Reflections on the state of the nation at this point in time, and on why I’m blogging

The United States has a history that has been revised to resemble myth: glory, goodness, and apple pie. Any events that don’t reflect the way we Americans want to think of ourselves get erased from our written records and collective memory, and are hotly denied whenever reality’s ugly head rears itself. Forgetfulness becomes a virtue in a time when the history upon which we rest our identity is too ugly to allow us to feel great about ourselves.

Before some starry-eyed historians attempt to sanitize this period of history and make it warm and fuzzy for future generations, I want to make a modern record of what it is really like to be here at this time, in this place, from the point of view I have, using the recently popularized media resources available to me.

The long history of dissent in this country has been stifled again and again, kept hidden from the mainstream by wishful thinkers and image peddlers controlling the flow of information. This blog is my small contribution to documenting what I’m seeing and hearing in one of the dark times in U.S. history: the voices and images that point out that the United States is not living up to its ideals.

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There is a concept in the US called “moral relativism,” a circumstance decried by fundamentalists for depriving our culture of morality. They define this term as meaning that there is no ultimate, God-given right or wrong. Moral relativism is decried as a crime of modern western education. Ironically, those same fundamentalists judge the same actions as right or wrong depending on who is doing them, which I think provides a superior definition of moral relativism. Examples:

Opposing the President in public? Fine if it was Clinton, even during wartime; treason if it’s Bush, especially during wartime.

Adultery? A crime against the nation if it’s a Democrat; peachy keen if it’s a Republican. (A real life example of moral relativism among my acquaintances: a Republican friend explained that Clinton’s adultery was worse than his Republican predecessor’s merely because she had to hear about Clinton’s longer. It wasn’t the act itself that was a crime – just the publicity! And the publicity was Clinton’s fault, she insisted. Also, see the list of Republican adulterers and repeat divorcers who sponsored the so-called “Defense of Marriage Act” (buddybuddy.com and elsewhere) for examples of adulterers supported by fundamentalists.)

Terrorism? Fine against our enemies and the old USSR, Evil against us. (See: good shock and awe versus evil shock and awe.(infinitejest.org))

Chemical weapons? Fine against Iran; evil against the Kurds.

Violations of UN Resolutions? Fine if done by Israel or any other US ally; evil if done by Iraq, or anyone else we dislike who is small and relatively unarmed.

Lying to congress and the people of the United States? Evil when done by certain presidents, perfectly justified when done by others. (You know who I mean.)

THAT is real moral relativism, and the United States is currently up to its neck in it.


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Today I read some hate mail generated by war supporters in opposition to an article criticizing both Bush and the war. Moral relativism is boldly apparent. According to these critics, it was fine to sell chemical weapons to Saddam Hussein for use against Iran, because Iran hated us. It was fine to sell weapons of mass destruction to Saddam Hussein, because he was our friend. It was fine to arm Afghanistan’s warlords and Taliban-types, because they were using them against other people, not us. Only the people killed by Hussein in wars matter, not the people the United States killed in wars. It's okay for us to kill others, but not for others to get revenge upon us….

Do as we say, not as we do. That’s not moral leadership. That’s not what great countries do.

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We want to believe we are good people, so US soldiers and government officials don’t admit to killing innocent civilians (only evil terrorists do that), don’t want to admit we’re engaging in undemocratic practices (domestic spying; invading sovereign nations; locking people up and throwing away the key without having a trial); don’t want to admit that our allies have substantive disagreements with us on just about everything we do (polluting, violating the Geneva Convention, using captured resources for private gain)… Because that would mean that we Americans are less than we want to be. Less great. Less true. Less fair.

People and institutions who point out that we are currently being less great, less true, and less fair are criticized for being “anti-American.” The oversimplified explanation for this is that all critics, internal or external, ‘hate our freedoms’ and/or ‘hate America.’ The actual explanation is that these critics want the US to actually live up to its ideals, so Americans don’t have to constantly pretend to be great when it's not true.

The United States is fully capable of being a great nation that truly promotes freedom and democracy around the world, but it is choosing not to. The US is choosing to support corrupt dictators, governments which use extra-judicial assassinations to control political opposition, nations with abysmal human rights and environmental records. The US CHOOSES this, and then gets defensive when it’s pointed out, blaming critics for the tarnish on its name.

It’s not the critics that are tarnishing the name.

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If we really want to be a nation of peace, a nation of peace loving people, we need to change our ways. We need to give up the moral relativism, partisanship, and posturing used to justify immoral foreign and domestic policies. We need to listen to our allies. We need to be a good neighbor. And, of course, we need to stop bombing people, because choosing violence over the rule of law encourages others to do the same.

What level of proof is required that attacking Iraq was a bad idea? How bad will the situation have to become before other alternatives can be seriously considered by the government and the corporate interests it serves, even in the safety of retrospection?

A litany of bad news doesn't seem to shake the administration's determination to occupy Iraq: More than 30 soldiers injured by a mortar attack (sfgate.com), 9 dead in a helicopter crash (sfgate.com), concerns about whether or not a cargo plane was attacked today...

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The big story this week appears to be the Washington Post's: Iraq's Arsenal of Ambitions ("Iraq's Arsenal Was Only on Paper"). The report's conclusion? "The broad picture emerging from the investigation to date suggests that, whatever its desire, Iraq did not possess the wherewithal to build a forbidden armory on anything like the scale it had before the 1991 Persian Gulf War."

The five web page long report reveals some documents identified by the Post which appear to conclusively answer questions about whether or not Iraq destroyed its biological weapons collection. In the article and in this NPR audio interview, author Barton Gellman describes an internal Iraqi government memorandum which noted that Iraq had lied to inspectors by claiming that bioweapons were destroyed one year later than Iraq had reported. (NPR) They were destroyed, but not when Iraq said they were.

The article is interesting in that it interviews a variety of Iraqis, many of whom are still the subject of US interest and threats to produce evidence of projects that they wanted to build, but couldn't. Expensive imaginary projects were designed to siphon funding off from the government or to please Hussein, but many weren't real. A great quote from Hans Blix about posting a 'beware of dog' sign when you don't have a dog is included as well.

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A quote with broader application than intended: "The collapse of Hussein's regime has created new problems without solving any of the old ones," notes an article on the serious housing shortage in Iraq. (SFGate)

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In the article Interrogation, Torture, the Constitution, and the Courts by Joanne Mariner (findlaw.com), a discussion of the federal decision (9th Circuit) that the detainees in Guantanamo have some rights to challenge their detention, there are some scary revelations for those of us who had not read the text of the actual decision (findlaw.com). The Bush administration argued that the prisoners at Guantanamo had no right to contest their captivity, any torture that might occur, or any executions.

"...under the government's theory, it is free to imprison Gherebi indefinitely along with hundreds of other citizens of foreign countries, friendly nations among them, and to do with Gherebi and these detainees as it will, when it pleases, without any compliance with any rule of law of any kind, without permitting him to consult counsel, and without acknowledging any judicial forum in which its actions may be challenged. Indeed, at oral argument, the government advised us that its position would be the same even if the claims were that it was engaging in acts of torture or that it was summarily executing the detainees. To our knowledge, prior to the current detention of prisoners at Guantanamo, the U.S. government has never before asserted such a grave and startling proposition... it is the first time that the government has announced such an extraordinary set of principles - a position so extreme that it raises the gravest concerns under both American and international law."

In other words, the Court was appropriately appalled.

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The same author has an analysis of Bush's use of Guantanamo as a legal black hole (findlaw.com), which is disturbing. Her citation to a dissent from a 1950s case, asking if the rights of a prisoner change every time the government choses to hold the prisoner in a new location, are distressingly relevant.

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Speaking of prisoners, were you aware that the US is detaining about 13,000 people in Iraq?? (Washington Post) Read this:

They said that for the past two weeks they have been reviewing the files of hundreds of low-level prisoners, such as those caught in raids in which more prominent fugitives or weapons were found, to determine if they would be released. Of 9,000 such prisoners, as well as 3,800 others detained for participating in militias, panels of U.S. military judges, intelligence officers and military police had reviewed 1,200 cases and found 506 of them met the criteria for release under the new policy.

No, they're not getting lawyers, either.

Winning hearts and minds, winning hearts and minds...

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The U.S. is continuing the occupation, but now with Marines who are intent on taking a different approach than the Army. The Marines, who are so eager to differentiate themselves from the Army that they're considering wearing green fatigues rather than desert camouflage as the Army has, say they plan to live among the people, be culturally sensitive, and focus on the violent elements of society.

