I know our government appears corrupt. If it's any comfort, it appears to be worse in Italy (SF Gate World Views). Read through to the bottom about commentary on the terrible fate that has befallen the American press: "The lesson from America is that, if news and public affairs are left purely to the market, it will most likely give the government what it wants."

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It was the 100th anniversary of author George Orwell's birth this week. Democracy Now decided to host a theme show in Orwell's honor. It's called The Two Georges, Orwell and Bush: A Dramatic Reading of George Orwell’s Classic Work 1984 Interspersed With Recent News Clips From President Bush and Others.

Before you think both 'oh no, it's too true' and 'how contrived,' I suppose the big difference to me is that the press here is already reporting lies, so the idea of going back to revise them ('he who controls the past controls the future') is rather pointless. Just the same, Rumsfeld is immediately caught denying things Bush had said publicly. Ooops.

The Text of 1984 is available here (Mondo politico).

Things which do not merit mention in the American mainstream news press:

-people living sustainably and peacefully
-success gained without violence
-the existence of peaceful opposition to powerful institutions
-individuals who succeeded after being assisted by social welfare programs
-higher quality of life in other countries (in any and all areas: longer life expectancies especially, but also any superior social services, better air quality, lower crime rates, etc.)
-the social benefits provided by organized labor
-the activities of well-adjusted, ordinary people
-values which are more complex than fundamentalism, good vs. evil, or pure economics
-sufficient historical perspective to understand cause and effect relationships in international activities.

I think the glaring absence of these things in the media, where "reality" is defined for so many people, has given us a very unhealthy view of the world.

For those of you who remember the last list of U.S. promises to liberate people with bombs, promises which are largely unfulfilled, here are some links to keep abreast of the situation, and opportunities to donate some cash:

-The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Afghanistan, providing news on their projects as they switch from direct food aid to sustainable projects, such as providing seeds and fertilizer to jump start a revival of agriculture. They also check in on the folks at Guantanamo Bay, and bring complaints to the U.S. authorities to make their treatment in conformance with international law.

-The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA). Pull down the menu at the top under 'projects' to see their good works ranging from building and running hospitals and orphanages to reviving long abandoned irrigation projects, providing disaster relief, and generally being great. RAWA provided many of the videos, shot stealthily from beneath burqas, which provided evidence of the Taliban's atrocities to the foreign press.

-BBC's Country Profile: Afghanistan, a very short history with some good trivia.

-Adopt-A-Minefield, a group working to clear minefields from Afghanistan, where about 300 people are maimed or killed each month. Inexplicably, this site doesn't work properly under my browser. The author of the profane and brilliant Get Your War On supports the work of Mine Detection & Dog Center Team #5 through this organization.

-International Campaign to Ban Landmines. I believe this is a longer, older campaign than A-A-M, comprised of more than 1100 smaller groups that share the goal of eliminating landmines and aiding the victims of such mines. Their site is substantive: for example, you can read the list of countries that has not agreed to ban the manufacture, stockpiling, and use of landmines, which just happens to include the U.S.A.

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Speaking of the profane and brilliant strip, Get Your War On page 25 is up. And the author is right: truly enough, I had to look up Karimov's short profile at Human Rights Watch to get one of the jokes. (From my reading elsewhere, I know that Uzbekistan's increasingly repressive government is currently a close friend of the U.S. It has something to do with oil pipelines. Violent repression of peaceful people and all opposition are giving rise to fundamentalist extremists who are organized enough to resist him. Sound familiar?)

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (www.fair.org) analyzed U.S. war coverage, and learned that viewers "were 25 times as likely to see a pro-war guest as one who was anti-war during the first three weeks of the invasion of Iraq." (NYC Indymedia). Among other things, the FAIR analysis shows that the media were only too happy to provide the military and U.S. government airtime to support its positions, while not providing any where near proportionate opportunities for anti-war voices to speak relative to actual American anti-war sentiment. In addition, the tiny number of anti-war opinions were reduced to sound bites. "Not a single show in the study conducted a sit-down interview with a person identified as being against the war." The coverage was also slanted toward folks in the war business, obscuring the fact that international law, human rights, and many other significant issues are involved. If nothing else, read the article for the Dan Rather quote.

