Not a good way to differentiate the U.S. from Saddam Hussein:t r u t h o u t - Pentagon May Use Death Squads in Iraq (truthout repost from Newsweek, 01/08/05): "The Pentagon may put Special-Forces-led assassination or kidnapping teams in Iraq." Yes, the Pentagon thought that the mass killing of innocents in El Salvador was a small price to pay for the strategic advantage of preventing popular governments from emerging. YIPES!! Go read this.

It still bothers me that mass graves are only of concern when a country isn't our "friend." BBC NEWS | World | Middle East | Mass grave unearthed in Iraq city (news.bbc.co.uk, 12/27/05). This is only of consequence because Iraq's former leader is now our enemy. It was no big deal to the U.S. at the time.

THAT is ridiculous. It is the predictable outcome of disregarding international law until it is politically opportune, and then only using it to punish political enemies.

The BBC often invites readers to comment on world events, and it is invariably fascinating. BBC NEWS | Have Your Say | Falluja offensive: Your reaction (bbc.co.uk, 11/22/04) is amazing. This was printed while I was away on vacation, along with the release of the video showing a U.S. soldier killing an injured, unarmed man laying on the ground. (I failed to post anything about that, or about the report interviewing soldiers who admitted to killing large numbers of civilians accidentally, which, if representative, indicates a wholesale slaughter of civilians by the occupation.)

There is a lot of reframing of reality going on, to measure the events in Falluja by completely different yardsticks than could ever be used at home, within one's own communities. This is a discussion between foreign people who want another country to change to their liking, and largely aren't concerned with distant consequences.

One writer remarks that, if compared to other battles in which large militaries battle militias in urban combat, this has been a great victory, because fewer soldiers died than in other situations.

Another remarks that Afghanistan is free and safe (!!!), showing that foreign invasions can be successful. (I can only assume this person is one of the free and safe Afghan warlords.)

Another says that it's okay that there are so many people dying, because that is normal for wars.

And that it's okay to level Falluja, because this is a war. And it "had to be done." Because we said so.

With the right keyword, a supposedly morality-obsessed nation can check its morals at the door.

I remember when Salam Pax wrote that "shock and awe" was a horrible concept if it was about to happen to your home town, to a city you love. Any normal, healthy person couldn't wish that upon themselves, or their loved ones, or anyone else. And yet, here are cheerleaders -- with a sprinkling of people pointing out the immorality of the situation, and praying for victims -- doing just that.

It's just amazing.

As someone living in a country that gained its independence through what would now be coined terrorism, the U.S. of A., it's amazing to see how the idea of such tactics is completely self-serving.

Iraq 2004: What went wrong (bbc.co.uk, 01/01/05): "In 2004, Iraq went badly wrong - except for supporters of the insurgency, in which case it went grimly well."

This is one of those articles which ONLY looks at 2004, and assumes that the war was going to occur regardless... It almost approaches comedy by the end, with comments about the country still being 'on track.' But on track to where?

Professor Cole (and one of his readers) have some good points to make about how the war in Iraq is hampering the U.S. response to the Tsunami crisis in Asia. Informed Comment, 12/28/04:

Bush's underlining of the $2.5 billion he says the United States gave in emergency humanitarian aid last year annoyed the hell out of me.... Bush said 'billion' as though it were an astronomical sum. But he spends a billion dollars a week in Iraq, without batting an eye. That's right. Two weeks of his post-war war in Iraq costs as much as everything the US spent on emergency humanitarian assistance in 2003 for all the countries in the world.

Ah, priorities.

Head Scarves Now a Protective Accessory in Iraq - Fearing for Their Safety, Muslim and Christian Women Alike Cover Up Before They Go Out (washingtonpost.com. 12/30/04). The complete collapse of order has allowed women of all religions in Iraq to be targeted for abuse. When a woman whose religion doesn't require a head covering is (or feels) unsafe without one, things have gone seriously downhill.

This is no surprise to anyone who has been following the situation in Iraq, with its bombings, kidnappings, and the horrific rape of young girls which has inspired "honor killings" by male relatives of victims. This is more of the same, on a more personal level. Now, half of the population may be pressured into giving up any public persona... *shudder*

POSIWID

Watching the despair of the people of Iraq, I've often wondered what Bush believed he was celebrating when he had that terrible, comic photo-opportunity aboard an aircraft carrier that bore a huge, "Mission Accomplished" banner. What mission had he believed was accomplished?

