Under The Same Sun

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November 30, 2004

Why Do They Hate Us, Continued

This shirt is being sold with the following text:

In addition to helping a worthy cause, it's important to make sure the public does not forget about this brave Marine, who acted swiftly, in defense of his brothers.

We're proud of what this Marine did. At MetroSpy we believe terrorists should be hunted down and killed. And we're as happy as a room full of November 3rd Republicans every time that happens. Enjoy!
----
The Marine who killed the wounded insurgent in Fallujah deserves our praise and admiration. In a split second decision, he acted valiantly. CAPTION READS:"The Gods of War Hate those who Hesitate"

I don't need to explain much here, all you have to do is reverse the situation. Imagine a wounded, unarmed marine being left to die in a church in, say, rural Montana by, say, the occupying army. A day later another group of occupier soldiers come back, notice one of the wounded marines is still not dead, and shoots him, point blank, on camera. Then, all they talk about is how the shooter had the right to defend himself from the unarmed, wounded, dying man on the ground. What if he was booby-trapped? What if he was about to lunge?

Then they sell shirt celebrating the shooter. And their columnists keep blabbing about how uncivilized we are, and how we don't value life like they do.

Posted by zeynep at 05:09 PM | Comments (12) | TrackBack

November 29, 2004

Sudan and Activism

In the comments section of my entry on the situation in the Sudan, there have been some discussion about what to do. I obviously don't have the perfect, complete and ready-to-implement answer. So here are a few thoughts.

It's hard for a blog to produce one-size-fits-all recommendations about becoming involved. It depends on who you are, where you are, and what you are willing and able to do. It's about your choices and your opportunities and the intersection of those options with what's politically useful and beneficial -- which isn't always easy to see in advance, so there's certainly an argument to try whatever you are moved to do. Who knows what will work in this climate of apathy and callousness?

And the basics --writing letters to elected representatives, newspapers, holding demonstrations, leaflets-- many not sound glamorous or innovative, but they are the requisites for any political campaign. Without some level of buzz and pressure on the media and the politicians nothing will get off the ground, and all our bright and smart ideas will not have the ground upon which they can stand.

As for groups that have been working politically on this issue, I can name Trans Africa Forum and Africa Action as good places to start. There are others, of course, and please do feel free to chime in with comments about your experience and your ideas about what to do. Also, the humanitarian organization Conscience International has just sent a delegation to Darfur and they have first hand stories of a very grim situation. Conscience International's web page doesn't yet have an update of this trip -- that's partly because they are a low-budget operation. CI's president Jim Jennings, who was on that trip to Darfur, can be reached at jimjennings (at) earthlink.net.

Now, there is some real political thorny issues around the question of calling fro military intervention. As we all witnessed, humanitarian disguises have been repeatedly used to justify good ol' military interventions, most recently in Iraq.

The thorniness of the issues should not make us ignore it. We must confront this question because humanitarian tragedies sometimes do require some form of peacekeeping / military intervention and our justified resistance to imperialism should not mean we are going to ignore real victims to grave crimes against humanity.

And there are many options short of military intervention that haven't been tried and our focus should first be there. That's another political trap that I think the anti-war movement has largely failed to avoid. The establishment points at a real tragedy, say Saddam Hussein's tyranny, and manages to frame large scale military intervention as the only possible intervention. While we end up justly arguing against the military intervention, we are unable advance any arguments about what should actually be done because, well, they've corrupted and dismantled all the other options and because we too have been largely ignoring the issue until the rulers pushed it on the agenda.

For example, running up to the Iraq war, the United States dismantled efforts to bring in Iraq under a chemical weapons convention, and further random, independent inspections, because it would have taken away an excuse to go to war -- they even fired Jose Bustani, director-general of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, because he was so successful and determined to try to help eliminate a whole category of weapons of mass destruction. Then they turned around and ran a successful propaganda campaign claiming that there were no other solution to problems of WMD proliferation besides regime change implemented by the U.S. armed forces.

But, I digress. I think, in the case of the Sudan, what's necessary is political pressure, first and foremost on the central government and perhaps at some of the rebel groups to provide an environment that aid groups can operate in. A global campaign, a pouring of resources, a concentrated political, diplomatic and material aid campaign... In a sane world, these would be the issues that dominate the news every morning and every night.

We need to work on this issue now, and not just frantically try to respond when they decide it's time for them to pick it up and use it as an excuse to invade, distract or otherwise mislead. For one thing, that's a recipe for political defeat. And more importantly, there are hundreds of thousands of people who may well be dead by then.

Posted by zeynep at 10:18 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Onward, Moral Values

We're not necessarily segregationists. We just don't want to do anything about underfunded public schools, really.

That's the great argument from the opponents of the ballot measure that would "erase segregation-era wording requiring separate schools for 'white and colored children' and to eliminate references to the poll taxes once imposed to disenfranchise blacks.

Opponents claim that part of the amendment could lead to higher property taxes by letting courts declare that education is a constitutional right and then order spending increases for underfunded public schools.

Underfunded public schools. Anybody want to venture a guess about racial and ethnic breakdown of those?

The measure was defeated so the racist language remains on the books.

A lot of papers reporting the story used headlines such as "Alabama Vote Opens Old Racial Wounds". Don't these people they read their own stories before coming up with a title? How is a wound old, and presumably closed, when, more than 41 years after George Wallace blocked the doors of the Foster Auditorium to prevent Vivian Malone and James Hood from enrolling in the University of Alabama, the majority of the voters in the state are not willing to strike language from their state constitution about keeping apart "white and colored children"?

"Gov. George Wallace blocks the doorway to Foster Auditorium at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, June 11, 1963."

Posted by zeynep at 12:43 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

November 28, 2004

"Don't Reopen the Wounds", Recommend the Wound-Inflicters

Chile acknowledges torture was official policy used to crush left-wing dissidents, and moves to compensate victims:

Chilean President Ricardo Lagos has announced compensation payments to thousands of victims, saying illegal imprisonment and torture were a state policy during the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet. ...

"How can we explain such horror?" Lagos asked. "I do not have an answer."

Pinochet's right-wing dictatorship fiercely suppressed leftists, dissidents and others perceived as opponents, imprisoning, exiling, torturing and killing thousands. Many of them simply disappeared.

It's the least that should be done but the damage to Chile is done. No compensation, acknowledgement or apology can make that whole.

I do have two questions. Will any newspaper reporting on this topic even mention the central role played by the U.S. government and U.S. corporations in instigating and supporting Pinochet's coup and the subsequent regime of torture and terror? And will anyone refer to torture by Pinochet's regime as "abuse"-- as they do when the same acts are committed by U.S. troops?

And here's the comical quote. Pinochet's spokesman objected to the report because it would "reopen wounds in our society."

... retired Gen. Guillermo Garin, the former dictator's spokesman, said the report would "reopen wounds in our society."

Ok, first you shoot the victim. Then you torture them for a while. Then you dump the body from a helicopter. If anyone asks you what happened, you answer "don't reopen the wounds"? Such concern. Such sensitivity.

Posted by zeynep at 10:09 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

November 26, 2004

Sudan? Not Much Oil? Black People? *world yawns*

This is all too sad.

The World Food Program said Thursday that renewed fighting in Sudan's Darfur region has forced the U.N. agency to suspend a large part of its relief operations there, leaving 300,000 refugees without aid. The suspension comes as demand for emergency food in the region increases because no crops were planted in the last season.

This is Zubeida, living in a refuge camp in Chad's border with Sudan. Does she have a chance to grow up? Is she still alive?

What needs to happen is that the world should pressure the government of Sudan, and the rebels as necessary. All the money in the world to buy food will not do good if aid agencies cannot operate -- not that there is enough money for that but we're not even there yet. Pressuring the Sudanese government requires political will, not just donations. And political will requires a public willing to exert pressure, even if just a bit.

I'm sorry, I know I should have talked about the great bargains at the mall. This is the biggest shopping day of the year, after all. All those leftovers to eat, all those gifts to buy. Didn't mean to add to the stress of the holidays.

Posted by zeynep at 12:10 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

November 25, 2004

Wounded? Congrats, Here's a Purple Heart. Now Please Hand Over the Signing Bonus.

In the middle of a short piece about wounded soldiers, Newsweek mentions that the army tried to make Lt. Tyson Johnson pay back his signing bonus because he didn't complete his tour of duty ... due to the serious injuries he received, for which he got a Purple Heart.

Insult upon injury, [Tyson Johnson] got a bonus for joining, and they wanted to take the signing bonus back because he didn't fulfill his contract because he was wounded ... [Editor’s note: The Army has since abandoned its efforts to collect Tyson Johnson's signing bonus.]

How gracious of them to have stopped their collection efforts. The amount, if you are curious, was $2999. Giving up on that must have blown a big hole in Pentagon's $400 billion budget. Maybe Lt. Johnson should do the right thing and return the money anyway -- perhaps by putting up that Purple Heart for sale on Ebay. If a grilled cheese sandwich with the "image" of "Virgin Mary," who apparently has nothing better to do than help people increase their gambling winnings, can sell for $28,000...

Posted by zeynep at 03:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 24, 2004

Hardening of Arteries -- or Hearts?

Mother of soldier dies shortly after viewing the remains of her son:

Karen Unruh-Wahrer, 45, had atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, more commonly known as hardening of the arteries, which led to her October 2 heart attack, said Dr. Bruce Parks, Pima County's chief medical examiner.

Unruh-Wahrer was said to be inconsolable after the death of her 25-year-old son, Army Spc. Robert Oliver Unruh, who was killed September 25 by enemy fire near Baghdad.

She died shortly after seeing his remains for the first time. Her family attributed the death to a broken heart, but Parks said hardening of the arteries generally develops slowly over a long period of time and often goes unnoticed by the victim.

I'm sure the doctor is right about the hardening of the arteries and atherosclerotis in the case of this unfortunate mother. But I believe the correct national diagnosis which led to death of her son, as well as tens of thousands Iraqis, is called hardening of hearts. Most people seem to not care one bit about Iraqi lives -- and barely care about American lives despite loud performances to the contrary on appropriate ceremonial occassions and campaign ads.

Posted by zeynep at 09:19 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

November 23, 2004

What's Wrong With These People?

Hundreds of thousands of people around Ukraine seem determined not to acccept "Central Election Commission's announcement that Kremlin-backed Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych had narrowly won Sunday's runoff vote." Their excuse? Exit polls showing the presidential challenger Viktor Yushchenko leading and reports of significant fraud, intimidation and media bias in favour of the official victor.

Jeez, what's the big deal? Why can't they go shopping instead? Isn't there a game on tonight? What's with this 200,000 people camping out in the streets in sub-zero temperatures -- now in their third day?

Let me be clear that there is no doubt that the United States is also trying to illegitimately meddle in this election. I don't know enough to judge what kind of a politician Yushchenko will turn out to be. I don't know if he will be a disappointment to these people who are trying so hard to see him as their next president. That's certainly a possibility.

Here's what's important, though. The people of Ukraine are providing a striking example of what happens when people actually care about democracy, about their right to vote. This is what happens when there is a popular will to actually challenge possibly fraudulent election results.

Posted by zeynep at 04:20 PM | Comments (11) | TrackBack

November 22, 2004

Roger That, Sir

This from Kevin Site's blog -- the cameraman who shot the famous video of the killing of an unarmed, wounded Iraqi inside a mosque:

We hear gunshots from what seems to be coming from inside the mosque. A Marine from my squad yells, "Are there Marines in here?"

When we arrive at the front entrance, we see that another squad has already entered before us.

The lieutenant asks them, "Are there people inside?"

One of the Marines raises his hand signaling five.

"Did you shoot them," the lieutenant asks?

"Roger that, sir, " the same Marine responds.

"Were they armed?" The Marine just shrugs and we all move inside.

Immediately after going in, I see the same black plastic body bags spread around the mosque. The dead from the day before. But more surprising, I see the same five men that were wounded from Friday as well. It appears that one of them is now dead and three are bleeding to death from new gunshot wounds. The fifth is partially covered by a blanket and is in the same place and condition he was in on Friday, near a column. He has not been shot again. I look closely at both the dead and the wounded. There don't appear to be any weapons anywhere.

"These were the same wounded from yesterday," I say to the lieutenant. He takes a look around and goes outside the mosque with his radio operator to call in the situation to Battalion Forward HQ.

I see an old man in a red kaffiyeh lying against the back wall. Another is face down next to him, his hand on the old man's lap -- as if he were trying to take cover. I squat beside them, inches away and begin to videotape them. Then I notice that the blood coming from the old man's nose is bubbling. A sign he is still breathing. So is the man next to him.

While I continue to tape, a Marine walks up to the other two bodies about fifteen feet away, but also lying against the same back wall.

Then I hear him say this about one of the men:

"He's fucking faking he's dead -- he's faking he's fucking dead."

Through my viewfinder I can see him raise the muzzle of his rifle in the direction of the wounded Iraqi. There are no sudden movements, no reaching or lunging.

However, the Marine could legitimately believe the man poses some kind of danger. Maybe he's going to cover him while another Marine searches for weapons.

Instead, he pulls the trigger. There is a small splatter against the back wall and the man's leg slumps down.

"Well he's dead now," says another Marine in the background.

I am still rolling. I feel the deep pit of my stomach. The Marine then abruptly turns away and strides away, right past the fifth wounded insurgent lying next to a column. He is very much alive and peering from his blanket. He is moving, even trying to talk. But for some reason, it seems he did not pose the same apparent "danger" as the other man -- though he may have been more capable of hiding a weapon or explosive beneath his blanket.

But then two other marines in the room raise their weapons as the man tries to talk.

For a moment, I'm paralyzed still taping with the old man in the foreground. I get up after a beat and tell the Marines again, what I had told the lieutenant -- that this man -- all of these wounded men -- were the same ones from yesterday. That they had been disarmed treated and left here.

At that point the Marine who fired the shot became aware that I was in the room. He came up to me and said, "I didn't know sir-I didn't know." The anger that seemed present just moments before turned to fear and dread.

The wounded man then tries again to talk to me in Arabic.

He says, "Yesterday I was shot... please... yesterday I was shot over there -- and talked to all of you on camera -- I am one of the guys from this whole group. I gave you information. Do you speak Arabic? I want to give you information."

Once again, what strikes me about both the video and Kevin Site's description of the event is the utter, banal ordinariness of it all. It's clear that it's just one more day and a few more dead. The only difference is that this was captured on camera.

Posted by zeynep at 11:57 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

November 21, 2004

The new figure translates to roughly 400,000 Iraqi children suffering from "wasting," a condition characterized by chronic diarrhea and dangerous deficiencies of protein...

A new study shows that acute malnutrition among Iraqi children has jumped dramatically to 7.7 percent. The conditions are now worse than they were before the invasion under Saddam Hussein, during sanctions. No small feat.

Acute malnutrition among young children in Iraq has nearly doubled since the United States led an invasion of the country 20 months ago, according to surveys by the United Nations, aid agencies and the interim Iraqi government.

After the rate of acute malnutrition among children younger than 5 steadily declined to 4 percent two years ago, it shot up to 7.7 percent this year, according to a study conducted by Iraq's Health Ministry in cooperation with Norway's Institute for Applied International Studies and the U.N. Development Program. The new figure translates to roughly 400,000 Iraqi children suffering from "wasting," a condition characterized by chronic diarrhea and dangerous deficiencies of protein.
...