"I'm appalled at the current heavy-handed use of air [strikes] and artillery in Iraq. Success in a counterinsurgency environment is based on winning popular support, not blowing up people's houses." - Anonymous Marine in the Washington Post

Time for a kindler, gentler occupation?

According to the New York Times, the Bush Administration has withdrawn its 400 person team of WMD hunters.

The step was described by some military officials as a sign that the administration might have lowered its sights and no longer expected to uncover the caches of chemical and biological weapons that the White House cited as a principal reason for going to war last March.

And no, they still haven't found anything.

[I'll comment on this week's developments, some of which are quite interesting, if I can manage to stay awake past 9:30 tonight.]

The 2003 P.U.-Litzer Prizes have been announced for the stinkiest journalism. (fair.org) Many of this past year's prizes related to reporting on the war against Iraq. My favorite:

* "CODDLING DONALD" PRIZE -- CBS’s Lesley Stahl, ABC’s Peter Jennings and Others

On the day news broke about Saddam Hussein’s capture, Stahl and Jennings each interviewed Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. In step with their mainstream media colleagues, both failed to ask about Rumsfeld’s cordial 1983 meeting with Hussein in Baghdad on behalf of the Reagan administration that opened up strong diplomatic and military ties between the U.S. government and the dictator that lasted through seven years of his worst brutality.

The rest of the awards are also quite good. Go there and read them all.

Also note that the New York Times was pressured by FAIR readers to correct a Colin Powell misstatement that Hussein threw out UN weapons inspectors, when in reality they were withdrawn by the UN prior to the US bombing campaign. The media has been letting obviously wrong statements slide past repeatedly. Good for the FAIR folks for pressuring them to act like actual journalists.

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Also good of the FAIR folks to note that the new euphemism for all negative impact of sanctions against Iraq, including the health consequences that killed hundreds of thousands of children and the collapse of key infrastructure, is now "neglect." As in, Saddam Hussein's neglect, rather than the international community's.

Neglect.

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regulareverydaypeople.com is filled with photos of, well, regular every day American and Iraqi people who are suffering as a result of this war. (Warning: this includes maimed and deceased people.)

The U.S. government is both offering bonuses for enlisted soldiers to stay, AND forcing them to stay with their units rather than retiring or ending their tour and going home on schedule. (BBC)

Yipes. The comments by soldiers on this page (in the comments section, which is incomplete and may change) are scary.

Tony Blair is still trying to justify the war in Iraq to his skeptical nation, but also has announced that he expects England to maintain a significant troop presence until 2006. (BBC)

Something tells me both Bush and Blair would have had a harder time pushing their war plans if the amount of other people's time they planned to invest in this adventure had been known.

The U.S. government is both offering bonuses for enlisted soldiers to stay, AND forcing them to stay with their units rather than retiring or ending their tour and going home on schedule. (BBC)

Yipes. The comments by soldiers on this page (in the comments section, which is incomplete and may change) are scary.

Tony Blair is still trying to justify the war in Iraq to his skeptical nation, but also has announced that he expects England to maintain a significant troop presence until 2006.

Something tells me both Bush and Blair would have had a harder time pushing their war plans if the amount of other people's time they planned to invest in this adventure had been known.

The news that the federal authorities fear that people who use almanacs may be terrorists raises a variety of questions. (story.news.yahoo.com) Two of them would have to be: Almanacs!?!?!? ALMANACS???? Is someone in the Bush Administration, which demonized libraries in the so-called Patriot Act, just now learning about all the possible sources of reference information in the world, and becoming more frightened as a result??

Almanacs!?!

The upcoming January 19th issue of In These Times features a good summary by weblog author and editor Bleifuss of the United States' past involvement with Iraq. An earlier article called Missing U.S.-Iraq History by investigative reporter Robert Perry covered the cozy arrangements past U.S. Administrations, especially that of Ronald Reagan, had with Saddam Hussein.

While the topic has been well-covered elsewhere (the best being Georgetown University's National Security Archive (gwu.edu)), this article discusses encouragement from foreign governments, including the US, for Iraq's 'aggressive' attacks on other nations (which U.S. leaders now pretend to object to), and it may be the only place I've read the following:

Last September, for example, Newsweek reported that the Reagan administration in the 1980s had allowed sales to Iraq of computer databases that Saddam could use to track political opponents and shipments of "bacteria/fungi/protozoa" that could help produce anthrax and other biological weapons. [Newsweek issue dated Sept. 23, 2002]

Despite the release of numerous government documents on the subject, Donald Rumsfeld himself, pictured with Saddam Hussein during various meetings he had with the despot, has claimed in Senate hearings to have no recollection of the US providing any such assistance.

I don't know if anyone asked him what he's doing in the photos. That could be entertaining.

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Speaking of missing history, the aforementioned National Security Archive has a new section called Saddam Hussein: More Secret History with additional documents received through Freedom of Information Act requests, including some with bearing on Rumsfeld's friendly visits to Hussein's government. My favorite is the section devoted to Document 11, in which "Bechtel representatives said that if economic sanctions contained in Senate [Prevention of Genocide Act of 1988] are signed into law, Bechtel will turn to non-U.S. suppliers of technology and continue to do business in Iraq." Because genocide is no reason to stop doing business with an evil and despotic ruler!

I’ve been out of town for a brief vacation, and have just begun to catch up on world events. My heart goes out to the people of Iran who lost loved ones in their devastating earthquake of the past week.

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“How our hearts burned with indignation against the atrocities of the Spaniards!… But when the smoke was over, the dead buried, and the cost of the war came back to the people in an increase in the price of commodities and rent – that is, when we sobered up from our patriotic spree – it suddenly dawned on us that the cause of the Spanish-American war was the price of sugar… that the lives, blood, and money of the American people were used to protect the interests of the American capitalists.”
-Emma Goldman, as quoted in A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn.

This quote made my partner reflect on the many financial motivations that lead to war, especially war against those with resources that the more developed and armed nations desire. It would be so great to think that the U.S. would really care about people of other nations enough to be concerned about their governments. But with a track record of favoring any despot that will trade with us or do the U.S.’ bidding, including favoritism toward Saddam Hussein, it’s just too much of a stretch.

At least, too much of a stretch when there’s oil involved.

Have you heard that British declassified documents suggest the US considered seizing oil fields in the Middle East during the 1973 oil crisis? (BBC) Not much of a surprise, it is?

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I had a break from world events, but it appears the people of Iraq, and those who are occupying their nation, received no rest at all. There has been an increase in violent attacks since Xmas (BBC), with many individual reports of violence, death, and mayhem piling up each day.

It appears that overwhelming military force is still not enough to bring peace and tranquility to a nation traumatized by a tyrant and more then a decade of punitive sanctions. Who knew?

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The best item I’ve read today dates back to October: this FAIR report on the Bush Administration’s demand for Good Iraq news, and the press’ inability to satisfy that demand due to new restrictions upon their movements and, well, bad news. (fair.org) Reporters could be much more excited about hospitals being open if those hospitals had the electricity and medical supplies they would need to function, for example.

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It would be bigger news that a general has been named to oversee US military tribunals for its ‘enemy combatants’, though that announcement was somewhat overshadowed by the fact that some crank on the Moscow Metro has ‘confessed’ to being Osama bin Laden, and is now under psychiatric evaluation. (Both BBC)

[Recently, I've been too busy viewing videos at the Bush in 30 Seconds project to blog. Now, I am taking a short holiday from computing!! I will return to my regularly scheduled observations on why the U.S. is failing to live up to its ideals and is selling democracy short around the globe upon my return to this glowing box.]

In a stunning victory for constitutional rights, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that Bush can't deny so-called 'enemy combatants' access to attorneys and the courts. (BBC)

Even in times of national emergency... it is the obligation of the judicial branch to ensure the preservation of our constitutional values and to prevent the executive branch from running roughshod over the rights of citizens and aliens alike."

This decision (findlaw) closely follwed the Second Circuit Court of Appeals' decision that American citizen Jose Padilla can NOT be held as an enemy combatant. (BBC) Now the man will have to get a trial, instead of being hidden away on secret evidence. Let's hope the Supreme Court upholds both decisions, so the U.S. can return to being the land of the free, rather than the police state it has been moving toward.

