The SF Chronicle's World Views column is great today, as it so often is. It covers both the pressure that Blair is under to explain why all intelligence used to justify the war against Iraq was completely wrong, and then touches on the G8 protests, with unfavorable comments and some amusing accusations that the residents of Geneva loved the feeling of importance that huge demonstrations gave their community.

I can't say I trust the reports about the G8 "riots," however. Since last October, I have regularly attended peaceful anti-war protests in the city center made up of more than a hundred thousand of people, plus smaller protests in local neighborhoods. And after each protest, I have reviewed the media coverage of the protest I just attended.

It was as if the reporters were reporting on a completely different event. Television coverage was especially bizarre: the evening news would feature a reporter standing in a public square that I had left more than 8 hours before, as if there was something there to see. The reporter would then relate a story about violence that had occurred in an area some significant distance from the protest, hours after the protest had ended. The reporter would then say that the protest had been marred by this distant, time-separated violence.

I was waiting for a report saying that the tides were responsible for a pet drowning in an inland bathtub as the next story.

I have seen images and videos of police attacking peaceful, seated protesters. The only video of that which has ever made the news was the police-made video of officers swapping pepper spray into kids eyes with Q-tips, which is being used against the police in court. My local paper printed some good photos of police attacking peaceful demonstrators when the U.S. attacked Iraq this year, but it was something of an exception to the local press' police of reporting political demonstrations primarily as obstacles to the commute.

So while I'm sure there are violent folk among the demonstrators at the G-8, I'm convinced of that fact primarily because I've read editorials by demonstrators who are there, bemoaning way violent protesters and violent police always seem to feed from each other.

So the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, which regulates popular media, has relaxed restrictions on media monopolies, which will likely resort in more national megacorporations controlling more local media outlets.

Here in the U.S. corporate media represents its own interests so thoroughly under the guise of free press, that most people can't even tell that their coverage is self-serving. News stories promoting the latest movie MUST just be a service, and not free advertising for a sibling company. Business news must be of general interest to workers, while labor news... Well, perhaps there just isn't any? Celebrity gossip must be important, or it wouldn't be replacing world news, would it?

Ouch ouch ouch.

Meanwhile, thousands of people are protesting the G8 meeting in Evian, France, but today's Yahoo news photos are primarily devoted to the Miss Universe pageant. Let's see, which will have a bigger influence on my life: global trade or Miss U? Yahoo believes it's Miss U. And their main news page doesn't mention the protests at all, but does have a photo of lifestyle maven Martha Stewart and speculation about her upcoming indictment.

Go figure.

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In a short news summary where the G8 was mentioned in part of a larger article about a massive international poll on attitudes toward the U.S. and other topics, there was a quick comment: "Kohut said the anti-globalization forces that have protested in America and overseas don't seem to be making inroads. He said the survey found there is 'great acceptance of a connected world with most people saying trade and growing business ties are good for them and their countries.'"

I was completely taken aback by this statement, because their questions apparently had NOTHING to do with what anti-globalization protests are about. Not that we'd know, since the mainstream media refuses to report on anything more than broken windows and spray paint whenever there is a protest against any establishment institutions. But let me try to make a short summary of MY understanding of why the G8 is being protested.

-exploitation of the poor for sweatshop labor.
-exportation of jobs overseas to avoid paying decent wages.
-environmental obligation dodging.
-corruption.
-a lack of human and humane services in developing AND developed nations.
-violence toward labor organizers.
-back breaking debt for developing nations.
-privatization of public resources against the public's will.
-censorship of views that favor public services, environmental stewardship, and fairness.
-censorship of protests.
-violence toward peaceful protesters, both of the exploited and exploiter nations.

I thought I'd mention this, since you likely won't hear this anywhere mainstream. (The Indymedia G8 site is good for many viewpoints, especially if you are multilingual. I recommend it, and UK Indymedia highly.)

Blair's presentation of Iraq's alleged WMD evidence is being probed in England, while manipulation of alleged WMD intelligence is being investigated in the U.S.. BBC articles are questioning the legitimacy of WMD claims more directly than in the past.

It's great that the BBC is asking these questions, because it's a big white elephant in the middle of the room that the U.S. press appears afraid to remark upon.

According to the Washington Post, Iraqis aren't pleased with the U.S.' plans to skip forming an interim government in favor of an advisory council. Bremer, the U.S. Occupation Authority head, says "We think it's important for the Iraqi people to be seen to be involved in some very important decisions that are going to have to be made in the weeks and months ahead, and we have felt the best way to get that forward quickly is to broaden our consultations, to step up the pace of our consultations, and to arrive at a decision about the political council rather quickly." The article then goes on to say that, since the U.S. was given the authority to run Iraq, they don't really need to make good on their promise about setting up a democratic government yet.

Oh-oh.

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Chirac makes it clear that he hasn't changed his mind about Bush's attack on Iraq."We consider that all military action not endorsed by the international community, through, in particular, the Security Council, was both illegitimate and illegal, is illegitimate and illegal. And we have not changed our view on that," according to the BBC.

The archives should be back to normal now. More tomorrow.

My archives are going to be invisible for a few minutes - don't be alarmed. (Or at least, more alarmed than I am.)

The G8 summit begins Sunday in the spa town of Evian on Lake Geneva. The BBC reports on the extreme, defensive, unsightly militarization of the area for security concerns and to prevent the 100,000 expected protesters from disrupting the meeting in this article.

Associated with this article are two external links: one to the official G8 meeting site, and the other a trilingual logistics and planning page for the international protesters!

I LOVE the Internet!

The occupation is not going as smoothly as the Bush Administration hoped. US soldiers are facing increasing hostility, says the NY Times. After suffering an attack, U.S. soldiers conducted forced house searches, which comprised female modesty and outraged local men, leading to widespread rioting and the burning of local municipal buildings. Ooops.

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Also an oops: a British soldier took some film to his local developer in Staffordshire which may depict him and his fellows abusing Iraqi prisoners of war. If the photos are real (and not staged by bored soldiers at home for amusement), this clever fellow has provided the evidence of his crimes.

When are people going to learn to document their crimes with Polaroids? Sheesh!

I'm still preoccupied with American paranoia. It's pathetic. If the Denver, Colorado police department labeled Quakers and other peace organizations as "criminal extremists" and compiled illegal dossiers on their peaceful activities after September 11th, something is severly out of whack in their heads.

As I wondered about this, I noticed billboards at the bus stop for home alarm systems, suggesting that right at this moment, someone is breaking into your home. Next to it was an add for anti-bacterial detergent, implying that germs on your clothes could hurt you. S reported that the last time he had the TV on, a newscaster was ranting about a threat of catching Lyme Disease if you step outside of your house.

Perhaps Michael Moore's theory about the media fanning the flames of hysteria here are correct.

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Iran is rather annoyed at Bush's rhetoric campaign against them. The BBC quotes the Ayatollah Khamenei: ""We have to do this and that so they will remove us from the axis of evil. What kind of talk is this? Who do they think they are?"

While the U.S. media will undoubtedly lapse back into their, "why do they hate us?" blather, it appears that Time Magazine has an answer in an article called The Oily Americans - Why the world doesn't trust the U.S. about petroleum: A history of meddling. I had known that the U.S. overthrew the government of Iran, though that has never really been admitted. I had read inferences that this was because of the U.S.' previous penchant for anti-communist hysteria. That worked for me. But this article sheds some additional light: Mohammed Mossadegh nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. in part because it wouldn't give Iran even 50% of its revenues from extracting Iranian oil. The U.S. and Britain then tag teamed Iran, instituting an oil boycott, and then things got weird:

The CIA's fingerprints were everywhere. Operatives paid off Iranian newspaper editors to print pro-Shah and anti-Mossadegh stories. They produced their own stories and editorial cartoons and published fabricated interviews. They secured the cooperation of the Iranian military. They spread antigovernment rumors. They prepared phony documents to show secret agreements between Mossadegh and the local Communist Party. They masqueraded as communists, threatened conservative Muslim clerics and even staged a sham fire-bombing of the home of a religious leader. They incited rioters to set fire to a pro-Mossadegh newspaper...

And then the U.S. got Britain's control over Iran's oil back for them, shared some with American oil companies, and got really angry when the Iranians threw out the puppet government and took their oil back.

All those complaints about how undeveloped Iran is may have SOMETHING to do with the prohibition of our government against doing business with Iran, as punishment for throwing off its foreign oil exporters.

