Is the U.S. once again paying cash to anyone who will tell them what they want to hear? Morley's World Opinion Roundup item, "Insurgent Zarqawi's Dark Genius" (washingtonpost.com, 10/05/04) quotes foreign papers whose sources say the U.S. is paying people to tell them that so-called terrorist mastermind al Zarqawi is behind every problem that arises.

Didn't the U.S. go through this before? Over WMDs? And didn't that result in some wretched results?

Morley quotes Sami Ramadi's article, "The true face of Iraqi resistance" (guardian.co.uk, 09/30/04) which suggests the U.S. is happily using Zarqawi as a fall-guy regardless of the truth or untruth of the information they have purchased, because it is convenient to have a bad guy.

The occupation forces have admitted that the attacks on them by the resistance rose last month to 2,700. And how many of these 2,700 attacks a month were claimed by Zarqawi? Six. Six headline-grabbing, TV-dominating, stomach-churning moments.

Just as Iraq's 25 million people were reduced, in the public's mind, to the threat from weapons of mass destruction, ready to be unleashed within 45 minutes, the resistance is now being reduced to a single hoodlum.

It is surely more easy to motivate U.S. troops into believing that they are fighting for good and against evil with a convenient bad guy. But if the war they are fighting exists only internally, they will spend all of their time confused and misdirected when they are fighting a different war against rebels with no ties to their imagined villain externally.

Bush keeps saying that everything in Iraq is grand, and that "Peace is on the march." He didn't say what direction it's marching in. Inside besieged Falluja(bbc.co.uk, 10/16/04):

The mood in the city is grim.

It is start of Ramadan, but there is nowhere to celebrate and no food to celebrate with.

Read more on how people are fleeing town.

The raiding of mosques right before a holy period surely isn't good for the morale of Iraqi civilians, either. U.S. hits Sunni hot spots -- 7 mosques raided, Muslim leaders irate over air strike destruction, arrests (sfgate.com, 10/13/04). Interestingly, the US is warning of an increase in violence -- by Iraqis. We should draw no correlation to the new military campaigns by the U.S., apparently.

Interesting comment from this article:

In a separate statement read Friday in Sunni mosques in Baghdad and elsewhere, Fallujah clerics threatened a civil disobedience campaign across the country if the Americans try to overrun the city.

The clerics said if civil disobedience were not enough to stop a U.S. assault, they would proclaim a jihad, or holy war, against all U.S. and multinational forces "as well as those collaborating with them."

They insisted that the Jordanian-born al-Zarqawi was not in Fallujah, claiming his alleged presence "is a lie just like the weapons of mass destruction lie."

"Al-Zarqawi has become the pretext for flattening civilians houses and killing innocent civilians," the statement said.

Perhaps it is no coincidence that the article now claims that Fallujah was controlled by "radical clerics" (note the plural) now that local religious leaders are planning protests. Funny, until recently, there was only ONE radical cleric. Perhaps they don't want to give up using the title, now that their favorite cleric so labeled is running for mainstream office?

Still not winning hearts and minds: After Recapturing N. Iraqi City, Rebuilding Starts From Scratch (washingtonpost.com, 09/19/04):

"'The citizens are frustrated; everyone is frustrated,' he said. 'My house, for example, has been searched three times, and the last time they were very aggressive. They broke down my door. I was asleep in my house with my children, and suddenly [a soldier] was standing in front of me. I said, 'I am a doctor.' He said, '[Expletive] you.' '"

Things aren't going smoothly on the home front, either: Influx of Wounded Strains VA (news.yahoo.com/washingtonpost, 10/03/04)

An interesting compilation of international attitudes about U.S. policy under the Bush Administration: U.S. Policies Stir More Fear Than Confidence (news.yahoo.com/latimes, 10/03/04). There are some very unfortunate sentiments expressed resulting from the way in which the U.S. has chosen to use force.

The recent news about Iraq is a litany of horrors: Children massacred by Iraq bombs (bbc.co.uk, 09/30/04), reports that 34 kids were killed by a car bomb while pursuing sweets from U.S. soldiers, and that the U.S. killed a woman and child while engaging in house-bombings. In 'Scores die' in Samarra assault (bbc.co.uk, 10/01/04) the U.S. claims a precise estimate of 109 "insurgent" kills, while local hospitals report a high number of injuries, including to civilians.

On a different note, one correspondent notes that the use of force will not succeed in bringing order to Iraq on its own, and says that other efforts are afoot. Analysis: Battle for Iraq's future, by Jonathan Marcus (bbc.co.uk, 10/01/04) suggests that military campaigns which level cities and kill civilians won't create peaceful settings for elections, but that Allawi claims to be in negotiations with representatives from insurgent groups. If all the major Iraqi groups are represented in negotiations of the country's new constitution, peace may be achievable. Negotiations are a refreshing change from the force-only approach many of the parties in Iraq had taken.

Two Italian aid workers, who had been kidnapped in Iraq and were feared dead, were released and have created a controversy by insisting that resistance to puppet governments, such as Allawi's interim government in Iraq, is legitimate. Italy split over hostages' views (bbc.co.uk, 10/02/04) The two Simonas, Pari and Torretta, urged Italy to withdraw troops from Iraq, and condemned the kidnapping of civilians.

Their abductors gave them embroidered kaftans (British spelling) as gifts. The women feared they would be killed until they were freed, so I imagine the kaftans were quite unexpected. (understatement)

Their entire story has not been told, but should be interesting: one of the women was fluent in Arabic and had been doing aid work in Iraq for a long time, and so was likely able to communicate with their captors in a way that many other kidnap victims had not. The women were unaware of the unfortunate fates that hostages held by others in Iraq had recently suffered.

U.S. Foreign Policy Explained

This is the best and most concise explanation for why the U.S., promoter of Democracy in all of its glory, is allied with monarchies, theocracies, and dictators in addition to various democratic entities:

What the United States has never supported, however, or even tolerated, is a regime that is unwilling to enter into 'normal' trade or financial relations with American business. A country, to put it simply, in which no profits can be made by Americans. The presence or absence of profit opportunities, not the presence or absence of freedom, is what has traditionally determined American policy toward other regimes.

This excellent summary is a quote from a lengthy and very good review of four political books and is entitled Homeland Insecurity, by George Scialabba (thenation.com), and is printed in the October 11, 2004 issue (now available on newsstands).

Hey! That really is a U.S.-style democracy! How Much U.S. Help? The Bush Administration takes heat for a CIA plan to influence Iraq's elections, (time.com, forthcoming 10/04/04 issue) reveals that the Bush Administration planned to covertly fund pro-U.S. candidates in Iraq's upcoming "democratic" elections.

But U.S. officials tell TIME that the Bush team ran into trouble with another plan involving those elections — a secret "finding" written several months ago proposing a covert CIA operation to aid candidates favored by Washington. A source says the idea was to help such candidates — whose opponents might be receiving covert backing from other countries, like Iran — but not necessarily to go so far as to rig the elections.

(bold emphasis mine) THIS should give folks in the Middle East a happy signal about the U.S.' great intentions for a free Iraq.

I found this Prof. Juan Cole's blog at this Informed Comment entry, along with his commentary about how he finds the Time characterization of Pelosi inappropriate. Cole also has comments he has received from Iraqis about the "redevelopment" of certain areas of Najaf, which are being leveled without local input. I've heard elsewhere that through some coincidence, Mr. Sadr's offices, among others, will be demolished...

A necessary ingredient for democracy, at home or abroad: justice

I periodically point out to my peers, upon hearing of some terrible tragedy like a suicide bombing or a violent militaristic assault, that you never see millionaires wiring bombs to themselves. You never see doctors wearing jewelry driving their custom luxury cars into military barricades. You never see brain surgeons in tailored suits rioting.

While wealthy people may direct acts of violence by others, the people who act to harm themselves or others generally are not having their material or other needs met. It is people with no economic or personal stake in the future who feel they having nothing to lose by engaging in crimes of political or personal violence. It is people who have few social or economic options who join militaries around the world, whether for 'good' governments or 'bad' governments. People without hope, who are not invested personally in the future of their society, wind up in dangerous, hopeless situations which threaten everyone.

Being a student of compassionate action, it appears that an obvious solution to the problem of violence by the hopeless is to give them the means to have a future. But many world leaders instead believe that military power and repression can prevent hopeless people from acting violently.

I would be more inclined to believe this if I saw evidence of it working.

A discussion of two approaches to hopelessness came up in a good interview with a great writer and thinker: AlterNet: Finding Justice with Arundhati Roy. Roy says, in part:

Obviously there are two paths that humanity can choose to take. One is to increase inequality and then bank on weapons to maintain that, which is the project of the New American Century, and the project of any person who bids to be president of this country....

[The second path:] The way we can turn the world around is if we are at least moving on a path toward justice. Maybe it can never be achieved in any pristine form. Right now, the powerful, and I don't just mean the powerful in America, but the coalition of the powerful elites across the world are making it very clear that they are not even interested in justice.