By one count, 60 percent of rural residents and 20 percent of urban dwellers have access only to contaminated water. The country's sewer systems are in disarray.

The whole article is here.

The big problem in Iraq isn't lack of available calories per se, although that too can be an issue among the poor. It's the contaminated water, which causes chronic diarrhea, which leads to malnourishment. Plus, many families are subsisting on low-quality foods, especially without adequate amounts of protein. That leads to a generally weakened immune system...

All of this could be addressed by repairing the infrastructure devastated by decades of war and suffocating sanctions, by providing widespread employment, by expanding preventive health-care -- in others words a government responsive to the needs of people of Iraq.

Oops, sorry, what am I writing. Government, responsive, needs of people. What silliness. Back to planet Earth. I mean children of Iraq will continue to live and die under appalling conditions which we have helped create and are now helping worsen. Good thing "moral values" "swung" the "election."

Posted by zeynep at 01:31 AM | Comments (9) | TrackBack

Dear Fallujans, Congratulations. Your City Has Been Saved. Destroyed. Reconstructed. Whatever.

The State department is already putting out releases claiming how it will rebuild Fallujah:

Coalition forces in Iraq are turning their attention to the task of rebuilding Fallujah as the military campaign to oust the city's insurgents winds down. Together, the United States and the Iraqi government have earmarked as much as $100 million for the reconstruction effort, according to Ambassador Bill Taylor of the Iraq Reconstruction Management Office.

"We have a commitment to the people of Fallujah -- indeed, to the people of Iraq -- to help them reconstruct their city and their country. We take that commitment very seriously," Taylor told reporters during a November 19 briefing from Baghdad.

And mainstream newspapers spread the good news, with headlines like "Fallujah Reconstruction Team Opens its Doors"

For one thing, it's obvious the city is basically uninhabitable. It's not clear when or if anyone will return there, especially if the Marines refuse to leave, as they have already signalled.

Another thing is that how many times have we been through this? Promises of reconstruction, big spending, etc. followed by nothing? Here's the status of the infamous $18 billion allocated by Congress to be spent on reconstruction:

Of the $18.4 billion in Iraq reconstruction funds allocated by Congress last year, only $1.7 billion has been spent, Hess said, an increase of about $400 million from six weeks ago. He said 873 construction projects have been started, up from 703 six weeks ago. The goal is to have 1,000 started by year's end.

(To put it in context let me remind readers that we have spent billions of Dollars of Iraqi money --some on no-bid contracts to Halliburton-- while spending less than 10 percent of what Congress has already allocated for Iraqi reconstruction -- and much of it going to big American firms and mercenary organizations.)

And last, but not least, this is obviously propaganda aimed at the American, not the Iraqi, public. It's hard to believe that anyone in their right mind really thinks that any "reconstruction" project is going to reconstruct Sahar Muhammad Abdullah's life.

It seems that we are now committed to crushing at least the Sunni minority, and crushing it for the long-haul. The fate of the Shi'a probably depends on how favorable they will be to our permanent occupation of their country.

Posted by zeynep at 12:49 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 19, 2004

Let's Play Raid-A-Mosque

So now they raid the Abu Hanifa mosque, probably the most important Sunni mosque in Iraq --named after founder of one of the biggest schools of Islamic thought-- during Friday prayers, killing at least four people.

Here's most of Dahr Jamail's report from Iraq. Dahr talked to someone inside the mosque via his cell phone during the raid. It's a chilling read:

U.S. soldiers raided the Abu Hanifa mosque in Baghdad during Friday prayers, killing at least four and wounding up to 20 worshippers.

At 12:30 pm local time, just after Imam Shaikh Muayid al-Adhami concluded his talk, about 50 U.S. soldiers with 20 Iraqi National Guardsmen (ING) entered the mosque, a witness reported.

”Everyone was there for Friday prayers, when five Humvees and several trucks carrying INGs entered,” Abu Talat told IPS on phone from within the mosque while the raid was in progress. ”Everyone starting yelling 'Allahu Akbar' (God is the greatest) because they were frightened. Then the soldiers started shooting the people praying!”

Talat said he was among a crowd of worshippers being held back at gunpoint by U.S. soldiers. Loud chanting of 'Allahu Akbar' could be heard in the background during his call. Women and children were sobbing, he said.

”They have just shot and killed at least four of the people praying,” he said in a panicked voice. ”At least 10 other people are wounded now. We are on our bellies and in a very bad situation.”
Talat gave his account over short phone calls. He said he was witnessing a horrific scene.

”We were here praying and now there are 50 here with their guns on us,” he said. ”They are holding our heads to the ground, and everyone is in chaos. This is the worst situation possible. They cannot see me talking to you. They are roughing up a blind man now.” He evidently could talk no further then.

The soldiers later released women and children along with men who were related to them. Abu Talat was released because a boy told him to pretend to be his father.

...

”One Iraqi National Guardsmen held his gun on people and yelled, 'I will kill you if you don't shut up',” said Rana Aziz, a mother who had been trapped in the mosque.. ”So they made everyone lie down, then people got quiet, and they took the women and children out.”

She said someone asked the soldiers if they would be made hostages. A soldier used foul language and asked everyone to shut up, she said. Suddenly, she laughed amid her tears. ”The Americans have learnt how to say shut up in Arabic, 'Inchev'.”

Soldiers denied Iraqi Red Crescent ambulances and medical teams access to the mosque. As doctors negotiated with U.S. soldiers outside, more gunfire was heard from inside.

About 30 men were led out with hoods over their heads and their hands tied behind them. Soldiers loaded them into a military vehicle and took them away around 3.15 pm.

A doctor with the Iraqi Red Crescent confirmed four dead and nine wounded worshippers. Pieces of brain were splattered on one of the walls inside the mosque while large blood stains covered carpets at several places.

A U.S. military spokesperson in Baghdad did not respond to requests for information on the raid.

I think all the indications are clear. The U.S. occupation and the Allawi government are bent on silencing the Sunni minority by using overwhelming force. Arrest of the vice president the of National Assembly, the Fallujah onslaught, the mosque raid. They are hoping, I suppose that the Sunnis will either boycott the elections in disgust, will be too afraid to vote, or will have nobody they want to vote for because most of their leaders will have been banned, arrested or otherwise eliminated from the process.

And this administration is slowly succeeding in establishing the idea that elections --any elections, no matter how fraudulent, restricted and ridiculously undemocratic-- are enough to proclaim democracy in Iraq. Have you been to a voting booth? Check. Do we like the outcome? Check. Mission accomplished.

Posted by zeynep at 10:28 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

November 18, 2004

You Know You're Sovereign When

You know you're sovereign when the occupying army snatches the deputy head of your national assembly after he criticizes the actions of the occupying army, and nobody can even find out what the charges against him are.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's provisional parliament urged U.S.-led forces to free national assembly deputy head Naseer Ayef on Wednesday, a day after he was detained in a dawn raid on his house. "We call for his release and for the matter to be referred to the National Assembly which will investigate and take a legal position," it said in a statement.

...

U.S. forces detained Ayef, a senior member of the influential Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party on Tuesday. U.S. officials would not comment on the arrest.

The party pulled out of Iraq's U.S.-backed interim government a week ago in protest at an offensive to retake the rebel-held city of Falluja.

And why is this referred to as an "arrest"? Arrest is a legal procedure, it involves, laws, judges, charges... Not this: "The Americans took Naseer Ayef from his house at dawn, ... They shot one of his guards in the stomach and searched his house. We don't know why he was detained."

Posted by zeynep at 08:57 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Insurgents? Not Giving Up. Marines? Not Leaving.

The word is already out --can you say du-uh-- that turning Fallujah into rubble may just have stoked the resistance and will not achieve any of its stated goals:

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The recapture of Fallujah has not broken the insurgents' will to fight and may not pay the big dividend U.S. planners had hoped — to improve security enough to hold national elections in Sunni Muslim areas of central Iraq, according to U.S. and Iraqi assessments.

Instead, the battle for control of the Sunni city 40 miles west of Baghdad has sharpened divisions among Iraq's major ethnic and religious groups, fueled anti-American sentiment and stoked the 18-month-old Sunni insurgency.

Here's what to watch out for, though, from the very next paragraph:

Those grim assessments, expressed privately by some U.S. military officials and by some private experts on Iraq, raise doubts as to whether the January election will produce a government with sufficient legitimacy, especially in the eyes of the country's powerful Sunni Muslim minority.

Leaving aside the Kurds, every indication is that each brutal assault by the U.S. military strengthens Sunni-Shia unity:

On the fourth day of the ground attack on Falluja, last Friday, joint Shia-Sunni prayers were held in the four mosques in Baghdad, and were massively well attended. Inter-communal prayers were the hallmark of the 1920 revolution, revived early this year by the Iraqi National Foundation Congress, a loose umbrella organisation of academics, cross-sectarian clerics and veteran political leaders.

And the other claim, that elections must be delayed, cancelled or limited because of the security situation is a bogus pretext that we will hear much more of as the January deadline nears. For one thing, all our actions are making the situation less tenable. Here's how it works. First we flatten Fallujah, claiming that, otherwise, elections cannot be held. Then the claim becomes elections cannot be held because people are too upset over Fallujah being flattenned.

The second obvious point is made by Hussain al-Shahristani, a scientist who was tortured in Saddam's Abu Ghraib for refusing to work on his weapons program:

"I don't understand how delaying elections will improve the security situation," Hussain al-Shahristani, a Shiite scientist who is close to al-Sistani. "I believe that the most important reason for the deteriorating security situation in the country is the postponement of elections."

It's very clear what the occupation and their puppet Allawi will move to cancel elections unless they are assured of being able to control the outcome. That's democracy for you, imperial style.

I understand the security situation is a real issue but the immediate step to take is obvious: withdraw the American forces, especially from the Sunni triangle. Their presence is probably the number one security problem. And how do airstrikes, tanks, and massive firepower improve the security situation?

But, the Marines seem to have no intention of withdrawing even from Fallujah:

WASHINGTON, Nov. 17 - Senior Marine intelligence officers in Iraq are warning that if American troop levels in the Falluja area are significantly reduced during reconstruction there, as has been planned, insurgents in the region will rebound from their defeat. The rebels could thwart the retraining of Iraqi security forces, intimidate the local population and derail elections set for January, the officers say.

They have further advised that despite taking heavy casualties in the weeklong battle, the insurgents will continue to grow in number, wage guerrilla attacks and try to foment unrest among Falluja's returning residents, emphasizing that expectations for improved conditions have not been met.

It is quite amazing what kind of outrageous propaganda gets reported on as serious news these days. Does anyone --any journalist who's actually there, these Marine officers, anyone-- actually doubt that every man, women and child in Fallujah would like the Marines to leave? Especially given the destruction unleashed upon their city? Yet the Marines insist they must stay, otherwise, elections "will be derailed" in January -- when it's clear that if the Marines stay either people will not return at all or, if they return, there will be constant attacks on the U.S. forces -- at which point we will declare the area too unsafe to hold elections, of course.

Posted by zeynep at 08:31 AM | Comments (8) | TrackBack

Collective Punishment

There is a very good piece in the Guardian by Haifa Zangana, an Iraqi-born novelist, painter and former prisoner of the Saddam regime. She correctly names what's happenning to many Iraqi cities: "collective punishment."

The plight of the people of Falluja is not unique. Since the nominal handover of sovereignty on June 30, we have witnessed an escalation of Israeli-style collective punishment of Iraqi cities. Civilian carnage, coupled with enormous damage to homes and infrastructure, has became our daily reality.

In Tall Afar, in the north, US troops cut off water for three days last month and blocked food supplies to 150,000 refugees. Then in Samarra, residents cowered in their homes as tanks and warplanes pounded the city. Bodies were strewn in the streets but could not be collected for fear of American snipers. Of the 130 Iraqis killed, most were civilians. Hospital access was denied to the injured. And Qasim Daoud hailed the massacre as a "very clean" operation.

Every day of occupation brings fresh atrocities. But the architects of that occupation claim that it is Iraqis themselves who are beyond the reach of democracy. They are "militants" and "insurgents", bent on terror ising their own people and destroying hopes of reconstruction. Why can't they get involved in the peaceful democratic political process?

But they did, and they continue to do so. Over the last 19 months there have been protests, appeals, initiatives to set up a reasonable programme for elections, the opening of human rights centres, lecturing at universities, even poetry writing. This torrent of activism is still being practised by a broad variety of political parties, groups and individuals who oppose the foreign occupation. And they have been ignored. Newspapers were closed. Editors were arrested. Demonstrators were shot at, arrested, abused and tortured.

Posted by zeynep at 07:58 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 17, 2004

The Plot Unfolds as Predicted

Here's a little AP snippet that sums up where we are after the predictable military victory:

No one expects the capture of the former Sunni Muslim stronghold to halt the insurgency even within the city itself. One military official said Fallujah would probably wind up like Baghdad, a city under ineffective government control where insurgents have little problem mounting attacks.

By any account, the United States and Iraq's interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, will have a tough time making friends among Fallujah's surviving residents.

The brutal assault has crushed homes and mosques and ground much of the southern neighborhoods into rubble. Survivors are hungry and aid convoys have been unable to reach them.

Reports of civilian suffering, expected to spread after the Americans loosens its grip on the city, could transform Fallujah into a shrine to Muslim warriors killed in the fighting.

Already the fatal shooting of a wounded and apparently unarmed man in a Fallujah mosque by a Marine has incensed Sunni Muslims, complicating efforts by Iraqi authorities seeking to contain a Sunni backlash to the invasion. Many Sunnis saw the Fallujah assault as a plot by the Americans and the Shiites against religious Sunnis and Saturday's shooting strengthened that view, intensifying the hostility there, as elsewhere, to U.S. troops.

As factual events morph into legend, the battle could become a key tool for guerrilla recruiters, already adept at running information campaigns, who want to replace the 1,600 or so fighters killed.

Fallujah remains home to many in the insurgent recruiting pool, including unemployed soldiers from of Iraq's disbanded military. And the city is a key stopping point on the guerrillas' route into Baghdad.

Outside Fallujah, the vast and tough Anbar province, which lacks any credible Iraqi security force or government control, seethes with Sunni discontent and growing poverty.

Is there anything here that wasn't completely predictable and predicted by many? No. Unfortunately, it looks like it's just going to get worse from here on.

I can visualize remembering this moment two or three years down the line, when people are arguing whether it was the first or second assault on Fallujah that was the turning point towards whatever disastrous consequences we will be experiencing then. Remembering that everything was done while many, many people trying to shout how wrong it all was, not just morally and legally, but pragmatically.

Posted by zeynep at 01:34 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Margaret Hassan

The reports are that Margaret Hassan may have been murdered. Watch the very politicians that spent their lives killing the people she tried desparately to save weep crocodile tears for her, as they read eulogies from teleprompters.

I believe this picture of her that's been making the rounds dates from the sanctions era -- those cruel, punishing U.S.-U.K led sanctions that lasted a decade at a great cost to Iraq's population, especially the most vulnerable sections.