Oil. Why didn't I even think of it before...

The same article also has some choice words about Afghanistan, and the perception of oil issues. It's an interesting read.

Very spooky quote of the day:

Most of the rights that you enjoy go way beyond what the Constitution requires.
-Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, March 2003, Cleveland

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I wish more of the June 2 issue of The Nation was available on line. Eric Foner has an excellent short piece called "Dare Call It Treason," pointing out that every war in American history with the exception of World War II inspired significant dissent (yes, including the American Revolution), and each time the government and those who elect themselves its agents vehemently attempted to suppress protest. Foner also notes that history, while always used as a tool, suddenly becomes a partisan weapon, with war promoters citing favorable historical allegiances and parallels to support their position, while cursing anyone who finds unfavorable parallels. (The author caught hell for pointing out that the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor would be justified under Bush's pre-emptive strike doctrine. Oops. Darn that history!)

Also very worthy of a read is Alisa Solomon's "The Big Chill," a catalogue of attacks on dissent and free speech in the post-September 11th, 'only traitors question their government' climate in the U.S. The very spooky quote above comes from her piece. The catalogue is alarming, when seen all in once place: isolated incidents seem less like freak occurrences, and more like the predictable side effects of a society living in a profound insecurity.

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It seems to me that the U.S. has a long history of rampant paranoia during times of crisis and opportunity. Salem Witch Hunts. McCarthyism. Xenophobia. Homophobia. Preoccupation with "the Fall" caused by eating from the Tree of Knowledge. (Favorite bumper sticker on this topic: "Eve was framed.") Fear of change in anything other than consumer products.

How can Americans be less afraid? If ignorance is bliss, we're a very HAPPY people. But still paranoid. Still dragging minorities to their deaths, still murdering people perceived to be gay by men afraid of other men's allure, still mad at France for helping to liberate us from the British yet not wanting to be JUST LIKE US. Afraid to learn other languages. Convinced that the world has nothing to offer that we don't already know. Convinced that we only do good in the outside world, and pretending not to hear any reports to the contrary.

In late 2001, I was completely mystified by two things. The first was that people and the press asked repeatedly, 'why do people elsewhere in the world hate us?' The second was, whenever this question was answered, every single possible answer was shot down vehemently. It went something like this:


Q. How can anyone not like Americans?
A. Well, that was that time that we overthrew someone's government, and killed all their young people with death squads.
Q. You beast! How could you say that we did such a thing!!
A. Because we did? Over and over?
Q. You are a very sick person. We can do no wrong.
A. That belief isn't helping, either.
Q. Help, police!

This was about as productive as the corporate press' conversation with itself:

Press: How could anyone dislike Americans? We are perfect in every way. There is nothing in history that demonstrates otherwise. Obviously, anyone who dislikes us is completely insane and warped with evil. Unlike all others, WE truly are God's chosen people, and so everything we do is fine. Rest assured that all is well. Please resume shopping, and support our efforts to pass tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy. Thank you and good night.

There's a sort of cultural isolationism that I think feeds this fear: the U.S. against the world. Inexplicably, a caller on the radio who was promoting the war against Iraq claimed that others in the world could not understand American motivations, because they had never suffered anything like the September 11th attacks!!!!!!!!!! She had apparently either never heard of the nearly constant terrorism that exists elsewhere in the world (even to white people in Northern Ireland!), or simply thought it was of a very low quality and not worthy of her sympathy.

You have to wonder how she could rationalize that. Did everyone else in the world who had suffered violence deserve it? Is our collective graps on others' lives so slim that we think the world should work that way?

Innocent lives should NEVER be taken for any reason. But they are, every day. Each loss is a sad one. Each loss is a life, not a lesser or greater life, a lesser or greater tragedy because some is or isn't a citizen of the U.S. There has to be a way to teach people to see others as human, and not as Others. Progress has been made in this area before, and further progress should be possible. But how?

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Robert Scheer's piece on Private Lynch's faked rescue, now entitled Saving Private Lynch: Take 2, is now available at the Nation website.

Also a very worthy read by Scheer: The WMD Follies, on the lie that led us to war with Iraq, and the "long-held hawkish Republican dream of a 'winnable nuclear war...' In such a scenario, nukes can be preemptively used against a much weaker enemy--millions of dead civilians, widespread environmental devastation and centuries of political blowback be damned."

Today's opinion page (A29) of my local paper has a piece by Robert Scheer on the staging of Pvt. Lynch's rescue, based on a report that was posted last week by the BBC. The brave woman, who I had read in US press reports had exhausted all her ammunition in a firefight that killed all of her colleagues, was stabbed and shot, and was abused at the hospital -- wasn't.

She has no bullet or stab wounds; she was wounded in a vehicular accident; the hospital informant who claimed she was being abused has a job for former Republican Rep. Bob Livingston and a book contract with a company owned by Fox's owner; and the hospital had tried to return Lynch to the U.S., but had been attacked by U.S. forces when approaching a checkpoint, and so had been unable to do so.

Scheer's editorial isn't appearing on the electronic version of the paper yet, so I've summarized it above, but last week's source article from the BBC still is. It is called, Saving Private Lynch story 'flawed', by John Kampfner. Excerpts:

"I examined her, I saw she had a broken arm, a broken thigh and a dislocated ankle," said Dr Harith a-Houssona, who looked after her....

"There was no [sign of] shooting, no bullet inside her body, no stab wound - only road traffic accident. They want to distort the picture. I don't know why they think there is some benefit in saying she has a bullet injury."

Witnesses told us that the special forces knew that the Iraqi military had fled a day before they swooped on the hospital.

"We were surprised. Why do this? There was no military, there were no soldiers in the hospital," said Dr Anmar Uday, who worked at the hospital.

"It was like a Hollywood film. They cried 'go, go, go', with guns and blanks without bullets, blanks and the sound of explosions. They made a show for the American attack on the hospital - action movies like Sylvester Stallone or Jackie Chan."

Well, golly. And to think my only doubts about the original tale of the poor girl related to a conflict between two U.S. sources, one of whom insisted she had been shot, the other stabbed. I couldn't figure out why they didn't know which, but now that U.S. doctors have confirmed it was neither, the discrepancy makes more sense.

Quote of the moment:

The message that reached the White House from two recent meetings with potential Iraqi leaders, officials say, was that it would be foolish to start experimenting with democracy without making people feel secure enough to go back to work or school, and without giving them back at least the basic services they received during Saddam Hussein's brutal rule.

From anonymous officials (but hopefully not the same ones bashing the French in the item below).

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Today's World Views Column in the Chron has an excellent range of summaries from Middle Eastern viewpoints about both the war against Iraq and recent terrorist attacks. There are several rosy viewpoints about the resilience of the Iraqi people and the increased potential for better lives in Saddam's absence. (Yet I still think of parody paper The Onion's piece, 'Dead Iraqi Would Have Loved Democracy', about a man killed by a U.S. missile) There are also spooky views about how the militarism and violence by the U.S. will spawn more militarism and violence.

I imagine this is all likely. A future of resiliance, survival, and terror.

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I had a discussion with a friend about how those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

It seems fundamentally wrong to me that those of us who are trying really hard to learn from history keep getting stuck with people who wrongheadedly refuse to learn from history, and are doing their darndest to force the repercussions on all of us. I think some sort of separation is in order. I don't think that any entity I am part of should have to share the fate of people who think Henry Kissinger and his evil minions give great advice on how to treat civilians.

It's unclear how to pull of this separation between the learners and the dolts, however.

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Wow: once thought to be extinct, an actual Democrat has voiced opposition to the Bush Administration. Senator Byrd, who I recall primarily for his opposition to civil rights laws in the 1960s, nevertheless is showing some spine in his old age.

"It appears to this senator that the American people may have been lured into accepting the unprovoked invasion of a sovereign nation, in violation of long-standing international law, under false premises," Byrd said.

"There is ample evidence that the horrific events of Sept. 11 have been carefully manipulated to switch public focus from Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) and al-Qaida, who masterminded the Sept. 11th attacks, to Saddam Hussein who did not."

That last point is one the press has let slide again and again, despite numerous polls showing that the Administration's hints had convinced people of this baseless assertion.

I guess informing people about the world is less important than an update on Botox parties. Darn.

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The UN, including Germany and France, approved a resolution lifting Iraqi sanctions and authorizing US/UK control of Iraq."The occupying powers, the US and Britain, are left firmly in control of Iraq and its oil until an internationally recognised, representative government is established."