On the same topic of justice and also very much worth reading: Matters of Justice, an interview with Cornel West, in which West says:

I think that?s a real challenge to the Bush administration in particular and to Americans in general, in their response to terrorism. Terrorism is ugly, wrong and vicious, but you don?t want to get in the same gutter as the terrorist to simply reinforce the same cycle of killing innocent people, demonizing others, losing sight of the humanity of others. You want justice, justice, justice.

I think Roy and West are very much on the right track.

It may be difficult for Americans to see, because the repressive perspective has spread to the populace: many Americans live in gated communities, fearful of the disenfranchised; many Americans support the imprisonment of huge percentages of the population, including impoverished, addicted, and hopeless people, rather than treatment or life assistance; many Americans live in fear of have-nots, building "safe rooms," purchasing guns, subscribing to guard services and alarm systems, driving tank-like vehicles to protect their possessions from those who have no legitimate means to acquire them... Yet none of these actions make American society safer, or the neighbors they fear more hopeful of their futures.

I am not suggesting that money alone is the deciding factor, but I am saying that material need/comfort is at least one factor. Social investment in neighborhoods and intact, healthy communities is another.

Radicalism consistently appears to be a resort of those who believe they have few options. Surely there is a reason the terrorists of Beslan were made up of widows and people who lost their children to Russian military violence. Surely there is a reason that Israel's poverty-producing policies and repeated destruction of neighborhoods that people were socially invested in has produced radically violent responses. Surely there is a reason that the impoverished of America's slums act in disregard to the rules of a society that shunts them aside.

If we want to live in a more peaceful, safe world, we need to consider all approaches. Creating a more just, secure, safe world is a great option.

Reports 'predicted Iraq violence' (bbc.com, 09/29/04). Not that this is a surprise, but:

US intelligence reports written before the Iraq war warned President George Bush that an invasion could lead to an insurgency, the New York Times reports.

The reports also predicted the war would increase sympathy in the Islamic world for some terrorist objectives, officials who saw the reports say.

Of course, Bush Senior decided years ago that occupying Iraq was a bad idea. (themoderntribune.com; see also same at snopes.) Which means that "Gulf War I" could have been worse! I knew there was an upside here somewhere...

Ouch!. (sfgate.com). This is an image of a young child who was injured by U.S. airstrikes in Sadr City.

There are some strange things in mainstream news reports about the coverage of airstrikes against civilian areas. I've read that the insurgents in Najaf where intentionally having people live in their own houses, for example, so that they would be victims of U.S. bombings. As if living in one's own house is some sort of radical insurgent act. I think Rumsfeld brought up the same accusation in the documentary film Control Room. My partner has heard announcements by commentators on radio that civilian injuries as the result of bombing neighborhoods are 'impossible' and 'lies.'

How wacky - the idea that people live in neighborhoods, in houses even!!!

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Of course, we don't usually get front page stories like this (bbc.com image of Independent cover dated 08/01/04) about specific civilians killed by the U.S. military, and the loss to their families for which cash offers cannot compensate.

Frighteningly, I don't think that war hysteria allows people to view Iraqi civilians as individuals with families, even though they are supposed to be the beneficiaries of U.S. military activities there. And the U.S. media isn't about to change that.

A flashback to a dark time in an earlier war: Vietnam, Inc. by Phillip Jones Griffiths. The photo has an unpleasantly familiar aspect.

CAPTURED SUSPECTS. Anyone who was male and between 15 and 50 was automatically assumed to be Vietcong and treated as such. After the traumatic experience of being arrested tnd then 'interrogated,' any person released would quickly want to join the Vietcong.

Link to post in the sidebar when I have a chance: AlterNet: War on Iraq: News Log.

Torture by beatings AND loud western music US troops face new torture claims (guardian.co.uk, 09/14/04). Ick.

The Abu Ghraib prison scandal was harrowing and terrible, showing the corruption of U.S. "liberators" in a horrifically graphic light. Sadly, similar abuses by U.S. forces have also come to light - this time, against Afghan soldiers. U.S. Probing Alleged Abuse of Afghans (latimes.com, 09/21/04, registration required).

Alleged American mistreatment of the detainees included repeated beatings, immersion in cold water, electric shocks, being hung upside down and toenails being torn off, according to Afghan investigators and an internal memorandum prepared by a United Nations delegation that interviewed the surviving soldiers.

Some of the Afghan soldiers were beaten to the point that they could not walk or sit, Afghan doctors and other witnesses said.

One soldier was beaten to death; others were kept in custody until their torture wounds healed sufficiently for the U.S. forces to hand them over to Afghan authorities, who challenged the legality of their custody. When the U.S. was asked to investigate its role, "Pentagon officials said they could find no reports passed up the chain of command as required when a death occurs in U.S. custody, raising questions about possible efforts by American troops in Afghanistan to cover up the incident."

This is disturbing on several levels.

A simple question: how is torturing Afghan soldiers, who support the government the U.S. inserted in Afghanistan, helping support the U.S. anti-terrorist program?

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If only this were a joke: If the U.S. is torturing the forces of its allies, could that explain why there are so few members of the so-called 'Coalition of the Willing?'

Not a pretty picture: Informed Comment : If America were Iraq, What would it be Like? (juancole.com, 09/22/04)

Informed Comment : Violence, Allawi, Sistani and Elections (juancole.com, 09/24/04) offers some interesting information, both on majority Iraqi fears of being sidelined in the elections, on Allawi's inaccurate comments about where violence in Iraq is occurring, and on Rumsfeld's comments about how not all parts of Iraq may enjoy elections in January.

Having your vote left uncounted really is becoming some sort of American tradition, isn't it?

The U.S. military still hasn't figured out what is wrong with this headline: U.S. Planes Strike Sadr City (washingtonpost.com, 09/24/04). Bombing an occupied civilian area tends to lead to bad feelings toward the bombers, and horrific images in the (foreign) press. I haven't yet heard of bombing a neighborhood resulting in improved relations between the surviving inhabitants and the occupying force.

Counting the civilian cost in Iraq (bbc.com, 09/22/04) points out that there is an obligation in the Geneva Conventions for occupiers to track civilian deaths, yet U.S. General Tommy Franks comment, "we don't do body counts" still stands.

I am glad the article includes an observation that the U.S. military seems to often estimate the number of "insurgents" it kills, but never the civilians, which are somehow unknowable.

The article provides links to groups that have been counting (but not to CIVIC).

Dan Froomkin's White House Briefing column is often great, but today's column is especially great. Bush Speech: Resolute or Clueless? (washingtonpost.com) (washingtonpost.com, 09/22/04) is full of interesting comments about war and peace. For example:

"We know that dictators are quick to choose aggression, while free nations strive to resolve differences in peace," Bush said.

Some people see irony there. Others don't.

Oh my. Froomkin's news summary and excerpts also quote from yesterday's post, from a great article I missed by Glenn Kessler, also of the Post::

Kessler writes that Bush "describes almost all issues through the prism of terrorism, giving short shrift to concerns such as world poverty, globalization and a growing divide between rich and poor that were often the focus of other leaders and that some argue are the root causes of terrorism. . . .

It's nice that other leaders are concerning themselves with the root causes of terrorism. It would be nicer if ours was.

Read the entire article: he's got everything from Annan's comments about the illegal war to an update on Kitty Kelly's sources for unflattering information about the Bushes.

No Justice, No Peace: This is more horrific evidence that governments (and societies) must never allow large segments of their population to become hopeless, from The Nation: September 27, 2004 issue, the editorial called "Putin's War":

During the past two years alone, more than 1,000 Russians have been killed in a series of increasingly lethal terrorist acts inside Russia... [since] 1994 more than 100,000 Chechens, most of them civilians, have died, fueling horrifying acts like those in the Beslan school. As a surviving hostage told a Russian newspaper, "The terrorists told us that their own children have been killed by Russians and they have nothing to lose..."

There is a vision of hell: people whose children were killed by your government coming to kill your children. It's hellish, because you know what you would want to do in their shoes, and NEVER want to be in their shoes.

Those of us in the peace movement have an obvious answer: stop allowing your government to kill other people and/or their children.

For reasons which are never apparent to me, this exotic tactic of not killing other people's children has not caught on, not even with my own government.

A new angle in Still Divided Three Years Later (washingtonpost.com, 09/14/04): the idea that the rest of the world may be safer as a result of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, but Iraqis are not.

This would be more compelling if any of Iraq's neighbors had been worried prior to the U.S. invasion, when even Kuwait was unenthusiastic...

CBS' "mistake" publicized, facts not (updated). My partner, S, said that the media climate in this country is such that newsmakers don't need to actually disprove anything negative said about them: all that is needed is a whiff of doubt, and if the doubt is for the right side, the doubt itself becomes the news. No one looks further.