There is a lot of talk these days about how much Saddam Hussein might have stolen from the people of Iraq via the Oil-For-Food program. I don't know. He was a evil, brutal tyrant capable of anything. As opponents of the sanctions at the time, we kept pointing out the sanctions were not harming Saddam Hussein but the people of Iraq. Nobody cared. Just as nobody now talks about that decade of cruelty that killed as much as 5,000 children under the age of five, every month, year after year.

Hassan opposed those sanctions vociferously -- don't expect either Bush nor Blair, who supported those sanctions to mention that fact.

Posted by zeynep at 12:58 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Number of Civilians Killed: 800 (says the Red Cross); Number of non-American Foreign Fighters among the detaines: 10-20 (says Colonel Regner); Eviscerating the Geneva Conventions: Priceless

Here's the a bit from the interview with the Red Cross official via invaluable Dahr Jamail:

Speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of U.S. military reprisal, a high-ranking official with the Red Cross in Baghdad told IPS that ”at least 800 civilians” have been killed in Fallujah so far.

His estimate is based on reports from Red Crescent aid workers stationed around the embattled city, from residents within the city and from refugees, he said.

Here's American Leftist crunching the numbers on the "foreign fighters" from information gleaned from a Pentagon briefing:

During an "operational update" on Fallujah today, Colonel Michael Regner accidentally broke with the standard practice of military spokespeople ... He indirectly gave us an estimate on the number of Fallujah's mythical foreign fighters. ...

[The number of] our detainees not too long ago this afternoon was right about 1,052. ... But at this time, out of 1,052 most likely about 1,040 -- or 1,030 are Iraqis.

So 1,030 and 1,040 are approximately 98% and 99% of 1,052, meaning 1% or 2% were non-Iraqis. If we assume that Fallujan prisoners of war are representative of the Fallujan insurgents as a whole, which the Pentagon numbered at 2,000 to 3,000, that gives us a range of between 20 and 60 foreign fighters present in Fallujah during the run-up to the assault. I guess 20 to 60 guys can qualify as "hordes"?

Anyway, enough with this facts and numbers business. Chief of CIA Porter J. Goss has just told Central Intelligence Agency employees that their job is to "support the administration and its policies in our work. ... As agency employees we do not identify with, support or champion opposition to the administration or its policies." Our job is to silently watch it all happen and not ask too many questions. What else?

Posted by zeynep at 12:09 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

November 16, 2004

How Stupid Is This Going to Get?

So, the Democrats have chosen Harry Reid of Nevada as the Senate minority leader:

Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada won election as leader of the shrunken Democratic minority on Tuesday and said he stands ready to cooperate with Republicans or confront them as he deems necessary.

...
Seconding [Reid's] nomination was Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, who occasionally vexed Daschle by crossing party lines. "I said he will lead this caucus into a new era and oppose where necessary, compromise where possible and avoid the obstructionist label," Nelson said of his closed-door remarks.

With the exception of abortion rights and gun control, both of which he opposes, Reid's recent voting record on major issues puts him in the mainstream of Senate Democrats.

The Democrats are still worried about the "obstructionist" label? They pick this absolutely uninspiring, anti-gun control Senator whose only talent seems to be back-room dealings? When it's abundantly clear that the Republicans will not deal? Don't they understand that the obstructionist label will be there no matter what the they do or don't do? Remember how a triple-amputee vet got turned into a Saddam Hussein supporter? (Or, was it an Bin Ladin supporter? Hard to keep up with the smear-machine.)

They've already indicated that they will roll the red carpet for Gonzales who had declared the Geneva Conventions "quaint" and non-binding on the U.S., and the U.S. constitution non-binding on Texas. Rice will presumably breeze through after a few obligatory questions about "Bin Ladin Determined to Attack Inside the United States" memo, which she claimed did not warn that Bin Ladin was determined to attack inside the United States. I mean, it's one thing to lose but it's another to act like total, absolute losers.

Posted by zeynep at 04:06 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Blue Fairy Redux

A lot of people responded to the picture I posted of U.S. soldiers resting on the "plush red carpets" in a damaged mosque in Fallujah as if I cared more about the carpets. Frankly, I was simply pointing out how inflammatory the image was -- and how revealing it was of the level of competence with which this war was being waged. And a lot of the comments I got were so hateful, so racist --including someone who referred to the kids on picture on top of this page as "turd world children-- that I think I should just compile them and post them on the main page. That kind of virulent racism is integral to the reality of this world although we rarely look at it directly.

And being offended by desecration of places of worship is obviously not limited to Muslims, but it is a trait shared by many faiths. That's just a fact of the way the world -- and personally, I think that's quite unfortunate. I find our obsession with things over life, our culture of death, to be sad, dangerous and, well, very unholy to say the least.

Let me take this opportunity to reproduce here a piece I had written leading up to the invasion of Iraq, after I had read yet another concerned statement about the archeological treasures of Iraq that would be in danger.

***

Urgent Request to the Blue Fairy: Please Turn these Children into Stone

November, 8, 2002

Fairy tales often have a universal appeal and draw children of all nations into their magical world. Pinocchio is no exception where the Blue Fairy rewards moral behavior and grants a puppet flesh-and-blood status.

I do doubt, however, that children in Iraq or Afghanistan could understand why an inanimate, man-made object would ever want to be a child of the flesh and blood kind. In their world, the flesh of children is there for the maiming and the blood for flowing --unlike those beautiful, sacrosanct objects of art which must be preserved and doted on.

As the British Independent reports, "an international band of curators and historians anxious not to repeat the damage inflicted on Iraqi treasures during the Gulf War 11 years ago are appealing to the American government to take the historic sites into account."

A similar surge of concern was observed when, about six months before the 9/11 attacks, Afghanistan made a brief appearance in the news. The world was outraged then, but not because hundreds of thousands children's lives were flickering away in refugee camps where lack of education, food, and opportunities stole away their childhood and diseases and lack of medical care made sure many never grow into adults. The world was not outraged because the Taliban regime was denying medical care to women (and children) by not allowing women healthcare workers to work and men to take care of women. The outrage was not that the United States had pushed the U.N. to slap economic sanctions on the country -because of its refusal to turn over Osama bin Laden- that made things worse for the worst off, the poorest, the most vulnerable in the country (according to some estimates, the sanctions increased the price of basic medicines up to 50%) without providing leverage or means to make things better.

It was the 1,400-year-old Buddha statues carved into the mountainside at Bamiyan that triggered the heart-rending cries of concern. The New York Times (03/19/01) reported that Taliban envoy Rahmatullah Hashimi explained that the decision was made after an international NGO offered money to restore the statues but refused to allow the money to be used in refugee camps -- where 300 children had just died. Hashimi recounted that the NGO was asked that “instead of spending money on statues, why didn't they help our children who are dying of malnutrition?” Upon being told that “this money is only for statues”, they decided to destroy them.

Germany, Malaysia and Japan joined Russia, India, United States, Egypt and others to decry the barbarity. Offers poured in: money to restore the statues, money to remove the statues for safekeeping somewhere else, money to change the rulers' minds. Money that had not been pouring in for the refugee camps, for food, for clean water.

Now the world's archeologists and curators are afraid a similar outrage will occur to the historical artifacts in Iraq. The Independent quotes Helen McDonald, of the British School of Archaeology in Iraq, based at Cambridge University, who explained that last time the Iraqis had tried to move a great deal of their most important objects out into storage in the countryside and that they have already begun to do so again.

"But some things are immovable, such as huge stones. If a bomb hits a museum or something, that would be it," she said.

Sure enough, she notes, "The British School of Archaeology in Iraq has written [about this]. They wrote to the Foreign Office during the Gulf War to express concern, not just on the humanitarian grounds but the effects that it would have on the culture."

Bombing of stones isn't the only potential cause of horrors, according to Charles Tripp, of the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. He warns that in the wake of the Gulf War, sanctions had inadvertently caused as much damage to the archaeological sites of Iraq as direct attack. Trip notes: "The conditions of poverty had led to much looting of archaeological sites and site museums, which often contained significant finds even after the best items were removed to Baghdad. Numerous finds have turned up on the art market in the West." Dr Tripp observes that "there is a lot of temptation in a destitute country to rip something out that has a saleable value in the West."

Yes, especially since UNICEF reports that at least half a million children have died due to those sanctions. I can imagine parents looting and prying loose every single stone, rock, tablet, gem or otherwise inanimate object in that country to try to obtain food or simple medicines.

It has been reported that when a journalist asked Mahatma Gandhi what he thought about Western Civilization, he replied, "it would be a good idea."

Indeed, it would be a good idea; unfortunately, it's unlikely we'll be able to muster that up in short order so we need a more serious, urgent and miraculous intervention.

We need the Blue Fairy who turned Pinocchio into flesh to perform a reverse miracle.

So here goes.

Please, Blue Fairy, turn the children of Iraq into stone. The older the stone better. Stone with cracks and signs of aging and weather damage would be perfect. Hopefully, that will evoke some protective reflexes and caring in their direction.

And, Blue Fairly, while you are at it, please do the same for the children of Afghanistan which is once again facing famine since the investment required and promised has not been delivered, and the children of Southern Africa which is in the midst of a progressing famine due to the drought which might have been triggered partly by global warming, and the children in Central America which is now threatened by famine thanks to the crisis in the coffee industry which never paid farmers more than a pittance of their enormous profit.

If Blue Fairy does not come through, I encourage the Iraqis to start their own make-a-wish foundation, which grants wishes to children with terminal illnesses. Of course, in Iraq, because of the sanctions, easily curable diseases like cholera and treatable childhood problems like leukemia are often terminaland then there are the congenital birth defects in the depleted-uranium-polluted south.

That make-a-wish foundation should take those children, whose childhood we have collectively destroyed, to the precious museums and let them play with all those precious stones and tablets. The children should paint them with indelible ink. They should throw them to the ground from high buildings to see from which floor they pulverize most easily. They should be encouraged to play team games and see which team can hammer a tablet into dust fastest.

Maybe, just maybe, what must surely be the collective wish of all those children and their families will come true. Maybe, amidst the predictable outrage over crushed stone, the world will notice them.

And maybe, just maybe, the biggest miracle of all will happen without the Blue Fairy -- our hearts of stone will turn into flesh and blood.

Posted by zeynep at 10:42 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

If You Are Breathing, You are an Insurgent

By now, you've probably seen or heard of the incident, captured on camera, where marines go into a mosque where there prisoners, three of whom had been already shot in the head and, at least one, was wounded, still alive, and unarmed. One of the marines notices the man is breathing, shoots him in the head at point blank range and says "Well, he's dead now."

I know there will be an investigation. But here's what struck me: the other marines in the scene obviously didn't care. In other words, this would not have been a noteworthy incident had it not been captured on camera. This is just the way it works.

And why would we be surprised? Even the lowest estimates acknowledge at least 25,000 Fallujah residents were trapped in the city. The U.S. military urged them to stay in their houses during the fighting. Yet, the troops assumed that if you were alive, i.e. generating body heat, you were an insurgent, fair game:

But since US radio messages and leaflets urged Fallujans to remain in their houses during the assault, it is unclear how many were at home but lying low. Troops with thermal sights often assumed that if there was a "hot spot" inside a house -- indicating body heat -- the people inside were insurgents.

Another thing that's striking about looking at footage from the city is the level of destruction. Many, many houses seem flattened. Will we ever know how many "hot spots" were killed? Who they were?

Here's the thing, you can tell yourself a million excuses. (And you've heard them before: the insurgents were hiding behind women and children; we had to destroy the city so they could vote; we had to take revenge for what was done to the Blackwater mercenaries). The excuses only add to the the moral decay we're undergoing. But, also, the fact of the matter is that our excuses only fool ourselves. The whole world knows we don't care about Iraqi lives. And somehow, that's supposed to make us safer?

Posted by zeynep at 09:49 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

November 15, 2004

Mafia Administers Pension Funds Better than Wall Street

It turns out, at least in the case of Teamsters, the Mafia was better than Wall Street at administering the pension fund. Great to hear, isn't it? Especially since the Bush administration is trying hard to turn over our Social Security savings to these Wall Street fund managers.

Since 1982, under a consent decree with the federal government, the [teamster pension]fund has been run by prominent Wall Street firms and monitored by a federal court and the Labor Department. There have been no more shadowy investments, no more loans to crime bosses. Yet in these expert hands, the aging fund has fallen into greater financial peril than when James R. Hoffa, who built the Teamsters into a national power, used it as a slush fund.

Why? Well, for one thing, Wall Street managers want to make money for themselves, now. By the time you retire, the money managers that are making decisions now on how to invest "your" money have long retired themselves, and will not be accountable for their decisions. As things stand, they have an interest in "churning" -- carrying out many transactions, each of which generate a fee for the manager, regardless of the benefit to your account. They also take actions that make them look good now and hide problems. Results are predictably disastrous:

But the kinds of investments that make sense for such a fund - like long-term bonds that will mature as members enter retirement - are not attractive to most money managers, because they generate few fees. Consequently, very few pension funds use such strategies today.

...

Money managers promised pension funds big returns, and to get the big returns they began to add riskier assets to pension portfolios than pension funds had used before. Sleepy bond portfolios were livened up with stocks. Venture capital, junk bonds, securities of companies in developing countries and other exotica began to appear in pension funds.

That said, I think the most important reason the Bush administration wants to privatize Social Security is not these hefty fees and profits they will generate for their corporate backers. The real goal is ideological misdirection through the creation of a large number of households who hold some of their savings in stocks, and thus believe their interests to be congruent with the interests of corporations and "the stock market" when, in reality, it is more of a see-saw -- they rise as we fall.

Posted by zeynep at 05:21 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

No Longer Bothering with Cover, the Administration Dispenses with Powell

So, Powell resigns as expected. In any case, his misson is done. From the time he was sent to cover up My Lai, Powell has been just that: a cover. He was employed to muddy the waters when the administration was clearly bent on invading Iraq. He was purposely deployed at liberals who find it hard to criticize a black man.

This administration no longer needs him because it is no longer covering up; we are now at the brazen, in-your-face, "mandate" phase. Thus Powell can be discarded to take his shameful place in history, and be replaced by someone who will be even worse.

Here's an excerpt from a brief biography of Colin Powell from his lesser known activities in Vietnam, Panama and the first Gulf War. I especially like the part where he threatens to kill all four million residents of Baghdad.

VIETNAM:

In his memoirs, An American Journey on page 140 Gen. Powell writes, about the Vietnam war:

If a helo [helicopter] spotted a peasant in black pajamas who looked remotely suspicious, a possible MAM [military age male] the pilot would circle and fire in front of him. If he moved, his movement was judged evidence of hostile intent, and the next burst was not in front, but at him. Brutal? Maybe so.

Article Three of the Geneva Convention of 1949 to which the United States is a signatory, states that:

(1) Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria. To this end the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons:

(a) violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;

In his memoirs, General Powell also defends the U.S. practice of forcibly displacing peasants and destroying their homes, part of the "strategic hamlet" program – in fact, Gen. Powell's first "combat" assignment was in that program.