The article notes that WMDs have not been found in Iraq, and that the U.S. is having a change of heart about allowing non-US inspectors in, now that the U.S. has left nuclear facilities unguarded, and the International Atomic Energy Agency has received reports of "uranium being emptied on the ground from containers then taken for domestic use and radioactive sources being stolen and removed from their shielding". It's so nice of the U.S., so fearful of terrorism, to consider this after not returning the IAEA's calls for a number of weeks.

ElBaradei first asked the United States on April 10 to secure nuclear material stored under U.N. seal at Iraq's Tuwaitha nuclear research center and was promised by the United States that its military would keep the site secure.

One of the sources stored at Tuwaitha is caesium 137, a highly radioactive powder that would be especially dangerous in a dirty bomb. In 1987, a canister of caesium powder found in a Brazil junkyard exposed 249 people to radiation, killing four.

After numerous media reports that Tuwaitha and other nuclear facilities in Iraq had been looted, ElBaradei wrote again to the U.S. on April 29 requesting permission to send a mission to Iraq to investigate the looting reports.

The IAEA has received no response from Washington and said that the contamination in Iraq could lead to a "serious humanitarian situation."

There have already been media reports that residents near Tuwaitha have exhibited symptoms of radiation sickness.

Have I mentioned that colonization is wrong? That going to war without meeting international law's precedents for self-defense is still wrong? That granting contracts to your campaign donors for rebuilding a country you just beat up under a plan to use your colonial subjects' money is, in fact, still unethical? Just checking.

I was CERTAIN that I had heard the Bush Administration promise that the US would have no permanent presence in Iraq.

Apparently, something has changed. According to an article in 'military-stuff-is gee-whiz cool' Engineering News Record's 05/12/03 issue, in an article called Iraqi Materials Vendors Tapped for Airfield Repair Project is the following:

"The airstrip, said to be on a short list of sites in Iraq that the U.S. wants for four permanent Air Force bases, is a template for reconstruction in the period between the end of the war and the start of private contracting under the Office of Humanitarian Assistance and Bechtel."

Military bases cost millions to build. Once the U.S. military spends the money, they're not going to want to give those bases up.

Oh-oh.

So the Bush Administration has persuaded a slim majority of the senate to repeal a ban on small nuclear weapons.Nuke-light?

The Democratic stance was put in the most graphic terms Tuesday by Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, who with Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California led the effort to retain the weapons ban. The new, low-yield warheads, Kennedy contended, would be easier to use and thus make nuclear conflict more likely, not less so.

"Is half a Hiroshima OK? Is a quarter Hiroshima OK? Is a little mushroom cloud OK?" he asked on the Senate floor. "That's absurd. The issue is too important. If we build it, we'll use it."

I've noticed that the United States has a hard time abiding by existing weapons control agreements: US use of depleted uranium in the former Yugoslavia along with tear gas, which is forbidden during war for a variety of reasons, breached international agreements. Birth defects are up several hundred percent in Iraq since the U.S. invasion the previous time.

I think this Administration's official policy on world agreements is, "Whatever." Unless they result in a trade disadvantage to the US, in which case it becomes IMPORTANT.

In an article frighteningly titled Iraqi Students and Faculty Face Task of Purging Baathists in the New York Times, changes of heart about Bush's plans for Iraq's self-governance are revealed. They are not good. After explaining that the US State Department is now in charge of university appointments (no, really), the article continues:

The leaders of the country's main political groups said they learned at a meeting on Friday that the United States and Britain had withdrawn their support for the formation of an interim Iraqi government to help run the country until national elections can be held.

The Iraqis have been working for weeks on a plan to convene an assembly, composed of former exiles and local civic leaders, to take over some Iraqi ministries and to represent the country in international forums like the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.

But officials in Washington and London apparently consider the situation in Iraq, where government has ground to a halt and most people feel unsafe, too unsettled to be left in the hands of Iraqi political leaders.

A draft resolution presented by the occupying powers to the United Nations would instead grant the United States and Britain expansive powers to run the country. It would also lift economic sanctions on Iraq, freeing up its oil revenues for use by the United States and Britain in rebuilding the country.

Let's see, what was that chant? It's not about the oil, it's not about the oil, we are liberating them, it's not about the oil? Doesn't sound all that convincing right now, does it?

While I have been slacking off in my writing due to allergies and good weather, others have not. This is a compilation of news stories relating to the war in Iraq and wars around the world with links to original source material. This citizen-posted collection includes articles about corporate interests in the Middle East, the Carlyle Groups' willingness to sign a Saudi government contract discriminating against Jews, attacks on Palestinians and Jewish people, militarization in Africa, and more.

As the news media refers to 'post-war Iraq' and 'the end of the conflict,' I am reminded that there are always conflicts around the world, but that the U.S. media does not consider them worthy of reporting about.

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I find the story of an American soldier being relieved of duty when she refused to take over an Iraqi TV station especially interesting.

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It turns out that even Republicans don't like the appearance of political favoritism in the Administration's award of Iraq rebuilding contracts. I would not have guessed.

But GOP Rep. Henry Hyde of Illinois, usually a firm Bush ally and chairman of the House International Relations Committee, said he is concerned with the "lack of transparency" that has surrounded the reconstruction program for postwar Iraq....

"I understand, for example, that the very charter of the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Affairs is still classified as national security information," Hyde said in asking for a General Accounting Office review of the Iraq situation.

Saying he is particularly concerned about reports of continuing lawlessness, Hyde asked the GAO to "monitor the reconstruction effort in detail, concentrating on the efforts to provide security and interim relief to the people of Iraq and on the rebuilding of its economy and political system."

"The committee expects the full cooperation of every element of the executive branch in the GAO's efforts," he added.

Which means that he does NOT actually expect the full cooperation of the executive branch, if he had to say that.

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In another interesting effort to limit democracy in Iraq, the US outlawed the Baath party. Okay, sure, the same people can run under other parties, right? Well, not if the former Baathists are dead."The number of former Baath officials killed since the war ended is difficult to pin down. Drawing on anecdotal evidence, however, former exile groups and Iraqis familiar with some of the killings say it could reach several hundred in Baghdad alone."

So our forces are "in control" of the country, but extra judicial killings BY THE HUNDREDS are occurring in the capitol?

Not quite as random a link: photos of Basra, Iraq and it's lovely buildings. There are more photos in the Iraq Peace Team's photo gallery. (Oooh, look at this shrine.)

There are many lovely photos, but also many scenes of terrible tragedy: images of the women and children who died i the Ameriyah bomb shelter; images of babies born with severe deformaties after Gulf War I for unaccounted for reasons (DU comes to mind)... There are scenes of both beauty and horror. Just like life, which it is. But it's especially bad, knowing that the horror is so UNNECESSARY.

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If I haven't said this yet, it's great that Hussein's regime is gone. But what is going up in its place, an occupation by foreign corporate interests, does not seem like enough compensation for the vast suffering experienced by civilians in Iraq at the U.S.' hands. Don't they deserve better?

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Bush has complained about the repressive government killing its own people, but now the U.S.' plans for installing a real, democratic justice system seem to be a little too close to what was just removed. "According to Human Rights Watch, they even want to be able to impose the death penalty.".

Let freedom ring?!?

Semi-random image: a photo of a soldier in Spain being really nice. I really like the idea of it. It moved me when I saw it.

So the Administration has issued it's rules for trying all those enemy combatants it keep shielding from international law and rights. It's interesting: among other things, any defense lawyers must take an oath to give up their right to confidential communications with their clients, plus swear to comply with a complete gag order, which could keep everyone - the prisoner's relatives, countries, human rights groups, international courts - in the dark.

Oh, and there's no evidence rule, so rumor can be introduced as evidence! Remember the Anita Hill hearings, where a senator adverse to Ms. Hill raised allegations about an undocumented rumor that was printed in a newspaper, which later said its article was groundless? Yep. That all over again, but with the death penalty.

There are other terrible aspects of it, which the article linked above discusses. I mean, secret evidence that the defense lawyers can't see? Our government was supposed to model this process on our court system, not on the kangaroo courts of the despots our country has historically propped up. Eeek!!

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Loyalty Day?!?! GW actually declared May Day as Loyalty Day!?!?!!?!?

[pause]

I just checked, and I'm still in the United States, but some FREAKS left over from the cold war apparently escaped from Russian History and are now running this country.