When CBS broke a story of copies of memoranda urging sugar-coated reports of Bush's guard service, conservative news services didn't insist that Bush had served, but rather that the documents must be fake. The doubt has spread: CBS apologizes, concedes it can't vouch for authenticity of documents on Bush Guard duty (sfgate.com, 09/20/04).

Rather this weekend interviewed Bill Burkett, a retired Texas National Guard official who has been mentioned as a possible source for the documents.... CBS said Burkett acknowledged he provided the documents and said he deliberately misled a CBS producer, giving her a false account of their origin to protect a promise of confidentiality to a source.

This article is dated September 20th, and is just about the authenticity of documents -- but not the facts. But back on September 16th, FAIR published "The Mysterious Case of the CBS Memos", which notes the following:

The secretary of George W. Bush's National Guard commander, coming forward to describe memos supposedly written by her boss as "correct" but "not real" (Dallas Morning News, 9/14/04), has deepened the mystery about the disputed documents.

Marian Carr Knox is a compelling witness... she debunked several of the specific reasons other news outlets had given for questioning the memos that were featured in that report....

But while Knox greatly undermines the documentation of the CBS reporting, it is important for critics to recognize that she corroborates the substance of that reporting. "The information in them is correct," she told the New York Times (9/15/04). "It looks like someone may have read the originals and put that together."

(bold emphasis mine). Bill Burkett, mentioned above in the SFGate article, "has charged that Bush's Guard records were culled in 1997 to eliminate 'anything there that will embarrass the [then] governor' (Dallas Morning News, 2/11/04), which would mean that many of the originals were destroyed. And now there are two witnesses - Burkett and Knox - who believe in the information revealed.

I bet you haven't read that in many places, have you?

Images from Iraq at SFGate.com: 'the face of collateral damage (a young girl injured in US airstrikes), and a combat boot memorial to fallen U.S. soldiers.

U.S. Intelligence Offers Gloomy Outlook for Iraq (nytimes.com, 09/16/04). Also, U.S. Intelligence Shows Pessimism on Iraq's Future (nytimes, 09/16/04).

The estimate outlines three possibilities for Iraq through the end of 2005, with the worst case being developments that could lead to civil war, the officials said. The most favorable outcome described is an Iraq whose stability would remain tenuous in political, economic and security terms....

[yet]

"You know, every step of the way in Iraq there have been pessimists and hand-wringers who said it can't be done," Mr. McClellan [White House spokesperson] said at a news briefing. "And every step of the way, the Iraqi leadership and the Iraqi people have proven them wrong because they are determined to have a free and peaceful future."

One wonders whether the spokesperson remains so upbeat because he knows he will never need to visit Iraq?

Weapons Inspectors: Iraq Study Finds Desire for Arms, but Not Capacity (nytimes.com, 09/17/04). After an exhaustive study, we still went to war over bad intentions. Or, more specifically, intentions to have the same sort of weaponry that the U.S. maintains, and that the U.S. sells or provides to its allies.

Usually, there are less harsh punishments for wanting to be like the U.S....

I know that both of the U.S. presidential candidates believe that Iraq's problems have a military solution, but the news on what that approach has brought is isn't currently compelling. Baghdad Violence Leaves at Least 52 Dead (news.yahoo.com, 09/17/04). The U.S. military death toll is already at 1,027; the "unrest" (such understatement) is resulting in more terrible attacks. And the "air strike" approach to killing militants is causing great damage.

West of Baghdad, hundreds of men dug mass graves to bury the dead from a wave of American airstrikes that started late Thursday and stretched into Friday in and around Fallujah. Health Ministry official Saad al-Amili said at least 44 people were killed and 27 wounded in the Fallujah strikes.

... Mahmoud Sheil, 50, a tribal sheik in the area, likened the killings from U.S. airstrikes in Fallujah to the slaughter of civilians under Saddam Hussein's ousted dictatorship.

'They (the Americans) say that Saddam is the man of mass graves, but they are the ones responsible for these mass graves,' he said.

This approach is still not winning hearts and minds for the U.S.

On the deaths on Haifa Street, captured on video

Salam Pax is again providing an incredible service to the outside world with his new blog. His entry shut up you fat whiner!: "he got injured" (justzipit.blogspot.com, 09/14/04) provides several things. It provides a link to his injured journalist friend (Ghaith), including a photo.

It provides a link to all the 'editorial' (news) photos his friend filed, including some very sad and very gory ones which will never be seen in the U.S. press, (editorial.gettyimages.com). Intrepid researchers can look at these images prior to commercial media filtration.

And then there are the comments upon this entry from Pax's readers. (Which Pax is very brave to allow, considering the boneheaded remarks he often receives.)

Most useful: link to Motive for Haifa Street Helicopter Massacre Remains a Mystery, by Brian Dominick (iraq-war.ru, 09/15/04). Relevant excerpts:

he US military has offered at least two distinct explanations for killing thirteen people and wounding at least sixty others, including children, early Monday morning on Haifa Street in a residential area of central Baghdad.... Abundant eyewitness testimony backed up by television footage indicates the helicopters fired directly at the crowd, at least most of whose members were clearly unarmed.....

On the Al-Arabiya video, there is no sign of fire coming from the ground, and no fire from above precedes the explosions that killed and wounded noncombatants far from the disemboweled Bradley.

But footage taken by an Al-Arabiya crew at the scene clearly shows explosions among a crowd of noncombatants some distance from the burning Bradley fighting vehicle, an armored troop transporter that resembles a tank. In fact, even though the Bradley is shown in the distant background as Palestinian TV producer Mazen Al-Tumeizi set up for a live interview at the scene, one of the missiles fired from US aircraft hit close enough to kill Al-Tameizi and wound the camera operator, Seif Fouad.

The article continues with a report from Pax's injured friend, which another blog comment entry provides a link for: 'He's just sleeping, I kept telling myself' (guardian.co.uk, 09/14/04 -- warning, pictures of dead people).

Once I knew what to look for, I was also a able to find a related story at the BBC: Media spotlight on Baghdad deaths (bbc.com, 09/13/04). This article emphasizes the fact that this attack on civilians was recorded, notes the discrepancies and differing accounts offered by the U.S. military, and discusses deaths of journalists at the hands of U.S. forces, and recounts past incidents. (It features stills of the al-Arabiya reporter's video before and after he was fatally injured.) Plus, it has this comment:

In a phone call from Baghdad on Monday, the US military was unable to clarify why none of the TV footage or press pictures showed armed people at the scene or recorded any gunfire.

(See also, ABC news: "Reuters TV footage of the incident showed no evidence any of the Iraqis around the Bradley vehicle were armed or had opened fire." (09/13/04))

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So, by providing a personal connection, and a forum for people to share additional information on this horrific incident, Pax is really letting us know what it's like to be a civilian in Iraq.

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Yes, Pax has historically supported a U.S. presence until order can be restored. No, that doesn't make this any easier for him to cope with.

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Least useful reader comment, but very interesting in a strange way: a U.S. soldier writing to Pax: "As a soldier we don't want to kill, we kill because it is our job." As if getting a paycheck for killing makes it acceptable. As if killing for money rather than ideology makes dead civilians less dead.

Iraq security picture (bbc.com, 09/13/04) provides a list of cities and areas which are no longer under US or US-allied-Iraqi control around the country.

It's a long list.

Am I surprised that the US wants to divert money from water, sewage, and electrical service for the Iraqi people to security activities? No. Iraq: Signs of desperation (bbc.com, 09/14/04). The article provides excerpts from the report of a think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, which states:

Two months after the United States transferred sovereignty to an Iraqi interim government... Iraq remains embroiled in an insurgency, with security problems overshadowing other efforts to rebuild Iraq's fragile society in the areas of governance and participation, economic opportunity, services and well-being.

Kofi Annan, ever diplomatic, has had wrested from him a more direct statement than he has yet given about Iraq. In the BBC article, "Choice of words matters," Annan says the US invasion of Iraq was illegal. (bbc.com, 09/16/04).

Of course, "US says Iraq invasion was legal" (bbc.com, 09/16/04), but it has to say that. The argument that Iraq HAD to be invaded because of the imminent threat of weapons of mass destruction is still in force in this article -- parties supportive of the invasion still insist that the United Nations wasn't acting, so the U.S. HAD TO -- because. Just because. Even though, in retrospect, the UN was right. Ooops. Darn those pesky facts.

What, you say you've never heard much about what the inside of the holy shrine in Najaf was like during the seige? Really? Read this: Dispatches From Najaf, Iraq: Inside The Siege Of The Holy Shrine (pdnonline.com, 08/27/04). There are two viewpoints AND a pretty picture.

While I'm on the subject of Russia, I would like to suggest that, if the Russian government were serious about ending terrorism, they would actually look at the less subtle causes of violence against their nation, rather than make plans to punish suicide bombers after the fact.