There is a lot of other great stuff at the FAIR, including an item that Former General Wesley Clark says he was asked by the White House to implicate Iraq on the very day of the September 11th attacks, but the White House would not provide him with any evidence; and another in which they point out that U.S. conservatives who hotly criticized U.S. military intervention in Kosovo and said their criticism was 'patriotic' under Clinton now insist that any questioning of the commander-in-chief is treason. (Perhaps they should all be tried retroactively, based only on their own standards?)

The United States is not preserving evidence of mass murders by Saddam Hussein's regime. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed by the Iraqi government and its friends during peacetime, and evidence of these crimes is being destroyed. (NPR Audio) If justice is going to be done, there need to be trials, evidence, proof, and the families of victims need to know what became of their missing relatives. After more than two months of trying to get a hold of its many other problems, the U.S. is finally turning its attentions to the big picture of war crimes against the Iraqi people.

Some lists that have come to light confirming the details of hundreds of state-organized executions, which need to be investigated and authenticated.

But in the meantime the mass graves are not being guarded; desperate relatives are poking through the mass graves they know of on their own; forensic evidence is being lost or moved; and the task of gathering evidence against the regime is falling on non-profit and non-governmental organizations, such as Human Rights Watch. Technical expertise is needed. The evidence won't stay there forever. If we're serious about bringing criminals to justice (rather than just a wholesale, collective punishment of anyone who enjoyed any privileges or successes under the Hussein regime), this has to be done right the first time.

But Arlene, didn't you oppose the war?

Goodness yes. I still oppose the war. I believe in the rule of law, which includes an assumption of innocence until guilt is proven, fair trial, and serious punishment. If the U.S.' incredibly well-funded 'intelligence' machine couldn't work up enough evidence to persuade the U.N. security council of a crime, rushing to bomb a country and execute its leaders is uncalled for. [Duh.] If Hussein is allged to have committed even a fraction of the crimes he is accused of, it should be relatively simple to put together a case and convict him and his minions.

Bombing the citizens of his country who had suffered so much is not an appropriate punishment for a man who had no compulsion about killing those same people, is it? No. Bombing his survivors is not just.

Well, don't you think that the U.S.' success in the war solves this problem? Isn't this justice?

So far as I know, Hussein, who I'm rather sure is a criminal, could be on a beach somewhere, drinking frosty drinks with fellow 'undisclosed location' comrades bin Laden and Cheney. (When was the last time we saw Cheney?) Meanwhile, there may have been 5,800 Iraqi civilian casualties (Iraqometer). I don't perceive this situation as just. Even if he died in the bombing along with so many civilians and kids, that still isn't quite "just" -- he hasn't been publicly and definitely held accountable for his actions. He hasn't been forced to face his victims in defeat. He hasn't even been made an example of. He hasn't had to sit in a jail cell, contemplating his crimes, for years and years.

Instead, his victims are maimed; the people of Iraq are suffering from irregular services, chaos, looting, and violence; looters have destroyed government offices which may have held damning documentary evidence of atrocities; and Hussein is either free or anonymously dead, an ambiguity which his supporters are enjoying to their own advantage.

To me, that's the proverbial 'winning the battle but losing the war.'

Speaking of losing things, aren't you going to bring up weapons of mass destruction, and our great success there?

Oh, shut up. Those aren't important.

Ha! I knew you'd be sensitive about that! Our government said they had proof that WMDs were in Iraq in huge volumes, and information about where the WMDs in Iraq were hidden. (SF Indymedia) Very precise. All sorts of details. And yet, searches based on the intelligence they had turned up nothing but false alarms.