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Meanwhile, attorneys assigned to the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay have been dismissed for complaining about how unfair the current system is, (BBC) and the hearing for the chaplain accused of taking classified materials home has been held up, because the U.S. military accidently sent classified materials to the chaplain's attorney. (BBC) Ooops. It's unlikely the military will be charged for this violation of 'do as I say, not as I do...'

A little levity: Fiore's parody ad for Halliburton. (markfiore.com) This is far funnier, and far less frightening, than actual military ads that run in the Washington Post routinely and make me shudder.

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The discussion of how to deal with Saddam Hussein's capture shouldn't be limited to passionate, self-interested U.S. government sources. The Washington Post'sWorld Opinion Roundup covers the international press, and asks: will Saddam Hussein's trial be the founding act of justice for the Iraqi people upon which their new government is based, or a hasty ritual to sweep embarassing facts under the rug and rush to the execution chamber?

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"We have captured him and he looks pathetic, but there are still a lot of questions that need to be asked about whether it was necessary to go to war." -- Madeline Albright in the Washington Post

The reaction to Saddam Hussein's capture is still playing out. For those who want to believe that Bush is a great guy, it's a good excuse for them to think so. For those of us who have piles of proof that Bush lied to us, it's not so consoling.

Here's an excerpt from some local commentary by Joan Ryan (sfgate.com) as to why we're not in awe:

"It's kind of a diversion," said Jackie Cabasso... "It doesn't change the basic situation on the ground in Iraq. It doesn't make the U.S. right for going in there. This war was sold on a whole set of lies. Capturing Saddam Hussein doesn't change that."

As popularity of the 'No one died when Clinton lied' sign increases, this sentiment will likely be more widely expressed.

There's also the grammatically irreverent Mark Morford's "Saddam, So Not Worth It" (sfgate.com):

Remember that time? Right about when the U.S. hushed up all those sales of biological weapons and computer technology to Iraq? Right about when all those American corporations, from Bechtel to Kodak to AT&T, from Dow Chemical to Hewlett-Packard to IBM and at least 100 more , decided it might be best to begin shredding their records detailing all their Iraq business deals? Hey, why is Donny Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam and smiling in this photo? Shhh.

And now, long after his political usefulness to us has expired, we up and invade his unhappy nation and lay waste to the entire region for no justifiable reason, and we inflate his global stature into this massive inhuman Hitler-esque monster when in fact he was really just an old, tired, small-time thug, and now finally Saddam Hussein, the brutal pip-squeak dictator/former beloved U.S. ally who had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11, has been captured alive. Yay yay go team.

He goes on to bash Clinton for the sanctions that killed civilians, by the way, for those of you who want to be sure that the blame is shared.

Bush is calling for Hussein's execution (BBC), perhaps to spare himself the many embarassing details of friendship Saddam may try to share, and is still undecided about whether or not to follow international law with regard to his treatment, defying Geneva Convention bans yet again, while folks in Iraq still wait for stability and supplies. (BBC) As Morford says, yay yay go team.

I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't read it myself: U.S. newspapers got right down to business about the capture of former dictator Saddam Hussein in their usual, businesslike way: Saddam Rally Fails to Materialize is about how the despot's capture was supposed to have boosted the stock market. (Washingtonpost.com)

Yes, they really are that shallow. The link's shortcut title was "no Saddam rally for markets."

Saddam Hussein Captured!

I worked part of this weekend, and so I fell behind in monitoring the news. I was catching up, reading about how the Bush Administration is cutting more and more veterans' and soldiers' benefits (inthesetimes.com), when I checked my e-mail and heard the big news: Saddam Hussein has been captured!!! (BBC) The former strongman looks terrible after months of hiding in a tiny cellar.

All those of us who have read about the terrible suffering he forced others to endure can feel relieved that he's not torturing and falsely imprisoning anyone anymore.

For those worries, we have to turn to the U.S. government, which is currently torturing and falsely imprisoning people as part of the so-called 'War on Terror.'

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There are several reports on Hussein's capture, the most odd surely being this Associated Press report:

After three decades in power, Saddam was captured without a single shot, hiding in an underground hide-out on a farm near his hometown of Tikrit.

(SFGate). Apparently the AP writer has also been hiding in a cave, because otherwise he would be aware that the bombing of Baghdad was intended to capture or kill this man, and that involved quite a few shots, and quite a few American and Iraqi lives lost.

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Yahoos in the U.S. are already filling their blogs with variations of "Woohoo! Go USA! USA! USA!" The international press has a wider range of government opinions and public comment. (BBC) Sample:

Although Hussein's capture is wonderful news for the Iraqi people, it still does not provide justification for this war and my country's continued Empire building throughout the world - most recently through the seizure of Iraq's oil. Bush has finished what his Daddy started and I'm sure the family will be especially grateful to their Good Lord at this Christmas....

Saddam's trial may well be a mixed blessing for the US. He will undoubtedly (and embarrassingly) reveal how he was helped to power and supplied with WMD by the US government. And if the WMD still fail to turn up, the grounds and legality for the war will be clearly be in doubt....

Ah, the trial. The US has made it clear that it doesn't believe in the International Criminal Court, and there could be some awkwardness about giving the former U.S. ally an open hearing. "...U.S. authorities have not yet determined when -- or whether -- to hand Saddam over to the Iraqis for a war crimes trial or what his status would be." (SF Gate) Another awkward realization from the same article:

But Sen. Jay Rockefeller, the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, cautioned the capture likely will not end the insurgent attacks against U.S. troops in Iraq. U.S. officials were wary of retaliatory strikes.

"Given the location and circumstances of his capture, it makes it clear that Saddam was not managing the insurgency, and that he had very little control or influence. That is significant and disturbing because it means the insurgents are not fighting for Saddam, they're fighting against the United States," said Rockefeller, D-W.Va.

As my dour and cynical friend Larry remarks, tying in my earlier reading with this news:

So US armed forces captured Saddam. And a trial would be a bad idea because it would remind people that members of the current USA administration aided the gassing of the Kurds. Before the armed forces decide what to do with Saddam, I hope they at least negotiate to get their pensions back.

The story that is most appalling to mothers I know right now is that of the U.S. bombing a group of nine children in Afghanistan. (BBC) Acting on woefully misnamed 'intelligence,' the U.S. bombed an area they thought was occupied by a militant. They think they killed the militant AND the nine children, though locals say the militant had left town days before.

It took the U.S. several days to acknowledge having killed the children. (This article has a sidebar that lists other 'bombing errors' that the U.S. has acknowledged.)

My partner listened to a BBC radio report on this topic, in which a U.S. military spokesperson ceased the interview because the reporter insisted that killing children was inappropriate.

This story exposes a very serious issue that has also arisen repeatedly in Iraq: the U.S. is engaging in extra-judicial killings of both suspects and bystanders based on rumor and suspicion.

The U.S. is supposed to help the Iraqis install a truly fair justice system, but is leading by example in following an entirely different path. Killing 'suspects' without trial, without witness testimony, without evidence, recalls the terrible regime that was recently removed. If there are individuals who should be charged with crimes, they should be charged and tried properly -- both for the sake of their victims and to show that real justice really is possible in the new Iraq. To do otherwise suggests that change isn't possible.

There is also the major issue of inappropriate use of force. If the U.S. is seeking to apprehend or stop one individual, it is inappropriate to bomb entire neighborhoods and innocent bystanders. Bombs are NOT appropriate force against one individual. Especially an individual against whom there is no reliable evidence. U.S. "intelligence" has proven faulty again and again. So far as anyone can tell, informant Iraqis who have been helping the U.S. may be trying to remove their own political rivals. The U.S. should not be a party to such activities. The U.S. should not execute people based on questionable information from questionable allies.

Read this item, look at the photo, and then decide: which is the real turkey? (BBC)

An interesting tidbit: 7 out of 10 Americans don't think attacking Iraq has reduced the threat of terrorism, and a similar number support UN intervention there. (SF Gate)

It's a shame the folks in the White House only read polls when they're favorable.

(There's no chance that anyone in the White House could stand the tiny Retropoll done which revealed that a large percentage of Americans think Bush should be impeached. (Retropoll.org) Something tells me the Bush Administration isn't about to send them a check to expand the survey into some meaningful samples...)

To keep you occupied while I'm out attending political fund raisers: Pantsonfire.net, as in 'liar liar, pants on fire, sitting on top of a telephone wire.' Yes, a catalog of Bush's lies are available, including the big ones about Iraq.

[My apologies that some of my 11/03 archives disappeared. I've republished all the pages, and they've all returned. Sorry for any inconvenience.]