It looks like causes abound. From Dismal Chechnya, Women Turn to Bombs (nytimes.com, 09/10/04) provides some clues about the abysmal situation that has many people living hopeless lives, with nothing to lose. Lives of "squalor and devastation" don't lead to peace for ruling powers - they haven't historically, and it appears that they aren't now.

The Russian government has contributed to the hopelessness in myriad ways, especially in the lives of women who have been identified as suicide bombers:

The Nagayeva sisters did lose a brother, Uvays Nagayev. On April 27, 2001, he and a friend were badly beaten by Russian soldiers, according to a report compiled by Memorial, a human rights organization. He escaped, but on May 2, he was arrested at the family's home by soldiers in a Russian armored vehicle. He has not been heard from since.

In a bizarre political fantasy world, the Russians think that 'disappearing' people's relatives will result in peaceful responses rather than hatred and vengeance.

In another odd, likely political, posture, they announce that it's not "atrocities by Russian forces," but rather "brainwashing" that turns people against them.

Even when the government has been given opportunities to negotiate, they've done an odd job. The article reports that one potential suicide bomber, who turned herself in and botched the intended explosion, was given 20 years in prison for her "cooperation." Which isn't exactly motivation for others to come forward and cooperate.

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The Russians are not alone in their poor planning, denial of culpability, or strangely self-defeating tactics. But they're a good example, while I happen to have the NYT article in front of me.

The U.S. does this, too. Though it becomes a more tangled web for us, when war is profitable for the few and powerful, and political motivations for failing to make progress are widespread.

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It is interesting that neither government shelling of a region, nor assaults on its citizens, nor even 'disappearing' residents without official trial are within the dictionary definition of terrorism. Governments, by definition, do not conduct terrorism. It's a technicality, but an interesting one.

A 'war on terrorism,' then, isn't a plan to eliminate all unjust violence, like genocide by a government against a minority population that may use terrorist violence to strike back. Rather, 'terrorism' is limited to violence by non-government entities.

If my rather obvious hypothesis is correct, and government atrocities at times contribute directly to the rise of terrorism, then the war on terrorism is structurally unwinnable. Instead, state violence leads to terrorist violence which leads to state violence, in a sustained cycle.

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I have no particular interest in the dispute between Chechnya and Russia, but am horrified by the escalation of violence. The hopelessness that the Chechens -- and the Palestinians, and the Sudanese, and refugees around the world -- are currently living in affects all of humanity's safety. Despair fuels a nihilistic view toward the values of life, which puts everyone at risk.

If we are serious about stopping terrorism, we need to devote resources to curing despair. Attacking the desperate once they become militant is not sufficient.

An unjust world is not a safe one to live in. Even if we cannot make the world completely just, we need to work toward making it MORE just. In that direction lies increased safety for everyone.

"Arab" connection dropped: it's interesting that, in the recent terror attacks in Russia, Russia claimed that Arabs were involved, and immediately blamed al-Queda linked Chechens. But they've dropped those assertions now that the bodies of the hostage-takers are there for examination, and - oops! - none are Arab. See Putin Agrees to Inquiry Into Russian School Siege (nytimes.com, 09/10/04):

None of those identified so far were Arabs, undercutting the government's contention that Arabs were involved....

Putin and Russian investigators have said about 10 of the roughly 30 attackers were Arabs, but authorities have not publicly provided evidence of the assertion. Officials who spoke Thursday made no mention of Arabs being among the militants.

Physical evidence can be very inconvenient.

It is also inconvenient that Russians are unclear on how to prevent terrorism:

Russian lawmakers will consider a series of anti-terrorism proposals when they reconvene Sept. 22, including tighter controls on foreigners, restoration of the death penalty and a color-coded alert system similar to one employed in the United States since the Sept. 11 attacks, the Gazeta newspaper reported Friday.

The death penalty for suicide bombers? HELLO?!? What portions of their remains would they execute?

A moving photographic memorial: The New York Times > National > Roster of the Dead.

A handy item: The 09/03/04 Edition of The World features an audio item on Iraqi bloggers (theworld.org, audio file). The program describes the blogs as an unfiltered way to get Iraqi viewpoints, and provides a link to fabulous Iraqblogcount.blogspot.com. The site provides all sorts of links to Iraq news and Iraqi blogs, including Salam Pax's new blog, "Shut up you fat whiner!" (justzipit.blogspot.com).

It would be lovely if U.S. citizens could come together in unity without a few thousand people dying either here our under our bombs abroad. If patriotism wasn't just an act of hysteria against a common enemy, but a value that involved some positive actions toward our fellows on a routine basis.

I don't believe that the American people "need" a war against one or many foreign enemies, but I believe that governments (and certain business) benefit from the traditional, unquestioning obedience that comes during wartime. What rulers wouldn't like unquestioning obedience?

Very interesting op-ed piece (recommended by Juan Cole): The unwinnable war, by By James Carroll (boston.com, 09/07/04, bold emphasis mine):

Obviously, something else is going on below the surface of all the stated reasons for this war. The Republican convention last week was gripped with war fever, and the fever itself was the revelation. War is answering an American need that has nothing to do with the Iraqi people....

The war, meanwhile, answers the Bush administration's need to justify an unprecedented repressiveness in the 'homeland,' and simultaneously prompts widespread docile submission to the new martial law. But more deeply still, by understanding ourselves as a people at war, we Americans find exemption from the duty to face the grotesque shame of what we are doing in the world.

I'm not expressing agreement -- most people I know believe the war was for oil and political power, and don't feel a false sense of patriotism associated with such shallow political endeavors. But I do read enough pro-war opinions to believe that 'anything goes' during wartime, and opportunists attempting to capitalize and spread such sentiments abound. So I find this view interesting in how it expands on that aspect.

Juan Cole's Informed Comment provides a Toronto Globe & Mail report that "The tally pales in comparison to the number of Iraqis killed (estimated at between 12,000 and 14,000)...." He remarks:

American television news very seldom shows wounded Iraqis in the hospital after an American strike, something that is a staple of Arab satellite t.v. Indeed, the US public is not being given a full view of the fighting in Iraq. I just don't see that many mentions of the US bombing Iraqi cities, and don't remember seeing much footage of this bombing or its aftermath. For the US to bomb inhabited city quarters in a country that it occupies strikes me as problematic. For all the talk of precision hits, civilians are inevitably harmed.

Such restraint!

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See also Cheney, Halliburton and Iraq: The Purloined Letter, on how Halliburton's "emergency" contract with an administration planning to fight an eternal war allow the right-wing and military industrial complex to support each other, keeping each other in power/fed with public money for an indefinitely long future.

Another blog to read on the state of affairs we find ourselves in: The Shrill Blog.

Bob Harris who posts at This Modern World was harassed upon his attempt to return to the U.S. after traveling abroad. (09/09/04) It's a creepy item about having your name on secret lists that no one will admit to having.

Read it. This is what our country is turning in to under the current administration.

The thing that I found creepiest about this is his report is that there were people on the flight who were afraid of him after he was harassed. Since the possibility of him being dangerous seems especially boneheaded (at least to regular readers), you have to wonder... were the passengers thinking the harassment could be contagious? That he was a 'thought criminal?' Or that such things would never happen to them, if only they didn't look at him too closely...?

[His travelogues were quite pleasant: I encourage you to read those, too.]

All the glories of democracy: This Modern World: New York City follies... or, Guantanamo on the Hudson, part two. (thismodernworld.com, 09/05/04): This is the tale of a casual visitor to a protest, who was swept up before even getting a chance to participate in a police sweep of bystanders which broke a variety of laws about how to arrest people:

I was held for 14 hours in Pier 57, also called 'Guantanamo on the Hudson,' a warehouse previously used by the MTA as an automobile garage. The conditions were appalling. There were numerous cages built out of wire fence and razor wire. The concrete floor was filthy, covered with oil residue, soot and chemicals, there were in fact still signs posted around the facility warning of the chemicals. People experienced rashes, chemical burns, asthma attacks and head to toe filth. Some chose to stand or sit against the fence all night, but I was so exhausted I lay right on the ground and was caked and covered in filth....

Yes, you should read the whole thing. Yes, there are links to supporting materials. Yes, it's appalling.

I don't think I've posted a link to this group before: Iraq Veterans Against the War (ivaw.net):

Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) is a group of veterans from Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom. We are committed to saving lives and ending the violence in Iraq by an immediate withdrawal of all occupying forces. We also believe that the governments that sponsored these wars are indebted to the men and women that were forced to fight them and must give their Soldiers, Marines, Sailors, and Airmen the benefits that are owed to them upon their return home.

A report that mentions civilians!! U.S. Deaths in Iraq Top 1,000; Aid Groups Eye Exit (story.news.yahoo.com, 09/08/04): "As well as the 1,003 dead, nearly 7,000 U.S. troops have been wounded since the U.S-led invasion. At the same time, independent analysts estimate that more than 10,000 Iraqis have been killed since the war was launched."