Sadly, it appears not only that the intelligence information the U.S. relied on was dubious (BBC), but that the Bush Administration doesn't want to learn from its mistakes. Those mistakes apparently included getting information from defectors and exiles who had interests that do not necessarily mesh with our own. If we want to be safer from terrorism, we need to change the kind of information we rely on, to, oh say, GOOD information. The Bush Administration should not fear good information.

The Baghdad Indymedia Center, Al MuaJaha, The Iraqi Witness, is up and running in multiple languages.

A way to win hearts and minds: having U.S. soldiers search schoolgirls in Baghdad. I'm sure that gives all parents a warm fuzzy feeling. Sure. Right.

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Something I hadn't considered: there are plenty of international opinions not only are reviving the 'Iraq-as-Vietnam' analogy, but are also comparing this unhappy occupation with that of Korea. (Both links: Washington Post)

Americans theoretically have a right to travel freely throughout the U.S. Under the Bush Administration, this right is becoming more and more theoretical: the Feds have developed a "no-fly" list of Americans they don't want to be able to fly. Theoretically associated with the so-called War or Terror, the Feds can't actually explain what the list is, or why someone is on it.

For example, men named David Nelson are being hassled every time they fly (Yahoo news). Why? Because the Feds apparently can't tell one David Nelson from another, and so are simply throwing impediments to travel in front of all of them.

Do you feel safer knowing that the federal government can't even figure out which David Nelson it's concerned about? Or work up a description of him?

Me neither.

I've heard some entertaining stories about the ridiculousness of airport security (NPR audio), and some that were just sad: a frequent flier grandmother who is stopped every trip because her name is SIMILAR to a man who is listed on the no-fly list. Calls to multiple federal agencies demonstrated only that no one can help her, because no one is accountable for the list. No one on this list an restore their rights, because they aren't necessarily listed for any reason that can be explained. Garbage in, garbage out.

Meanwhile, anti-war activists find themselves on the no-fly list, (Common Dreams) and are bringing suit after their requests for explanations led nowhere. Some of their security problems aren't even based on their actual name being on the list, but merely on the fact that their names are spelled similarly to those on the list or, according to deputies, because their names sounded Hispanic. (Progressive.org)

A Transportation Security Administration spokesman acknowledges that it has "no guidelines defining who is put on the list.... The TSA also has no procedures for people to clear their names and get off the list." (In These Times) More:

Asked if the TSA has a second list, one not of the “threats to aviation” who would never be allowed to get on a plane, but rather of political activists who are to be singled out for intense scrutiny and interrogation, Steigman said, “I don’t know. I’ll have to look into that.”
A day later, he came back with a curiously candid, if rather alarming, answer. “I checked with our security people,” he said, “and they said there is no second list.” Then, after a pause, he added, “Of course, that could mean one of two things: Either there is no second list, or there is a list, and they’re not going to talk about it for security reasons.”

Meanwhile, at least one delayed passenger observed the loose-leaf binder used by his interrogators, which contained a list of political and peace organizations, such as Greenpeace and the Green Party. (An additional article and more than a dozen additional links at this Indybay article (Indymedia).)

Secret lists and unaccountable government agencies that are unwilling or unable to fix their own mistakes don't make for good security. Stopping grandmothers at airports will not keep us safe.

As the kids say now, "Duh!"

Today's radio program Marketplace announces that Private Jessica Lynch, who claims not to recall her time in an Iraqi hospital from which she was "rescued" by U.S. special forces, now has a Hollywood agent.

*moan*

In other moan-inspiring news, the U.S. military is setting up a court in Iraq intended to try others for crimes against the U.S. military. I'm sure it will be perceived to be as fair and just as it deserves to be.

According the S.F. Chronicle/Associated press, Halliburton's no-bid, competition free oil production contract has doubled in cost, and "The expanded role awarded to Vice President Dick Cheney's former company cost taxpayers $184.7 million as of last week, up from $76.7 million a month ago, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers confirmed this week."

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At least we're not alone: 60% of people polled in an international survey have a fairly unfavorable or very unfavorable opinion of George W. Bush (BBC).