In 1968, he was charged with responding to a letter by Tom Glen, a soldier in the Americal division. The letter charged American soldiers with indiscriminately shooting into people’s homes and with severe beatings and torture of civilians. Without interviewing Glen, Powell wrote a response denying the allegations, claiming that "relations between Americal soldiers and the Vietnamese people are excellent." (The New Republic, 4/17/95). Given his involvement in the "strategic hamlet" program and the knowledge expressed in his memoirs of the brutal practices of American soldiers in Vietnam, he had to know his report was false. The report came out shortly after the My Lai massacre, in which hundreds of unarmed men, women and children were murdered and many women raped (Four Hours in My Lai: Penguin, 1993) – an atrocity committed by that same Americal division.

PANAMA:

Gen. Powell was the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the invasion of Panama. In his memoirs he states that he recommended the invasion to President Bush (Also see, Bob Woodward, The Commanders, 1993). Previously, the U.S. had supported the then dictator of Panama, Gen. Noriega. -- he was on the CIA’s payroll (Buckley, Panama: The Whole Story, 1991; George Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph: My Years as Secretary of State, 1993). In terms of international law, there is no difference between the invasion of Panama by the U.S. and the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq -- both are illegal. The number of civilian deaths caused by the invasion in Panama have been estimated to be between 1000 to 4000, greater than the number killed in Kuwait by the invasion of Iraq. The Central American Human Rights commission [CODEHUCA] studied the invasion and reached the following conclusions:

1) The U.S. Army used highly sophisticated and experimental weapons against unarmed civilian populations;

2) Estimates of the number of non- combatants killed run from as few as 2200 to as high as 4000 Many of the mostly black victims were residents of the El Chorrillos slum which was next to the Panamanian military headquarters and was razed to the ground in the attack;

3) U.S. efforts to obscure the actual death toll included massive incineration of corpses prior to identification, burial in mass graves prior to identification, and U.S. military control of administrative offices of hospitals and morgues;

4) "A thorough, well-planned propaganda campaign has been implemented by U.S. authorities to... deny the brutality and extensive human and material costs of the invasion." (CODEHUCA report submitted to Americas Watch 6/5/90)

US Ambassador to Panama Ambler Moss said his "gut instinct is that there is an awful lot of parties around there that have an interest in covering up numbers" (New York Times, 1/10/90) Catholic priest Diego Caffley, claimed that the invasion killed 3,000 people and that the main obstacle to learning the full number was the US Army Southern Command (La Republica, Costa Rica, 11/01/90) Washington Post Columnist Colman McCarthy commented on Powell's actions in Panama:

Of the victims of the one-sided, sure-thing massacre, Powell says the "loss of innocent life was tragic." Of course. Tut tut. This superficial expression of grief was a run-up comment to Powell's telling of "the lessons I absorbed from Panama": "Use all the force necessary, and do not apologize for going in big if that is what it takes." For sure. In the name of peace, kill as many women and children as get in the way of U.S. policies. (Washington Post, 10/3/1995)

GULF WAR
Colin Powell was the highest ranking military officer, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, during the Gulf War. He was thus directly involved in decision making at all levels. In his memoirs, Gen. Powell recounts drafting a warning to Saddam one day before the beginning of the fighting, on Jan. 15, 1991.

If driven to it, I wrote, we would destroy the dams on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and flood Baghdad, with horrendous consequences. (Powell, 1995; p.491)

The city of Baghdad that Gen Powell threatened to flood is home to 4 million civilians who are also victims of the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein.
...

Powell will now go back to collecting many, many pieces of silver for speaking engagements. I suggest that he team up with Kissinger and a few others for a "War Criminals All-Star Tour."

Posted by zeynep at 01:14 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Allawi Government Hints at "Delaying" "Elections"; World Gasps in Disbelief and Shock

We are all shocked, shocked:

Iraq's deputy prime minister has indicated for the first time that the much-heralded elections due in January could be derailed by the country's violent insurgency.

CORRECTION: It was deputy prime minister of Allawi, not Allawi himself who suggested that the vote could be delayed -- my headline was misleading. Thanks to Eli.

Posted by zeynep at 12:33 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Give 'em a Zipcode!

Here's USPS mail being "loaded on a truck for Marines inside Fallujah." Fallujah should obviously have its own zipcode, if it already doesn't:

Just one "Public Relations" note though. Maybe they should first let these Red Crescent aid trucks go in, which the U.S. military is still not allowing into the city, before delivering the mail. I know, I know, rain, sleet or snow...

Posted by zeynep at 12:28 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

At this rate, not a heart or mind will be left unshot at

Here's what President Bush would like you to believe has happened:

Bush Paints Rosy Picture of Iraq Situation AP, November 14, 2004

President Bush painted a rosy picture of the situation in Iraq, claiming significant progress Saturday in the U.S. military's battle in an insurgent stronghold.

In his weekly radio address, Bush praised the assault on Fallujah, west of Baghdad. About 80 percent of the city was said to be under U.S. control, with insurgents pushed into a narrow corner.
...
He said "support continues to grow" internationally for the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq, even though the multinational force will see some reductions in the coming months.

Here's a snapshot of what actually happened, from an AP photographer who had stayed behind in order to capture images -- it also tells you a good deal about why we don't have much details: everything that moved was shot at.

The 33-year-old Associated Press photographer [Bilal Hussein] stayed behind to capture insider images during the siege of the former insurgent stronghold.

...

In the hours and days that followed, heavy bombing raids and thunderous artillery shelling turned Hussein's northern Jolan neighborhood into a zone of rubble and death. The walls of his house were pockmarked by coalition fire.

"Destruction was everywhere. I saw people lying dead in the streets, wounded were bleeding and there was no one to come and help them. Even the civilians who stayed in Fallujah were too afraid to go out," he said.

"There was no medicine, water, no electricity nor food for days."

By Tuesday afternoon, as U.S. forces and Iraqi rebels engaged in fierce clashes in the heart of his neighborhood, Hussein snapped.

"U.S. soldiers began to open fire on the houses, so I decided that it was very dangerous to stay in my house," he said.

Hussein said he panicked, seizing on a plan to escape across the Euphrates River, which flows on the western side of the city

"I wasn't really thinking," he said. "Suddenly, I just had to get out. I didn't think there was any other choice."

In the rush, Hussein left behind his camera lens and a satellite telephone for transmitting his images. His lens, marked with the distinctive AP logo, was discovered two days later by U.S. Marines next to a dead man's body in a house in Jolan.

AP colleagues in the Baghdad bureau, who by then had not heard from Hussein in 48 hours, became even more worried.

Hussein moved from house to house dodging gunfire and reached the river.

"I decided to swim ... but I changed my mind after seeing U.S. helicopters firing on and killing people who tried to cross the river."

He watched horrified as a family of five was shot dead as they tried to cross. Then, he "helped bury a man by the river bank, with my own hands."

"I kept walking along the river for two hours and I could still see some U.S. snipers ready to shoot anyone who might swim. I quit the idea of crossing the river and walked for about five hours through orchards."

He met a peasant family, who gave him refuge in their house for two days. Hussein knew a driver in the region and sent a message to another AP colleague, Ali Ahmed, in nearby Ramadi.

At this rate, not a heart or mind will be left unshot at.

Posted by zeynep at 12:09 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

November 14, 2004

Fallujah as an Operation versus Fallujah as a Town

All men between the ages of 15 to 55 are being separated from refugee convoys and their families and turned back into the city:

As [the military]believes many of Fallujah's men are guerrilla fighters, it has instructed U.S. troops to turn back all males aged 15 to 55.

"We assume they'll go home and just wait out the storm or find a place that's safe," one 1st Cavalry Division officer, who declined to be named, said Thursday.

Army Col. Michael Formica, who leads forces isolating Fallujah, admits the rule sounds "callous." But he insists it's is key to the mission's success.

"Tell them 'Stay in your houses, stay away from windows and stay off the roof and you'll live through Fallujah,'" Formica, of the 1st Cavalry Division's 2nd Brigade, told his battalion commanders in a radio conference call Wednesday night.

Most of what you need to understand the nature of this war is right there when Army Col. Michael Formica advises Fallujans how to "live through Fallujah".

To this Army Col., Fallujah is not a place or a town but an operation to be lived through. It's a phase, a thing to be done and gotten over and through with. These people, on the other hand, live in Fallujah.

There's another thing about turning back men. It's a war crime.

Human rights experts said Friday that American soldiers might have committed a war crime on Thursday when they sent fleeing Iraqi civilians back into Fallujah.

Citing several articles of the Geneva Conventions, the experts said recognized laws of war require military forces to protect civilians as refugees and forbid returning them to a combat zone.

"This is highly problematical conduct in terms of exposing people to grave danger by returning them to an area where fighting is going on," said Jordan Paust, a law professor at the University of Houston and a former Army prosecutor.

James Ross, senior legal adviser to Human Rights Watch, said, "If that's what happened, it would be a war crime."

A stream of refugees, about 300 men, women and children, were detained by American soldiers as they left southern Fallujah by car and on foot. The women and children were allowed to proceed. The men were tested for any residues left by the handling of explosives. All tested negative, but they were sent back.

Note that these men tested negative for handling explosives. They weren't detained. They weren't charged. They were simply sent back into the war zone for the crime of being the rightful resident of a city that we are pounding into rubble.

A lot of people ask, well, why didn't they leave earlier? Forget the legality of everything we are doing and why people should have to leave their homes so we can flatten a city -- the effect of which will be to simply spread the "insurgents" around the country, as many experts have already pointed out. Forget the experts, that much is obvious if you think about it for more than ten seconds.

Remember this rule has been in effect since the cordon began. Men have been trapped in that city for sometime. Would you leave your 15 year old son, your husband, uncle, all your male relatives behind and go? Obviously, many people stayed with their families because, well, that's what families tend to do: they don't listen to your instructions to abandon their men. Of course, this "family values" administration neither understands or nor cares about such humanitarian concerns.

And so far, these families are stuck without water or electricity in a war zone, and aid agencies have been barred from entering the town:

FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters) -- An Iraqi Red Crescent aid convoy waiting at the edge of Falluja will not be allowed to enter the city center on Sunday, a U.S. Marine officer said.

"They will not be allowed to cross the bridge today," Capt. Adam Collier told Reuters at Falluja hospital, where the convoy is waiting to cross the Euphrates River into the main part of the embattled Iraqi city. He cited security reasons.

The Iraqi Red Crescent sent seven trucks and ambulances to Falluja on Saturday, hoping to get food, blankets, water purification tablets and medicine to hundreds of families trapped inside the city during the past six days of fighting.

To enter the city proper, the convoy will have to pass over one of two bridges spanning the Euphrates. U.S. forces have said that those bridges remain unsafe, even though the military has said it has taken almost full control of Falluja.

"We don't know when the bridge will be open for civilian traffic," Collier said.

Red Crescent officials, who are also trying to get aid to thousands of families who fled Falluja ahead of the offensive and are now sheltering in nearby towns and villages, said they would wait in Falluja's hospital until they can go in.

"We will wait for permission and we will stay here tonight," Jamal al-Karbouli, the leader of the convoy, said.

Those trapped inside the city, whose population was put at about 300,000 before the offensive but has fallen to around 60,000 according to some estimates, say they are reaching a point of desperation.

"Our situation is very hard," said one resident contacted by telephone in the central Hay al-Dubat neighborhood. "We don't have food or water. My seven children all have severe diarrhea.

"One of my sons was wounded by shrapnel last night and he's bleeding, but I can't do anything to help him," he told Reuters.

In fact, Empire Notes has a very compelling post why it may not be possible to "live through Fallujah." The rules of engagement have been changed so that "the Geneva Convention has been overtly and specifically abandoned, not just in the treatment of prisoners, but also in the conduct of military assaults." Anything that moves is a target. Any building that is under any suspicion is simply flattenned by air-strikes, sometimes using "bunker-buster"s.

Now, Centcom always tells us it was insurgents, but, seriously, not only do we not know that's the case, we know that Centcom doesn't know that's the case. Think about it: how could anyone know anything if we go around reducing buildings to rubble, bar all aid agencies from entering, make it impossible for anyone to go around by shooting at anything that moves? Empire Notes has a depressingly convincing round-up of evidence of our blatantly illegal rules of engagement. It's bleak, but it's a must-read.

And there's a simple reason it's illegal to shell and flatten any and all houses like that. In one case in a house in the heavily-shelled district, the reason was named Mustafa Adnan:

Reuters caption: An Iraqi nurse treats 2-year-old child Mustafa Adnan, at a Baghdad hospital, who lost a leg when his house in Falluja's Jolan district was shelled during fighting between U.S. forces and insurgents in the war-torn city November 14, 2004.

All this for what? To anyone willing to think for a minute, rather
than turn off their brain and swallow the official propaganda, this whole "blow to the insurgents" story obviously does not make sense. The argument that we had to do this so we could hold elections in Fallujah is even more laughable. There's barely a town left; Sunni groups are moving to boycott the elections; Allawi has declared martial-law -- and elections under military occupation and martial-law, well, usually aren't elections.

What's going on is revenge, plain and simple. Fallujah is being destroyed out of vindictiveness; as revenge for the four mercenaries who were killed and mutilated last spring:

And, along the Euphrates River, which runs through the city, The Associated Press reported Sunday that Marines were expected to reopen a Falluja bridge where -- on March 31 -- insurgents hanged the bodies of two American contractors who were killed and mutilated by militants. The attack on the contractors of Kellogg, Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton Co., sparked the first major U.S. military operation in Falluja, in April.

"This is a big event for us," the AP quoted Maj. Todd Des Grosseilliers, 41, from Auburn, Maine. "It's symbolic because the insurgents closed the bridge and we are going to reopen it."

AP caption: A US Marine of the 1st Division writes the words 'Dark Horse' on a beam of the bridge western Fallujah, Iraq, where the bodies of two American contractors killed by militants were strung up in March, sparking the earlier U.S. siege, Sunday, Nov. 14, 2004. An earlier message left by soldiers reads: 'This is for the Americans of Blackwater that were murdered here in 2004, Semper Fidelis 3/5.'

And remember, the anger in Fallujah that led to that horrible incident goes back to the year before that. On April 28 of 2003, right after the initial invasion, people of Fallujah, many of whom had opposed Saddam Hussein's tyranny and did not fight for him, held a demonstration. Who knows, maybe they watched too many Hollywood movies and thought that's the way to express a demand to the Americans. Charming notions, these primitives have. The U.S. military opened fire on the crowd, killing seventeen and wounding more than seventy. The military claimed that they had been fired upon from a school but a subsequent Human Rights Watch investigation found no evidence that was the case. All calls for an impartial investigation, accountability on the issue, an apology, compensation to the victims, something to show the people of Fallujah we weren't just a bunch of trigger-happy occupier army that viewed their lives as unimportant, disposable nuisances were unheeded -- and the incident, and the town, was ignored by U.S. public until those four mercenaries from Halliburton drove through town on March 31, 2004.

Posted by zeynep at 11:30 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

November 13, 2004

Six-Year-Old Wielding a Piece of Glass? 50,000 Volts It Is. Handcuffed Nine-Year-Old? Same.

What do you do when an agitated six year old is wielding a piece of broken glass? A first-grader? A little kid?

Shock him 50,000 volts, of course. What else?

MIAMI, Florida (AP) -- Police used a stun gun on a 6-year-old boy in his principal's office because he was wielding a piece of glass and threatening to hurt himself, officials said Thursday.