AlterNet: War on Iraq: The Toll of War (alternet.org, 09/08/04): "A new, grisly milestone in Iraq: 1000 American soldiers dead."

In addition to the sorrowful numbers (which, as always, don't reference civilian Iraqi casualties, because the U.S. chooses not to track such things), but now the insurgency is spreading, and the U.S. can't gain control of several key areas. Oh, and everyone who participates in the insurgency in Iraq is a "terrorist." U.S. Conceding Rebels Control Regions of Iraq (nytimes.com, 09/08/04). A major U.S. attack is being considered, but the timing is odd:

A two-month hiatus before major force is applied to rebel areas would also mean a delay until after the American presidential election, but senior officials insist there is no domestic political calculus in the decision to wait - only a conviction that time is needed for negotiation and for Iraqi forces to gain strength.

Also see The Thief of Baghdad (alternet.org, 08/23/04), which reports that $1.9 billion in Iraqi oil money and a $700,000 generator went missing in Iraq, and were found with... Halliburton, who is throwing both Iraqi and U.S. taxpayer money around with reckless abandon, perhaps because it isn't theirs. If you want to know why Iraqis don't have safe drinking water yet, you may want to read this.

All of the links in this entry are from the Alternet. Visit for more!

[Completely irrelevant aside: the Blogger spellchecker offers "halfhearted" as a spelling correction for "Halliburton." That may reflect the company's management of other people's money better than I would think to.]

Having no shame: Cheney warns terrorists may hit US if Kerry wins (channelnewsasia.com, 09/08/04)

At a campaign stop in this midwestern state, Cheney said 'It's absolutely essential that we make the right choice' in the election.

'If we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we'll get hit again.'

What, because there's a quota on how many terrorist attacks occur per president?

U.S. Troops in Iraq See Highest Injury Toll Yet (washingtonpost.com, 09/05/04):

U.S. medical commanders say the sharp rise in battlefield injuries reflects more than three weeks of fighting by two Army and one Marine battalion in the southern city of Najaf. At the same time, U.S. units frequently faced combat in a sprawling Shiite Muslim slum in Baghdad and in the Sunni cities of Fallujah, Ramadi and Samarra, all of which remain under the control of insurgents two months after the transfer of political authority.....

Since the start of the war in March 2003, 979 U.S. troops have died in Iraq and almost 7,000 have been wounded.

What happens when governments ignore peaceful protests: serious, timely example

I feel a little slow for failing to have made this connection before, but I hadn't followed the pre-violent phase of this conflict closely enough. This is painfully timely: It's time to bring Najaf back home, by Naomi Klein (guardian.co.uk, 08/27/04). A few entries ago I discussed Arundhati Roy's observation that governments who spurn peaceful overtures "privilege violence," leaving people with an understanding that peaceful methods don't work, leaving only violence as an option. Read this:

Before Sadr's supporters began their uprising, they made their demands for elections and an end to occupation through sermons, peaceful protests and newspaper articles. US forces responded by shutting down their newspapers, firing on their demonstrations and bombing their neighbourhoods. It was only then that Mr Sadr went to war against the occupation.

Sadr. "Radical Shiite Cleric Sadr." THAT Sadr. He tried peaceful methods and was rebuffed. Oh. Well, that makes the situation a bit more clear, doesn't it?

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Here's a flashback to a reference to Sadr's newspaper from April:

What has changed is that many Iraqis have decided that the peaceful road to evict the occupiers is not leading anywhere. They didn't need Sadr to tell them this. They were told it loudly and brutally a few days ago by a US Abraham tank, one of many facing unarmed and peaceful demonstrators not far from the infamous Saddam statue that was toppled a year ago. The tank crushed to death two peaceful demonstrators protesting against the closure of a Sadr newspaper by Paul Bremer, the self-declared champion of free speech in Iraq. The tragic irony wasn't lost on Iraqis.

This is from an Iraqi political exile (exilee?) in his April 9, 2004 Guardian piece, Iraqis told them to go from day one: Resistance will continue to spread until the occupation ends, by Sami Ramadani.

Another flashback: In quotes: Moqtada Sadr's fiery rhetoric (bbc.com, 06/06/04):

The cleric has always shied away from an outright call to violence, but urged his supporters to consider "other methods" in place of peaceful protest following the closure of his newspaper Al-Hawzah last week.

The following is a selection of recent quotes by him and his newspaper Al-Hawza:

Terrorise your enemies as we cannot remain silent at their violations. Otherwise, we will reach a stage when the consequences will be serious... I am concerned about you because demonstrations are useless... Your enemy loves terrorism and scorns nations and all Arabs. It seeks to silence the opinions of others. I appeal to you not to resort to demonstrations because they have become useless. You should resort to other methods.

Quoted by Iraqi web site Sharja Al-Khalij, 5 Apr 04

If you do a search for "Sadr + newspaper," other references come up to Sadr's paper, closed down by U.S. authorities. (This one gets to use variations of 'radical Shia' several times: Ban lifted on radical Shia paper: ([photo caption:] Radical Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr)... The interim Iraqi government has lifted the ban on a newspaper belonging to radical Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr....")

He may be radical; he may have views on women and secularism that I consider regressive... But does that mean his newspaper needed to be shut down and his peaceful followers killed? No.

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Klein also observes what other reporters have remarked, but in the specific context of the Republican convention in New York:

What surprises me is what isn't here: Najaf. It's nowhere to be found. Every day, US bombs and tanks move closer to the sacred Imam Ali shrine, reportedly damaging outer walls and sending shrapnel flying into the courtyard; every day children are killed in their homes as US soldiers inflict collective punishment on the holy city; every day, more bodies are disturbed as US marines stomp through the Valley of Peace cemetery, their boots slipping into graves as they use tombstones for cover.

Sure, the fighting in Najaf makes the news, but not in any way connected to the election. Instead it's relegated to the status of a faraway intractable ethnic conflict, like Afghanistan, Sudan or Palestine. Even within the antiwar movement, the events in Najaf are barely visible. The 'handover' has worked: Iraq is becoming somebody else's problem. It's true that war is at the centre of the election campaign - just not the one in Iraq. The talk is all of what happened on Swift boats 35 years ago, not what is being dropped out of US AC-130 gunships this week.

The obsession with Vietnam is too accurate: it's the butt of jokes in Get Your War On comic strips and the articles on how Bush's election team are attacking Kerry's strengths to hide Bush's weaknesses ("Why Bush's man is fighting dirty: Bush's campaign mastermind has a simple rule: attack your opponent's strengths. As the polls show, it works," from Paul Harris, guardian.co.uk, 09/05/04.)

But that tells you how bad this war is going: the Republicans are making a fuss about a war Bush didn't even attend at their national political convention, rather than one he supervised as Commander in Chief.

Also from the Guardian on the Beslan tragedy: Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | 'Restraint must be encouraged': The world's press considers how Putin should respond to the tragedy (guardian.co.uk, 09/05/04). This is a compilation of world press commentary on the disaster. Joan Smith of the Independent provided a list of actions which could lead to a safer Russia:

The international community needs to make up for its years of neglect by insisting on an urgent criminal investigation into who financed and planned [the siege], a commitment from the president to allow human rights monitors into Chechnya and a UN peacekeeping force to protect the civilian population from reprisals. This is unlikely to happen unless world leaders put maximum pressure on Russia ...

The crisis in the republic has created the conditions in which terrorism can flourish. Chechens have watched for years as Russian forces descended on their cities and villages, raping and murdering with impunity. As the slogans say on the walls of Grozny: Welcome to Hell, part two.

How novel: the idea that terrorism can be prevented through action and the rule of law!

Upon the tragedy in Belsan, Russia, in which a school exploded during a hostage siege initiated by Chechen separatists demanding indepdence, we get this: Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | It's too easy to blame bin Laden by Jason Burke (guardian.co.uk, 09/05/04). Burke provides a look at the way oppressive governments can now claim that any group that opposes their policies is actually Al Queda, which engenders sympathy and military aid from abroad, but which obscures the cause of their own conflicts:

The idea that bin Laden is a global terrorist mastermind, able to engender violence worldwide, flatters him and helps in the competition with other terrorist outfits for recruits and funds. The benefits of myth-making are also clear to the Russians (and the Uzbeks, Filipinos and Algerians, to name but three serial human-rights abusing governments who constantly claim, disingenuously, that the insurgents that they are fighting in their respective lands are linked to 'al-Qaeda')....

Last week's atrocity was not the work of 'al-Qaeda'. It is a result however of the spread of 'al-Qaeda-ism' and, in particular, the ability of the radical new discourse to 'plug into' existing insurgencies, many of which were nationalist or ethnic to start with but have become Islamicised. By misrepresenting the problem, we make the solution harder to find.

This is an interesting warning to leaders that using the same bogeyman as the cause of all their ills won't solve their actual problems.