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Well, the GOP is trying to improve their image. The New York Times reported that the GOP plans to make the most of the September 11th memorial not only by holding its convention there (which I knew), but by laying the cornerstone to the still-being-designed monument to the September 11th victims.

Then the New York Times un-reported it.

It was in the print edition and on-line.

Then it was in the print edition, but the title changed for the on-line version, unless you performed an archive search, in which case it still came up with the original title.

Now it's just in the print edition.

But various people took pictures or scans of the article while it was still up, and so now they want to know: what gives?

Different Strings analysis
This Modern World analysis

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According to this story in the Charlotte Observer, "A third of the American public believes U.S. forces found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, according to a recent poll, and 22 percent said Iraq actually used chemical or biological weapons.". Even though those things didn't happen.

Ouch.

The poll notes that this misperception is strongest among those who supported the war. (Go figure.)

A friend had complained that he heard many sensationalistic stories during the war about all sorts of SUSPICIOUS materials that were found, but which were never mentioned again after testing proved they weren't WMDs. And the ABSENCE of WMDs is only now becoming news... So those who don't pay attention could have interpreted poor reporting to be evidence of guilt. And they must be really confused when Bush announces that evidence will EVENTUALLY be found, wondering why he doesn't just turn to all the evidence they think they heard something about... But that doesn't make this any better, does it?

So, I'm supposed to take Bush seriously when he talks about how important the public protests in the street are in Iran, about how the Iranian people are speaking, about how the people of Iran are speaking loudly and demanding a change in their government... Even though he said it it was irrelevant when hundreds of thousands of AMERICANS did the same exact thing?

I see.

The U.S. rounded up 390 or so Iraqis in Thuluya, including kids and elderly men, in a raid that killed at least 3 Iraqis (Washington Post). US forces are occupying people's homes in the town, which they suspect is a bed of anti-US activity (referred to merely as pro-Saddam activity, though no evidence of that has been offered). 27 to 70 Iraqi fighters were killed by the U.S. elsewhere in clampdowns by the U.S., some of whom were foreign fighters (Associated Press/SF Chronicle).

Writer and commentator Molly Ivins speculated that the war would be short, but the peace would be "from hell," and I hope she bet money on that.

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One of my friends complained that there are all sorts of allegations published in the press about mass graves which may be victims of Hussein's evil regime, but then raise questions (why were the victims all tidily and properly buried in caskets if they were mass-murdered in secret?) and then fail to follow up with the site turns out to be a cemetary from the Iran-Iraq war.

Finally, 10 bodies have been dug up from a mass grave which witnesses said should contain 115 bodies of deserting soldiers and prisoners. (Washington Post) The witness insist that they saw fresh bodies piled up in the area, where the digging has taken place. The article says this site is the first of its kind, because some of the remains are recent, which is worth noting for my friend right there.

But where are the other 105 bodies? The witnesses have no idea. And then, raising more questions, they have experts saying that all remains turn skeletal in the climate in this area, but then turn around and suggest that people recognized their relatives and claimed the bodies and took off quickly.

I know I work in law and am perhaps more obsessed with evidence standards than many, but it seems ridiculous to me that, if a government wants to try someone as bad as Hussein was reputed to be for war crimes, they 1) can't find enough victims and 2) everyone can find their dead skeletal relatives EXCEPT the investigators. It's just mystifying.

Speaking of avoiding justice, even the head of the U.N. thinks immunity for all U.S. soldiers on peacekeeping missions is a bad idea. (BBC) War crimes are war crimes, right? Don't we all deserve equal justice under the law? The U.S. is so desperate to avoid prosecution at the International Criminal Court, you have to wonder what our fine leaders have planned. The US did get another exemption from prosecution (Washington Post), which makes me wonder what they have in mind.

Aside from avoiding the charges currently pending by Iran. Iran brought suit against the U.S. for supplying WMDs to Iraq for its attacks on Iran, a case that has been stalled for years. Now Iran wants an apology for U.S.' role in helping to set up Al-Quaida (Engineering News Record). They aren't holding their breath. But I'd love to hear Bush's supporters stumble while trying to explain this one away. 'Well, Sadda m is an evil man NOW, but... well... um..."