A potentially useful tool for contemplating this is a principle used in analyzing complex systems. It is called POSIWID - the purpose of a system is what it does (users.globalnet.co.uk/~rxv). In examples of economic analysis, it is used to look at why things are done a certain way. If a bank set up a very complex accounting system that hides transactions from regulators while spewing unnecessary data, the purpose of the system is, in fact, to hide transactions.

This tool can easily be misapplied or misinterpreted, but I believe it can be useful for looking at a variety of systems. If a college requires exorbinant fees to consider student applications which have the effect of blocking low-income students, the purpose of the application may, in fact, be to block low-income students. If the political primary system in the U.S. is set up in a way that only millionaires can participate, the purpose of the primary system may be to limit our options to millionaires. Some of these effects may appear to be unintentional, but if there is no larger impact and no alternative achievable purpose provided, the effect I point out is the MAIN effect, and becomes a sort of default.

So if we look at the invasion of Iraq, we hear a list of stated purposes:

-protection from WMDs
-increased stability
-safer lives for Iraqis
-democracy

and then we have a list of actual effects:

-weapons spread across unlawful groups
-decreased stability
-less safe lives for Iraqis (higher death rate than under Saddam)
-anarchy (in a bad way)
-U.S. military expansionism (including military bases)
-suppression of dissent in U.S. and Iraq
-redirection of U.S. tax funds to military contractors/political donors and away from social services
-passage of undemocratic laws in U.S. consolidating government power
-persecution of peace and democracy advocates in U.S.

POSIWID can be used in this situation as a tool, but does not provide a final analysis.

The invasion of Iraq has been very lucrative and advantageous for a variety of interests. The negative consequences of the invasion have not fallen on the same people who have benefited most. This is by design. I find this approach useful for analyzing the situation we find ourselves in with this war.

Winning hearts and minds, part 43: Inside Falluja: 'Nothing to come back to' (bbc.com, 12/24/04).

A good list of election reforms urgently needed here in the U.S. Here is a good list of basic reforms needed to call what we have a democratic system: t r u t h o u t - Hill and Richie | Cries for Electoral Standards Mount (truthout.org, 12/22/04)

F.B.I. E-Mail Refers to Presidential Order Authorizing Torture (truthout.org, 12/20/04).

t r u t h o u t - Majority Says Iraq War a Mistake, Rumsfeld Should Go, Subtitle: "56 Percent in Survey Say Iraq War Was a Mistake". (truthout.org repost from washingtonpost.com, 12/21/04).

New Papers Suggest Detainee Abuse Was Widespread (washingtonpost.com reposted at yahoo, 12/21/04) demonstrates again that actual truth doesn't aid the U.S. image abroad. Theft, long-term abuse, deadly shootings of detainees....

The most deadly attack against U.S. forces in Iraq just occurred. Yahoo! News - Rocket Hits U.S. Base in Iraq, Killing 22 (news.yahoo.com, 12/21/04) reports of an attack on a military base mess camp.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan, responding to a question about how Iraqis will be able to safely get to some 9,000 polling places if U.S. troops can't secure their own bases, said there was "security and peace" in 15 of Iraq's 18 provinces.

And we just never see those 15? Do they have NAMES? I might like to see that list.

In case you're having a hard time wrapping your mind around the death tolls in Iraq, look at this: Iraq Body Count Visual Aid (mykeru.com).

Professor Cole discusses the probable religious government outcome of a democratic vote in Iraq. (juancole.com, 12/17/04) I'm not sure why Americans think this result is preventable: religion has a huge impact on elections here, and fundamentalists always wield some influence.

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Some of my friends have been discussing Brad Carson's piece in the New Republic called "Vote Righteously!" (tnr.org, registration required), about losing to fundamentalists here in the U.S. I've received odd comments about this, from shock that there are fundamentalists who vote for religious issues rather than what government is actually supposed to do, to comments about needing to be more 'in touch' with fundamentalists here at home.

Here's my response to part of this discussion, which included a question as to whether or not the U.S. is in an internal culture war between fundamentalists/extremists and everyone else. It may not apply to the discussion Iraqis are having internally -- I'm not sure they feel free to have a discussion about what their nation's government should look like when they're occupied by an increasingly hostile and destructive foreign force, combined with a hostile and destructive internal resistance movement. But some of the same ideas may apply, so I'm posting this here.

We live in a country where 'equal pay for equal work' is still controversial, so I would propose that we have ALWAYS been in a culture war. Heck, the former slave-holding states all dumped the Democrats over civil rights, and have been living in a bitter enmity with the "culture" of the rest of multicultural (bad word!) America ever since. (There's a map floating around the web suggesting that the [so-called] red [Bush-majority] states, with just one exception, all were states or territories permitting slavery in our nation's history. [This was prior to the resolution of 3 state outcomes.])

I don't see 51% Bush vs. 48% Kerry as a "mandate" for taking on the values of our most socially regressive citizens. Even if it meant we could "win" the 51 by announcing that minorities and women need to 'know their place' and everyone needs to [take on fundamentalist beliefs] it wouldn't really be winning. We'd lose our own 48%. And we'd be living under our own version of the Taliban.

We should note that all my pro-choice groups note that they've gained five seats in Congress, and that every single pro-choice incumbent supported by Emily's List (a group I'm in that develops and supports pro-choice Democratic women) won re-election. South Dakota elected its first female rep; Wisconsin elected its first ever African-American rep, who also happens to be female. So the "too liberal" concept doesn't apply: choice isn't "too liberal" for everyone, and people are happy to elect women and minorities to federal offices. So it's not just "liberalism."

There are other cultural factors at work. I've read that southern white men will now only vote for one of their own, preferably a governor, preferably a Baptist, which is how Carter and Clinton made it in, and therefore that's all the Democrats should put forth as Presidential nominees forever. But that seems likely to alienate the rest of us over time, so I doubt it's a good solution. Better solutions may rest in removing social issues from the federal front pages through efforts that appeal to states-rights advocates -- making marriage solely the purview of religions, for example, as an example of how government should be smaller and less intrusive.

We may have to face the fact that some Americans don't want a democracy: they want a theocracy which reflects only their own belief systems, and which forbids the belief systems of others. Things we think of as practical government functions - like paved roads, post offices, foreign policy, equal opportunity enforcement and the EPA - as irrelevant. Kicking ourselves over not appealing enough to such folks [22-27% of the Bush voters for "morality"] won't help us, so I don't think we're having the right discussion if we're including them.

I think we can only appeal to the people who DO want democracy. I haven't heard 'Bush moderates' defined in any way; many of the Dems who I've heard interviewed voted for Bush based on WMDs they think were found, or other misinformation. But I think the people to appeal to, the Clinton-Republican-types, are a limited group who can be appealed to by the 'reality based community' on issues that don't require all of us who are brown or female to become serfs.

Here in the U.S. the situation is very different from that in Iraq in myriad ways, obviously. But one of the biggest ways is the long history of secular democracy here, and the fact that religious institutions have not rivaled the government for power in a significant way since our laws were established. Many western churches have a long history of supporting whatever government is in power, and using the government's authority to reinforce its own. There are notable exceptions, but the U.S. has never known a church-state rivalry that threatened the state seriously.

In Iraq, religious leaders hold more influence than the U.S. backed regime(s), and have stepped into the apparent power vacuums to provide basic services. In that respect, they are in a very strong position which U.S. fundamentalists would envy. If a religious coalition takes a strong position against the occupation and wins big, that will be perceived as a mandate for all their purposes, including a religious state. If a squeaker victory here is a "mandate," imagine what a big victory in Iraq for religious parties would look like.

So. The issue of fundamentalism and government are not as distant as Iraq to U.S. voters.

My vacation/special assignment have ended, although later than planned. And so I belatedly worked toward catching up on the news about war and peace in the world.

It has not been a good process.

There have been some particularly appalling reports about U.S. actions abroad this month. As we celebrate Peace on Earth and Goodwill Towards Men, I read about the U.S. intentionally bombing hospitals in Iraq to suppress reports of civilian casualties. The December 6th issue of the Nation included 'What Happened to Hearts?' by Jonathan Schell, which points out that without a hospital to report casualties, "there would be no international outrage, and all would be well."

Also see Controlling Information in the Attack on Fallujah by Bob Allen (laborstandard.org)

Since July when the Allawi government began ?authorizing? U.S. airstrikes against Fallujah, the hospital?s medical staff provided aid to a steady flow of casualties. Their daily accounts and accompanying photos exposed the U.S. war propagandists? claims of ?precision attacks.?

It wasn't just Falluja General that the U.S. bombed, either: US strikes raze Falluja hospital (news.bbc.co.uk, 11/06/04) describes the leveling of another hospital (Nazzal Emergency) by U.S. forces. Something called the Popular Clinic ("Fallujah residents say clinic bombed," abc.net.au, 11/09/04) was taken out by the U.S. There are also reports on other hospitals damaged by the U.S., and of U.S. forces firing on ambulances...

Things are so bad that the International Red Cross' Iraq web pages have quotes about how NO WARS ARE EXCLUDED FROM INTERNATIONAL LAW.

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If it was the goal of the hijackers who attacked the U.S. two years ago to reduce the U.S. to a nation whose forces level civilian hospitals and don't abide by international law on the treatment of civilians, they've won.

It would almost be nice if the hijackers had SAID that was their goal: our proud military strategists might have tried to avoid the current situation just to save face.

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The big mystery in reading the news is whether anyone actually believes a "democracy" can be brought about through war crimes and force against the voting public. I've seen no historical evidence that such an approach would work.

[I'm on a combination of vacation and 'special assignment' for the duration of November. I'll resume writing in December. Happy Thanksgiving.]

Clean elections make legitimate governments

As dismal news from Iraq reports on more of the country spiraling into chaos and violence (truthout.org, 11/13/04), the promise of January national elections seems to be at risk. Though even if elections are held, there are serious doubts in Iraq and abroad that the elections will be credible.

In her commentaryDon't Rig the Iraqi Election, by Marina Ottaway (truthout.org, repost from washingtonpost.com, 11/09/04), Ottaway points out that the U.S. would prefer:

less-risky, noncompetitive elections, in which the outcome would be predetermined. Their preference is to push for a "monster coalition" of major political parties, which would agree among themselves ahead of time how to apportion parliamentary seats and cabinet posts.

She also points out that Shiites are unlikely to accept the legitimacy of an election in which "security concerns" prevented them from voting.

Elections Will Not End the Fighting in Iraq, by Patrick Cockburn (truthout.org repost from Independent U.K., 10/05/04) points out that the proposed election system, which favors exile-run political parties which are unpopular within Iraq, is unlikely to result in a system that Iraqis will embrace.

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It's amazing to me that the U.S. is trying to guarantee a fair election in a war-torn land, while it can't guarantee one at home. Worst Voter Error Is Apathy toward Irregularities by Donna Britt, (truthout.org repost from washingtonpost.com, 11/12/04), contains some comments about the disenfranchisement of poor and minority voters here in the land of the free that ring true among people I've spoken to:

Why aren't more Americans exercised about this issue? Maybe the problem is who's being disenfranchised -- usually poor and minority voters. In a recent poll of black and white adults by Harvard University professor Michael Dawson, 37 percent of white respondents said that widely publicized reports of attempts to prevent blacks from voting in the 2000 election were a Democratic 'fabrication.' More disturbingly, nearly one-quarter of whites surveyed said that if such attempts were made, they either were 'not a problem' (9 percent) or 'not so big a problem' (13 percent).

We all need to be sure our democracy really is democratic: if citizens in thee comfortable U.S. can't be guaranteed their constitutionally mandated voting rights, how can other nations moving toward democracy feel confident in democracy overall? If the U.S. government constantly holds itself out as a model to the world, it should actually be a positive model. And that's not happening right now.

Here's a message I shared with a few friends recently:

You folks are great! Several of you have forwarded fabulous clippings to me about the even uglier side of this election: organized efforts to prevent people, especially people of color in swing states, from exercising their rights to vote. By the time the Supreme Court affirmed the right of the Republican Party to stand in Ohio polling places and legally challenge any brown person of their choosing, you know our nation had sunk to a new low.