The boy, who was not identified, was shocked with 50,000 volts on October 20 at Kelsey Pharr Elementary School.

Principal Maria Mason called 911 after the child broke a picture frame in her office and waved a piece of glass, holding a security guard back.

When two Miami-Dade County police officers and a school officer arrived, the boy had already cut himself under his eye and on his hand.

The officers talked to the boy without success. When the boy cut his own leg, one officer shocked him with a Taser and another grabbed him to prevent him from falling, police said.

I've written about Tasers before -- these are the supposedly-safe "stun guns" that have killed 50-odd people, and are banned in many other countries. Tasers are rapidy spreading among police departments around the country. This is not the first time they've been used on children. In fact, there are many instances of these potentially lethal devices being used on children, including a handcuffed 9-year-old girl:

A handcuffed 9-year-old girl subdued with a Taser by South Tucson police is among a growing group of toddlers and youngsters the device has been used on nationally. Still, few local agencies or national oversight groups have age-specific guidelines for the use of the stun-gun device, though they advise officers to use caution with it and avoid firing at pregnant women and compliant suspects. A spokesman for the Scottsdale-based manufacturer of the device said Tasers do no more harm to children than adults and often results in less-serious injuries. ... There have been other kids hit by Tasers, though. Records kept by Taser International of Scottsdale show that as of six months ago, two 1-year-olds, one 2-year-old, two 3-year-olds, two 4-year-olds, one 5-year-old, one 6-year-old and one 7-year-old had been hit with Tasers, though most of the toddlers were hit inadvertently. Slightly older children also have been hit, including a 13-year-old Wisconsin girl wielding a samurai sword, another 13-year-old girl in Washington who fought with officers, and another 13-year-old girl in Chandler who also fought.

The manufacturer assures us it's safe, even on children. You trust them on that, don't you? Even with your child's life:

Phoenix-based Taser International, which supplies Miami-Dade police with stun guns, released a statement to The Herald in response to questions about the use of their guns on children.

Testing has shown a significant safety margin when using Tasers on ''subjects with body weight as low as 60 pounds,'' said Steve Tuttle, director of communications, in an e-mail.

There, feel better? Just ignore those pesky pediatric cardiologists:

Zapping a 6-year-old with 50,000 volts of electricity could cause permanent damage to the heart depending on the size of the child and other genetic factors, an expert in pediatric cardiology said.

''It is clear that certain electrical shocks in a susceptible child at the right dose can certainly cause the death and damage of heart muscle cells,'' said Dr. Steven Lipshultz, chairman of pediatrics at the University of Miami School of Medicine. ``But it really varies from child to child and dose to dose of electricity.''

He said he didn't have enough information to comment on police use of Tasers on children. He was not aware of any case of a Taser doing permanent harm to a child.

But, he said, the destruction of heart muscle cells from electrical current can have long-term implications for some children.

''If you destroy a heart muscle cell, it doesn't grow back,'' Lipshultz said. ``If a child lost enough heart muscle . . . when they grow up, it could put them at risk.''

Lipshultz added that if a 50,000-volt shock hits a child's heart in the wrong spot, it could cause an abnormal rhythm and kill the child.

And, of course, given that reassurance, what's the problem with shocking a 12 year old girl, unarmed and running away, for the crime of playing hooky from school?

A Miami-Dade police officer used a Taser to stop an unarmed, 12-year-old girl who was running away from him after she was caught skipping school, police acknowledged Friday night.

...

Officer William Nelson responded to an anonymous complaint that some kids were swimming in a West Kendall pool, drinking alcohol and smoking cigars about 11 a.m.

Nelson said he noticed the girl was intoxicated and told her to get dressed so he could take her back to school.

''While walking [the girl] to the police car, [she] took off running through the parking lot,'' Nelson wrote in his report.

Nelson, 38, a 15-year veteran, said he chased her and yelled several times for her to stop. Nelson said he pulled out the Taser and fired when the girl began to run into traffic.

The electric probes hit the girl in the neck and lower back, immobilizing her with 50,000 volts.

Nelson said he fired ''for my safety along with [the girl's] safety.'' He could not be reached for comment.

As you can guess, there are many reports of stun guns being used with impunity in prisons -- not so surprising given the sorry state of concern for prisoner's rights. But this isn't confined to prisons, other institutions are picking up the habit of shocking their residents, especially if they house vulnerable groups like the elderly or the mentally-ill. Earlier, a Los Angeles hospital was finally forced to ban using Tasers on patients with mental illnesses after federal health officials threatened to pull the plug on funding after many patients were shocked with the devices. Some of the children who were shocked with these weapons also suffered from mental illnesses, which often means that these are kids who were abused, neglected and traumatized -- in other words, the very children who have already been gravely betrayed by the adult world, and need the most compassion, patience and love we can muster.

So we're using these weapons on the ill, the young, the imprisoned -- the most vulnerable among us. Hmm, that rings a bell... Let me think... Values, moral values. Somebody whose name gets invoked a lot by politicans.

Wait, I know!

'For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.' "Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?' "The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.' [Matthew 25:35]

Okay, no need to worry, then. This administration and the conservative establishment will surely jump on this issue.

Posted by zeynep at 06:02 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

November 12, 2004

Somebody Tell Lt. Brandon Turner That He's Insane

This from the Los Angeles Times:

"We've got chunks of territory, but these guys (insurgents) are all over the place," Marine Lt. Brandon Turner said Thursday as he stood amid shattered glass and concrete under the green dome of Al Kalfa mosque, his fellow Marines resting on a plush red carpet.

"They just keep coming at us."

And here's the accompanying picture:

Somebody please tell Lt. Brandon Turner that he's insane, that the Pentagon is insane, whoever is allowing the marines or any American soldiers "rest" on that "plush red carpet" with their shoes, uniforms and machines guns is insane. Does anyone understand anything about religious feelings in general or about Islam in particular? Have they spent even half a day watching a documentary or two about Islam and noticed that people carefully and respectfully take their shoes off before entering a mosque, where they will kneel and put their head on that carpet? (Those "plush red carpets", by the way, are prayer rugs, or"sajjade." And you don't step on them with your combat boots, especially inside a mosque, and smile for the cameras unless you really want to fight to the death with up to a billion people.)

Seriously, this is either the most arrogant, incompetent, ignorant occupation, ever, or the most clever, insidious, skillful effort towards bringing about an apocalyptic world war. Are they asleep at the awheel, drowning under their own ignorance, or simply want to end life on earth as we know it?

Posted by zeynep at 12:44 AM | Comments (49) | TrackBack

They've Gone Native!

Operation "Phantom Fury", which sounds like a Star Wars prequel but was actually the name of the current project reducing Fallujah to rubble, has been renamed Operation al-Fajr, or "Dawn" in Arabic.

This apparently happened a few days ago, but I just noticed it. Wow, that's so convincing. An operation that is carried out entirely by U.S. airpower and almost entirely by U.S. ground forces gets an Arabic name and we can all pretend it's the Iraqis fighting anti-Iraqi forces to retake an Iraqi town. What occupation?

Too bad for the Pentagon that the charade seemed to convince only a few prominent liberal bloggers who complained that our troops were taking orders from the Iraqi government.

Posted by zeynep at 12:17 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Stop the Presses! Philip Morris Knew Smoking Kills!

Let me interrupt or regularly scheduled war carnage report to highlight this corporate carnage report. Philip Morris knew. And it hid that it knew.

Yes, I'm just as shocked.

Okay, I mean we knew they knew, and they knew we knew they knew. Still, it's good to have more proof:

Although the tobacco industry claimed for many years that it was not aware of the toxic effects of cigarettes, the researchers said material from internal industry documents revealed Philip Morris used a German research facility to study the health impact of smoking from the early 1970s.

"Arrangements were made to conceal the process, not only from the wider public, but also from many within Philip Morris, although some senior executives did know," said Martin McKee, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in London, in research published online by The Lancet medical journal.

"We have successfully defended against them," said John Wunderli, a lawyer for Altria. [The new name for Philip Morris]

Now, don't you love that phrasing? "We have successfully defended against them." Not that they were lies, not that they were wrong but just that the accusers weren't able to prove it and overpower the corporate lawyer machinery in the past. Notice the trick. When you tell them you have new evidence now they reply that you didn't have enough evidence before. Pretty good, no?

Good thing that lawyer is probably making too much money to consider a job at the press outreach section of the Pentagon, no? He'd fit right in.

Posted by zeynep at 12:05 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

November 11, 2004

Nuclear Whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu Has Been Rearrested -- Do Something.

A few years ago, a friend of mine told me of his visit to the Robben Island prison in South Africa, where Nelson Mandela was jailed for 27 years. My friend, a journalist from India who reports mostly on the harsh lives and struggles of the "untouchable" castes, and a bunch of the usual dignitaries were taken to the island during an international conference. Robben Island has now become a tourist attraction, apparently, an obligatory visit.

But, of course, some things never become ordinary and encountering true human courage is one of those. The visitors were greeted by an old black man who would act as their guide. He welcomed them by saying, "Ladies and gentleman, welcome to Robben Island, one of the apartheid regime's prison. I spent 15 years here for your freedom."

Mordechai Vanunu, the Israeli nuclear whistleblower who spent 18 years in jail in Israel --more than 11 of it in solitary confinement-- trying to further the cause of our freedom to live free of the most horrific weapons of mass destruction, has just been rearrested. The pretext is the flimsiest: that he was revealing "classified information." The whole world knows Vanunu has no more secrets to reveal; he has already told the world all that he knew from his time as a technician at the secret Israeli nuclear plant in Dimona.

His real crime is that he wasn't broken by the prison, by the solitary confinement. He wasn't even bitter: he emerged from the long ordeal as a calm, confident believer in peace, a steady opponent of nuclear weapons. The Israeli goverment slapped on him ridiculous restrictions: can't talk to foreigners, can't talk to press, can't leave the country, can't do this, can't do that. It's obvious that what they are afraid of is not some alleged secrets that he possesses, but his brave voice.

Vanunu did not seek to be a hero, he was just looking for a job when he landed at the heart of Israel's nuclear program. He has, however, more than lived up to the challenge life thrust upon him. His rearrest is a crucial test for all of us. It's clear his arrest was timed to take place when most news organizations were covering Arafat's death. They are betting we will ignore this outrage.

If we let Mordechai Vanunu once again be disappeared into the Israeli jails, who will want to fight for our freedom again? If he can be snatched by "20 police commandos wearing bulletproof vests and wielding machine guns" without worldwide outrage, who will want to be a whistleblower again?

Right now, the campaign that was formed earlier to demand his release is putting out a call to everyone to contact the Israeli Embassy to demand his release. Here are the phone numbers in the United States:

Israeli Embassy: (202) 364-5500
email: ambassador_sec@israelemb.org
fax: 202-364-5607
Public & Interreligious Affairs: (202) 364-5542
Political Department: (202)364-5581/2
Press Office: (202) 364-5538

If you are not in the United States, contact the Israeli ambassador in your country: http://www.embassyworld.com/embassy/israel1.html.

I urge you to pick up the phone and call the embassy. Then write a fax. Then write an email. Then organize a demonstration in front of the embassy. Call your paper and demand that they cover this story.

And be outraged not because it's the right thing to do and what has happened is outrageous, but also because if we run out of his kind of people though abandoning them when they need us, we have no hope left.

Posted by zeynep at 12:47 PM | Comments (10) | TrackBack

Business As Usual

A few days ago, I wrote of a soldier who had ordered an ill Iraqi detainee, Nagem Hatab, dragged by his neck out of his cell -- the detainee, who was also beaten up, died when his neck broke. (Medical evidence, however, was not introduced in the trial because we lost parts of this man's body. Yes, we lost parts of his body after killing him by breaking his neck by dragging him by the neck when he was too ill to stand up. Let me write that again: we lost parts of this man's body after killing him by breaking his neck by dragging him by the neck when he was too ill to stand up:

On Monday, Paulus testified that he ordered a lance corporal to drag Hatab by the neck because it was the only area that wasn't covered with feces. But under questioning from the military judge, Col. Robert Chester, Paulus acknowledged that Hatab's arms were clean. He said he didn't think to order his men to drag the inmate by his arms.

Here's what happened to Nagem Hatab's body parts:

The Army pathologist who autopsied the Iraqi, Nagem Hatab, found his larynx in her freezer at an Army base in Germany. An unmarked rib cage that may be Hatab’s was found at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Washington, D.C.

...

Hatab’s organs, which were removed during the autopsy, were destroyed when they were left for hours in the blazing heat on an Iraqi airstrip. A summary of an interrogation the Marines conducted with Hatab shortly before his death at the camp also is missing, as is a photo of Hatab taken during questioning.

Then, we acquitted the man who ordered this of the most serious charge so his punishment is ... nothing. He will be dismissed from the service. That's all. That's it:

Paulus, 36, of the Philadelphia suburb of Buckingham, Pa., commanded the Marine detention facility at Camp Whitehorse in southern Iraq. He was accused of ordering a subordinate to drag Nagem Sadoon Hatab by the neck out of a cell in June 2003 after the man suffered a bout of diarrhea.

Hatab was stripped naked and left outside for seven hours before he was found dead.

The jury deliberated for about six hours before finding Paulus guilty Wednesday.

...

Paulus was acquitted of the most serious charge of assault and battery.

...

A jury of Marine Corps officers on Wednesday found a major guilty of maltreatment and dereliction of duty in connection with the death of an Iraqi prisoner and sentenced him to be dismissed from the service.

And the men who did the beating and the dragging? He was sentenced to 60 days of hard labor and demoted to private. Yes, that's it.

This isn't even news, of course. You'd be hard-pressed to find it in your paper; perhaps it will be a paragraph somewhere down in page seventeen. It will probably not even be mentioned on television.

But this man has a family. He has a country. People will know, even if we don't.

Now, I don't know about Nagem Hatab. Maybe he was one of the 70 to 90 percent of the detainees estimated by the Red Cross to have been simply swept up in raids. I know he was a member of the Baath party -- but I don't know if he was one of the large numbers of people who joined the party because you pretty much had to? All we know is that he was accused of having sold a rifle that was believed come from a convoy of American soldiers that were ambushed.

Roy testified Wednesday that Pittman struck Hatab in the chest a day after the inmate arrived at Camp Whitehorse. Hatab fell to the ground, asked in English ``Why? Why? Why?'' and told the guards he had 11 children.

Roy said he replied: ``What about those people who were in the ambush you got this rifle from? What about their children?''

In the end, we don't know much about Hatab and we probaby won't know. What we do know is that we have joined the ranks of countries where this is "business as usual." The "accused" that come from among the ranks of the untermenschen get tortured and killed without much thought or punishment. Guilt is presumed. The right to kill them is assumed. And just as it says in the song about the murder of South African freedom fighter Steve Biko, the eyes of the word are watching now, even as we collectively close ours and pretend none of this is happenning:

"Biko" September '77 Port Elizabeth weather fine It was business as usual In police room 619 Oh Biko, Biko, because Biko Oh Biko, Biko, because Biko Yihla Moja, Yihla Moja -The man is dead ... And the eyes of the world are watching now watching now

Posted by zeynep at 10:41 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Arafat Dies

Ramzy Baroud of the Palestine Chronicle puts it all in perspective:

As a child I often witnessed Israeli soldiers forcing young Palestinians to their knees in my refugee camp in Gaza, threatening to beat them if they did not spit upon a photo of Yasser Arafat. "Say Arafat is a jackass," the soldiers would scream. No one would exchange his safety for insulting an image of Arafat. They would endure pain and injury, but would say nothing.