The U.S. is planning its execution chamber for the prisoners of war at Guantanamo Bay. The rules for the kangaroo courts the U.S. government has laid out have been discussed in the legal papers I read. They suck. I can't even tell you how badly. Defense lawyers won't get any confidential time with their clients and aren't even allowed to see the evidence against their clients. They may not be able to see most of the evidence in trial. And they need a security clearance. And can't investigate. And can't ever talk about what happened. And likely can't ever be paid, which is the least of the problems with the system, but still.

Military tribunals, secrecy, no opportunity for a real defense... Didn't we used to make fun of countries that had such pathetic and unjust systems? Didn't we mock the Soviets for this during the Cold War??

The BBC has provided a new update on the status of Iraq's cultural treasures, investigated by one of its correspondents. The article points out that Hussein's attempts to co-opt history involved imposing Baath party members in the museum administration, making it an attractive target for oppressed citizens who didn't necessarily view the ancient treasures of their people as the ancient treasures of their people. Perhaps the U.S. soldiers, who exchanged fire with Iraqi soldiers who holed up at the museum briefly, saw it the same way: the way the soldiers secured the oil ministry while ignoring the museum workers' pleas for assistance is still unpleasantly inexplicable.

"The claim that 170,000 items were destroyed or looted has long been abandoned, and reduced considerably. Also, many items have been recovered. Museum staff say that only 33 major items, and around 2,100 minor items, are missing, while 15 major items in the galleries were seriously damaged. These include the famous 4,500-year-old-harp from Ur, with its fabulous golden bull's head...."

2,100 "minor" items is still a lot to lose. A loss that was unnecessary, if the ministry of oil hadn't been so darned important to the U.S... And the full collection hasn't been fully recatalogued, so missing items are still being identified.

Targeted thefts of some of the most valuable items support the theory that some of the looting was either professional and/or an inside job.

That so much has been recovered and hidden by the dedicated staff is some of the first good news I've heard. The article talks about the careful planning that the museum staff went through, evaluating what should be hidden because it could be carried, and what should be left because heavy equipment would be needed to steal. The correspondent was even able to inspect the locked (and unlocked) storerooms.

If I were the museum employees in the lawless weeks after the U.S. 'took control' of Baghdad, I'd claim I'd been cleaned out, too, since U.S. soldiers still refused to guard the place. It's a good looter deterrent to claim to have nothing to loot, and was good thinking on the curator's part.

Sadly, Vice President Haji Abdul Qadir of Afghanistan has been killed. (BBC) Remember Afghanistan? Remember how the U.S. solved all their problems by bombing the Taliban out (along with a few wedding parties and farmers and Red Cross warehouses)? Sounds great, doesn't it? So tidy! So successful! Peace just keeps on happen...

It's hard for the Afghans to even get into the news here. They're YESTERDAY's war. Over and done with. A reminder that we're not very good at this superhero business, since we never really save the day -- though we're there with lots of special effects for the fighting scenes.

Afghanistan needs our help. We destabilized their country by removing one terrible regime, put a group of wanna-be-terrible-regimes in a power sharing arrangement, made some promises, and left. We can do better than that!!

Retiring UN weapons inspector Hans Blix is complaining about the U.S.' negative attitude about the UN. (BBC) "According to Mr Blix, as the US build-up for an invasion of Iraq intensified, US administration officials had leaned on his weapons inspectors to use more damning language in their reports on Iraq." Blix also criticized the intelligence provided to him on alleged WMDs, which turned up nothing.

It's interesting that several weapons inspectors have become firm critics of the U.S. As did the last U.N. human rights chief, who also had to deal with the current administration. Hmmmm.