I thought it was a joke at first. OH MY GAWD. Sure, there have been historical revisionists who started loyalty day in the 1930s to try to steal May Day's thunder, but... in this day and age, we should feel much more secure about ourselves.

I've read some sad editorials forwarded to me by friends, in which columnists on the right side of the political spectrum complain that liberals are paranoid Chicken Littles who exagerrate the dangers of the Bush Administration's many actions against American civil liberties and freedoms. 'How can they say such things? How can they claim that our political leaders are a threat to anything? How terrible they are!'

And finally, I read this: Ann Coulter, right-wing cable TV commentator, provides this gem: "With Bush rounding up al-Qaida and clearing out the terrorist swamps, the greatest danger now facing the nation is that liberals could somehow return to the White House."

I look forward to hearing all those commentators who insist that it's wrong to talk of the threat our political system poses to our way of life THRASH this woman for her hysterics.

I'm waiting! I'll wait patiently. Even though I know that the complaints made of the left are considered to be charming in the right, at least so far as the right is concerned.

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A woman who was not on the top list of wanted Iraqis, but whose surrender is being played up by the press, Dr. Taha of Iraq is alleged to have worked with botulism and anthrax. Proof of her evil deeds? "At that time, she was reported to have ordered, and received, biological specimens from US companies."

Darn her! How dare she use money to aquire weapons agents from hard-working American companies eager to sell them to her! The shock! The awe! The horror!

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(I haven't decided if this better or worse than finding out that retired Iraqi scientists, when asked if they had worked on a nuclear weapons program, said of course they did: they sent away to the Patent Office in Geneva to buy copies of the U.S.' patented H-bomb plans, just like everyone else!!!)

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The UK's supporters of the Iraq invasion and Bush Administration generally are complaining about Anti-Americanism. Instead of considered the criticisms they've heard, they're saying things like, 'well, people here are just jealous because Americans are just so great, rich, good-looking, and hip. And they can't deal with that.'

I think this is the peril of listening to one's own propaganda: that kind of detachment from reality, and the truly undemocratic and un-nice things that the U.S. does, can only make one sound stupid at press conferences.

Of COURSE there are legitimate complaints about U.S. policy. Lots of them. Especially all the times the U.S. has installed a puppet government, trained people in torture, propped up despotic regimes, violated human rights and standards of decency, and generally decided that non-Americans don't deserve the freedoms that Americans enjoy.

Our darling little friends in the soon-to-be-irrelevant (when Rumsfeld next lets his tongue slip) country of Britain would do well to note this.

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Direct info on all those contracts let in Iraq for the 'rebuilding their country without their consent' effort can be found at the website of the the United States Agency for International Development's Iraq page. There are all sorts of details on where the money is going.

I'm not sure I really understand some of the categories. One company got an award for a "local governance" contract, which includes "strengthening of management skills and capacity of local administrations and civic institutions to improve delivery of essential municipal services such as water, health, public sanitation and economic governance; includes training programs in communications, conflict resolution, leadership skills and political analysis."

Political analysis? Political analysis? Like, how to interpret the Supreme Court's decision in Bush v. Gore? The mind reels.

As a side effect of the so-called Patriot Act, the courts are handling numerous cases where Americans and others are accused of providing material support to terrorist organizations.

One major problem with this law is that the U.S. changes its mind about who "terrorists" are all the time.

That's one of the reasons those Infinite Jest 'American Crusade' trading cards so great: they point out that the U.S. position on who is good and who is evil changes very regularly. For example, Afghan terrorism against the USSR was good (so good, the U.S. funded it!), but against the US is EVIL. Same people, same weapons, same tactics, but a totally different classification.

There is no moral compass -- just political expediency. Heck, the US could be busted under this law for its past support of Saddam Hussein. But it chooses not to look at it that way...

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I keep hearing that the U.S. attack on Iraq was not about the oil, was not about the oil, if we say it often enough we'll believe it, not about the oil...

And then comes this: the US proposed a resolution that it be put in charge of Iraq's oil and oil revenues. Oh, sure, it will expire when Iraq gets a representative government. But the US controls when that will happen, and the US admits it could take years. Read this:

The resolution... would shift control of Iraq's oil from the United Nations to the United States and its military allies, with an international advisory board having oversight responsibilities but little effective power. A transitional Iraqi government, which U.S. authorities have said they hope to establish within weeks, would be granted a consultative role.

The proposal would give the United States far greater authority over Iraq's lucrative oil industry than administration officials have previously acknowledged...

Under the system proposed by the Bush administration, new proceeds of Iraq's oil revenues and at least $3 billion in the current U.N.-controlled escrow fund would be placed in an Iraqi Assistance Fund held by the Central Bank of Iraq, which is currently being managed by Peter McPherson, a former deputy treasury secretary and Bank of America executive.

The United States and its allies would have the sole power to spend the money on relief, reconstruction and disarmament operations and to pay "for other purposes benefiting the people of Iraq." The "funds in the Iraqi Assistance Fund shall be disbursed at the direction of the (U.S.-led coalition), in consultation with the Iraqi Interim Authority," the resolution states.

It adds that Iraq's oil profits shall remain in the assistance fund "until such time as a new Iraqi government is properly constituted and capable of discharging its responsibilities." According to some estimates, it may take years for such a government to be established.

My comment: [expletive expletive expletive]! How is that not about the oil??

A colleague asked why it isn't a good thing that this account is being set up to serve domestic purposes. I explained it this way: I fail to see the propriety in me burning down my neighbor's house, seizing my neighbor's money and income, and then deciding how to care for the family without actually speaking to them (or speaking only to members of the family most likely to agree to what I want). I don't think it would be right to next assign their care to my friends, rather than their own friends or usual providers, and generously pay my friends out of their household funds for what I belive their needs should be, all at prices I negotiate for my own purposes. The situation creates an inherent conflict of interest, even without knowing that many of the contracts to my friends in this analogy were signed prior to my incursion on my neighbor's household!!

*

The BBC asked its readers for their opinions as to whether sanctions should be lifted in Iraq. There's a range of opinions, and quite a few questions. One opinion I like:

According to Bush/Blair there are chemical and biological weapons in Iraq. This was the pretence for the war. Under international law the sanctions cannot be removed until the weapons are destroyed. If US/Britain are looking for the lifting of sanctions, then they must believe that there are no weapons of mass destruction. What then was the real reason for the war?

The U.S. should not be able to have it both ways. Weapons are either there or not, and the U.S. should disclose this essential information.

Notable are the US/UK people's concerns about how terrible the sanctions are, and how the Iraqi people are suffering under them. Where have you folks been for the last decade or so? Was starving and dying for want of basic medicines less terrible when Saddam was in power?

*

The Western nations have concerns about Iraq becoming a highly conservative, extremely religious state, which might mean the country could wind up with a radical disposition. There's an obvious solution to this: make sure there really is equal opportunity in the formation of the representative government by making sure Iraqi women are included. Iraqi women, many of whom received great educations, make up 55% of the population. Many are religious in their beliefs and secular in their lifestyle. Religious women with secular experiences are unlikely to vote for extremist positions that would disadvantage their group.

If you look at the efforts to create a new government in Afghanistan, where women once held government positions and were represented throughout the workforce, you see how excluding women in the planning caused the entire process to go awry. The current Afghan government is heavy on warlords and light on everyone else, including women. Obviously, this mistake should not be made again. The US' inclusion of women on their Iraqi most wanted list is not sufficiently inclusive!! :-)

According to a report posted on Indymedia, last month two high school students were interrogated by the Secret Service for comments they made critical of the President. The Oakland High students are 16 years old, but their teacher perceived their comments as threatening to the President.

The students were each subjected to intimidating interrogation for 45 minutes to an hour each and were told they had no rights because of what they had supposedly said.

When one of the students asked if he had to talk to the agents now, could he talk to them later with a lawyer present, the student said one of the agents told him, "We own you, if you don't talk to us now, and we find out you haven't told us everything, we'll put you MF's in federal prison. This is the beginning of the end for you."

Their families were also threatened with deportation.

Is the hair on the back of your neck standing up yet?