Well, the Pakistanis who complained that they were pressured to turn over Osama bin Laden during the Democratic convention haven't been making any exciting press releases since their failure to do so. So instead we have this: U.S. Near Seizing Bin Laden, Official Says (news.yahoo.com, 09/05/04). Joseph Cofer Black, U.S. State Department coordinator for counterterrorism, says:

What I tell people, I would be surprised but not necessarily shocked if we wake up tomorrow and he's been caught along with all his lieutenants. That can happen because of the programs and infrastructure in place.

Which has been in place for how long, exactly?

The costs of rejecting peace

I attended a speech by author Arundhati Roy recently. One of many interesting things she said was that governments that ignore peaceful requests from their people then 'privilege violence.'

It makes sense. When governments tell you that your peaceful demands mean nothing, what is left?

I've been thinking about this quite a bit and reviewing possible examples. If you were a set of 13 British colonies and you wished for independence (or a variety of reforms including representation in government), and the government laughed at your request, what does that tell you? It tells you that war, economic sabotage, and other tactics remain, because your rulers don't respect your peaceful request. The 13 colonies which became the United States engaged in civil disobedience (Boston Tea Party) and terrorism (going to war without wearing matching uniforms; fighting the war from cover, rather than marching in organized lines facing the enemy; engaging in sabotage and spying) to gain its independence. Because the U.S. eventually won, none of those tactics are described as terrorism in U.S. history books. Which is interesting, but which doesn't change their nature. The U.S. 'did what it had to do' to win independence, retroactively justifying any act.

[Roy notes that the Indian independence movement was not completely non-violent, as much as we'd like to believe it was.]

Currently and recently, if you look at disputes around the world, you see that Roy's words are painfully accurate. People in Uzbekistan who asked politely for a just system of governance have been executed, leaving only radicals who have seen the government rule out non-violent action from their list of options. In Iran, the U.S. chased out an elected leader, and replaced him with a king, who then killed off moderate, peaceful opposition members. This left radicals and violent people to figure out how to be rid of him. The country is STILL suffering from the rule of the radicals. Iraq? Hussein killed off his moderate opposition over time. Those who find themselves in opposition to the temporary government remember what they learned under Hussein. Israel constantly ignored both peaceful requests and international courts which ruled its actions unjust. If Israel ignores the law and ignores the peaceful, the groups oppressed by the Israeli government stop listening to their peaceful leaders, and turn to other options.

Those of us who believe in peaceful solutions are constantly being undermined by groups and governments who do not listen to peaceful solutions. Every time an authority rejects a peaceful demand, those moderates arguing for peaceful methods lose credibility with everyone on their side. And the list of options for resolution, ranging from peaceful to violent, loses a peaceful option. The list gets shorter.

We don't benefit from this. Only the violent on both sides gain, and gain only justifications for violent actions.

If governments were serious about stopping violence, including terrorism, they would listen to peaceful demands and provide procedures for requested changes to be made and for grievances to be addressed. The methods by which groups gain independence from their current rulers, for example, invariably lead to either violence to win freedom or government violence to suppress the demand for freedom. If a non-violent, internationally sanctioned method to acquire independence was available, groups would choose it. If they are given little or no choice between receiving violent suppression and engaging violent rebellion, it becomes morally difficult to challenge their choice.

The war in Iraq has been reduced to a topic of candidate debates by the major U.S. media recently. No matter that people are suffering and dying: there are political HAIRSTYLES to report on!

[Thank you, corporate media, for keeping us so well informed.]

I understand the corporate media's reluctance to discuss the war in retrospect often: it makes them look like, just maybe, they weren't doing their jobs.

There is an interesting interview on the Daily Show in which Stewart asks guest Blitzer if the corporate media's relentless insistence on the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was 'group think or retardation.' Blitzer chooses the former (cough), and notes that all the OFFICIAL sources were saying it, so...

Blitzer was a good sport in light of the critical tone of Stewart's questioning. For a stenographer...

Interesting time to burst forth with this idea: Yahoo! News - Bush Suggests War on Terror Cannot Be Won (news.yahoo.com, 08/30/04).

Asked "Can we win?" Bush said, "I don't think you can win it. But I think you can create conditions so that the — those who use terror as a tool are less acceptable in parts of the world."

This is something of a change of position, wouldn't you say?

Radical cleric 'calls Iraq truce' (bbc.com, 8/30/04). Sadr's spokesmen have made television announcements that all members of the "Mehdi Army" should cease fire, except for self-defense.

Oddly, a few other spokesmen weren't sure whether or not the cease fire had started, and a "British source" had doubts. (Who cares about the British source??!?)

But on the bright side, a very ugly conflict may be averted, if the cease fire holds, if the U.S. doesn't deny hearing of it and attack anyway, etc.

Legal history at Guantanamo Bay has some notes about the opening of military tribunals in Cuba. The reporter's predictions about how long it will take for most of the inmates to even have that half-baked day in court isn't very upbeat.

While our government is trying to spread "democracy" abroad, it is squelching it at home. Jim Hightower's "Bush Zones Go National" (thenation.com, 08/16/04 issue) discusses how "free speech zones," and illegal suppression of free speech by government officials is increasingly becoming the norm in our previously free country.

One of the creepiest statements, which I have heard once before, comes at the end:

After peaceful antiwar protesters in Oakland were gassed and shot by local police, [Mike] van Winkle [, a spokesperson for the California Anti-Terrorism Information Center] [Hightower's Note: I do not make up these names] explained the prevailing thinking of America's new, vast network of antiterrorist forces:

You can make an easy kind of link that, if you have a protest group protesting a war where the cause that's being fought against is international terrorism, you might have terrorism at that protest. You can almost argue that a protest against that is a terrorist act. I've heard terrorism described as anything that is violent or has an economic impact. Terrorism isn't just bombs going off and killing people.

There are a number of problems with Mr. van Winkle's logic. The most obvious problems are (1) that people protesting against the Iraq war were not protesting a war against "terrorism," because Iraq wasn't a terrorist state, and (2) "terrorism" is not a group of people, but rather is a tactic which cannot have war waged against it. [There is also that little, inconvenient notion that war is a form of terrorism, and so a protest against terrorism in the form of a war against terrorism isn't supporting terrorism. But that involves a lot of words, and may not be comprehensible to Mr. van Winkle.]

Under van Winkle's framework, Bush could declare a war on poverty, kill poor people, and anyone who protested would be labeled "in favor of poverty."

You see the problem with this. It's a word game that attempts to obscure the real cause of the problem through mislabeling. People who oppose WAR can be blamed for any nonsensical thing that the war purports to be about, regardless of whether or not the war is even about that topic. Which is what has occurred here in the U.S., but which is beyond the grasp of our simple-minded, with-us-no-matter-how-stupid-we-are-OR-with-the-evildoers leadership stupor.

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Also according to this fascinating quote, something as simple as a boycott of a restaurant like Hooters can be a terrorist act. Regardless of the reason. Like, say, unpleasant food. Or sexist service. Or, anything.

That's insane.

Almost all of the civil rights movement, like the bus boycott, or the lunch counter protests, would be deemed terrorism now.

Perhaps that is intentional.

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The labeling is ridiculous. The bastardization of language permeates everything, and the label "terrorist" is constantly misused. Entire nations are accused of supporting terrorism if they're not doing what we want them to. The same actions combined cooperation with the current U.S. Administration and its business allies prevents the 'terrorism' label from sticking. Our government and press aren't honest enough to note that repressive regimes we support should be so labeled.

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I may have mentioned before that South Africa's old Apartheid government used bait-and-switch labeling tactics to tarnish its opponents. The government defined anyone who opposed white-supremacist Apartheid as a "Communist." So all the people, like Nelson Mandela, who worked for democracy were thus "Communists." This approach, and the fact that the Apartheid government was an undeserving ally of the U.S., contributed to the U.S. listing Mandela as a terrorist for more than two decades. While the Apartheid government, which killed people for the color of their skin, were NOT considered to be terroristic.

Apparently, American government officials are very simple-minded when it comes to labels. Which would be funny, if it were happening to someone else's government, far away, without WMDs or a will to invade sovereign nations for oil...

Images of Saddam Hussein Statue being toppled: still staged

Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting, my favorite media critic, reports that the L.A. times admits/confirms that the image of the Saddam statue being pulled down by jubilant Iraqis was staged by the U.S. military. In their August issue of Extra! Update (not yet on-line), they write:

The statue pulldown is described in an internal Army study, the Times reported, as one of many psychological operations maneuvers employed by the military. It was a Marine colonel who decided to topple the statue, and 'it was a quick thinking Army psychological operations team that made it appear to be a spontaneous Iraqi undertaking.'

FAIR goes on to note that the New York Times now describes the incident retrospectively as having been performed by American Marines, but quotes contemporaneous reports from multiple papers that fell for it.