Speaking of the US abandoning the rule of law and acting like a rogue nation: Assassins R Us by Chalmers Johnson points out that the US plans to expand efforts to conduct international assassinations without the consent of the sovereign governments in whose borders the assassinations will (and now have) take(n) place. (Commondreams.org)

If we do this to others, others will do this to us...

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This item was published in the worthwhile blog Tom Dispatch (nationinstitute.org/tomdispatch), which has items of concern such as this one about the militarization of the U.S., in which former generals predict our Constitution will be unraveled in the event of another attack against the US, even while the US makes such attacks more likely by bombing civilians and leaving nuclear materials unguarded, providing looters and others with the ingredients to dirty bombs (telegraph.co.uk).

(That last item, the idea of the US leaving multiple nuclear facilities unguarded, is still the most bizarre aspect of the invasion of Iraq's aftermath. Why on earth would anyone secure the oil facilities, but not the nuclear facilities??? Even if the government secretly believed that Iraq was defenseless, and even if the main purpose of the war was to acquire control of oil resources, any reasonable person or organization would know that nuclear materials require security, if only for our own sakes. Why the huge, gaping lapse on this?)

As the month of November 2003 sets records as the most fatal for U.S. troops occupying Iraq (SFGate.com), the costs of war in terms of the freedoms we cherish are still mounting. Algierian Benamar Benatta was locked in U.S. prisons for 26 months, even after being cleared of terrorist associations in November of 2001. (Washington Post) Judges chastised the government for trumping up charges, keeping him hidden beyond legal deadlines, and other abuses. The government didn't blink. He was 'disappeared,' kept in solitary confinement, harassed while sleeping, hassled while in shackles. The government does not plan to apologize. Now, in fact, the government hopes to deport Benatta to Algeria, a country he was seeking asylum to avoid returning to, as he could be imprisoned or executed for leaving his military duty. That suits the U.S. government just fine.

Democratic, freedom-loving governments do not 'disappear' visitors, do not hold people without charges, do not abuse people who are shackled. The U.S. government is crossing into the territory of despotic, rogue regimes that we used to mock. It's so bad that a senior judge of our ally, Britain, has declared that the US is engaging in a 'monstrous failure of justice' and compares US military tribunals to kangaroo courts. (Commondreams.org)

The U.S. government's human rights crimes don't just hurt those imprisoned: they hurt all of us. As WWII veteran Peter Cohen writes for Commondreams:

The question is not whether Guantanamo is part of the U.S. and covered by the Constitution; the question is whether the reputation and honor of the U.S. can be sacrificed on the altar of fear. How can we profess to teach democracy to others when this illegal and cruel imprisonment violates every principle of the rule of law? Holding the Guantanamo "detainees" is a dark stain on our nation¹s history that will not be removed by anything that we may accomplish elsewhere.

There have been over 1,500 "excess" violent civilian deaths in Baghdad during the 'protective' U.S. occupation, according to iraqbodycount.net.

From April 14th to 31st August, 2,846 violent deaths were recorded by the Baghdad city morgue. When corrected for pre-war death rates in the city a total of at least 1,519 excess violent deaths in Baghdad emerges from reports based on the morgue's records.

IBC's latest study is the first comprehensive count to adjust for the comparable "background level" of deaths in Baghdad in recent pre-war times. It is therefore an estimate of additional deaths in the city directly attributable to the breakdown of law and order following the US takeover and occupation of Baghdad....

IBC researcher Hamit Dardagan said "The US may be effective at waging war but the descent of Iraq's capital city into lawlessness under US occupation shows that it is incompetent at maintaining public order and providing security for the civilian population. The US has toppled Saddam and discovered that it won't be discovering any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So why is it still there? And if the US military can't ensure the safety of Iraqi civilians and itself poses a danger to them, what is its role in that country?

Iraqbodycount.net also had a good article back in August about the injured civilian population called Adding Indifference to Injury, which tabulates reports of Iraqis who were wounded, though that information has been hard to come by. It's bad enough that the U.S. forces have made a concerted effort not to keep any record of the number of civilians they kill, but to deny assistance to the wounded surely makes more enemies than friends.

The United States has created a prison on Guantanamo Bay that operates entirely outside the law.

Within the walls of this prison, foreign nationals may be held indefinitely, without charges or evidence of wrongdoing, without access to family, friends or legal counsel, and with no opportunity to establish their innocence.

Attorneys representing Britons, Australians, and Kuwaitis earlier this month had one positive piece of news: the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case determining whether or not the US' prisoners have any legal rights. (BBC) Under the Bush Administration's policy, the U.S. can abduct anyone, anywhere, and so long as they do not touch U.S. soil, they have no human or legal rights of any kind.

Under this theory, any American traveling anywhere in the world can be abducted and held forever by agents of any other nation, so long as they don't touch the soil of the home country of their captors.

This is a bad policy. Especially if others do unto us as we do unto them. Yet the Bush Administration is convinced this policy is making the world safer for Americans. Clearly, there are some unique thought processes going on there, which may not apply to earth.

Two little updates on the protests in London:

-Here are more BBC reporters' blog reports on the happenings of the day, including comments on the successful conclusion of the peace march, the protesters' collective success in making Bush hide for his entire visit, and the way that anything on the Bush/Blair agenda has been drowned out by the explosions in Turkey this morning. Unfortunately, one of the reporters may be right in suggesting that nearly anything can be politically justified during times of such duress, including the Bush/Blair agenda.

-My personal favorite update, the story of the Bush effigy being toppled in parody of the fall of Baghdad (SF Gate). This article has some serious discussion and a counterpoint to the suggestions of the BBC reporter in the previous item.

"There have been more and more bombings since the action in Iraq and more terrorism," said Mischa Gorris, a 37-year-old London lawyer. "You will never change the hearts and minds of terrorists by bombing them. This is what you will get."

I don't think Bush or Blair really care about the underlying causes of terrorism, though, so I don't think they can understand this line of reasoning. They are all about (mis)treating the symptoms. Unfortunately for all of us who wish to live in peace, it's darned unlikely that such an approach will ever cure 'the disease' for which terrorism is just one outward sign.

(Yes, Virginia, there are reasons that the wealthy and comfortable never seem to become terrorists, while the dispossessed and abused sometimes do...)

*

Speaking of the dispossessed: protests against the proposed Free Trade of the Americas Agreement (FTAA) in Miami are resulting in some scary, police-state style images. (Many more at ftaaimc.org)

There is a good collection of blog-style reports from BBC reporters as to the early events surrounding Bush's visit to London, including Bush's meeting with the queen and the modest early protests (BBC). They give a sense that this is a very sterile, strange way to have pomp and circumstance. Example:

The focus of the ceremony was inside the gates of the Palace so the great British public never felt invited and, with the exception of a hundred or so hardy souls, they didn't show up. A few people jogging in the park across the road or hurrying to work paused for a moment but most just rushed on by.

This was a glittering spectacle without an audience. It was a film-set, not a theatre.

There was an alternative ceremony performed by protesters and their own versions of the Queen and Bush. (BBC - photos) Highlight from the captions:

At Trafalgar Square, the alternative president said how delighted he was to be in the UK: "Your little country makes a great runway - I'm just looking forward to two days of protests against myself and my policies. Yee ha!"

Meanwhile, the BBC has an amusing fixation with Bush's armored car.

In a video report on the protests (BBC), a reporter notes that images of people screaming and being pulled away by police are not the sort of image that Bush wants the folks back home to see. But really, there isn't much risk of that: the corporate media in our country pretends that things that don't suit its interests don't exist. So few will know.

I enjoy this article about the British press' commentary on Bush's visit to London for its great quotes. (Washington Post) There aren't many U.S. publications that are this direct:

Bush is "about the least welcome visitor to these shores since Mr. Bubonic Plague jumped ship with his rat-pack back in the 1350s," writes the Mirror columnist Brian Reade.

I also enjoyed the perspective about those on the right and left who want to flee Iraq as-is, leaving the country in a disarray that may be worse than the nasty former-ally-now-badguy regime that was displaced. At the same time, it's not exactly a list of suggestions as to how to make things go more smoothly, and so still leaves much to be desired. But I like the recognition of the obligation to set things to rights, even if the means by which that can be done seems to have already slipped from the grasp of U.S. forces (assuming purely for the sake of argument that it could ever have been in the grasp of an invading force...).

For those of you who haven't worried about the plight of the recently 'liberated' people of Afghanistan, please do.

I never imagined that I would live in a time where the President of the United States was reviled around the world.

