in Bush's rush to war.

Jack Lang, the former Socialist arts minister who now chairs the National Assembly's foreign affairs committee, was characteristically trenchant Tuesday morning:

"More than ever before President Bush proves himself to be blinded by his messianic fundamentalism.

"By deliberately violating international law, Mr Bush is encouraging all those who - in a world of fanatics - do not fear to use blind terror and violence," he said.

Contempt

You can hear the same opinions on a thousand radio talk-shows.

The verdict is almost universal: by unilaterally declaring war on Iraq, Mr Bush and his "poodle" Tony Blair have shown their contempt for the United Nations.

As war approaches the French cannot avoid the conclusion that their diplomacy has failed
Might and greed have triumphed over the international order, hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis will lose their lives, terrorism will be back with a vengeance and the Middle East turned upside-down - say the pundits.

I don't know how many of you have seen this item from last week, but it's been a popular topic in my discussions at home. It's an article about the official denial that bin Laden has already been captured.

The claim of Bin Laden's capture was made by a Pakistani politician, Murtaza Pooya, in an interview with Iranian radio.

He said the al-Qaeda leader was being held by members of the Pakistan and US intelligence services.

I don't like to harbor conspiracy theories that bin Laden's capture could have occurred and may be kept under wraps until it won't hurt the effort by the current US administration to start wars, but then again, I also can't believe other things that are actually occurring here in the People's Republic of Texas. So I am simply not jumping to any conclusions, while keeping my cynical list of belief options open.

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The witty interpretations of the U.S. government's terror alerts signs has moved. It is still a must-see.

Also a must-see: Michael Moore's open letter to George Bush on the Eve of War.