Sadr quotes Bush? BBC NEWS | Resistance in Iraq 'legitimate' (07/19/05):

'Resistance is legitimate at all levels be it religious, intellectual and so on,' Mr Sadr said, in his first interview with Western media.

'The first person who would acknowledge this is the so-called American President Bush who said 'if my country is occupied, I will fight'.'

BBC NEWS | 25,000 civilians 'killed in Iraq' (07/19/05).

The Dossier on Civilian Casualties in Iraq 2003-2005 says 37% of all non-combatant deaths were caused by US-led forces.

Insurgents are said to have caused 9% of the deaths, while post-invasion criminal violence was responsible for another 36%....

"On average, 34 ordinary Iraqis have met violent deaths every day since the invasion of March 2003," said Mr Sloboda.

"It remains a matter of the gravest concern that, nearly two-and-a-half years on, neither the US nor the UK governments have begun to systematically measure the impact of their actions in terms of human lives destroyed."

A Scholarly Look at Terror Sees Bootprints In the Sand (washingtonpost.com, 07/09/05) describes some research into certain styles of attacks by Robert A. Pape, a professor who does a bit of consulting for the military.

'Well, I was actually surprised' to discover that 'what over 95 percent of all suicide attacks around the world since 1980 until today have in common is not religion, but a clear, strategic objective: to compel a modern democracy to withdraw military forces from the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland.'

This is a worthwhile read about potential causes for terrorism. Which make a lot more sense than 'they hate us because we love freedom/fries/rock/whatever.'

It's also one of those articles with odd opposing viewpoints. Pape's analysis is on suicide bombers, and so one of his critics points out that suicide bombers can't exist in occupied country A because they don't exist in occupied country B under similar conditions. And then misses the entire sideline about U.S. military bases in places with unpopular regimes.

I'm not sure if criticism that makes no sense is intended to help or hurt. Surely there are other, more substantive, competing theories than are quoted here. 'Still, it's worth reading.

How do YOU define a terrorist act? Greenpeace Commemorates 1985 Ship Bombing (washingtonpost.com, 07/09/05). For those of you who don't recall this, back in 1985 the French government, hostile over interference and publicity from Greenpeace over their nuclear activities in the Pacific, planted bombs in the Greenpeace ship 'Rainbow Warrior,' then docked in New Zealand, killing one person. (This was a ship that I, as a small child, had enjoyed during a school field trip years earlier.) The article describes all that and more. But this is the part that caught my eye:

New Zealand branded the attack 'an act of state-sponsored terrorism' and, after years of open hostility with France, won a multimillion-dollar reparations payment and what Greenpeace has called an 'unconvincing apology.'

Pierre Lacoste, who headed France's counter-espionage agency at the time, said in an interview last week with The New Zealand Herald that the drowning of photographer Pereira was an accident that weighed heavily on his conscience. 'I would perfectly understand it if New Zealanders considered this act to be an act of terrorism, to sink a boat in a port where there are just yachtsmen, peaceful people,' he told the newspaper. 'It does not really deserve to be called that, but if it is felt in that way, that is reality,' he said.

So, Mr. Lacoste doesn't think that blowing up an unarmed, advocacy group's ship in a civilian harbor is a terrorist act?? SERIOUSLY??

If only the reporter asked Mr. Lacoste what he WOULD have met that qualification!

I think this is one of those unfortunate examples of 'terrorism is in the eyes of the beholder,' which makes the moral posturing of nations against some acts, but not others, seem so hollow.

Another tragedy, and another debate: BBC NEWS | UK | UK Politics | London bombs: The Iraq question:

In February of the following year the same committee reported: 'The war in Iraq has possibly made terrorist attacks against British nationals and British interests more likely in the short term.'

And it was later revealed that, before the war, the Joint Intelligence Committee had also warned that military action against Iraq might 'heighten', rather than reduce, the terrorist threat to western interests.

Sad state of affairs, supposedly reflecting 'freedom being on the march': BBC NEWS | World | Middle East | Iraq rebuilding fails to deliver (06/22/05):

In the last few days, for example, more than 40 Iraqis have been killed in bomb attacks against police trainees, and at a Baghdad restaurant.