I'm not saying that inspiring millions of people on earth to unify to protest your war plans simultaneously isn't an impressive achievement. It's just that it's not an intentional, positive achievement.

The least popular president is visiting London right now, and one of the odd aspects of the visit is that Bush has to stay more or less in hiding because of the unpopularity of the Iraq war. (Ironically, Bush's people have pointed to polls, yes polls, showing some support for his visit. Selective about what they read, don't you think?) Here are a few choice snippets:

London Mayor Ken Livingstone, who on Monday called Bush "the greatest threat to life on this planet that we've most probably ever seen," urged anti-Bush demonstrators to remain peaceful.

"You are protesting against an illegal war and occupation, and the world will be watching you," he said.

(Washington Post)

The official embrace of the American president belies deep suspicions among ordinary Britons about the war in Iraq, and hostility toward Bush.

Some 1 million Britons protested in a single day in February, before the war. Fifty-two Britons have died in Iraq.

Demonstrators plan to pull down a statue of Bush made of papier mache and chicken wire, to parody the toppling of Saddam Hussein's statue in Baghdad.

... Bush will not address Parliament during his visit. Such a speech could invite the kind of heckling the president received when he spoke to the Australian Parliament last month.

(Also Washington Post) Here's another one about security concerns and the disruption his visit is causing:

He denied reports that police were considering shutting mobile phone masts during protests against the president's visit....

During his visit, Mr Bush will also be protected by hundreds of armed guards from the US....They will not be granted diplomatic immunity, and will be subject to the British legal system if they shoot anybody, the Home Office has promised.

...London Mayor Ken Livingstone is holding a peace party in City Hall on Wednesday, attended by many groups opposed to the war in Iraq.

(BBC). Yes, the violent Americans and their violent President is coming, surrounded by violent men! Another comment from a UK elected official:

Glenda Jackson MP, who opposed the war, told BBC One's Politics Show the visit was the "Dumb and Dumber show".

While she said Britain was "America's closest ally for a variety of reasons," she did not agree that the government "should demonstrate that closeness by - as it seems to me - we are at the moment being permanently on our knees."

Here are some comments compiled by the BBC from international sources:

Blair can live with the mockery of newspapers writing that Bush is coming to "check up on his poodle"... What is worse is how Bush's visit is limiting Blair's domestic room for manoeuvre. When parliament votes on his health reforms, many Labour MPs will be voting so enthusiastically against because they think he is already mortally wounded.

Handelsblatt - Germany

---

This week's agenda is likely to be overshadowed by concerns of the rich and powerful... Blair must ask Bush to use his clout for good of the poor and the weak [and] urge Bush to help restart the WTO talks which collapsed in Cancun... The success of the talks is key to addressing some of the reasons for global terrorism.

Sowetan - South Africa

(BBC again) Unlike in American papers, other countries (even South Africa!) are able to have discussions of the root causes of terrorism. Unlike us. Because our President tells us that terrorism, which has been around for years, is suddenly caused only by people who 'hate freedom.'

They used me as a way to symbolise all this stuff. It's wrong." -- Jessica Lynch, on the Pentagon's misinformation about her rescue (BBC)

*

It hurt in a way that people would make up stories that they had no truth about. They did not know whether I did that or not. Only I would have been able to know that, because the other four people on my vehicle aren't here to tell that story. So I would have been the only one able to say, 'Yeah, I went down shooting.' But I didn't. I did not....
--Jessica Lynch on ABC

*

Iraqometer's first graphic, the one listing the number of days since a member of the coalition forces was killed, doesn't have to be updated often. The answer is invariably zero.

"The U.S. death toll in Iraq has surpassed the number of American soldiers killed during the first three years of the Vietnam War". (truthout.org) 17 soldiers died today in a two-helicopter collision (washington post).

Mounting casualties in Iraq have prompted the Bush administration to speed up plans to turn over authority to Iraqi leaders and technically end the occupation by next summer. However, there are no proposals for U.S. troops to abandon Iraq, even when an Iraqi government is in place.

William Rivers Pitt compares the attacks at the beginning of Ramadan to the Tet Offensive of Vietnam. (truthout.org)

*

Just after the invasion, 43 per cent saw the U.S.-led Allies as 'liberating forces.' A poll earlier this month showed that 15 per cent now see the Americans as liberators. Iraqis who see them as occupiers have risen from 46 per cent to 67 per cent.
--Cockburn in The Independent

*

The war is making life difficult within the U.S. Iraq war spending is increasing the largest federal budget deficit in U.S. history. (BBC) Corruption appears rife: the Center for Public Integrity reports that

More than 70 American companies and individuals have won up to $8 billion in contracts for work in postwar Iraq and Afghanistan over the last two years... [which had] donated more money to the presidential campaigns of George W. Bush - a little over $500,000 - than to any other politician over the last dozen years... Nearly 60 percent of the companies had employees or board members who either served in or had close ties to the executive branch for Republican and Democratic administrations, for members of Congress of both parties, or at the highest levels of the military.

We are losing the very civil liberties that our leaders are sworn to defend.

President Bush is claiming the unilateral right to do that to any American citizen he believes is an "enemy combatant." Those are the magic words. If the President alone decides that those two words accurately describe someone, then that person can be immediately locked up and held incommunicado for as long as the President wants, with no court having the right to determine whether the facts actually justify his imprisonment.

Now if the President makes a mistake, or is given faulty information by somebody working for him, and locks up the wrong person, then it’s almost impossible for that person to prove his innocence - because he can’t talk to a lawyer or his family or anyone else and he doesn’t even have the right to know what specific crime he is accused of committing. So a constitutional right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness that we used to think of in an old-fashioned way as "inalienable" can now be instantly stripped from any American by the President with no meaningful review by any other branch of government.
--Al Gore speaking on Freedom and Security (moveon.org)

Abroad, Bush is so unpopular, that his security people want to shut down central London so Bush can avoid protesters. (BBC video)

This is an interesting time historically, but not a very happy one.

The occupation of Iraq keeps taking such dramatic turns for the worse, it’s hard to even think about without wanting to cry. As of late October, more troops have died during the occupation than during major combat -- it’s only gotten worse since. (washingtonpost.com)

The people of Iraq are falling into a deep despair, fearing they have no future. (Washingtonpost.com)

Attacks on U.S. forces escalated, culminating in large-target attacks such as downing a Chinook helicopter, killing 16 soldiers and injuring 20 more. (sfgate.com) A black hawk helicopter went down next, and attacks on the US are occurring all over Iraq. (BBC) ”In October, 33 U.S. soldiers were killed in hostile fire, double the number killed in September.” (truthout.org)

85,000 additional troops are being called up to staff the occupation, without any overt changes in the failed logic of the plan. (sfgate.com)

Meanwhile, on the home front, our democracy is crumbling under the weight of the war. The US is abducting suspected terror suspects and taking them to allies who torture them for information (Washingtonpost.com), such as the Canadian whose abduction so upset Canada that our neighbor to the north issued a travel advisory AGAINST VISITING THE U.S. at that time. This may be part of a plan for the U.S. to use torture more often. (the Nation)

It is being widely reported that Iraq tried to make numerous attempts to prevent war by offering various deals to intermediaries to the US Government, which were rebuffed. (Washingtonpost.com) As the New York Times observes, “Administration supporters were fond of saying at the time that there were things Bush officials knew but could not share with the public. Little did we imagine that among those things was an offer that might have provided a way to avoid the war.” (truthout.org)

Long serving, loyal military officers are being persecuted for airing “liberal views”. (theitem.com) Some of our own

Administration’s officials, meanwhile, are denying that they ever claimed the Iraqis would welcome us, even though their earlier comments were transcribed (starbanner.com).

Truth is just one of many casualties of this war. If this is the cost, then we must ask ourselves if it is the terrorists, or merely the opportunists in our own government, who have already won.

Things in Iraq are getting so bad that I need a break from summarizing them.

"There is a fatal flaw in attempting to meet the amorphous terrorist threat – either locally or globally – by reaching for a bigger gun."

That's from the Sydney Morning Herald care of this Washington Post World Views column, a valuable source of the wide range of international opinion. (Even though, in the fictional universe of our current 'leadership,' world opinion only matters when in results in others doing our bidding.) There are calls to stay the course, and laments that Wolfowitz wasn't harmed during Monday's attacks; concerns for the Iraqis, and concerns about the U.S. becoming a predatory nation.