The original L.A. Times article on the subject is available at charge here: THE NATION; Army Stage-Managed Fall of Hussein Statue; by David Zucchino. Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles, Calif.: Jul 3, 2004. pg. A.28. Yes, page A28. From the abstract:

As the Iraqi regime was collapsing on April 9, 2003, Marines converged on Firdos Square in central Baghdad, site of an enormous statue of Saddam Hussein. It was a Marine colonel -- not joyous Iraqi civilians, as was widely assumed from the TV images -- who decided to topple the statue, the Army report said. And it was a quick-thinking Army psychological operations team that ...

Of course, Information Clearing House got this story right the first time back in April, 2003 in its analysis of the photos, waaaaay back when the mainstream press was wallowing in the alleged glory the images provided. I posted this link to my site on April 12, 2003, so I feel a bit ahead of the L.A. Times on this one.

Fun from tinyrevolution.com: "We Know He Knew They Knew, And So On" on Rumsfeld:

It's like a compulsion with Rumsfeld, isn't it? I'm waiting for him to go on Face the Nation and say:

RUMSFELD: Look, Saddam Hussein regime's lied. That shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. It invaded countries under false pretenses, pretending it had to for its own national security. Worst of all, its Secretary of Defense is a deceitful man named Donald Rumsfeld. Yet the media will let him go on shows and lie repeatedly without challenging him. In fact, he's on Face the Nation this very second.

See also "What 'Everyone' Knew", about the embarrassing ranting of speakers at the Brookings Institution prior to the war about how false Iraq's claims about not having WMDs must be.

The transcripts are lots of fun to read now. Pollack and Kay seem to be holding a contest to see who can say the thing that will look the most embarrassing in hindsight.

This is also a great read.

Freedom of the embedded press only, please

If you haven't seen cops shooting at unarmed, small business-owning women in heels with crowd control weapons lately, you should watch the Indymedia documentary, The Miami Model, about the impact of the FTAA on local communities and the police brutality and tactics used against peaceful protesters. The documentary discusses the division of Florida's nearby black communities with freeways, police brutality against unarmed black men, shows the protests, and discusses how the local media giant's financial investment in the FTAA talks guaranteed that reporting on the protests would be dishonest.

These are the same protests where Democracy Now! staffers were arrested and shot with rubber bullets. I hadn't realized until watching the film that the police "embedded" reporters for the protests, and would not 'guarantee the safety of any unembbeded reporters.' Sound familiar? That explains this comment from Ana Nogueira after she describes being attacked by the police while she and peaceful demonstrators were dispersing:

Eventually they arrested us one by one. Again, as I said, they didn't know what to do with me. One officer seemed uncertain as to whether he should arrest me or not until the other officers around him said she's not with us, she's not with us, and they immediately arrested me.

Get embedded or get abused and arrested! The documentary interviews reporters, both embedded and non-embedded on the topic.

The entire film is available for viewing in Quicktime at the Miami Model link above, and by internet/mail order on the same page.

Last month I mentioned that This Modern World and other blogs were reporting on the abuse of Juveniles at Abu Ghraib.. Inexplicably, very little has been reported on the topic since.

But now that the official source for how to think about the war if you're the American media - namely, the Pentagon - is about to release a report acknowledging the abuse, it's okay to discuss it. Suddenly. Now that the Pentagon is choosing to leak the information. Iraqi Teens Abused at Abu Ghraib, Report Finds (washingtonpost.com, 08/24/04):

Earlier reports and photographs from the prison have indicated that unmuzzled military police dogs were used to intimidate detainees at Abu Ghraib, something the dog handlers have told investigators was sanctioned by top military intelligence officers there. But the new report, according to Pentagon sources, will show that MPs were using their animals to make juveniles -- as young as 15 years old -- urinate on themselves as part of a competition.

As before, there is word that this was the work of a few bad apples, and not a permissive and dehumanizing environment in which entire peoples have been wrongly classified as evil.

We can pretend we believe this. But it's difficult.

The report also acknowledges that some prisoners were hidden from visiting humanitarian organizations. Which had been mentioned previously, but is now being "officially acknowledged," so you are now permitted to think about it.

'Interesting opinion piece in the Post on the dismal drop in attitudes about the U.S. in Egypt, and the oversimplified and defensive responses of Americans to the world's disapproval: An About-Face on America by Philip Kennicott (washingtonpost.com, 08/24/04):

And in the course of these discussions, a new subgenus of American political commentary -- the 'Why do they hate us?' essay -- has been born. The answers, on this side of the debate, have been myriad. But ask that question in Egypt, and you don't get long, complex divagations about clashes of civilization or income disparity or the strangulation of civil society under repressive regimes. For the most part, you get one answer, over and over again, and with little variation. They hate us because of our policy toward Israel and the Palestinians.

'It's very simple,' says Rashwan, of the Al-Ahram Center. 'Why don't you change your policy? Enforce one U.N. resolution against Israel, and you would gain trust. It would give people hope.'

There is a very interesting closing to this article about attitudes toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as well as earlier discussions about how things Americans consider part of their culture are now global and no longer associated with one nation exclusively. It's not happy, but have a read anyway.

Interesting: the U.S. seems to be able to provide very specific information on how many "insurgents" it has killed, but can NEVER provide ANY information on how many civilians have died.

Such selective knowledge doesn't get remarked upon much in the press.

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Najaf faces fresh US attack: Smoke rises near the Imam Ali Shrine in Najaf, Fighting continues near to the Imam Ali Shrine in Najaf (bbc.com, 08/23/04). "Large plumes of thick, black smoke have been seen rising close to a holy Shia shrine in the city of Najaf where militia fighters are holed up...."

Talks have ended; U.S. forces have been attacking since last night.

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Reports on Sadr's forces, the Mehdi Army (bbc.com, 08/11/04) describe many of the fighters as "young and desperate Shia in Iraq's urban slums" rather than as political radicals. This has gotten some interesting play, but usually as an aside.

The idea that not everyone has benefitted from the occupation hasn't really been examined in the mainstream press.

(The idea that all Iraqis are NOT treated equally by every ruling government, foreign or domestic, is never critically discussed, either. It would aid international understanding of why some people loved Saddam Hussein and others hated him, and of why U.S. forces weren't greeted with flowers when they moved into Hussein's old palaces. We could use some added understanding...)

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BBC NEWS | Have Your Say | Shia Iraq violence: Your reaction has a lot of interesting commentary from around the world on the current situation. (Note that the question is framed about violence by Shias, not by the U.S. military.) There's a VERY wide range of opinions, which makes it appear that many of the writers are getting wildly different information from those immediately before or after. I'm unsure if it's the news media's slants in different regions, or very selective listening/reading.

It's interesting to see the range of thoughts. It varies from 'Sadr is a terrorist' to 'Sadr is standing up to the corrupt U.S. puppet regime,' from 'he's a thug' to 'he's a thug, but he's defending our home,' to 'I blame everything on the Iranians,' to the curious spectacle of people from democratic countries calling for summary executions without trial to help move forward democratic reforms (!!).

A response I liked:

The answer is that not all Iraqis are the same. America is a friend to some and an enemy to others. Sadr himself is a friend to some Iraqis and a mortal enemy to others. In the end this situation is about power, not morality. Sadr wants a future for Iraq as a theocracy, preferably with himself in charge. Bush wants a future for Iraq as a state both friendly to and heavily influenced (if not actually controlled) by America. Neither side is particularly concerned how many innocent Iraqis are killed in the process. -- Colin Wright, UK

I don't like this report merely because it takes some middle-moderate position: I like it because it doesn't categorize any broad category of people as evil.

Based on what I've read, I suspect Sadr _is_ a thug, who is fighting a puppet government sponsored by a self-interested U.S. Administration bent on controlling other people's oil. Both sides are using violence and patriotic rhetoric to support their positions. Both sides are doing wrong: the U.S. doesn't belong there, and Sadr shouldn't monopolize a public shrine that doesn't belong to him (though I understand the purposes of the tactic). So no one comes out smelling great in this scenario.

I tend to be more critical of the U.S., because the U.S. shouldn't be there - if the U.S. wasn't there, this entire scenario wouldn't be occurring. There's no reason to be an anti-occupation insurgent if there's no occupation. If Sadr's group didn't believe in the puppet government, and the puppet government didn't have the option to force its will on its people with U.S. firepower, it's more likely a compromise could be reached, since the relative power available to the groups would be more symmetrical. Or the government could take the time to establish itself and then deal with its opposition as an actual representative government, which would give it legitimacy it currently lacks.

It appears, from the events at the government meeting intended to establish the next step in government, that many are concerned about Najaf and want Sadr's (or his supporter's) participation in government, even though many object to his methods. THAT is a democratic, inclusive sentiment. Unfortunately, it appears that the issue will be resolved through overwhelming U.S. force, rather than debate and ballots.