The tiny news item I read some weeks ago about changing the way Americans look at the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to win concessions from the Palestinians is apparently in full force. Even NPR has stopped referring to the occupied territories as such. There is no mention of the U.N. resolutions against Israel. The occupied territories are now just "the West Bank" and "the Gaza strip." The word 'illegal' is only applied to certain Israeli settlements not approved by the government, but not those settlements that were.

And, while the UN guaranteed the right of Palestinian return years ago, I'm glad I read it: the media keeps simply implying that the return of refugees is an unreasonable and far-out demand.

What is worse: the manipulation, or the cynical expectation that the manipulation will continue indefinitely?

How did it get to be so late in the evening?? Ah, well, a few short notes.

There are several great items at the always excellent blog This Modern World. Current features include debates over misrepresentations about WMDs, threats from the Bush Administration against Head Start employees who speak about their plight, and a link to an article suggesting that Colin Powell really had difficulty delivering his presentation to the UN with a straight face. Also: a link to the very long Al Franken v. Bill O'Reilly book talk. Which was sort of worth seeing.

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An aside: during Bill O'Reilly's speech before Franken spoke, O'Reilly said that now he REALLY wants WMDs to be found in Iraq. For the Good of the Country. NOT the good of the Bush Administration -- he insists he is not an idealogue. No, he fears the US will lose its credibility if no WMDs are found.

I'm not sure the US HAS enough credibility to lose on this issue: most of the world opposed this war and their governments seemed pretty confident in noting that we likely entered Iraq under false pretenses. But let's say, hypothetically, that there are none. Is it the US that loses credibility, or the Bush Administration? If the Bush Administration, oh say, LIED, wouldn't it be good for the country to learn that, and to act appropriately to impeach? I kept hearing that the Clinton impeachment for lying over oral sex was for the good of the country. Surely lying about intelligence information and dragging our nation into war requires a proportional response. Perhaps impeaching Bush hundreds of times would do it?

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The news in brief: the Washington Post reports that Ashcroft Wants Stronger Patriot Act, because he just can't apply the death penalty to enough people.

Alrighty then.

Here's a charming sample from the article:

Ashcroft acknowledged that authorities had subjected some illegal immigrants detained after the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon to harsh jail conditions for long periods of time before the FBI cleared them of links to terrorism. That was a central finding of the critical report issued Monday by the Justice Department's inspector general, Glenn A. Fine....

[This relates to the 762 foreign nationals taken into custody.] While none has been publicly charged with terrorism, they spent an average of 80 days in jail before the FBI completed its investigation, and many went weeks before being charged with immigration violations or seeing attorneys. About515 were eventually deported.

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The BBC reports that there is a not-so-secret September 2002 Pentagon intelligence report [which] concluded that there was "no reliable information" that Iraq had biological or chemical weapons. A few searches on the BBC or Guardian sites will bring you a lot more of the same. TMW also cites Australian articles wherein Aussie intelligence claimed to know the allegations were false.

Hooo boy.

Also of note: the US still doesn't want UN nuclear inspectors to interact with people in Tuwaitha , where a nuclear facility was left unguarded by the US, and radioactive containers were looted for food and water storage by locals. The U.S. says it is responsible for people's health, yet there has been no announcement that it has taken on this responsibility through action.

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Hans Blix, the chief UN weapons inspector who the Bush Administration does not want back in Iraq, had some interesting things to say to the BBC in this article:

Blix has noted that US intelligence on weapons sites, which his inspection team followed up on and came up empty handed. "I thought - my God, if this is the best intelligence they have and we find nothing, what about the rest?"

According to the BBC, the U.S. is using heavy metal 'music' and American children's songs to break the will of their captives in Iraq. Among the music selected to demoralize the captives: Barney, the big purple dinosaur's songs, plus Metallica.

I ask you: how must it feel to know that your songs are being used to browbeat prisoners of war? How must it feel to hear the repeat playing of yours songs day and night described at torture by Amnesty International?

I fear the inevitable Metallica interview that will follow.

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!!

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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?

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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?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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]

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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!)

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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.

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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.

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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."

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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?

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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.

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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.

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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.