It was not the character of Arafat that induced such resilience but what the man represented. This explains why Gazans stood enthralled as Abu Ammar spoke upon his return following the signing of Oslo. Retrospectively, it also explains the level of betrayal that many Palestinians felt when their icon, who in some ways had been deified in his exile, failed to live up to their expectations upon his return to the homeland.

...

In the days that follow Israel, the US and Arab regimes will be scrambling to ensure that the post-Arafat era serves them best. In the case of Arab governments this era must absolve them from any meaningful responsibility towards Palestine and her people. But Palestinians are resilient. They will learn how to deal with life without Arafat and his mystique. Their national unity remains and it will strengthen their fight, even in grief. Warriors, sages and leaders come and go, some linger a bit more than others, but the march to freedom will certainly carry on, for the "mountain cannot be shaken by the wind".

Posted by zeynep at 12:33 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

November 10, 2004

Mr. Torture-Is-Okay-and-Texas-Not-Part-Of-U.S. About to Be Appointed Attorney General

How surprising:

The officials, who asked to remain unidentified, said Bush was moving quickly to fill the vacancy left by the resignation of Attorney General John Ashcroft, which was announced on Tuesday night.

[Alberto] Gonzales, 49, is a trusted adviser to Bush and a former Texas Supreme Court justice and often considered a possible Bush nominee to the Supreme Court.

Former Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson had been considered a candidate for attorney general, but after Bush's re-election last week he made it clear he wanted to remain general counsel at PepsiCo Inc.

If he is selected, Gonzales' Senate confirmation hearing would likely delve into what role he played in a legal opinion that defined the treatment of prisoners in Afghanistan and Iraq, which critics said contributed to the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, a charge denied by the administration.

In classified memos that were released in June, administration lawyers argued that Bush, as commander in chief, was not restricted by prohibitions on torture enshrined in U.S. law and international treaties due to the president's "complete authority over the conduct of war," including interrogations.

For those of you trying to keep up with who's who in this great administration remember that last year, in his capacity of White House legal counsel, Alberto Gonzales authored memos which basically argued that we should declare that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to our actions because this "substantially reduced the threat of domestic criminal prosecution under the War Crimes Act (18 U.S.C. 2441)." -- because violating the Geneva Conventions is illegal under that act.

Got that? If you declare the law does not apply, it's harder for them to prosecute you for breaking that law, he's arguing. It's like the speeder declaring the speed limit does not apply. (I wrote a run-down of the various memos and legal opinions here.)

But wait, it gets better. Gonzales had opined in 1997 that the State of Texas was not bound by international treaties signed by the United States -- when Texas executed a Mexican-national who was interrogated and tried without letting him contact his embassy and made to sign a confession in English, which he thought was an immigration document -- clearly a violation of international treaties in this matter. Here's part of what I wrote about it then:

The current White House chief legal counsel Alberto Gonzales, who had been widely rumored to be the next Supreme Court Nominee before authoring the latest memos arguing the president was not bound by international or domestic law, had opined in the past that the State of Texas was not bound by international treaties signed by the United States.

There goes a few hundred years of precedent along with the United States constitution, but, hey, we got to execute a Mexican national who did not speak English and who signed a murder confession thinking it was an immigration document, without a translator or lawyer present

...

I wondered if [Gonzales] found it odd that nobody asked for his passport when he left Texas for D.C.

Ashcroft, go forth in comfort. You have been one-upped.

Posted by zeynep at 12:34 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

How Dare You Show Pictures of Dead Soldiers.... Unless, Of Course, We Do It

Remember the brouhaha and the massive outpouring of outrage when Al-Jazeera had aired some pictures of dead American soldiers last year? Which was even more blatantly hypocritical since Al-Jazeera routinely airs pictures of dead people on all sides: Iraqis, Americans, hostages, soldiers and non-soldiers. On the other hand, American media will almost never show you pictures of dead Iraqi children or women killed by our weapons, but will show lots pictures of dead Iraqi soldiers, insurgents -- which makes it look like we only kill soldiers or otherwise armed men.

In that sense, our media is much more part of the propaganda apparatus of the Pentagon than Al-Jazeera is part of the propaganda aparatus of the Iraqi resistance. Well, here's another example from the New York Times, a man identified as an insurgent is lying on the street, shot in the head. It looks very similar to the pictures published last fall by Al-Jazeera.

So, where's the outrage? Does anyone even notice the hypocrisy?

UPDATE: Ok, let me add this one:

The caption? "From inside a mosque, marines continued to fight for control of Falluja." Remember that one the next time Rumsfeld explains how wrong and immoral it is for the insurgents to fire from inside mosques.

Posted by zeynep at 11:51 AM | Comments (9) | TrackBack

Orwell, Ye of Little Imagination

Orwell had nothing on these guys:

"Coalition forces are now moving into Fallouja to bring to justice those who are willing to kill the innocent, and those who are trying to terrorize the Iraqi people and our coalition, those who want to stop democracy," Bush said.

And here's Blair:

Under increasing fire at home, with the failure to find weapons of mass destruction having shot down one of the chief arguments for invading Iraq, Blair linked the battle for Fallujah to the broader war on terror.

"Many of those in Fallujah are foreign jihadists (Muslim holy warriors)," who have entered Iraq from outside, he said. "They are not people who have got any right to be in Iraq at all."

Again, how do you think this sounds to the Iraqi people who have been watching their innocents killed, tortured and terrorized, their wishes for democracy smothered by an occupation that cancelled local elections and appointed hand-picked mayors even though at the time this was done, around June of 2003, it was perfectly possible to hold elections since the security situation hadn't detoriated and there was still a lot of "wait-and-see" goodwill towards the occupation. And it is this very occupation that continues to try to set-up sham elections and simply blocks elections when it looks like it won't be a sham election, while continuing to bomb their cities under the guise of promoting elections.

And don't get me started on foreigners who have no right to be in Iraq.

Posted by zeynep at 11:02 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

November 09, 2004

"Attention, attention, terrorists of Fallujah"

Our Psy-Ops sure are talented folks:

A psychological operations unit broadcast announcements in Arabic meant to draw out gunmen. An Iraqi translator from the group said through a loudspeaker: "Brave terrorists, I am waiting here for the brave terrorists. Come and kill us. Plant small bombs on roadsides. Attention, attention, terrorists of Fallujah."

No, I'm not making this up. It would require a lot more comedic talent than I possess. I suspect it's the same people who came up with ""Taliban are Women; They're Bitches"" announcements in Afghanistan.

What's next? Raffles for Terrorists? Toaster-oven giveaways for the first five to show up?

Also, why small bombs?

UPDATE: The link in the above story went to a piece about Turkey-flavored soda. I have no idea why -- cyber-wormholes or something. It's now been corrected.

Posted by zeynep at 05:55 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

Umm, Who Are We kidding Again?

At the New York Times main website today, the central picture is a photo of two soldiers inside a building with sunlight streaming in from the windows -- captioned "Protecting the Islamic cultural center in Falluja was one the U.S. objectives today."

Well, thanks, I spat out my coffee chuckling. The New York Times is well-advised to tone down its level of sucking up to the Pentagon -- there is a point at which it becomes so ridiculous that it backfires.

It's obvious we've abandoned any pretense of propaganda aimed at the Iraqi people -- it is kind of hard when they're being bombed. And most of the rest of their propaganda efforts are so aimed at the domestic populace since, again obviously, you can't make Iraqi people believe lies about what's happenning right in front of their eyes: "In Fallujah, Iraqi Forces are attacking Anti-Iraqi Forces", "No Civilians Will Be Harmed in the Making of Your News Unless It Was Their Fault", and "Allawi is an Independent, Legitimate Iraqi Leader We Happen to Be Supporting"...

But, puh-lease. "Protecting the Islamic cultural center in Falluja was one the U.S. objectives today"? As the most central, visible message of the day, on this day? Chill out, liberal media.

UPDATE: That picture has now moved to the inside pages, replaced by an equally useless --but less outright ridiculous-- "Marines deployed smoke screens as they guarded American tanks." Anyway, here it is:

Caption: "Protecting the Islamic cultural center in Falluja was one the the marine's objectives today."

Posted by zeynep at 01:47 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

"Bombing had gone on all day with only a 15-minute respite"

Bomb the city, bomb clinics, say it's all their fault, rinse and repeat.

One Fallouja resident, Adnan Mohammed Falluji, 37, an engineer who was reached by phone Monday night, said the bombing had gone on all day with only a 15-minute respite. "They were bombing both sides of the city with airplanes and artillery. Then the tanks started to bomb the center of the city," he said.

Dr. Hamid Mohammed, speaking from a makeshift clinic that is serving Falloujans after U.S. and Iraqi forces took over Fallouja General Hospital early Monday, said that 15 dead and 20 injured people had been brought to the clinic.

"There are women and children among them."

That clinic was bombed this morning by the Americans, several witnesses said. It was unclear whether it was still receiving patients.

Despite being advised to leave the city, up to 150,000 residents may remain in Fallouja. In a visit to Iraqi troops accompanying the Americans on Monday, Allawi urged the soldiers to try to avoid civilian casualties and limit raids to places where anti-government forces are holed up.

And everyone keeps repeating this nonsense that the U.S. strategy was based on "training Iraqi army" to "take over security."

This week's battle began with a mixture of confidence and disappointment for U.S. commanders, whose strategy for stabilizing Iraq is based on training Iraqi army and other forces to take over security in the nation.

Upon learning that they would form the vanguard of the Fallouja invasion, an undetermined number of Iraqi troops deserted their units before the battle began, Casey, the top U.S. commander, acknowledged. One Iraqi battalion shrank from more than 500 to 170 over the past week, a National Public Radio correspondent who accompanied U.S. forces said.

I don't know which is better: that the U.S. commanders are so stupid that they actually believe Iraqi forces will take over to "take over" bombing their own cities or that our journalists are so unethical that they keep repeating this as the actual goal that we're striving towards rather than a thinly-veiled propaganda line used to justify our obviously unwelcome presence in somebody else's country.

Posted by zeynep at 11:58 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

All Men are Our Enemies

Here's more from Rumsfeld's press conference yesterday:

Civilians in the city of Fallujah got plenty of warning to steer clear of the fighting between U.S. and insurgent forces, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said in predicting "there aren't going to be large numbers" of civilians killed there.

"Innocent civilians in that city have all the guidance they need as to how they can avoid getting into trouble," Rumsfeld told a Pentagon news conference Monday. He referred to a round-the-clock curfew and other emergency measures announced by interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi.

"There aren't going to be large numbers of civilians killed and certainly not by U.S. forces," Rumsfeld said.

...

Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, appeared with Rumsfeld and said it's likely the insurgents will try to use civilians as shields against attacking U.S. troops.

For one thing, they would not let any man under the age 45 to leave Fallujah. What does it say about the nature of your occupation that you consider all men of fighting age to be your enemy. Plus, what gives you the right to say we will flatten your city -- and it's not our problem if you stay with male members of your family, whom we will kill? We are not responsible for killing people who refuse to leave behind their 17 year old son or cousin?

I've said this often: this is the test of whether or not an occupation has even any transitory justification. If you consider all males of military age to be "enemies," and if these "enemies" and the civilian population seem to be undistinguishable, you're in the wrong country. It means the whole country is united against you and your occupation and the only thing to do is a swift and expeditious withdrawal.
What's the alternative, kill all men? That does seem to be the plan.

Posted by zeynep at 11:38 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

November 08, 2004

Is This an Iraqi Operation Against Anti-Iraqi Forces? Absolutely. Are Americans in Control? Yes. Are We Calling the Shots? Sure. Can This Blog Parody Rumsfeld-Speak? Maybe.

A commenter to the previous post noted this:

"Watching some cable news over lunch, and that includes CNN, Fox, and MSNBC, you seriously would have the idea that this is an Iraqi operation, ordered by the Iraqi government, performed in significant measure by Iraqi forces. The propaganda component is simply overwhelming, from all corners.

Well, let's look at the math a bit. Pentagon's most ambitious claims is that 2,000 Iraqis are involved in this operation, compared to 10,000 U.S. troops. Already, even taking Pentagon's numbers at face value, this hardly looks like a "Iraqi operation":

Pentagon officials said the operation involves more than 2,000 Iraqis and about 10,000 U.S. troops.

Of course, even that 2,000 is the number of people who are supposed to be there. Early reports are that most have already deserted:

A National Public Radio correspondent embedded with the Marines outside Fallujah reported desertions among the Iraqis. One Iraqi battalion shrunk from over 500 men down to 170 over the past two week - with 255 members quitting over the weekend, the correspondent said.

And the Muslim Clerics Association has now openly called for desertion:

Hours before the assault, the Muslim Clerics Association, a national group with influence over some rebels in Falluja, urged Iraqi troops not to join the U.S.-led action.

"We call on the Iraqi forces, the National Guard and others who are mostly Muslims ... to beware of making the grave mistake of invading Iraqi cities under the banner of forces who respect no religion or human rights," it said in a statement.

"Beware of being deceived that you are fighting terrorists from outside the country, because by God you are fighting the townspeople and targeting its men, women and children and history will record every drop of blood you spill in oppressing the people of your nation."

What's their problem?

Well, maybe this:

Missiles rained down indiscriminately on the city, with the action most intense in the Askari district in the northeast and Jolan in the northwest.

"They are in the process of incinerating the sector," a Jolan local said.

But, hey, look on the bright side. Remember how U.S. officals always invoke the danger of civil war as a to continue occupying the country? I must admit, they have a point. Nothing like an assault on a city by an occupation to unite Iraqis:

Anti-U.S. Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr joined a call by a powerful Sunni Muslim group, saying the siege of Falluja risked further destabilizing the rest of Iraq.

"We have called on the Iraqi National Guard, army and police not to participate with the occupation forces in attacking Falluja," Sadr spokesman Abdul Hadi al-Darraji told Reuters.

Posted by zeynep at 10:13 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Dragged a Man to Death? You're Grounded, I mean Demoted, to Private

While Fallujah burns, here's some more news about torture, ahem, unfortunate abuse that some unlucky Iraqis have suffered at the hands of well-meaning American soldiers.

In this case, Nagem Hatab, was dragged by the neck till his neck broke. Somehow, we lost some of his bodyparts so no medical evidence could be introduced. The previous person tried in the case got demoted to private and 60 -sixty- days of hard labor. Major Clarke Paulus, who's being tried now, has just had his charges reduced from aggravated assault to assault and battery:

Maj. Clarke Paulus is accused of ordering a subordinate to drag Nagem Hatab, 52, by the neck from a holding cell at a Marine detention facility in Iraq on June 6, 2003. Hatab died shortly afterward; a military forensics examiner found he broke a bone in his neck and suffocated.

Military judge Col. Robert Chester barred all medical evidence from the trial because some of Hatab's body parts have been lost.