Politics infuse everything. Consider this from today's Media Notes column in the Washington Post by Howard Kurtz.

"The concern in GOP circles is such that one prominent Republican strategist said many party faithful hope the administration can provide an 'achievable' deadline for withdrawing U.S. troops by next summer. But that ' "decision-can" keeps getting kicked down the street,' the GOP strategist said."

The summer of 2004? How conveeenient.

The article goes on to quote critics of the peace movement, suggesting that there are only two options: US military occupation of Iraq, or a complete abandonment of the Iraqi people to the chaos already consuming them.

I would ask what these folks are smoking, but being an avid non-smoker it would probably annoy me to find out. Oh, they also state that, because the biggest organization behind the protests doesn't believe the UN should inherit the Bush Administration's mess, that means they're anti-UN, proving that the peace movement hates the Iraqis.

Someone has great drugs and isn't sharing with their hallucination of a monolithic, completely unified peace movement that only sees two options. (You're with us or against us, you're good or eeeeeevil, you're for the war on terror or you're a terrorist, etc.) It's amazing what desperate people will do to avoid having a realistic discussions of our option in Iraq, including accelerating the schedule for actual democracy, letting the Iraqi's choose their own contractors, and coordinating aid and development assistance through the UN.

[And the pro-war hysterics then shout: But then we'd have to give up our lucrative contracts!! We CAN NOT do that! It's our way or the highway! And the conversation becomes unrealistically limited again.]

Kurtz isn't the sort of columnist to call people on these issues, but it's amusing to see their quotes and see how misguided (and blinded) they are just the same.

Occupation is War

Yesterday I attended the peace rally in opposition to the US occupation of Iraq here in San Francisco yesterday. Under a cloudless sky and relentless 80 degree sunshine, thousands gathered to voice opposition to the immoral and unsuccessful policy of occupying Iraq.

As usual, the homemade signs were the best. ("All these signs & Bush can't read!" My favorite I couldn't get a picture of, but seemed to be a speech excerpt from our own administration, 'our mission is to remove a violent and oppressive regime from Iraq...') Several activists in an antique car with silly pro-war slogans and logos representing Bush's period of being AWOL from the Nat'l Guard decorated the car, which was staffed by costumed versions of Bush, Colin, and Dick, all handing out Deception Dollars, a performance which merited considerable attention. (S took a photo of the Powell figure pretending to snort powder off the dashboard through one of these "fraudulent event notes." :-)

During the speeches, the organizers noted that there was an estimated 15-20,000 people participating, and that the media would emphasize that attendance was smaller than during the war, rather than finding it remarkable that people care at all or reporting substantively on our concerns. (Sure enough, today's coverage is completely predictable.) Representatives of military families opposed to the occupation spoke (SF Gate), along with Rep. Cynthia McKinney, mayoral candidates Matt Gonzales and Tom Ammiano, and other local and international luminaries. I found the demonstration to be a positive, creative demand by positive, creative people to reevaluate a failing effort that is costing all of us goodwill and safety.

Discordant notes: police allowing deranged motorists to try to force their way through the march (I have a video of a woman swearing at me after she nearly ran several people down); and a firetruck using the march portion of market street where no traffic accommodations had been made by the police, which was blocked by a rig that had unsuccessfully tried to force its way through. The march route was publicized for weeks in advance, and it appeared that the police were going out of their way to make sure that civilians had to direct traffic. (I guess they're still annoyed over the indignities they suffered on Day X?)

News and Information Resources

• Protester's reports:
  
  
  
  • SF Indymedia Anti-War News, including Nice protest photos by Peter; more photos (best sign: Sammy Hagar imitators against mass homicide)
    
  • DC Indymedia Home, including DC Indymedia's summary the protest (recommended), and A participant's comments on DC Indymedia
    
  
  
• Corporate media reports:
  
  
  
  • Reuters coverage (of the Washington march)
    
  • SJ Mercury coverage
    
  • SF Gate coverage
    
  • Washington Post coverage(Sample:"The demonstrators represented a diverse mix of dissent, from suburban high school students to gray-haired retirees, from fathers pushing their children in strollers to Muslim American college students shouting through bullhorns. There were people from D.C. Poets Against the War, the Louisville Peace Action Community, Northern Virginians for Peace and Central Ohioans for Peace, among many others. Banners in Spanish, Korean, Urdu, Hebrew, Arabic and Tagalog decried the war. Smaller marches began at various locations in the city and led to the main rally, including those organized by Muslim American and by African American activists.")
    
  
  
• Military families' organizations
  
  
  
  • Bring Them Home Now
    
  • Military Families Speak Out
    
  
  
• March Sponsors:
  
  
  
  • Bay Area United Against War
    
  • International A.N.S.W.E.R. (Act Now to Stop War & End Racism) Coalition
    
  • Not In Our Name (and likely our Not In Our Name Bay Area Chapter); and
    
  • Vanguard Public Foundation
    
  • Endorsed by United for Peace & Justice, Bay Area.
    
  
  

Common Cause has launched an Eye On Iraq campaign to track suspicious spending, among other things. A sample from their e-mail newsletter:

Did you know that the Bush Administration's reconstruction budget for Iraq includes the following requests?
1. Six hundred hand-held radios and satellite phones at an average cost of $6,000 each, BUT enterprising Iraqis have been able to buy satellite phones from Jordan for $900 each.

2. Eighty pick-up trucks at a cost of $33,000, BUT new pickup trucks in the U.S. start at about $14,000.

3. Five thousand computers at a cost of $3,000 each, BUT a computer in the U.S. can be bought for well under $1000.

4. A witness protection program that would cost an average of $200,000 per person, BUT similar programs in the US cost about $10,000 per person.

All this, and some US lawmakers are pointing out possible price gouging by Halliburton. (BBC) You may not be surprised that there are some bills from Bush's no-bid-contract pals that look mighty suspicious. Just because Iraq's ministries pay 98 cents a gallon or less for fuel, doesn't mean Halliburton shouldn't charge the US $1.59 for the same fuel, does it?

The hotel housing US occupation officials was attacked in Baghdad: the attackers escaped, as did Wolfowitz.(SF Gate)

"There is no guarantee we can protect against this kind of thing unless we have soldiers on every block," said Lt. Brian Dowd of Nanuet, N.Y., a 1st Armored Division reconnaissance officer at the scene.

The comment about having soldiers on every block reminds me of an essay in the Nov./Dec. 2003 issue of Adbusters, a fictional representation of what the world will be like in a few years, when the entire middle east is occupied by a corrupt and exploitative U.S. *shudder* The fiction is long, detailed, reminiscent of the British in India, full of disdain for democracy/sovereignity/self-determination, and completely horrific. For those reasons, I recommend reading it.

[The rest of the issue, on the overall theme of "winners" and "losers" is also worth reading. It generally supports my theory that, if you have absolutely nothing to lose, you have no motivation to support anything in world society, and that the disinfranchised are a threat to peace of our own making -- we allow them to be disinfranchised. That's MY take on it -- your mileage may vary.]

Remember that botulism that the US search teams found in Iraq, the one little vial in some guy's fridge at home that was supposed to be PROOF that Iraq had a bio-weapons program? That story has been SO VERY discredited. (LA Times) First, it was sent their legally by an American group. Ooops. And then, there's the fact that it's, well, just botulism.

The vial of botulinum B — about 2 inches high and half an inch wide — was the only suspicious biological material Kay reported finding.... Oct. 3, Bush said the war in Iraq was justified and cited Kay's discovery of the advanced missile programs, clandestine labs and what he called "a live strain of deadly agent botulinum" as proof that Hussein was "a danger to the world."

But Dr. David Franz, a former chief U.N. biological weapons inspector who is considered among America's foremost experts on biowarfare agents, said there was no evidence that Iraq or anyone else has ever succeeded in using botulinum B for biowarfare.

"The Soviets dropped it [as a goal] and so did we, because we couldn't get it working as a weapon," said Franz, who is the former commander of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Ft. Detrick, Md., the Pentagon's lead laboratory for bioweapons defense research.

The particular bug in the fridge was Botulinum B. The botulism of food poisoning fame. An easily dispersed, can't turn it into weapons unless you're improperly home canning and can force the rest of the world to eat your improperly canned food, non-weapon, biological substance.

The LA Times article is fun, in that the various administration people they speak to are trying to stick to their original story. Unless they fear that the Iraqis were going to visit us and paralyze the nation with Botox injections... Or throw a picnic with their 'special' pickles... Oh, it's just so darned sad.