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The main reason that the U.S. claims to be there, as a stabilizing force, doesn't seem to be working out convincingly. Instead, it is buttressing those that sympathize with its particular method of establishing 'order,' and violently clashing with those that don't. It aids collaborators, and shuns others. This is a traditional and logical tactic used by occupying powers, but it creates divisions and erodes the long-term credibility of occupied allies.

I don't think the U.S. intention is to taint its allies, but it's happening.

The U.S. needs to get out.

Glimmer of hope in Najaf: Delegation Arrives in Najaf to Meet With Sadr (washingtonpost.com, 08/17/04). Iraqis sympathetic to the situation the people of Najaf find themselves in, and hoping to prevent a bloodbath, refocused the national conference on the siege of Najaf. They've drafted a document proposing amnesty for Sadr's militia, turning Sadr's group into a legitimate political party, and ending the standoff at the Imam Ali Mosque, returning it to common Iraqi use rather than the exclusive use of Sadr's group.

Contrast this with the interim figurehead Allawi's 'whatever the U.S. wants is fine' position.

I don't think I previously posted a link to this: IRAQI WAR CASUALTIES, 3/21 - 7/31/03. Raed Jarrar, Director of this survey, is the same Raed that Salam Pax, 'the Baghdad Blogger,' was writing to when he titled his blog "dearraed.blogspot.com." (Pax is on a "hiatus" to edit a film.)

The Baghdad Burning blog pointed me back to that link. River doesn't make the current situation sound any better than today's other reading has...

More news which suggests the U.S. isn't making much progress on winning over people by attacking Najaf: Aljazeera.Net - Iraqi 'human shields' flock to Najaf (english.aljazeera.net, 08/16/04): "Around 2000 Iraqi civilian 'volunteers' have formed a human shield around Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr in Najaf as US-led forces beseige the city."

Aljazeera.Net - Najaf officials quit in protest (english.aljazeera.net, 08/13/04):

Sixteen of Najaf's 30-member provincial council resigned in protest at the US-led assault on [] Najaf.... The council's resignations came several hours after the deputy governor of Najaf resigned in protest against the US offensive on the city.... On Thursday evening, the director of tribal affairs at the Iraqi Interior ministry announced his resignation through Aljazeera and said he could no longer work with the interim government in good faith given the "carnage and barbaric aggression of the US-led forces in Najaf."

This doesn't bode well.

Understatement of the day, from Informed Comment : 08/01/2004 - 08/31/2004:

I think the Americans are gradually incurring feuds with all the major clans of Iraq, and this is undesirable.

Voices in the Wilderness is alarmed that the U.S. "has told civilians to leave Najaf, in what appears to be the creation of a free fire zone, where anyone who moves becomes a target." This is near the the Imam Ali Mosque, one of the holiest sites in Islam (both Shia and Sunni).

It sounds like something very bad is about to happen.

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This audio file discusses the Imam Ali Mosque in more detail: NPR : Najaf's Holy Shiite Mosque and the 'Valley of Peace' (www.npr.org, 08/12/04). It is an interview with Juan Cole, professor of history at the University of Michigan.

Professor Cole maintains an excellent blog called Informed Comment at juancole.com. Excerpt from his 08/16/04 entries:

Likewise, CNN appears to have been the victim of a second-hand psy-ops campaign, insofar as it is referring to the guerrillas as "anti-Iraqi forces." The idea of characterizing them not as anti-American or anti-regime but "anti-Iraq" was, according to journalist Nir Rosen, come up with by a PR company contracting in Iraq. Nir says that they were told that no Iraqis would fall for it. So apparently it has now been retailed to major American news programs, on the theory that the American public is congenitally stupid.

I liked that comment for obvious reasons, but this one is even better:

The Allawi government forced all independent journalists to leave Najaf on Sunday, so that the only reporting we will have on operations there will come from journalists embedded with the US forces.

This week I watched the documentary film Control Room, which was filmed during the Iraq war. It provides an inside view of Al Jazeera, the most popular satellite channel in the Arab world, as it broadcast from U.S. Central Command.

The Bush Administration LOATHES Al Jazeera. The documentary provides clip after clip of Donald Rumsfeld, ranting, including a rant about how Al Jazeera must be planting women and children in front of homes bombed by U.S. air strikes to actually imply that women and children live in such homes in Iraq. Really. He said that. There's video. It's just amazing.

So it's worthwhile to see how the war looked from the people who worked at and ran the station that Rumsfeld (not the most credible person in the Bush Administration) loves to hate.

News flash: Arab people work there! And they have opinions! This includes those people who consider themselves to be or to have been Iraqis! THAT, in and of itself, is almost completely lacking from American reporting: what Iraqis thought about the war. (Aside from Ahmed Chalabi. (wikipedia.org) And he doesn't really count.) One reporter, who has a 'western' wife and previously worked for the BBC, tries to spread comprehension, using his experience in 'western' and Islamic cultures to explain to a young, go-team military official what the actual perception of U.S. actions is in the Arab world.

A senior manager of Al Jazeera is interviewed extensively. He comes across as somewhat arrogant, but provides some very interesting commentary. He remarked, for example, that once the war is 'won,' the details of exactly how it was 'won' will be shunted aside. History will be reduced solely to the fact of victory, and everyone will rush on to the next topic.

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My partner reminded me of my favorite John Madden quote, "Winning is the best deodorant." Madden meant it in a sport context, but it certainly applies here. Prior to the U.S. war in Vietnam (which the Vietnamese call 'the American War'), there was a generic assumption that all wars were won cleanly and fairly by the victor -- that famous truism about victors writing the history books notwithstanding. I've been waiting for the modern mass media, and especially the use of video, to change that.

I don't think I fully comprehended the nationalism of the available media outlets, however.

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'Control Room' provides a valuable point of view, and is worth seeing.

While the previous TMW link provides a link to the Washington Post article that inspired it's excellent diatribe, I should provide a link as well:The Post on WMDs: An Inside Story by Howard Kurtz (washingtonpost.com, 08/12/04), along with my personal favorite quote:

'We are inevitably the mouthpiece for whatever administration is in power,' DeYoung said. 'If the president stands up and says something, we report what the president said.' And if contrary arguments are put 'in the eighth paragraph, where they're not on the front page, a lot of people don't read that far.'

Must read: This Modern World by Tom Tomorrow: August 08, 2004 - August 14, 2004 Archives entry entitled "No shit, Sherlock" on another media company's belated revelation that they shouldn't have been such zealous cheerleaders in the run up to the war based on untrue information.

There is strong language for well-deserved emphasis.

Favorite comment: " ...[the parrot-like media is] desperately afraid of being labeled 'unpatriotic' by a handful of fringe lunatics who not only don't deserve the attention they get, but in a sane world, would not deserve to be pissed upon if they were on fire."

It's intended as a sinister image, but I find it aesthetically pleasing: BBC's illustration for "US moves to crush Shia uprising". (bbc.com, 08/12/04).

The rocket propelled grenade gracefully echos the shape of the dome and minaret.

This Modern World (08/08/04): "Using the threat of terrorism to scare voters: all of September will be 'National Preparedness Month'":

It's three years after 9/11, and less than three months before an election, and now we get a National Preparedness Month.

And yes, let's ask Bush and Tom Ridge the simple question: what the hell do these people think the previous 35 months were?

Here's an excellent item that I failed to publish when it appeared back in mid-May: The Moral Case Against the Iraq War by Paul Savoy (thenation.com, 05/13/04), on the topic of belated rationalizations for the invasion of Iraq:

Talking about the world, or at least Iraq, being 'better off' avoids confronting the civilian carnage caused by the war. As the late Robert Nozick cautioned in his classic work on the moral basis of freedom, Anarchy, State, and Utopia, we should be wary of talking about the overall good of society or of a particular country. There is no social entity called Iraq that benefited from some self-sacrifice it suffered for its own greater good, like a patient who voluntarily endures some pain to be better off than before. There were only individual human beings living in Iraq before the war, with their individual lives. Sacrificing the lives of some of them for the benefit of others killed them and benefited the others. Nothing more. Each of those Iraqis killed in the war was a separate person, and the unfinished life each of them lost was the only life he or she had, or would ever have. They clearly are not better off now that Saddam is gone from power.

(If you have an account with the Onion for "premium" services, see also "Dead Iraqi Would Have Loved Democracy", theonion.com, 03/26/03.)

When does a foreign government have the right to decided that YOUR death is an acceptable price for what it believes is the best interests of your fellow citizens in a sovereign nation? Never, obviously.

The article picks apart several of the pseudo-humanitarian war justifications belatedly asserted. It's worth a read.

Another excerpt from War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning on that last comment about history:

Historical memory is hijacked by those who carry out war. They seek, when the memory challenges the myth, to obliterate or hide the evidence that exposes the myth as lie. The destruction is pervasive, aided by an establishment, including the media, which apes the slogans and euphemisms parroted by the powerful. Because nearly everyone in wartime is complicit, it is difficult for societies to confront their own culpability and the lie that led to it.

It's just a darned good book.