*

Halliburton's Iraq contracts are broader than was originally disclosed to Congress. The Army Corps of Engineers said that Halliburton's "subsidiary, KBR (Kellogg, Brown & Root), actually had been authorized under the original contract to operate and distribute oil produced in Iraq, but the Corps of Engineers played down that aspect of the deal in its initial communications with Congress and the media." Gee, thanks Corps! The article notes that, if the Iraqi's can't organize their bureaucracy quickly enough, "the U.S. contractor could well be permitted to export Iraqi oil so that the country could generate revenues to help in the rebuilding process..."

So the contractor that pumps the oil can use the money it sells by distributing it to pay itself to rebuild Iraq, without any Iraqi input!! How convenient!!

Key paragraph, and the first time I've heard the p-word in this context:

The United States is developing a plan to privatize Iraqi oil fields, according to administration officials, but progress on that initiative may be slow until Iraq gets a government in place and order is restored.

*

Not only have the brilliant folks at Infinte Jest updated the American Crusade trading cards and provided good links to other worthwhile items, they've also pointed out that the deck of 'Iraqi's most wanted leaders' that the media has been hyping has not, in fact, been distributed to soldiers -- just to the media! (Their source link is no longer valid, but it's a fascinating point.)

Also for our humor section, The Onion's Iraq War Archive, titled "Operation Piss Off the Planet."

Quote of the moment: "We managed to preserve the treasure-house of Iraq, in the shape of their oil." -- Air Marshal Brian Burridge, commander of UK forces.

*

The online World Tribune reports that Rumsfeld is asking Middle Eastern nations to avoid purchasing French weapons, instead sending that business to U.S. suppliers.

"He didn't tell anybody not to buy French weapons," an official said. "What he did was intimate is that France no longer represents the U.S. interest for stability in the Gulf region. I think the rest was very much understood...."

Officials and industry sources said the Defense Department has expressed opposition to any major French weapons or upgrade project in Gulf Cooperation Council states. They said Rumsfeld has warned that France, in wake of its alliance with the deposed regime, can no longer be regarded as a positive force in the Persian Gulf region.

So let's review the ideas put forth by the U.S. Administration:
a) weapons promote stability
b) in particular, U.S. weapons promote stability
c) French weapons don't.

and

1) The French relationship with Iraq, presumably including oil contracts to take effect once Iraq came into compliance with UN mandates, was bad for the region
2) The US relationship, including bombing Iraq, occupying Iraq without a UN mandate, and having a history of extending credit and selling chemical weapons to Saddam Hussein, is GOOD for the region.

Damn, I'm going to need one of those Ross Perot color diagrams to keep in touch with the bizarre reality that this Administration is trying to sell.

I'm sure the chart will be much clearer when all the defense contractors who are also Bush campaign donors can be cross-referenced.

*

The Bush Administration wants 'special arrangements' made to try the former Iraqi leadership.

This will be a hard sell: with the very legitimacy of the U.S. actions still under cloud, how can a war victor set up a court, edit the local laws to its pleasure (in this case, by removing provisions consistent with Islamic punishments), and then claim to have set up a legitimate system?

Imagine, if you will, this precedent having been established by the victors of other disputes. For example, after the U.S.' puppet, the Shah, was deposed in Iran, can you imagine the U.S. accepting the legitimacy of any court that would convict the Shah and U.S. agents who supported him and trained his people in torture? I can't. The U.S. is still dodging subpoenas aimed at Kissinger for his role in Pinochet's successful coup, so clearly these transitional processes are only important when the U.S. wants them to be.

Might makes right! Woo hoo! Go team! [cough cough cough]

*

Several eyewitnesses saw American soldiers encouraging looters to loot the University in Baghdad. The soldiers fired at the University and waved the looters on.

Ooops. A Belgian court wants to try the U.S. military authorities for this. The U.S., which only believes in foreign courts for non-US war crimes, is irate.

On the bright side, the museum workers did hide many artifacts, and rumors of organized looting have been confirmed by the U.S. government: "US Attorney General John Ashcroft has said there is evidence that organised criminals were behind the looting of select, high value items, possibly stolen to order for international clients." So the perception of locals who reported their suspicions has been vindicated. (Thank you, locals!)

*

The BBC printed some good quotes from the 'Dear Raed' weblog, which provided an inside glimpse on the impact of Baghdad residents such as the author up until the U.S. knocked out the power and phone lines. The author has contact with the outside world again, and is updating through friends.

Let me tell you one thing first. War sucks big time. Don’t let yourself ever be talked into having one waged in the name of your freedom. Somehow when the bombs start dropping or you hear the sound of machine guns at the end of your street you don’t think about your “imminent liberation” anymore.

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In the humor department: British satirist Ali G. annoys James Baker in an interview which Mr. Baker had assumed was conventional. Hee hee.

Sorry for the light entries: I'm having problems with one of my hands, which is making typing difficult.

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To avoid having to share power in Iraq, the Bush Administration is planning to divvy up Iraq into 3 parts, each run by an ally. They are hard enough up for allies that Poland (country of half my ancestry) made the cut.

No offense, but Poland?? POLAND?

Ahem. Anyway, dividing the country into areas each occupied by a different military force and preparing an 'interim government' based on self-serving purposes, all outside of international law and without the UN's participation, is unwise at best.

*

Not to bring up enemy combatants again, but why not: have I mentioned that kids under the age of 16 are being held as enemy combatants by the U.S.? There are three whose ages have gotten out, the youngest being 13.

Thirteen.

In a prison, with no access to parents, lawyers, or hope of getting out.

I'm a bit more settled in now, and am amazed at how quickly the news programs here have switched to the 'scare of the week,' SARS. While I was in Canada, there was widespread outrage that the W.H.O. had suggested not traveling to Toronto. An article in the paper there noted that you are more likely to be struck by lightning, die of animal bites, or strangle yourself in your sleep than you are to die of SARS in Toronto. Nevertheless, the media seems dedicated to inspiring a full-on panic.

I suppose that's their new job? Anyway, back to war and peace.

*
So-called "unlawful combatants" are still indefinitely detained. (Remember them?) "The U.S. government can sweep people up from all over the world and detain them indefinitely." NO WAR IS REQUIRED.

"It just says a foreigner held outside the U.S. has no access to our courts."

The sovereignty aspect of the ruling is fraught with danger, he said, since the United States can negotiate a lease anywhere in the world, leaving technical sovereignty with another country.

"We have taken the view there's got to be great deference to the executive in this area, but there has to be some judicial review," Wilner said. "You can't act as both jailer and judge. If there is no judicial review, the executive never needs to balance or justify its actions. It can hold absolutely innocent people forever."

On the bright side, "The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States has issued a preliminary injunction ordering the United States to hold tribunals to determine detainees' status."

*

This from a Common Dreams essay:

As the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal noted years ago: "War is essentially an evil thing ... To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime, it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."

Aaah. I just returned from a vacation away from all computers AND from the American press.

Go Canucks!!

Unfortunately, the Canadian press has a wicked sense of humor: periodically, it reprints right-wing tripe from just below the 49th parallel. Sometimes, it also comes up with tripe of its own, between reports on hockey, hockey, SARS, and hockey.

My favorite item was a homegrown editorial by Daniel Pipes in the National Post called, you won't believe this, Strongman first, democracy later. Mr. Pipes proposes that, were elections held tomorrow, Iraq would elect someone we don't like. Therefore, Iraqis shouldn't be allowed to hold elections until they WILL pick someone we like, and in the meantime, should be ruled by a strongman who we like.

No, I'm serious. He writes this. He makes it a bit flowery, so we forget that the glories of democracy are exactly what he proposes to deny the Iraqis until they come around to "our" way of thinking.

Since when is obedience liberation?

*

From what I understand from the news summaries up north, a few exciting things happened in my absence on the war front. The first was that a variety of documents were found, which only tarnish countries the Bush Administration wants tarnished.

Gee, how convenient!

The other is that some anonymous Iraqi scientist has announced that Hussein had ALL KINDS of forbidden WMDs, but conveniently destroyed them and obliterated ALL evidence of their existence, so we basically have just his word to go on that the entire war was justified!

Gee, how convenient also!

Meanwhile, there was no publicity surrounding the fact that Dick Cheney's old company, Halliburton, has subsidiaries that profit from work in countries that allegedly sponsor terrorism, such as Iran, Iraq and Libya. Nor that his company has paid fines for defrauding the U.S. government on contracts. Nor that Halliburton sold nuclear detonators to Iraq in violation of U.S. sanctions.