It has become so commonplace the rest of the world hardly notices any more.

I fear that some of this indifference is caused by the brief, manufactured, pseudo-euphoria that came when many Americans justified all the suffering in Iraq with the appearance of elections there, and now feel that 'our work there is done' and we need not be concerned with either the outcome of the elections, nor the state of the nation.

Conservatives taste sour grapes: Molly Ivins has some creepy samples of war supporters, now on the defensive, insisting that they are being gloated at over the war.

I personally am willing to take out billboards which say, "We told you so. Love, The Peace Movement." But it turns out some of the war cheerleaders are making the odd suggestion that, even if the peace movement was right, those of us opposed are somehow ENJOYING the current carnage. Ms. Ivins makes a respectable response. Star-Telegram | 06/23/2005 | Memo to us: It's appalling (sanluisobispo.com and elsewhere).

Someone with a spine! Someone with a spine! A fun read: May 18, 2005 Galloway v the US Senate: transcript of statement, by Times Online (timesonline.co.uk). One of my favorite parts:

As a matter of fact, I have met Saddam Hussein exactly the same number of times as Donald Rumsfeld met him. The difference is Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns and to give him maps the better to target those guns. I met him to try and bring about an end to sanctions, suffering and war, and on the second of the two occasions, I met him to try and persuade him to let Dr Hans Blix and the United Nations weapons inspectors back into the country - a rather better use of two meetings with Saddam Hussein than your own Secretary of State for Defence made of his.

WORLD VIEWS: New 'Downing Street Memo' says Bush, Blair agreed on 'regime change' in 2002; and more. (sfgate.com, 06/14/05). The sequel to the first Downing Street Memo may be as hot as the next Harry Potter book.

Now [Britain's Sunday] Times has scooped its rivals again with the news -- and the text of -- a leaked, extremely secret British Cabinet Office briefing paper dated July 23, 2002.

Prepared for Blair and his closest advisers, this newly discovered document clearly states that "since regime change was illegal, it was 'necessary to create the conditions' which would make it legal."

If you haven't already caught up on this story (I'm posting these June links in July), this is a great place to start. Mr. Gomez provides great quotes and links to many other source articles, as he does in every one of his columns.

In this particular instance, the material provided is not only about the memo and its political implications, but also from media sources remarking on U.S. media's docility in the face of this story.

Another interesting link: AfterDowningStreet.org | For a Resolution of Inquiry (afterdowningstreet.org).

A good site about Britain's now-famous, smoking-gun-like memorandum: The Downing Street Memo :: Seeking the Truth since May 13, 2005 (downingstreetmemo.com).

Trying to start trouble. WORLD VIEWS: 'Downing St. Memo' reporter says U.S., Britain goaded Saddam (sfgate.com, 06/21/05) notes this:

Now, in his latest news report in The Times, Smith has reported that 'leaked ... legal advice' to the Foreign Office (Britain's counterpart to the U.S. State Department) indicated that American and British bombing raids over southern Iraq, which began in May 2002, almost a year before the full-scale, U.S.-led attack, were illegal. (Times)

At that time, Smith says, U.S. Air Force and Royal Air Force jets 'began 'spikes of activity' designed to goad Saddam Hussein into retaliating and giving the allies a pretext for war.' The Pentagon named the bombing campaign the 'Blue Plan.'

The only silly part is the plan's name, even though it is not as ridiculous as most military names.

I love this observation about our media, and the fuss the US has made in attempting to refute an Amnesty International report about abuses at Guantanamo Bay by Adam Felber in Fanatical Apathy: Light Years Ahead (felbers.net). Of course, you should go read the whole thing, but here's a hint:

First, bear in mind that the summary on the US from the Amnesty International annual report does not contain the word “gulag.” Nor does an exhaustive specific report released a couple of weeks ago. The phrase “gulag of our times” comes from a speech made two weeks ago that refers to the reports.