After the prosecution rested its case Friday, the judge reduced the most serious charge against Paulus from aggravated assault to assault and battery. Paulus had faced up to four and a half years in prison; he now faces a maximum of 18 months.

Paulus, of New Hope, Pa., testified Monday that Hatab had to be moved from a cell he shared with other prisoners because he had diarrhea. When guards tried to get the Iraqi to stand, he fell into barbed wire. Paulus said he then ordered a lance corporal to drag Hatab by the neck.

"It was the only area that didn't have feces on it," Paulus testified.

Paulus said he watched as Hatab was dragged about 20 feet and saw no signs of choking. He said if he had, he would have stopped it. He said a medic determined Hatab's vital signs were normal.

Paulus said Hatab showed no signs of distress — even when he grabbed onto barbed wire as he fell. He said he still believed Hatab was faking.

"How many people in your life do you know that can fake diarrhea?" prosecuting lawyer Maj. Leon Francis asked during cross-examination. "None that I know," Paulus replied.

Asked about the hold used to drag Hatab, Paulus also said: "Did I think it could cause an injury? ... In some cases, yes; in this case, no."

In September, a Marine sergeant, Gary Pittman, was acquitted of abusing Hatab but convicted of assaulting prisoners. He was sentenced to 60 days of hard labor and demoted to private. Charges against six others have been dismissed.

That's why they hate us, our culture of life.

Posted by zeynep at 09:56 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

No More Pretense

No more pretense about what we are doing:

In April, American troops were closing in on the city center when popular uprisings broke out in cities across Iraq. The outrage, fed by mostly unconfirmed reports of large civilian casualties, forced the Americans to withdraw. American commanders regarded the reports as inflated, but it was impossible to determine independently how many civilians had been killed. The hospital was selected as an early target because the American military believed that it was the source of rumors about heavy casualties. "It's a center of propaganda," a senior American officer said Sunday. This time around, the American military intends to fight its own information war, countering or squelching what has been one of the insurgents' most potent weapons.

This time around, the American military intends to fight its own information war, countering or squelching what has been one of the insurgents' most potent weapons. The military hopes that if it can hold its own in that war, then the armed invasion - involving as many as 25,000 American and Iraqi troops, all told - will smash what has become the largest remaining insurgent stronghold in Iraq.

Got that? Hospitals spread the news of civilian casualties so them must be targeted as part of the "information war."

And note how the many hundreds of people killed in the last siege have become mere "inflated" reports. (At the time, the BBC reported that "a group of five international charities estimated that about 470 people had been killed, while hospital officials put the death toll at about 600" -- and Iraq Body Count has done an extensive study which corroborates these estimates.)

The New York Times also has another article on the targeting of the hospital that is almost a self-parody of propaganda. In the usual self-important tone, it reports that:

[American officials] have made little secret of their irritation with what they contend are inflated civilian casualty figures that regularly flow from the hospital - propaganda, they believe, for the Falluja insurgents, whom they blame for much of the car bombings, beheadings and other acts of terror in Iraq.

Think about the above quote. Forget that it's said by our military, which is bad enough, but imagine what it means that our leading "liberal" newspaper is reporting this snippet without comment. While it's always a tricky question to determine at what point "I'm just doing my job" is not good enough an excuse, I find it hard to forgive reporting that claim without an accompanying explanation of well-confirmed reports of actual massive civilian casualties in Fallujah -- let alone, laws of war regarding protection of hospitals.

The article goes out of its way to try to justify what has been done but at the end of the shameful day, there isn't much to say. The American Special Forces found a Moroccan fighter in a wheelchair who claimed there were four other foreign fighters being treated in the hospital -- which is what hospitals do, they treat all people who show up injured at their door. It would be wrong of them not to so there is no point there. And if one guy in a wheelchair doesn't sound scary enough, here's what else they found:

American troops said they found four or five men at the hospital armed with Kalashnikov rifles, and at least one hand grenade. A poster hanging in an examination room on the first floor displayed scenes of carnage in Iraq and a row of flag-draped American coffins. The writing on the poster encouraged jihad, a translator said.

Perhaps the most intriguing discovery of the night - aside from the Moroccan - were two cellphones found on the roof of the hospital. The Americans said they were clear evidence that someone was monitoring the area in front of the hospital.

"Cellphones work fine on the first floor, if you want to talk to your family," the American Special Forces commander said. "It's pretty clear they were on the roof spotting."

Make no mistake, there is no question that we can flatten Fallujah. We can also play all these propaganda games amongst ourselves, between Centcom releases, New York Times, Fox News, our fight against "anti-Iraqi forces," no civilian casualties except a few regrettable incidents that is to be blamed on the terrorists, blah, blah, blah... But trust me, nobody, nobody else is buying it.

Posted by zeynep at 12:22 AM | Comments (8) | TrackBack

November 07, 2004

Spreading the Word

"By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another." (John 13:15).

Meanwhile, AP provides this picture with this caption: "A boy recovers in a Fallujah hospital after a U.S. airstrike in Fallujah, Iraq Saturday, Nov. 6, 2004, which killed his father, according to hospital officials. U.S. jets pounded Fallujah early Saturday in the heaviest airstrikes in six months, including five 500-pound bombs dropped on insurgent targets." (I guess AP knows that the bomb was dropped on 'insurgent targets' because this is so obviously a terrorist baby.)

I wonder, if the terrorist baby was in this hospital:

Or this one:

In any case, Colonel Gary Brandl and other marines obviously know what they're doing [thanks to Under the Same Sun reader Reko]:

Colonel Gary Brandl of the United States Marine Corps commented: "The enemy has a face. It is Satan's. He is in Fallujah, and we are going to destroy him."

Posted by zeynep at 09:28 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

November 06, 2004

Where Are Your Values

From left i on the news, always a source of incisive analysis:

"Values voters"...

...are looking forward with anticipation to the assault on Fallujah and the impending death of hundreds or thousands of people.

...think that employing antiseptic euphemisms like "mopping up" are perfectly appropriate when it comes to killing people.

...go to church and listen to sermons about the "right to life," but never once hear any reference in those sermons to the 100,000, or 30,000, or 15,000 (however many it is) Iraqis, most of them unarmed non-combatants, who have been killed by the U.S. invasion.

Posted by zeynep at 08:45 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

November 05, 2004

Advice on How to Win Elections: Kill a Retarded Man, Don't Oppose Racism

Here's Nicholas Kristoff, with more of the brilliant advice everyone's throwing at the Democrats about how to win:

I wish that winning were just a matter of presentation. But it's not. It involves compromising on principles. Bill Clinton won his credibility in the heartland partly by going home to Little Rock during the 1992 campaign to preside over the execution of a mentally disabled convict named Ricky Ray Rector.

There was a moral ambiguity about Mr. Clinton's clambering to power over Mr. Rector's corpse. But unless Democrats compromise, they'll be proud and true and losers.

So what do the Democrats need to do?

...

• Pick battles of substance, not symbolism. The battle over Georgia's Confederate flag cost Roy Barnes his governorship and perhaps Max Cleland his Senate seat, but didn't help one working mother or jobless worker. It was a gift to Republicans.

You would have thought even a white guy would realize that racism is not a question of symbolism, especially not in the South. Confederate flag bearers are not just celebrating one of the greatest crimes in human history, but claiming their intent to keep white privilege intact. Yes, there are other complications to this story -- the downward mobility of the white lower middle class, the rapidly changing cultural landscape, etc. Still, hasn't history shown us victims are fully capable of turning vicious against those on lower-rungs, against whom they can maintain feelings of superiority and supremacy?

But, anyway, what more do you need to say about the state of our "moral values" when a widely-published, well-respected pundit can say in a matter-of-fact fashion that executing a retarded man is the way to win election in the heartland.

I guess this is what Bush means by "culture of life" -- the more you kill, the more "values" you acquire, the more votes you get. And we're supposed to believe that this heartland is against abortion because they value life and not because they seek control over women?

UPDATE: I should have mentioned that Ricky Ray Rector, the mentally disabled convict --he was practically lobotimized after shooting himself in the head right after shooting and killing a police officer-- that Clinton rushed back to Arkansas to execute during the 1992 presidential campaign was black. That wasn't hard to guess though, was it?

Posted by zeynep at 11:54 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

As Fallujah Awaits Its Destruction

They are not going to wait even a few days to establish the principle of naked force in Fallujah:

"U.S. troops sealed all roads to Falluja and urged women, children and non-fighting age men to flee, but said they would arrest any man under 45 trying to enter or leave the city."

It's not enough that we laid siege to your city in spring and laid waste to it. It's not enough we've been pounding from the air you since then, killing untold numbers. We will now kill all your men and all your women and children who refuse to abandon their men and their city.

No morals, no shame, no humanity.

Posted by zeynep at 06:48 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Reaching Across the Aisle

Isn't it unbelievable that some people, Democratic presidential candidates among them, still haven't figured this out: "If Bush 'reaches across the aisle,' it will be to strangle his opponents."

After stealing the first election, the Bushies ruled like they were elected king. After perhaps stealing, perhaps winning (will we ever know with all these machines that the Republicans made sure had no paper trail or serious auditing and all the "spoiled" ballots?) this election with a three percent margin, they will now rule like they were appointed God.

Posted by zeynep at 03:14 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Lessons on How to Report an Impending Assault on a City

G.I.'s Itch to Prove Their Mettle in Falluja

For many marines here, the order cannot come too soon. After a long summer of cat-and-mouse games with shadowy insurgents, they are hungry for a decisive battle.

"Locked, cocked and ready to rock," said Lance Cpl. Dimitri Gavriel, 29, who left an investment banking job in Manhattan 18 months ago to enlist, using a popular Marine expression. "That's about how we feel."

What do you say to this glorification of the imminent destruction of a city where we killed at least 600 people last time around, and who knows how many since then?

The piece also offers insights into the psychology of these people who will soon attack this city with overwhelming firepower:

"It's kind of like the cancer of Iraq," said Lt. Steven Berch, a lanky platoon commander, speaking of Falluja. "It's become a kind of hotel for the insurgents. Hopefully getting rid of them will help to stabilize the whole country."

Others point to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian militant who is said to be using Falluja as a base.

"We're doing the right thing here," said First Lt. Christopher Wilkens, pausing for breath during a drill. "These guys are terrorists, there are connections to Al Qaeda, and fighting them is what we came here to do."

Cancer of Iraq. I really wonder how people of Iraq would react to that description? And would the readers of New York Times ever hear of it?

Posted by zeynep at 02:30 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

November 04, 2004

Losing Half a Month's Pay Should Teach You Some "Moral Values"

I'm looking at an AP article titled "Moral Values Propel Bush to Re-Election" and a Bloomberg piece called "U.S. Voters Citing `Moral Values' Propel Bush to Re-Election."

So, tell me this, what does it say about our moral values that Army Spec. Megan Ambuhl pleads guilty in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and forfeits a crushing "half a month's pay" as punishment? Her attorney claims that she's innocent of anything but being there, in which case, why did she strike a deal and plead guilty? It's in fact that she's getting railroaded because the military needs a few P.R. convictions, which also doesn't say much about or moral values: punish and scapegoat the small fish to deflect real questions of responsibility and culpability.

But then, what do we expect in a country where the general who ordered and oversaw the torture is on his way to receiving another shiny star?

Posted by zeynep at 06:47 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack

"I may be an idiot, but I'm not a pedophile"

Saw this over at Eschaton.

ANDERSON COOPER: But Democrats argue look, John Kerry doesn't support gay marriage. I mean he doesn't want a constitutional amendment about it, but he didn't support gay marriage. Why is it that the Republicans have been able to benefit from that whereas the Democrats did not? Is it simply the question of the constitutional -- the federal amendment?

JERRY FALWELL: Well, nobody believes John Kerry on that because his voting record, pro choice, his voting record on the family issues, does -- belies his statement. And the fact that he would not support a federal marriage amendment, it equates in our minds as someone 150 years ago saying I'm personally opposed to slavery, but if my neighbor wants to own one or two that's OK. We don't buy that.

Got that? Opposing gay marriage is similar to opposing slavery. And you shouldn't doubt that many of these people also oppose all sex outside of a monogamous, legally-wed union between a man and a woman. (Not oppose as in something one would personally not participate in, but oppose as in have an obligation to stop from occurring.) Here's a clearer formulation from the AP interview with Senator Rick Santorum last year:

SANTORUM: Every society in the history of man has upheld the institution of marriage as a bond between a man and a woman. Why? Because society is based on one thing: that society is based on the future of the society. And that's what? Children. Monogamous relationships. In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. That's not to pick on homosexuality. It's not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be. It is one thing. And when you destroy that you have a dramatic impact on the quality _

AP: I'm sorry, I didn't think I was going to talk about "man on dog" with a United States senator, it's sort of freaking me out.

SANTORUM: And that's sort of where we are in today's world, unfortunately. The idea is that the state doesn't have rights to limit individuals' wants and passions. I disagree with that. I think we absolutely have rights because there are consequences to letting people live out whatever wants or passions they desire. And we're seeing it in our society.

Why does a man bring up "man on child, man on dog" out of the blue, when the question has nothing to do with either? I mean, how close to the surface is "man on dog" for Senator Santorum that he blurts it out in this unrelated context?

Most social taboos arise around things that are tempting, so it's not a total coincidence that more than a few leading anti-gay crusaders have been exposed while surfing gay phone lines and chatrooms. Similarly, I've been wondering about the homophobia apparently sweeping some parts the country. How can we understand the psycho-social roots of all this discomfort? Although these are issues with strong historical roots, the current articulation of these conflicts is probably very much linked to the hyper-sexualized, porn-drenched cultural media environment that we inhabit.

You might also remember this exchange between Jerry Falwell and Hussein Ibish of the American-Arab Anti- Discrimination Committee. This is right after Falwell has claimed that the Southern Baptist reverend who called the muslim prophet Mohammad a "demon-possessed pedophile" was not "attacking Islam or Muslim people."

IBISH: If you think it's not an attack on people's faith to call their prophet demon possessed, then you're an idiot, all right?

(CROSSTALK)

IBISH: I mean, if I called Jesus demon possessed...

CARLSON: Now, I want you to stop for a second, Mr. Ibish, and I want you to respond. Hold on -- hold on.

(CROSSTALK)

FALWELL: I may be an idiot, but I'm not a pedophile.

IBISH: I'm not a pedophile, either. Congratulations.

Well, who asked you? It always strikes me as a wee-bit odd when a grown man announces that he's not a pedophile when nobody has either asked or accused him of such.

A curious cultural moment.

Posted by zeynep at 03:50 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

November 03, 2004

Are They Getting Different News?

A man from Brazilian wonders:

In Sao Paulo, Brazil, Wagner Markues, 54, also preferred Kerry and wondered why the race was so close.

"We don't understand America now," he said. "Are they getting different news than us about the scandals in the Iraqi prisons, and the children and civilians who are getting killed?"

Posted by zeynep at 09:02 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

Will of the People

Justin Podur has a must-read post over at the The Killing Train -- definitely worth much discussion:

It looks like even if the United States electoral system was capable of expressing the people’s choice, the people would choose George W Bush.