So we're supposed to be mad that the French and Russians have lucrative POTENTIAL oil contracts with Iraq, but we're not supposed to be mad that Cheney's company profits now from ACTUAL work done with those countries, including work that was ILLEGAL.

I would ask what this Administration is smoking, but a) I don't really want to know (it's likely a nasty petroleum product!), and b) it doesn't matter what they smoke if the mainstream media continually fails to inform the public of what's really going on. In the absence of context or other facts, people WILL be mad at the French and Russians for their potential profits rather than the unknowns of Cheney's actual profits.

*

I'm hoping there were lots of essays in the papers while I was away, refuting the smug warmongers who, having failed to find weapons of mass destruction or an army worthy of threatening its neighbors and the world, still claims "victory" after belatedly redefining the attack on Iraq's entire purpose. The quick fall of Iraq shows it wasn't a threat; the non-use of weapons of mass destruction which justified this war means that either Saddam Hussein is much nicer and more restrained than has been charged, or that he never had them in the first place.

So the U.S. won the war, but lost all its moral capital. And ultimately, this means that the peace protesters were right.

Somehow, I doubt this is being emphasized to the extent it should be.

*

Meanwhile, the U.S. is increasing local love for Americans by parading prisoners around Baghdad naked and shooting into a crowd of Iraqi civilians protesting the previous U.S. attack on a protest. This time 2 protesters were killed, 18 were injured, and the U.S. is admitting it happened, but trying to suggest that the people in the hospital might have been shot by someone else.

And here at home, the U.S. government can't seem to think of new ways to protect us from the terrorism its actions cause, instead choosing to strip freedoms from Americans because it can. "Patriot Act II would authorize the government to create a DNA database of 'suspected terrorists,' strip citizenship from any American who supports even the legal activities of any group the attorney general labels ?terrorist,? and nullify court-approved orders that limit political surveillance by state and local law enforcement." Gone is innocent until proven guilty, privacy, and irrevocable citizenship.

I don't think this means that the terrorists have won. I think this means that we have a very, very bad government in place here, and that we urgently need a democractic regime change.

More comments and links when I catch up on my reading.

Sorry that blogger has started to eat my archives. I don't seem to have the power to stop it at the moment, but I am trying to do some archiving of my own, so I can republish the eaten entries elsewhere on my main site later.

*

I'm going to take just over a week off from all forms of computing, and while tempted to leave an impenetrably long message to tide you over, I'll try to keep it short and disorderly.

The SARS virus has taken over the front page news in most publications I see. But the impact of the U.S. military's action in Iraq is still being widely felt, just as the impact of the U.S. miliatary's actions in in Afghanistan is still being felt. (Remember Afghanistan?) Sure, the U.S. collapsed the existing order, resulting in destroyed world cultural treasures, ransacked orphanages and hospitals, and a free-for-all microcosm of the current U.S. administration's 'right makes right' view. Sure there are massive protests in Nasiriya and Baghdad, with people carrying signs in English that say "Bush = Saddam", or generally protesting the foreign military presence there. But "it's over" and we can all stop paying attention and go back to the joint Chevron/McDonalds/drive-thru Starbucks in our SUVs and go on with our lives now, right?

Well, no. There's a reason that some local folks are still getting naked for peace. As one of the organizers said, "It's really not about the war in Iraq, it's about the fact that the conditions that breed war are still here." (--Alan Moore of Musicians & Fine Artists for World Peace.)

The pre-emptive attack doctrine is still wrong.

The media is still representing corporate interests over journalistic accuracy. (S listened to protest coverage on the radio earlier this week. A protest in Baghdad was described in one report as a tribute to freedom which featured prayer; a second report on another station described the specific, anti-occupation banners being displayed. What gives?) Most Americans have a very fuzzy understanding of U.S. foreign policy or of events occurring elsewhere in the world. Our collective ignorance can at least be partially attributed to the cheap fluff info-tainment which is provided to us in place of real reporting.

The military is still shirking responsibility for its actions by simply saying that it 'has no information' on any incident it doesn't want to take responsibility for, and the domestic media doesn't question it. (Thankfully, others do. My current favorite is still the BBC, which directly contradicted military announcements passed on unquestioningly by the American press, because their correspondents are eye witnesses to very different scenarios.) The military will apparently be in Iraq for a while, and needs to be responsible for what it has taken on.

The U.S.' relationships with its allies are still devastated.

I could go on and on. (I suppose I already have: see my comments on what we should demand from our country now as continuing steps on the long road to a peaceful and just society.) But because I need to be on my way to the airport in just a few hours, let me just say that the system is still quite broken, and we need to fix it.

A few suggestions (because someone asked me):

Stay informed. Subscribe to alternative media sources.

Join an organization that is actively advocating for positions you believe in. Support their work to make it more effective.

Stay active. Every peace demonstration in this country has cracked the lie that our country is unified in its to bomb our way to a less violent and more orderly world.

Another world is possible, and we pledge to make it real.

*

I'll be back online in May. Take care.

Where has all the democracy gone?

The BBC asked it's readers who should run Iraq? The answers are informative and entertaining. My two faborite excerpts:

The Iraqis will rule Iraq, BUT the framework will be from the West. The Shia leadership will want a "church" state similar to Iran... It would be like saying that Iraq can choose any government it wants including a new tyrannical dictatorship. I think not! The Shias must learn to compromise as part of a representative style democracy or federation.

Well, yes, that was from an American. The horror of allowing democracy to run so freely that the Iraqi's can choose any government they want! The horror! How about this one:

The British have the most experience creating the administrative and legal structures required in Iraq in its transition to a democracy. They have a great deal of colonial office experience to offer.

I assume this was suggested because that whole colonial thing worked out so well? We should set up an administration so that people, when they're ready, will need to violently overthrow it??

People are scary. Which is why democracy is also scary, sometimes. Because people with opinions like this vote. (You should check out the others. Some are...unique and interesting.)

*

SF locals: you know that guy who marches around with the sign, about impeaching presidents in all n zygotropic galaxies? He's been attending peace demonstrations all around the bay area. He even went out to the action at Chevron's headquarters in San Ramon: I saw him easing into the frame behing a television spokeshead.

I also saw his sign this morning. He's apparently been touched by the violence done to his fellow sign-carriers: his current message deals with police brutality.

*

The NY Times had a good article on troubles in Mosul on the 15th, where 10 or so civilians were killed by U.S. forces while demonstrating against the newly installed governor. To maintain order, the U.S. military is cruising around in armored vehicles and making noisy, low passes over the civilian areas, terrorizing the populace.

Read the end of this article, where a soldier notices that the locals don't appear to be greateful for the U.S. presence.

*

Right wingers here are always saying that this war is being fought to protect MY right to protest. What happens when a war of liberation winds up resulting in U.S. soldiers shooting the people they just liberated when THEY protest? I'm sure there's some rhetoric just waiting in the wings to cover this. I can't wait.

Break time!

This was written by a friend of a friend in his weblog.

Oh, and about pollsters (see above)? I heard an interview with the most respected pollster in my region. The interviewer asked him how they come up with such large support for the war - 67% was it? The pollster replied that they have four categories; strongly in support of the war, somewhat in support, somewhat oppose and strongly oppose. They take the first three categories together as supporting the war to some extent.

The interviewer couldn't quite get his question out. He tried to ask couldn't you just as easily group the last [three] as being opposed to the war to some extent.

The pollster did not respond.

[I'd provide a link to the exact entry, but blogspot is having indexing problems this month.]

"Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.

"...voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

-quote from Hermann Goering, Nazi war criminal (convicted at Nuremberg), 1946
[Additional information at snopes.]

*

From a BBC article entitled 'Banned weapons: where are they?' the adverse consequences of the U.S. & U.K. forces NOT finding weapons of mass destruction are discussed in detail.

But if they are not found there will be recriminations. The war was justified on the grounds that Iraq had not complied with UN resolutions to declare and destroy them....

The chief UN weapons inspector, Hans Blix, remains open-minded about whether Iraq had such weapons, but is highly critical of Britain and the US. He accused them of planning the war "well in advance" and of "fabricating" evidence against Iraq.

The article debunks the false alarms, forged Nigerian documents, and soldier-panics that were all cleared up later. But this interesting:

So the United States and Britain have started to look for evidence on the ground.

They are currently unwilling to let the UN do the job.

Because their reputations and credibility about other alleged threats are on the line, of course.