The story of what we've done in the postwar period is remarkable. It is a better and more important story than losing a couple of soldiers every day. - George Nethercutt, Republican representative, Washington

[I'm suffering back pain that makes sitting upright uncomfortable. I'll post as soon as I feel better...]

How has it come to pass that the Bush Administration believes their main Iraq problem is one of public relations? (Washington Post) It's not the unrest? The violent resistance to occupation? The loss of American and Iraqi lives? Should we believe that those issues are less relevant than Bush's 'message?'

While it's entertaining to hear the President complain that the media isn't cheerleading loudly enough (!!!! where has he been this year, in a cave with Cheney?), it appears that the Administration is a victim of building up high expectations through prior PR efforts. All that talk about all the WMDs we were going to find, and how we were going to catch Saddam Hussein certainly caught the media's attention. It doesn't seem quite right to blame the media for having done such a fine job publicizing the previous ad campaign that it stuck in people's minds.

Especially that Weapons of Mass Destruction part.

Right up until the end, Saddam lied to the Security Council. And let there be no mistake, right up to the end, Saddam Hussein continued to harbor ambitions to threaten the world with weapons of mass destruction and to hide his illegal weapons activity.

-Dr. Condoleezza Rice

Perhaps the flaw in the previous PR campaign was that it had the wrong emphasis. Perhaps, instead of speaking of actual WMDs, they should have spoken of Hussein's nasty ambitions, since that's all they've been able to document.

Pesky details!

Here is a short video (also at Washington Post) discussing the strategic reasons for admitting that a PR campaign is in full swing.

*

Well, there's always all that great rebuilding effort the Bush Admin. can emphasize instead, right? Just as great a success as in Afghanistan's, certainly.

Um, forget I wrote that.

Debate is erupting over the funding for the military and rebuilding efforts. "Of the $4 billion a month already being spent in Iraq, as much as a third is going to the private contractors who have flooded into the country." (Washington Post) This article raises concerns that initially arose when only donors to the Republican Party appeared to be pre-approved for work, and has continued as the number of foreign contractors and consultants exceeded the number of foreign military personnel.

The Iraqi gold rush has raised concerns on Capitol Hill that the administration may be losing control of the taxpayers' money. As the task of rebuilding shifts from government employees to for-profit contractors, members of Congress are worried that their oversight will diminish, cost controls will weaken and decisions about security, training and the shape of the new Iraqi government will be in the hands of people with financial stakes in the outcome. Avant calls it "the commercialization of foreign policy." (from the same Washington Post article)

To address some of these concerns the Senate is attempting to add penalties for profiteering and to require an open bidding system.

*
It's "interesting" that, as the Administration attempts to justify its actions (BBC), that there is chronic insecurity and unemployment, while foreign contractors are snapping up billions of dollars. And some of those contractors are earning hazard bonuses for... protecting Iraqi oil facilities.

Are the locals supposed to take comfort in that? "My daughters can't go to school any more, and women are disappearing off the streets in broad daylight, but at least the oil refinery is being guarded!"

Do you think that the tactics used by Americans in the Revolutionary War for independence from England would be considered terrorism by today's new standards? Hiding in the trees to snipe at soldiers? Not wearing bright uniforms? Not following the rules of war as they existed then, which required open country and lines of soldiers exposing themselves to their opponents in an orderly way?

The US broke a lot of rules to win its freedoms. It was for a good cause, but I still think the US' tactics would be judged in the current political climate.

It's been very sad to read of the violence that has cost so many lives in Israel and Palestine. It's very tragic. It seems very unnecessary, the death, destruction, terror. But it also seems very... desperate, and I'm not quite sure why observations about the desperation involved are not examined so that such sad events can be prevented elsewhere.

It appears from looking around the world that, in places where people have enough to eat, adequate shelter, and can live comfortably on available resources in relative freedom, the citizens tend not to blow themselves up. Where there are opportunities and people have something to live for, people tend to choose to live. Even in places where there are vast disparities between the rich and poor, systems which at least appear to offer opportunities for upward mobility and some earthly comforts tend to keep people invested in their local system of governance, whatever that system may be. When there is an injustice, people generally organize to try to improve the system. [This has been especially apparent in Central and South America lately, where all sorts of groups are attempting to improve the systems which have been disenfranchising them. They have enough hope for improvement that they have not resorted to blowing themselves up.]

Do you see where I'm going with this?

If people suffer constant collective punishment in an externally imposed and arbitrary system, there is no reason to invest in that system or the "order" it brings. [As if government sponsored assassinations and bulldozing homes could ever result in peace or order!] None. Punishing the peaceful or the moderates radicalizes the survivors. Creating an occupation that leaves people hopeless and gives them nothing to live for creates people who are available for suicide attacks.

I'm not condoning the violence of the desperate - I'm just pointing out that hopelessness and desperation can lead to terror. And if we, collectively, want to eliminate terror, we should eliminate the circumstances that give rise to it as best we can. The US itself resorted to violence to free itself from unjust rule, so I don't feel that we are in a position to criticize the quest for anyone's freedom, (though we CAN criticize the methods). The US' culture also had many violent fantasies during the Cold War about how WE would never ever ever tolerate a Communist occupation, with the firm belief that nearly any sacrifice would be worth our particular system of freedom to have life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Apocalyptic novels of self-sacrifice were hot sellers, despite their formulaic, torrid worldview. If we thought like that... Well, why wouldn't people who actually find themselves occupied think the same way?

Other people in the world are no different from us. It seems that we can use our vast technology and experience to make life more hopeful for people everywhere if we REALLY want to combat terror. If we export hope and improved lives, fewer people will be available to be used as tools of terror. That may not eliminate terror, but reducing it is worth a try.

*

[Ingredients to such an effort: aid where needed; very fair trade that REALLY benefits the poorer nations; information exchanges, including health care worker exchanges; appropriate technology, for those of you who know what that is... These things are done on a small scale currently by NGOs to positive affect with limited NGO resources. If governmental organizations, especially in the industrialized and wealthier parts of the world, made a significant committment for the sake of increased world security, the existing efforts could be analyzed, a series of best practices for each region and culture could be developed, and the best work could be reproduced on a much larger scale for all interested countries. Doesn't that sound better than bombs and military bases? Of course it does.]

Search In Iraq Finds No Banned Weapons. (Washington Post)

Bush believes the report vindicates his administration because it shows that Hussein sought components for forbidden programs, but doesn't show that he actually GOT any, contrary to the Administration's announcements prior to war. (Washington Post) It appears that the Iraqi regime had high HOPES of having forbidden programs, but didn't quite work up the skill and materials to MAKE anything.

That's not quite what we were told when this all started.

Kay's WMD report on the CIA website is fascinating. I think my favorite quote so far is this one:

Discussions with Iraqi scientists uncovered agent R&D work that paired overt work with nonpathogenic organisms serving as surrogates for prohibited investigation with pathogenic agents.

That's right, Iraqi scientists were working with benign biological substances, but were hoping to learn things they could use with really nasty biological agents! Oh, shame on them for using harmless agents and fantasizing of harmful ones!

This is another great excerpt:

We have not yet been able to corroborate the existence of a mobile BW production effort. Investigation into the origin of and intended use for the two trailers found in northern Iraq in April has yielded a number of explanations, including hydrogen, missile propellant, and BW production, but technical limitations would prevent any of these processes from being ideally suited to these trailers. That said, nothing we have discovered rules out their potential use in BW production.

Read it a few times. Doesn't it just flow over the tongue, like cold chunky peanut butter? Don't you feel a desire to rephrase it? Something more along the lines of, "you probably couldn't make any WMDs in these trailers, but we really have no clue what they were used for, so we count these as proof that they were up to SOMETHING nefarious for now."

The report is full of "could haves." They looked into making something chemical, so they someday could have figured it out! Hussein once asked how long it would take to produce a chemical weapon, and received an estimate! They produce *gasp* ESTIMATES!! And this report reveals that scientists who studied nuclear weapons prior to 1998 were allowed to keep practicing science! YES! "In some cases, these groups performed work which could help preserve the science base and core skills that would be needed for any future fissile material production or nuclear weapons development." SCIENTISTS WERE ENGAGING IN SCIENCE THAT PRESERVED THEIR CORE SKILLS! HOLY COW!

I don't mean to make light of this, but... I was expecting something more compelling, and I feel let down, somehow.