That’s where our stunning advantage in spin technology began to assert itself. By the middle of last week, there wasn’t a single member of the Bush administration who wasn’t pushing his or her way towards a microphone in order to denounce Amnesty International for their ridiculous, unfounded, absurd, unfair “gulag” statement. They likened Gitmo to a gulag! Do they even know what went on at those gulags? What kind of gulag gulag says that we gulag our gulag with the gulag gulag still at gulag? Our technicians stuffed the foreign and domestic press’ ears so full of gulag that it became the story, the lead that consigned the actual report to the background.

This is the same point being discussed by Jefferson Morley in The Guantanamo Debate Comes Home (washingtonpost.com, 06/20/05)

In the U.S. media, the debate about Guantanamo often focuses on the propriety of the language used to describe the treatment of prisoners. The White House, conservative columnists and his Senate colleagues criticized Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) for saying U.S. interrogation techniques were reminiscent of Nazi Germany. The Post's Anne Applebaum, a Guantanamo critic, rebuked Amnesty International for likening the prison camp to the Soviet gulag.In the foreign media, the debate is more likely to focus on the propriety of the treatment itself.

Imagine that! Focusing on the treatment of the prisoners! What a novel idea.

When the going gets tough, inadvertently offend your allies by flushing copies of their holy books down the toilet: BBC NEWS | South Asia | Dismay at US Koran 'desecration' (05/08/05).

t r u t h o u t - Bob Herbert | Lifting the Censor's Veil on the Shame of Iraq (truthout.org, 05/05/05) describes some of the disturbing photos taken by soldiers in Iraq that we have NOT seen on the national news.

It's not necessarily something you need to read, - it is upsetting - but I found it interesting that the Abu Ghraib torture photos were such a media sensation... and then, nothing. I didn't believe that soldiers stopped taking photos, or that the only photos they had were from that one prison. And, it turns out, there are a lot more out there.

That raises some questions about the U.S. news media, and what motivates them to publicize, or not publicize, that kind of information.

t r u t h o u t - Naomi Klein | How to End the War (truthout.org, 05/07/05): is one of several articles that discusses how profitable war can be, and how that is always encouragement for those who profit to make new wars.

There are several articles which have detailed how the US government has attempted to subvert efforts at "democracy" in Iraq, with puppet governments, payola, and other tricks. This discusses the motivation for doing so:

The reality is the Bush administration has fought democracy in Iraq at every turn.

Why? Because if genuine democracy ever came to Iraq, the real goals of the war - control over oil, support for Israel, the construction of enduring military bases, the privatization of the entire economy - would all be lost. Why? Because Iraqis don't want them and they don't agree with them. They have said it over and over again - first in opinion polls, which is why the Bush administration broke its original promise to have elections within months of the invasion.

...They protested that 500,000 people had lost their jobs. They protested the fact that they were being shut out of the reconstruction of their own country, and they made it clear they didn't want permanent US bases.

That's when the administration broke its promise and appointed a CIA agent as the interim prime minister. In that period they locked in - basically shackled - Iraq's future governments to an International Monetary Fund program until 2008.

Democracy without actual FINANCIAL control for the people is a foreign capitalist corporation's dream!

[I'm compiling a large collection of clippings, but haven't been posting because... well, really, nothing has changed. It's all still terrible, and the media is still largely cheerleading. But I will post here again in the short term, to repeat this in a longer way. :-) ]

Al-Jazeera Puts Focus on Reform (washingtonpost.com, 05/08/05) reveals that the Bush Administration likes Al-Jazeera when it reports news that Bush likes!! Who knew!

Interesting: If you want to know how representatives of Iraq's Kurdish minority, the U.S. occupation's greatest beneficiaries and allies, perceive the current conflicts in Iraq officially, read What Do the Insurgents Want? by Hiwa Osman (washingtonpost.com, 05/08/05).

It's an amazing coincidence that the position Osman reflects matches almost exactly with press releases from Washington. Amazing.

Hey, Homeland Security: Will ya just listen to this, please? by Omar Khan (csmonitor.com, 05/03/05) is one of those sensible proposals to make currently boneheaded Homeland Security airport practices efficient and sensible.

Which it currently isn't.

I like the part of this article in which one of the security supervisors is getting delayed by such checks, and there is NOTHING the security personnel can do about it, because the current system is so pathetic.

This is a good, short read.