*

I can't help but flinch: "Bush administration officials have been clear in saying that as the war winds down and they begin their campaign to bring political reform to Iraq and the Middle East, a critical step will be opening the region's markets to trade and investment. Okay, it makes me flinch and shudder.

It's not that the protectionist nations of the region couldn't use job growth and more diverse opportunities, because I'm sure they could. It's that this proposal is being put forward by someone who gave only his campaign donors a chance at bidding reconstruction projects of a sovereign nation. People who are so deeply engaged in graft should NOT be promoting their model in other nations!

Al Jazeera is the source of many fine items of reporting today. The top item, judging by how many times I've heard this discussed in other media today, is the U.S.' interest in having other debtors forgive Iraq's debts. What, debt relief for Iraq? How does that make sense when we won't give debt relief to countless impoverished countries who can't develop their resources due to staggering debt? Well...

By having Iraqi debt forgiven...US building costs may be met by Iraqi oil sales and the US taxpayer may not end up spending much more than they are already being asked to pay for the invasion so far....

"In exchange for debt relief, France, Germany, Russia and others are very likely to ask for contracts to rebuild the country and sell Iraqi oil, as well as a voice in economic policy," points out Robert Hormats, vice chairman of Goldman Sachs International and a former State Department official in the Carter Administration....

So far, the billions of dollars in contracts to rebuild Iraq are going to US companies. And at least initially, US officials are planning to make all decisions about Iraq's economy, with help from local advisers. If that doesn't change, it will be difficult to persuade other countries to drop their debts ....

Although it is not legally binding, the House of Representatives last week approved an amendment to bar French, Russian, German and Syrian companies from gaining any reconstruction contracts in postwar Iraq.

This is a very timely article. Through at least three other news sources today, I heard various U.S. spokespeople expressing concern that Iraq's oil wealth may not cover the cost of the huge contracts Bush has unilaterally let for rebuilding to his campaign donor contractors. The difference between those features and this one is that the full version of this article is aghast at the idea of U.S. oil exploitation, while the U.S. sources quoted all seemed to think it was a SWELL idea.

Ah, the magic of domestic bias!

Other features worthy of note in A-J today: will the US have to MAKE a smoking gun?, and an update on the international weekend protests (SF got an honorable mention!).

*

As a former librarian, my heart bleeds over not only the civilian lives lost, but over the destruction of the national library."The library, in central Baghdad, housed several rare volumes, including entire royal court records and files from the period when Iraq was part of the Ottoman Empire.... A nearby Islamic library has also gone in up in flames, he said, destroying valuable literature including one of the oldest surviving copies of the Koran."

Not to be unduly cynical, but this doesn't sound...right. While I have only lived through relatively minor disasters, such as the 'Great Quake of 1989' here in SF, I don't recall anyone rushing to burn down our libraries or loot and destroy our antiquities. (Which are largely from elswhere, admittedly, since the work of the ancient native peoples were not well preserved by those who came later.) It doesn't sound like something that local people DO. Even if invaded, I can't imagine burning the history of my own people.

I do recall that conquerors of old were eager to destroy the records of their conquests. The Spaniards, when they came to the New World, gained access to the elaborate written codexes of the Mayans, burned them, and then insisted that the locals were savages because they had no books. The 1940s German government rewrote its textbooks to eliminate the contributions of those they wished to exterminate. Domestically, ancient Egyptian kings periodically defaced the work of their predecessors, changing the names on carved monuments of great achievements to their own. But I don't recall EVER reading of people destroying their OWN records of their ancestors' OWN achievements.

[I've read allegations that the looters are not all 'local' to the towns they are looting. But this has not yet been fully explained.]

*

Am I supposed to be surprised that the Bush Administration has declared Syria to be a terrorist state? Well, no. The British, ever trying to balance the extremes of Rumsfeld & Co., had to publicly declare their sincere belief that Syria is not next 'on the list' of countries to invade. I can't wait for Rumsfeld's next undoing of THAT statement...

*

Last item for the night: the US has no plans to clean up depleted uranium residues it left in Iraq, stating that recent studies cancel out the negative studies from the previous Gulf War. "The UN Environment Programme study, published in March 2003, found DU in air and groundwater in Bosnia-Herzegovina seven years after the weapons were fired." But they're CERTAIN that doesn't cause health risks. Perhaps they didn't see the 60 Minutes expose I watched a few years ago, or the articles which said that DU manufacturers were using 'dirty' products to manufacture what CAN, at least theoretically, be a relatively "clean" form of radioactive ammunition.

Here's a discussion of a UK Gulf War veteran who has suffered a steep decline from being a marathon runner to having serious mobility problems:

Ray Bristow was tested in Canada for DU. He is open-minded about its role in his condition.

But he says: "I remained in Saudi Arabia throughout the war. I never once went into Iraq or Kuwait, where these munitions were used.

"But the tests showed, in layman's terms, that I have been exposed to over 100 times an individual's safe annual exposure to depleted uranium."

I didn't write Sunday: I was too busy biking 100 kilometers about 62 miles) in the rain for fun.


Late breaking clippings from Saturday: a BBC description of some weekend anti-war protests; photos reflecting the toll the war has taken on Iraqi civilians; local SF photographer Basetree's anti-war rally photos, including a moment of levity: [fresh] orange alert!

A few more links:

• postcards from a NY peace protest;
  
• The International Task Force of the American Library Association's Social
  Responsibilities Round Table's a comprehensive list of
  alternative resources and information on the War in Iraq
  
• Michael Moore's April 7th message (he didn't provide a permanent link, so you may have to go looking for it), about how well he's done after speaking out against war at the Oscars, and how the backlash against him that pundits predicted is wildly wrong.
  
• A Washington Post article questioning US claims of forbidden nuclear materials("American troops who suggested they uncovered evidence of an active nuclear weapons program in Iraq unwittingly may have stumbled across known stocks of low-grade uranium, officials said Thursday.")
  

And The Must See Item of the day: Photos showing the staging of the statue pull-down publicity photos. It's fascinating to observe that there is almost no one present at the 'celebration'. The comments about the cast of extras is also quite interesting.

Allow me to catch up on my clippings before editorializing.

Do U.S. forces have something against journalists? Attacks on the Palestine Hotel, where all foreign media reporters stay, Al Jazeerah, and Abu Dhabi TV imply either bad intent, or that US forces are just shooting up everything. Either way, it's not pretty.

Two cameramen - who worked for the Reuters news agency and Spain's Telecinco - died when a US tank shell hit their hotel. A third journalist was killed when a missile hit the offices of al-Jazeera TV....

The 15th floor of the Palestine hotel - where most of the foreign media is based - was hit by a tank shell at about 1200 local time (0800 GMT).

"One of the tanks had its barrel pointed up at the building. We went inside and there was an almighty crash, a huge explosion that shook the hotel," reported Sky TV's David Chater.

US military officials expressed regret at the incident, and said one of their tanks had fired on the hotel in response to incoming sniper and rocket fire.

"A tank was receiving small arms fire... from the hotel and engaged the target with one tank round," General Buford Blount, commander of the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division in Baghdad, told Reuters.

But BBC correspondents and other journalists who were in the building at the time said they heard no fire coming from the hotel.

Reuters said Ukrainian cameraman Taras Protsyuk died and a reporter, a photographer, and a technician were wounded when the shell hit the building....

In a separate incident, al-Jazeera said its correspondent Tareq Ayoub died and a cameraman was injured when two missiles hit its office, virtually destroying it.

Reporting from Iraq is fraught with danger

US military officials said the building was struck by mistake.

"It is something we all regret. But I don't believe that it is possible that it was deliberate," US State Department spokesman Nabil Khoury told the network.

But the Reporters Without Borders pressure group said al-Jazeera had been careful to inform the Americans of the exact location of its offices and demanded an inquiry into the attack.

Abu Dhabi television said its Baghdad bureau was also hit by US bombing.

Reporters for the local paper also raise the possibility that the attacks, especially on Al Jazeera, were intentional.

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A posting by a member of the Iraq Peace Team entited 'There will be No Victors in this War,' reminds us of the terrible human cost of this invasion. Then she passes on some information she's heard there in Baghdad.

Last night I heard that the U.S. military is bringing not only embedded press with them when they enter, but also 3,000 Iraqis who very well might become "embedded dancers" frolicking in the streets to demonstrate how jubilant Iraqis are to be "liberated." Should this happen, we only hope that there will be a few journalist who will document the truth. The feeling here is anything but joyous and jubilant.