It looks like voters in a dozen states decided to ban gay marriage, by huge margins, deciding to ruin other people’s lives with no benefit to themselves.

That means that it is time to admit something. The greatest divide in the world today is not between the US elite and its people, or the US elite and the people of the world. It is between the US people and the rest of the world. The first time around, George W Bush was not elected. When the United States planted cluster bombs all over Afghanistan, disrupted the aid effort there, killed thousands of people, and occupied the country, it could be interpreted as the actions of a rogue group who had stolen the elections and used terrorism as a pretext to wage war. When the United States invaded Iraq, killing 100,000 at the latest count, it could be argued that no one had really asked the American people about it and that the American people had been lied to. When the United States kidnapped Haiti’s president and installed a paramilitary dictatorship, it could be argued that these were the actions of an unelected group with contempt for democracy.

With this election, all of those actions have been retroactively justified by the majority of the American people.

The first time around the Bush people acted without a mandate. Today, the only constituency that could have stopped them has given them a mandate to go beyond what they have done.

Posted by zeynep at 04:00 PM | Comments (15) | TrackBack

Gays are the New Jews

The results of the election are very scary.

For one thing, the rest of the world will see this as the American people affirming a sharp imperial stance towards the rest of the world as well as approving the illegitimate occupation of Iraq. The implications of this perception are truly scary: this is regardless of what we know about Kerry and his pro-war campaign. Bush has just been elected with a majority of the popular vote. It will now be much easier for the likes of Osama Bin Ladin to recruit, pointing to the election of this administration composed of thoroughly exposed liars, our continuing disregard for Iraqi lives, the apparent ease with which we shrugged off the Abu Ghraib torture scandal...

For another thing, this election should never have happened --and accepted as legitimate-- with unverifiable voting machines manufactured by Bush supporters, under rules harking back to Jim Crow designed to make voting as hard and as frustrating as possible for people in minority neighborhoods, where the machines were sparser and lines much longer, and people with jobs who can't take the day off to wait in line for five hours. Yet, it happened this way and it's being reported as if it all were relatively glitch-free. The fact that such an inherently racist, anti-poor arrangement is being portrayed as legitimate and acceptable without much contestation does not bode well for the future.

Also, it's very clear from exit polls and other data that many of Bush's supporter were energized and mobilized by the "Ban Gay Marriage" amendments. The initiatives in all eleven states passed with wide margins. One exit poll shows that the issue with the highest "Which ONE issue mattered most in deciding how you voted today" rating was "Moral Values," with 21 percent of respondents choosing that option over the economy, terrorism, Iraq, health-care, taxes and education. And an overwhelming majority of people who professed to care about "moral values" voted for Bush -- 78 percent.

And you know the "moral values" is a code word for opposition to gay marriage and, to a lesser degree this time around, abortion. And some of the gay marriage amendments that passed do a lot more than define marriage as a heterosexual union: many also strip gay couples of the most basic, simple rights. Parental rights, visitation rights, medical decision-making, joint benefits are all under attack. This clearly is nothing more than a frenzy of bigotry since people could have penned these laws to ban only non-heterosexual marriage without such sweeping restrictions of the rights of gay people.

I have written about this in the past: many progressives understandably concentrate on issues like the fact that we are occupying Iraq rather than go out and work on things like marriage rights and health benefits for gay couples. And frankly, Americans of most stripes are very privileged compared to the rest of the world -- the AIDS holocaust in Africa is obviously a much more important issue than whether or not a gay couple can take the same mortgage tax deduction as straight couples.

But that's not the real issue here. Here's what's happening in a nutshell: a proto-fascist administration is whipping up support and clouding the political picture by aggressively targeting an already despised, small minority that is, for the most part, expressing no other wish than to assimilate as who they are. Many members of that minority are already relatively integrated into the existing power structure. Most are not poor or marginal but wish for not much more than being accepted into the existing institutional structures: the very structures that many progressives spend their lives fighting to change (for example, the military). Yes, the obvious anology is the Jews in pre-WWII Germany.

The anti-gay amendments that have just passed are comparable to the 1935 Nuremberg Laws in their function, if not their scope and final intent. These laws were passed in 1935, stripping Jews of many of their basic civic rights and erecting impassable barriers to the increasing assimilation of the Jewish minority into Germany.

I'm obviously not expecting an attempt to exterminate the gays. Anyway, as the Cheneys found out, homosexuality is not confined to any one group of easily identifiable people. Rather, what I'm saying is that the political uses of these amendments are similar to the Nuremberg Laws because they are the ideological stick with which the proto-fascist leadership can line up its own troops, while also creating and maintaining a political hegemony and monopoly over the majority of people, many of whom will also end up victimized by its very policies.

Posted by zeynep at 12:35 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

November 02, 2004

Propaganda

While on the question of the ridiculousness of our propaganda, let me post a Centcom press release:

November 2, 2004 Release Number: 04-11-03

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

AIR STRIKE IN FALLUJAH

FALLUJAH, Iraq – A U.S. Air Force plane engaged a pre-planned target using precision ordnance, which destroyed a known enemy cache site on the southeast side of the city, in support of the Regimental Combat Team-7 of the I Marine Expeditionary Force at 11:27 p.m., Nov. 1.

The Multi-National Forces continue to degrade and disrupt the anti-Iraqi forces’ capabilities in the Fallujah-Ramadi area.

So, who is this aimed at? If there is anyone with a brain running this show, they'll hope that no Iraqi ever reads this -- it just doesn't work when you first bomb them, and then call them "anti-Iraqi" when they are the Iraqis and you are the foreign occupier. This one isn't really directly aimed at the American public either but at our opiate-pushers: the press corps. This allows them to say "Centcom claimed that they had destroyed a known weapons cache belonging to foreign terrorists. The hospital director, the morgue doctor, journalists at the site and the neighbors of the pulverized house claimed that the strike had hit a civilian house, killing an extended family including many children. Neither claim could be verified. [Unsaid is the following: in every confirmed instance, the neighbors and the hospital directors turned out to be correct. Centcom never produces any proof that it is hitting weapons caches. It's not even clear what right they'd have to hit anything, since they are an occupying army obligated under international law to withdraw, not bomb. Yes, we call ourselves journalists, why do you ask?]"

UPDATE:
After I posted my made-up version of the story, I found an actual example of how that press release was used in an AFP piece:

FALLUJAH, Iraq (AFP) - A US war plane bombed a suspected weapons site in the restive Iraqi city of Fallujah, where hospital sources said six people were killed and four wounded.

"A US navy jet in support of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force dropped precision ordenance on a weapons cache site," said Major Francis Piccoli.

"We destroyed the site and there was a large secondary explosion," said the marine spokesman, adding that this indicated there had been munitions in the area.

The raid took place at 5:19 pm (1419 GMT).

Doctor Nabil Nuri, from the Fallujah general hospital, said six people were killed and four wounded in the strike, that rocked a residential area in Al-Askari towards the end of the daily fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Witnesses had earlier said casualties were pulled out from under the rubble of a house in Al-Askari.

Scary.

Posted by zeynep at 11:07 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Blunt Force Trauma Complicated by Hampered Breathing

Granting of immunity results in more detailed testimony about how we kill in our prisoners:

SAN DIEGO (AP) The CIA interrogated and roughed up Iraqi prisoners in a ``romper room'' where a handcuffed and hooded terror suspect was kicked, slapped and punched shortly before he died last year at the Abu Ghraib prison, a Navy SEAL testified Monday.

Blood was visible on the hood worn by the prisoner, Manadel al-Jamadi, as he was led into the interrogation room at Baghdad International Airport in November 2003, the Navy commando said at a military pretrial hearing for another SEAL accused of abusing Iraqi prisoners.

Testifying under a grant of immunity, the witness, identified only by his rank as a hospital corpsman, said he kicked al-Jamadi several times, slapped him in the back of the head and punched him. Five or six other CIA personnel in the room laid their hands on the prisoner, he said, but he did not provide details.

Sometime later, Al-Jamadi was found dead in a shower room less than an hour after two CIA personnel brought him into Abu Ghraib as a so-called ``ghost detainee,'' according to Army Maj. Gen. George R. Fay's report on the notorious prison. Such detainees were not listed in the normal roster of military prisoners.

Fay's report said al-Jamadi died of a blot clot in the head likely due to injuries suffered after being detained. The military pathologist's report listed the cause of death as blunt force trauma complicated by hampered breathing.

...

The testimony about the CIA's role came during a hearing for an aviation boatswain's mate who is accused of punching al-Jamadi and posing in humiliating photos with the prisoner. The boatswain's mate, a 14-year Navy veteran, allegedly twisted other prisoners' testicles and struck a prisoner in the buttocks with a wooden board.

...
The hospital corpsman was a surprise witness during the two-day proceeding, taking the witness stand only hours after reaching a plea deal with prosecutors that would spare him prison time.

What do you say?

And what does it say about us as a nation that the Abu Ghraib torture story now garners less attention than the Scott Peterson trial? I have to search for the stories in order to blog about them; they are often not front-page news in general news websites so you won't see them unless you look for them.

And then there are the efforts to award more stars to the generals who directed and oversaw the torture.

Posted by zeynep at 10:56 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

"Anti-Insurgency" Hotline in Iraq

The U.S. Army has set up an "anti-insurgency" hotline " where Iraqis can phone in anonymous tips."

In two interviews with Arabic TV networks on Monday, Brig. Gen. Jeffery Hammond assumed the role of a big city American police chief, squinting into the camera and beseeching Iraqis to phone in anything they know about planned attacks.

"When you see this terrible insurgent about to do something, pick up your phone and call me. I'll do something about it," said Hammond, deputy commander of the 1st Cavalry Division. "We can fight this war together. You can help me fight — in secret."

...

"The choice is simple," Hammond continued. "You can choose the choice of the insurgent, which is death. Or you can choose the path of the interim government, which is life."

"I understand that you're scared. I'd be scared too," Hammond said. "But someone in Baghdad sees the insurgent, knows the insurgent. Tell me what it is you know."

Yes, it's one of those do you laugh or do you cry stories. As the piece notes later, some of the phone calls they did get were, well, less than helpful. But it got me thinking: who is this aimed at? I mean, if you are really trying to crush the rebellion in Iraq, you know this this "hotline" is worthless -- people have a tendency not to like foreigners who bomb them from helicopter gunships, drop 500 pound bomsb on their houses, and cause deaths of tens of thousands of their countrymen and install puppet regimes. Propaganda loses its potency under such circumstances, you know. On the other hand, I didn't see this touted in U.S. media either, so it doesn't seem to be a propaganda ploy directed at the American public, although much of the news and press releases and announcements made by the occupation is just that: propaganda for domestic, not Iraqi, consumption. In fact, this one was aired specifically at Arab television stations.

This, I think, is an example of propaganda aimed at oneself. It's quite plasuible that the U.S. army needs to continuously indoctrinate itself, especially in the face of the reality of the occupation. Think about it: from the lowest-ranked soldier to the top brass, those stationed in Iraq can't but know, at some level, that the populace is strongly against their presence in the country, sympthasizes with the insurgency, and wants the occupiers out, now. On the other hand it's harder to kill --and to risk life and limb-- when you admit that you're acting as a hired gun for an unpopular, imperial occupation. So, there's a huge need for generating propaganda aimed not only at the American people but at the armed forces itself, including obviously ridiculous gestures like this.

Posted by zeynep at 10:36 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

November 01, 2004

Elections

A lot of people have responded to my post about Vote Pact, a means to strategic voting being promoted by Nader's campaign, as if I was advocating lesser-evilism or arguing for not voting for David Cobb or Nader. Frankly, I was pointing out what I perceive to be the possible global ramifications of a Bush election win; I am quite certain that will not be pretty. Most rest of the world would perceive this to mean an endorsement of the aggressive current course. Of course, neither will it be pretty if Kerry wins and we let him keep his campaign promise of escalating the war on Iraq.

The more important point I wanted to make was that, as far as our imperial foreign policy is concerned, voting has become mostly a charade -- who you vote for is almost meaningless without a determined, sustained effort to change the bipartisan consensus on belligerence. The occupation of Iraq may become the defining issue of our generation, and our challenge is not trivial. It's certainly not reducible to this election.

And as for the details: I find it odd that some people are casting voting for Nader as the only way to be anti-war. A few days ago, I watched Nader give a relatively lengthy interview to Paula Zahn without mentioning the occupation or the war on Iraq. In spring of this year Nader was giving stump speeches without once mentioning the war -- until the question and answer period when he would inevitably be asked. (Even his latest 20 reasons to vote for Nader / Camejo does not mention the word Iraq, war or occupation -- and before you point out that he is against the war, I know that. I'm just saying that he is and has always been a consumer activist first and foremost, concentrating on domestic issues rather than U.S. foreign policy. This is not blame, anger or resentment: I'm just pointing out what I see).

Because of all that, I've had a more favorable view of the Green Party candidate David Cobb because whenever I heard him speak publicly, he always talked of the immorality of the war and the occupation first. (Admittedly, my sample wasn't that large). For that reason, and because the Green party will exist as an organization after the election --and I value organization over clusters of people around popular figures-- I've been partial to the Green's campaign. But I know of the ways in which the Green Party is not a healthy, functioning organization so I'm under no illusions there either. I'm sure there are even people out there who will vote for Kerry thinking it will be easier to organize an anti-war movement against his administration. Such are political assessments one may agree or disagree with, and I find it peculiar to try to judge somebody's character, or their degree of commitment to the anti-war cause based on one thing alone, their electoral strategy, without assessing what they have been doing before and after that day.

Quite frankly, I find the question of which third-party candidate one may be partial towards to be of very little importance given the enormity of the problem we face. And I'm discouraged that so many people have tried to present that choice as the test of one's character and one's commitment to justice and to peace.

I would really like to challenge those who get really worked up about the election and think somehow not voting for Nader is proof of demonstration of "loss of nerve," of "fear", "running scared", or some of the other macho aphorisms that get thrown around. For me, this isn't about talking tough; this is about changing our political system and curbing --and hopefully eliminating-- our imperialism. Voting this way or that way is a very, very small part of such a goal and to see so many people see that small symbolic act as a litmus test of courage is sad. Since when did courage become associated with acts so small, so insignificant? Let's let courage stand for acts that are truly courageous: putting one's life, liberty and limited time on this earth on the line to fight against injustice, suffering and evil.

To everyone who is voting for Kerry because they are against Bush and the war, I say: what's more important than your vote is that you get out there and fight tooth and nail against the Kerry administration which is certain to be belligerent, perhaps in finer, more refined ways than Bush.

To everyone who's voting for Nader thinking that's the correct way to stand up to the two-party duopoly I say: the duopoly is quite happy if all you do is show up on election day, vote for Nader and become relatively dormant until the next election. In fact, the real work is between elections. If you worked harder during the election season than before or after, I'd urge you to reconsider your priorities. Are you out to thumb your nose at the duopoly (and the liberal establishment that certainly went strategically overboard with the Anybody but Bush message) or to really change our system? And I ask because I wonder -- where's the energy behind implementing Instant Runoff Voting, which would give teeth to a vote outside the duopoly candidates? Where's the energy to organize an effective, powerful anti-war campaign? True commitment is longer than a day and bigger than an election.

Posted by zeynep at 12:17 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack