Elections in Iraq. I'm not sure I understand the glowing reports about the recent elections in Iraq.

Firstly, the initial returns I've read about demonstrate that the result will be very much anti-occupation. Which is good, but not what the U.S. had in mind.

Secondyly, I'm unclear on how this is a step forward for democracy. If we were invaded by a foreign nation, and they picked out a slate of parties we could vote for in an election, without specific people being on the ballot, we'd call it a joke. A farce. Not legit. And then, when the election is held without international observers... Well. WE would never put up with such nonsense here.

And do we need to discuss Negroponte's role in this? His history of saying, 'death squads? I don't see any death squads?'

The International Action Center (iacenter.org) folks have written some good articles on this topic. This is from The Antiwar Movement and the Iraqi Elections:

This election is being conducted at gunpoint, administered by a war criminal, and stage-managed by CIA front companies. To pretend that this has anything to do with democracy is outrageous. The Iraqi people recognize this --among expatriates, 90 percent haven't even bothered to register to vote on Sunday.


What, then is the purpose of the phony election? It is actually directed at the U.S. public, which is growing increasingly disillusioned with the war. The sole intent of the election is to provide legitimacy for the occupation, to marginalize the resistance movement, and create an illusion of progress. The election, like the phony transfer of power, will change nothing on the ground in Iraq. On January 31, the day after the election, more than 150,000 U.S. troops will still occupy Iraq, the torture chambers of Abu Ghraib will still be full of Iraqi prisoners, and CIA employee Iyad Allawi will still be the U.S.-appointed dictator.

I've been told that many Americans are feeling better about the invasion, the massive civilian casualties, and the absence of WMDs now that an election for non-specific candidates has been held.

There must be something in the water.

I also found this interesting, from the IAC's statement on the elections in Iraq (also at iacenter.org, within frames I can't link directly to):

Returning Iraq to 1955. It is telling that the Bush Administration is claiming this is the first democratic election to be held in Iraq in fifty years. The election referred to as the last democratic election was held under a U.S. & British appointed monarchy to select an advisory body that had no executive or legislative power. Its only function was to provide a façade of legitimacy to the puppet regime; the election did not change the fact that the people of Iraq were under the thumb of U.S. and British oil companies. Less than 3 years later, a massive popular revolutionary upheaval overthrew the corrupt monarchy and, since that time, the U.S. and Britain have been trying to return Iraq to the same semi-colonial status. This election is part of their plan.

I will be interested to know how our media reports the election results, especially if they are going as I've read.

The bureaucracy of torture: read t r u t h o u t - CIA Abductions of Terror Suspects Are 'Out of Control' (truthout.org). There are two articles at this link, both are worth reading.

The first is about the U.S. abducting suspects from around the world, taking them abroad to allies who torture them, and then... well, largely realizing they have been abducting and torturing people with no connection to terror. The second story is about someone who was abducted, tortured into confessing to being in an Al Queda camp and video just to make the torture stop, and then being cleared by the British government who could prove they were in England at the time of their alleged crimes.

Yes, the U.S. is abducting and torturing people who weren't even in Afghanistan during the time periods for which they are concerned!! Depriving innocents of their freedom is not the same as 'protecting freedom.' No matter what the press releases say.

I love the idea of the major news networks struggling to come up with a dramatic slogan and graphic for an ongoing campaign of admitting how wrong they in their WMD reporting. Read WMDUH! Don't expect four months of round-the-clock truth coverage, by Matt Taibbi (www.nypress.com).

Yes, I've been following all of the dismal war news, including the British scandal over their soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners, the slaying of parents in front of their six children by U.S. soldiers at a checkpoint, the ever increasing violence in Iraq on the run up to the elections, the Iraqi women who are afraid to leave their homes and are unsure if they can vote, or if voting will even be fair.... but I haven't had anything nice to say about it, and so I've said nothing.

But I can say this short thing, on behalf of the peace movement: We Were Right. We are still right, so right it HURTS. Make the pain stop. Bring the troops home.

For the news I haven't been discussing, I recommend Mykeru.com on the checkpoint parent slaying (and a nice piece on MLK just below it), and Professor Cole's Informed Comment for everything else, plus a nice piece on the portions of the U.S. Constitution violated by the Bush Administration.

Iraqis angry with abuse sentence (english.aljazeera.net, 01/16/05). For some reason, the media here though that the sentence was very serious. They were SO EXCITED when the conviction came through, it was almost as if they'd won some prize. I still don't fully understand it, though I suspect that those reporters who think 'this proves the system works' are unclear on who the system works for. It appears Iraqis have figured that out...

If you're not already reading the blog Baghdad Burning, go read it now. Sample: "It feels like just about everyone who can is going to leave the country before the elections. " Her comments about the Bush Administration finally admitting that there are no WMDs, after all she and her countrymen have suffered... It's very painful.

From the Pitt blog at t r u t h o u t:

"I think the burden is on those people who think he didn't have weapons of mass destruction to tell the world where they are."

Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary
Press Briefing
7/9/2003

Yes, the press really was relying on people this dumb to sum up why we should support a doomed war based on shaky evidence. Yes, it is amazing. No, he wouldn't understand the answer, even if we didn't use swear words.

Doctors aided in detainee abuse, journal says / Pentagon denies report of tailored torture (sfgate.com reprint from washingtonpost.com, 01/06/05). This comes just after two dozen FBI agents reported witnessing "interrogation excesses."

Oh, and some of the U.S. forces who are committing these abuses are now threatening other American agents who witness the abuses. New documents excerpted by the ACLU (aclu.org) included complaints from the DIA, who reported that:

TF 62-6 personnel have done the following to DIA interrogators/debriefers: threatened them, confined them to the compound, ordered them not to talk to anyone in the US and informed them that their emails are being screened.

These task force people appear to be abusing their positions as well as their other-agency colleagues and the detainees in their care. Their behavior undermines the U.S. claim to represent, respect, and want the rule of law.

This Amnesty International Report on detainees is very up to date, for those of you who have been wondering why Guantanamo Bay dropped out of the headlines despite having its four year anniversary this month. USA: Guantanamo - an icon of lawlessness (amnestyusa.org, 01/06/05).

Forever detained: This is a horrific article: Long-Term Plan Sought For Terror Suspects (washingtonpost.com, 01/02/05):

The Pentagon and the CIA have asked the White House to decide on a more permanent approach for potentially lifetime detentions, including for hundreds of people now in military and CIA custody whom the government does not have enough evidence to charge in courts.

Whatever happened to 'innocent until proven guilty?' Did that get burned along with our belief in the rule of law and the U.S. Constitution?

The Friends Committee has written a good article on why the U.S. needs to withdraw troops from Iraq immediately. Free Iraq: The Responsibility of Withdrawal - FCNL Issues (www.fcnl.org) asks whether the failed policies of the past two years will be blindly continued, or if the reality of the antagonism and violence the presence of U.S. forces fuels will be recognized. Here's a sample:

Some argue that U.S. responsibility under international law to restore security and protect civilians in Iraq demands that the U.S. military remain and help stabilize the country. In fact, the presence and offensive operations of U.S. troops have become the greatest threats to Iraq%92s future. U.S. offensives, including aerial bombings, city sieges (witness Fallujah), and neighborhood sweeps, foster resentment among Iraqis, fuel the insurgency, and threaten civilian lives. Iraqi security forces are attacked more often when U.S. troops are present, and the Green Zone--a barricaded neighborhood housing the interim Iraqi government along side the U.S. embassy--has become a prime target for suicide bombings and mortar attacks.

I still know people who argue that the U.S. cannot leave Iraq until it is peaceful, but since the U.S. has engendered so much hatred, the U.S. military presence appears to preclude peace, making the situation circular.

Read the entire Friends' article. It outlines specific steps which should be taken to end the violence in Iraq.

No WMDs

U.S. Wraps Up Search for Banned Weapons in Iraq (Reuters.com01/12/05). Gee, who aside from the entire world peace movement could possibly have foreseen this?

The U.S. makes mistakes? Of course, I'm being sarcastic: the only surprise here is that it is being reported.

U.S. troops in Iraq open fire at checkpoint, killing eight, hospital officials say; roadside bomb kills U.S. soldier (sfgate.com, 01/09/05) reports: "...at least eight people were killed in the second mistaken American attack in two days to have deadly results."

The weird part of this article is that, after admitting they bombed the wrong house, the military then claims to know how many people were in the wrong house. It's not like they have credibility on this point, but they try:

The attack came just hours after the United States acknowledged dropping a 500-pound bomb on the wrong house during a search for terror suspects outside the northern city of Mosul. The military said in a statement that five people were killed.

The owner of the house, Ali Yousef, said 14 people were killed when the bomb hit at about 2 a.m. Saturday in the town of Aitha, 30 miles south of Mosul. An Associated Press photographer at the scene said the dead included seven children and seven adults. The discrepancy between the death counts could not be reconciled.

You should go read this sfgate article to review that last sentence over and over again. Yes, actual eyewitness and verified journalist counts must be fairly compared against absentee military spokesmodel counts which may have been for the house they had intended to bomb.

Can I mention that, too? That bombing people's homes at night with their families in them is not a way to 'win hearts and minds,' it is not the way to win the moral high ground, and it is very much not the way to enforce the concept of the rule of law. As the U.S. wallows in Christian sentiment, more hands should be flying up to point out that executing entire families is completely un-Christian. There are a few hands, but surprisingly few. Is that not obvious to everyone?

*

As an aside, there is also a fascinating article at SFGate about the politics of "supporting the troops." A Bush/war supporter is reported to say that yellow ribbon car magnets, even if made abroad cheaply and sold without a non-profit beneficiary, are an apolitical way of "supporting the troops," a position which they also consider to be apolitical. It takes a while to get down to someone who is actually using the proceeds from magnet sales to ACTUALLY send something to the troops, and no one is seeing irony there.

No irony in cheap magnets made abroad.
No irony in making a profit off something allegedly done to support the troops.
No irony in putting this dislay on oil-consuming cars, a hot topic and the driving force between what had been called "Operation Iraqi Liberation" until someone looked at the acronym.

There is no actual troop support happening here.

IF any of these people cared to actually support the troops, they would have demanded that Bush restore all the veterans funding and pay cuts he's made at the troops expense. They would allow soldiers and their families to live in decent housing. They would demand that injured vets not become invisible to the public, politicians, and media upon their return. They would notice that too many of the family interviews of the soldiers' families are taking place in trailer parks within areas with no decent economic opportunities, and demand that every American who joins up had a REAL choice to join the 'volunteer' military services. They would demand that for all Americans.

But most of these people do not. Instead, they drive around with little foreign-made magnets on their cars. Which tells you about the level of their commitment.

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.