Last night in my journal I wrote, "How could either of our countries allow so much power to be given to one person?" I was thinking of the respective leaders of each country. I place the greater burden on the U.S. because we claim to have a democracy. Again I will say with such a heaviness of heart, there will be no victors in this war. Tragically we in the states have forced this war on the Iraqi people, a people who only want peace. Dear God, I don't know how I'll bear it if we in the States now take on a triumphal attitude and declare ourselves victors and liberators of the Iraqi people.

While I had marveled at the acknowledgement in the press that the images of a Hussein statue being pulled down was 'aided' (they didn't use the word staged) by Marines, it will be interesting to learn whether or not the people in the images were of Baghdad residents, or of people brought in from elsewhere.

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Here's an interesting article about The Moral Questions of War from a medical journal, which spells out requirements for a just war that I have not seen elsewhere:

Some argue that war can never be morally justified, and Benjamin Franklin, one of America's founding fathers, believed: "There never was a good war or a bad peace." International law accepts the notion of a just war, but it's worth remembering the seven conditions of such a war. The cause must be just. A lawful authority must decide to resort to force. The intention of the war must accord with international law. The use of force must be a last resort. The probability of success should be high. (This condition seems to favour the powerful. Norman Cousins observed that: "The possibility of war increases in direct proportion to the effectiveness of the instruments of war.") The cost benefit ratio should be positive. The means used must conform with international humanitarian law.

If these seven items are correct, this war doesn't qualify. The UN disapproved this course; the intention of 'regime change' is illegal (as opposed to disarmament, which was legal and approved by the UN); the use of force was used in place of successful inspections, and so was not being used as a last resort, but rather as a first choice.

The conditions listed above, based on a 17th century theologian are one of many lists of conditions. I see lists available on the web of other lengths, including a shorter one attributed to Thomas Aquinas that requires a) just cause, b) war is the last resort; and c) there's a reasonable chance of success at the goal, which is to bring peace. Again, 'regime change by force' isn't recognized as a just cause, and because inspections were working, the last resort argument fails.

I note that the Vatican says conditions for a just war have not been met, despite various web pages purporting to use Catholic theory that rationalize war by chosing biblical text in which saints fail to advise soldiers to lay down their arms. (Proving points by their absence is such fun!)

*

This has to be the most amazing quote I read yesterday:

"Free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things."

-Donald Rumsfeld, on the collapse of order in Baghdad, resulting in widespread looting, even of hospitals.

So much for our obligation under international war to protect noncombatants and maintain order in the absence of the authority we have overthrown...

So Baghdad was taken, and then Baghdad fell into chaos. A little reported fact from this same article: "Russian President Vladimir Putin says under no circumstances should a new colonialism be allowed to establish itself in Iraq. Speaking at a summit in St Petersburg with the leaders of France and Germany, he says Iraq's fate must be in the hands of the Iraqi people."

*

A peace protest in London drew 20,000 people to register the fact that, just because the US is winning, doesn't mean the war has been legitimate.

"It doesn't matter how many people turn out, it's about registering a protest that a principle has been violated, international law has been violated and everyone who cares must register a protest."

The Stop The War Coalition spokesman had other, very relevant comments:

"I don't really believe the fighting is over - I think the invasion is sliding into a colonial occupation," he said.

"Every day for the last week, innocent Iraqis have been shot by US and UK troops.

"Unfortunately the people in the Pentagon have made it clear that they want to extend this war into a list of other countries that they want to take on - including Syria and Jordan and Iran.
"We are demonstrating because we don't want that to happen."...

On Saturday, protests against the war also took place in around 40 other countries, including New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Italy, Greece and France.

*

Iraqometer currently lists 1,400 Iraqi civilian casualties, and a cost per U.S. taxpayer of $1,125.

After days of working 12+ hours and fitful sleep, I'll have time to catch up here tonight!

There's a lot of news. Some of it is amazing. I'll leave you with this quote:

"Free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things."
-Donald Rumsfeld, on the collapse of order in Baghdad, resulting in widespread looting, even of hospitals.

This isn't new, but I still enjoy Peter Freundlich's commentary on the "logic" behind this war.

All right, let me see if I understand the logic of this correctly. We are going to ignore the United Nations in order to make clear to Saddam Hussein that the United Nations cannot be ignored. We're going to wage war to preserve the UN's ability to avert war. The paramount principle is that the UN's word must be taken seriously, and if we have to subvert its word to guarantee that it is, then by gum, we will. Peace is too important not to take up arms to defend. Am I getting this right?

Further, if the only way to bring democracy to Iraq is to vitiate the democracy of the Security Council, then we are honor-bound to do that too, because democracy, as we define it, is too important to be stopped by a little thing like democracy as they define it.

It continues. Do follow the link and read the whole thing.

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Unbelieveably awful: Oakland police injured peaceful protesters with wood and rubber bullets at the Port of Oakland yesterday. They also injured longshoremen who were standing nearby, and who criticized the obviously excessive force employed.

*

According to the big dictionary that my partner has handy, pacifism is defined as follows:
pacifism:
1. opposition to war or violence of any kind.
2. the principle or policy of establishing and maintaining universal peace or such relations among all nations that all differences may be adjusted without without recourse to war.
3. non-resistance to aggression.

I am unfamiliar with the third definition. I guess Tibet would fall into that category, though they offered some symbolic resistance when initially invaded by China.

I consider myself a pacifist, but also believe in defending myself in non-lethal ways. Definition 3 really doesn't fit into my personal definition.

*

Definition three is ALL a correspondent is obsessed with. I received an article subtitled "pacifists protect tyrants and incite wars," which is one of the least plausible things I have received recently.

It actually cites Fox News. No. Really. I rudely accused the author of studying comedy. I mean, Fox News?!?!? I feel bad about making that accusation, but the premise is so incredible.

Quote: "History will record with severity the huge social, human and political cost of the activism of the erroneously named 'pacifists'."

Okay, everyone reading this was required to take a history course at some point, correct? How many times have you read chapters devoted to how pacifists have undermined world peace by being non-violent? Did you answer never? A cookie for you.

This article has amazing quotes, such as: "During the decade of 1970, the handing over by U.S. government of several Southeast Asian nations to communists -who unleashed indescribable massacres of millions of innocent civilians, such as in Cambodia- was in most part precipitated by pressures on behalf of 'pacifists'."

This indicates great confusion. I hate to be the one to point this out, but it's rather obvious that the US government _did not own_ Southeast Asia. All 50 states are in non-Asian areas. There are a couple of territories, which are still there, and which are not communist. Since you can't give what you don't have, it's pretty clear that the U.S. was not handing Southeast Asian nations out like candy at Halloween to commies. Duh.

A close reading of the article indicates that, while massacres by leftists are heinous, massacres by right-wingers (the Shah, Pinochet, Contras, etc.) are apparently peachy, because they merit no mention at all. Being killed by right-wingers: good. Being killed by left-wingers: bad. I had never looked upon death in such a politically qualitative way, but there it is.

My favorite aspect of the article really is the idea that pacifists incite wars. Because it's so completely wacky. Let's look at the current war.

1. Who armed Saddam Hussein?
a. militarists
b. pacifists
2. Who sold Hussein components to build weapons of mass destruction?
a. militarists, including Cheney's company Halliburton
b. pacifists
3. Who tried to get Iraq a greater line of credit despite evidence of chemical weapons use, in an attempt to ensure Iraq's victory over Iran?
a. militarists
b. pacifists
4. Whose support of arms and credit allowed Hussein to kill his domestic rivals and consolidate his power?
a. militarists
b. pacifists.

It's unfair for me to set up a "straw man" like this, making fun of the author's complete blind spot for all militarism (and US militarism in particular). But it's terribly satisfying, in a low and vulgar way.

Opposition to the use of violence does not create violence. Weapons sales and fundamentalism and extreme political dogmas and greed and fear create violence, especially when combined. Sitting on the sidewalk, eating an apricot and praying for peace is not going to make your neighbors burst from their homes with submachine guns and go on killing sprees.

At least, not on my planet. Which is earth.

Blogger, my blog publisher/enabler, is having some technical difficulties. I may be able to upload this, but I can't publish to my food page. Which is a shame, because I have a really long entry that failed to go through twice this evening.

So I'm going to save some wacky pro-war mail commentary I've received for tomorrow night. You'll have to remove your logic cap to enjoy it, however. It's rather 'out there.'