There are some great materials on attempts to block voters, and attempts to prevent votes from being counted ranging from legal spoilage to outright fraud. I've compiled some excerpts and links here.

(For a longer article from the NAACP and People for the American Way, read 'The Long Shadow of Jim Crow: Voter Intimidation and Suppression in America Today.' (naacp.org. It's 27 pages long.))

[My partner] observed yesterday that many Democrats have absorbed the Republican message after the Supreme Court intervened in 2000: 'Accept your loss and close your eyes.' 'Get over it.' 'Recounts HURT us.' 'Legitimacy is less important than the stability that comes from a quick-if-inaccurate decision.' None of this supports democracy. To me, our democracy is in jeopardy if any of us are denied our fundamental rights. It's inexcusable that the problems found in 2000 weren't fixed, and that new problems have been introduced.

There are a couple of organizations attempting to act on the problems. One is blackboxvoting.org, which is attempting to raise money to audit the election results wherever paper ballots are available. They've already issued FOIA requests. Another is thepen.us, which has a campaign demanding an investigation of fraud from the Democrats, for what that is worth. [I think the best research could be performed by a press consortium like the one that investigated Florida, but whose results were suppressed after 9-11. They have the funds, credibility, and means to publicize the results that ordinary citizens lack, but I don't know if they are interested in investigating. The founder of BlackBoxVoting says her media contacts have been forbidden from reporting on irregularities, however, so it's unclear that any media company will go this route.]

I've read the arguments against examining this election from both of the corporate parties, and they are framed incorrectly. To them, the question is whether or not the Democrats won the philosophical & cultural war of "values," and the conclusion both sides have reached is no. But that is not the actual question. The question is whether or not we had a fair election in which all American citizens, regardless of their skin color or place of residence, freely exercised their rights to vote and could confidently believe their votes were counted. The answer to that question appears to be no, and it is much more important than which rich guy won.

I do sincerely believe that we can never have a fully legitimate government while people are being denied their right to vote. The attempt to deny people their voting rights through means both legal and illegal damages the very idea of legitimate government. That is why the elections in Iraq need to be fair and transparent, just as they should be here and everywhere else in the world.

The effects of the disenfranchisement here in the U.S. have already led to doubts about the accuracy of national elections. Rumors abound, but so do analyses: The Unexplained Exit Poll Discrepancy, by Professor Steven F. Freeman, Ph.D. (truthout.org, 111404) lays out an excellent context for what exit polls are used for around the world, and raises questions about why a time-honored process used as a check against corruption around the world conflicts so dramatically with the results the U.S. is reporting. It's a good piece, and worth reading. Even if you don't like to rely on statistics, the fact that the U.S. experiences wildly different results than the rest of the world from using the same methodology raises many new questions.

A must read for the well-informed American: The Nation: November 15, 2004 issue. On domestic issues, the editorial entitled Fix the Electoral System concisely lists the steps which need to be taken to end the routine, systemic disenfranchisement of minorities and poor people. Something I didn't know: the Carter Center couldn't perform election monitoring, because our messy, states-make-up-their-own-procedures system wasn't consistent enough to observe, unlike so-called "Third World" countries which can manage to have a standard system. Oh, and the two main parties didn't agree to cooperate. That didn't help...

Jeff Morley (of the Washington Post) has an item noting that the Iraqi Health Ministry has stopped releasing civilian casualty figures to journalists on orders from the interim government. Morley also has some interesting things to say about the counting methodology of NGOs.

Jonathan Schell's Looking Tough discusses the outcome of all the detention and torture schemes the US has enacted during this period, and the fact that of the thousands of people detained, "not one has been successfully convicted of terrorism - the only conviction obtained having been thrown out by a federal judge in Detroit."

Find it and read it!

Free Press News : Iraq tells media to toe the line (freepress.net). Iraq has a media regulation agency which is supposed to be independent from both the interim government and occupation authority. But...

It said news organizations should "guide correspondents in Fallouja … not to promote unrealistic positions or project nationalist tags on terrorist gangs of criminals and killers....[to] set aside space in your news coverage to make the position of the Iraqi government, which expresses the aspirations of most Iraqis, clear."

"We hope you comply … otherwise we regret we will be forced to take all the legal measures to guarantee higher national interests," the statement said. It did not elaborate.