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Are they serious? Bush aides reported being surprised that the news coverage of Kay's interim report focused on the absence so far of weapons of mass destruction.. (Washington Post) Oh, I hope they're not serious. I mean, golly. Even if THEY forgot the original rationale for entering into the war, those of us who are even somewhat sober remember it.

There's a sad article I just read about the current, chaotic state of Somalia. (BBC) There is concern that the country could become a haven for terrorists. The country didn't come onto the US' press radar until unrest after the fall of a president resulted in local warfare and the death of many UN peacekeepers. The US was involved, but the operation went badly, and many US soldiers died. Before those events, you'd think the nation didn't exist, so little was it mentioned in US papers.

Most Americans, me included, were mystified at the time. It was as if Somalia sprang into existence overnight, and was somehow magically filled with high powered guns while its people lacked most of the basics. How could it be? Where did the guns come from? There was some very basic information missing.

A great essay about Americans never understanding international events straightened me out, and so now I know what to look for. If you look at the BBC's excellent timeline of Somalia's history, you'll notice some references to the influence of the Soviets during the cold war.

Can you think of any place where the Soviets alone had influence that the US didn't try to intervene? The US apparently supported and armed warlords who were engaged in a battle of resistance against the left-leaning government, the same way the US supported resistance to the USSR in Afghanistan.

It's very similar to Afghanistan in that respect.

But for those who hadn't heard this excluded tidbit, there's an odd quote from a former American ambassador: "The US now has a coherent policy of trying to get the neighbours to take some responsibility for Somalia." Not that I expected him to bring up OUR role and responsibilities. But... But....

I enjoyed this controversial piece by former UK environment minister Michael Meacher called "This war on terrorism is bogus: The 9/11 attacks gave the US an ideal pretext to use force to secure its global domination." (Guardian UK). Meacher wants to know why the US was so interesting in starting a war so far from home against a country who, it has now been proven, did not have the resources to damage the US.

Meacher's inspiration is a report called "Rebuilding America's Defenses by the increasingly infamous Project for a New American Century, a group that has been planning US world domination (especially through military superiority) for many years, and from which many members of the Bush Administration came. Meacher is especially disturbed by a section on the required elements to shift attitudes toward it's ultra-pro-military stance:

"the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event -- like a new Pearl Harbor."

Meacher's theory is that the September 11, 2001 attacks provided the catalyst that the PNAC folks have been seeking to follow their grandest plans -- not so much by the Bush Administration's design, but by laxity that happens to coincide with militarist interests. In response to critics who accuse him of hysterics, Meacher tries to draw attention to the source of his concern - the report:

It sets out publicly as objectives for the new Bush administration control of the Gulf region, irrespective of Saddam Hussein, regime change in China, US domination of space and cyberspace, and development of biological weapons as "a politically useful tool".

All this is highly relevant to the debate currently raging in Britain as to whether the war in Iraq was justified. Ostensibly Britain was taken into a war to support US goals of combating global terror. But in reality, the evidence shows that the war on terror is largely a cover for wider US geopolitical objectives set out in the neo-conservative manifesto. This is what we should be focusing on.

Ideologically based criticisms aside, I am surprised that his suggestions that the open-ended war on terror are serving some people are so shocking (we have always had war profiteers), and that they distract his critics from the document upon which they are based. The PNAC report itself, and the appropriateness of the Bush Administration's members being blatant militarists who have not distanced themselves from a document which advocates US world domination through military action raise questions on their own.

Shouldn't there be a few more concerns over comments in the PNAC document such as this:

The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.

In a world of global cooperation, is it appropriate for the US to want to maintain a military presence around the world, especially in areas where it is notoriously unwanted and unwelcome? Does any nation have the right to impede the sovereignty of other nations for the sake of its financial interests in taking other nation's natural resources in order to have global dominance? Historically, the answer has always been no. Shouldn't the policies that the US is following, as outlined in this document, generate greater concern than implications that the Bush Administration has a conflict of interest with regard to security?

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A detailed analysis of the PNAC document and its operations by MoveOn, currently published at Indymedia (Idaho Indymedia) provides additional background information on the organization and funding behind this dubious conservate effort to build an empire.

I've been home ill for several days, so I missed yesterday's Bring the Troops Home demonstration here in SF. (SF Gate) Bringing the Troops home is a laudable sentiment, but I think we peace-loving people should demand more.

The costly war on Iraq relieved the Iraqi people of a despotic ruler whom the US previously helped keep in power, a belated correction to some very serious and immoral US foreign policy actions, which came at the expense of countless Iraqi lives. But the occupation is not going well, and neither the soldiers nor Iraqis are happy with it. It's time to admit that. Considering the social strife raging through lawless occupied Iraq (Washington Post) that the power vacuum has created, pulling out and abandoning the people after having created chaos is not enough.

The US finds itself in this situation because of ego and greed. The US' attempts to maintain a business monopoly over Iraqi resources and military positions while demanding money from the UN is self-serving and bound to fail. The US does not have a history of successful nation building, having intervened in dozens of nations but still only pointing to the same two examples from my parents' childhoods to prove it can be done well.

Bringing the troops home must be part of a broader plan to help the Iraqis. It's time to surrender the assets of Iraq that the US has seized to an international trustee; involve international peacekeepers and participate with and support them with US forces; set a timetable for Iraqi self-rule; and use UN resources to set up a method for Iraqis to express what it is they believe they need and their developmental priorities in a way that will result in the most needed and beneficial action. The sooner, the better.

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Yes, such a proposal may involve surrendering some of the lucrative development contracts that Bush has been granting to his donors and friends. The most important thing is that the Iraqis are getting what they need. It's bizarre to read about mobile phone contracts being let when people there don't have water or security. There are nations much closer to Iraq who can surely supply many of the people and equipment needed to give people the basics they need to live. What is best for US business isn't necessarily best for the Iraqis, and if we're still claiming this war was for Iraqi liberation, we need to get on the ball and make sure they're getting what's truly best for them.

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This goes for Afghanistan, too, which we've largely abandoned.

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The Washington Post Iraq Post-War photo galleries (Macromedia Flash) are up and full of informative photos about the way Iraqis of all stripes are living (and dying) in the post-war breakdown of order.

An interesting bit within the 'hunt for WMDs' gallery: a photo of a piece of lined paper, showing a drawing of a flask and some text which was found accompanied by a flask of powder. This discovery generated excitement among the WMD hunters. It turned out to be... a student's science homework.

(This implies the folks looking for WMDs don't have translators with them. Which seems unwise, for many reasons.)

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Cheney is refusing to drop a discredited story about hijacker Atta and an Iraqi meeting in Prague, which has been abandoned by the rest of the Bush Administration. (Washington Post)

U.S. records showed Atta living in Virginia Beach in April 2001, and they could find no indication he had left Virginia or traveled outside the United States.

Even so, on March 24, 2002, Cheney again told NBC, "We discovered . . . the allegation that one of the lead hijackers, Mohamed Atta, had, in fact, met with Iraqi intelligence in Prague."

The FBI and CIA have both confirmed that there is no evidence that Atta left the country at the time the alleged meeting took place, and the lone informer's testimony to the Czech government lost its credibility: "Havel quietly informed the White House in 2002 there was no evidence to confirm the meeting." And yet Cheney is STILL bringing it up.

Is Cheney trying to make it easy for me to say that facts are no obstacle to certain members of this Administration? This surely is the sort of attitude which resulted in members of the House Intelligence Committee accusing the administration of using information that was at least 5 years old (Washington Post).

The ongoing lawlessness in Iraq is taking tolls on Iraq's most vulnerable: especially young female children. A horrific July article called "Rape (and Silence About It) Haunts Baghdad" (New York Times, $) details an attack on a 9-year old which threatens her life -- not because of the violence of the act, but because it means her male relatives wish to kill her to cleanse their family's honor. She's only 9!

She isn't the only one: the article describes other victims, women lying about what has happened to their daughters to protect family honor, refusals by the police to act on reports, bureaucratic obstacles... I'm citing this older article, because I haven't seen this come up again recently, although families locking their girls indoors and male relatives standing guard outside of girl's schools all day are likely things that have continued along with the disorder.

This bodes badly for the country: as pointed out in a short MS Magazine interview with Jordan's Queen Noor, cultures with women participating in public life tend to moderate extremists. When women are eliminated from the public world, extreme views toward their treatment and protection flourish, including more extreme forms of fundamentalism. Which make the world less hospitable for all of us.

This is still apparent in Afghanistan, where women are still wearing the Burqa outside of Kabul, where journalists generally won't tread.