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May 26, 2006
Will They Call This Abuse too?
I just watched a segment on CNN where the anchor and the pentagon correspondent competed with each other to explain how great Marines are, and how the Haditha case is still under investigation, how much stress everyone's under, how "unprofessional" conduct is not the norm, etc. etc.
It's quite sickening. Frankly, the military seems to be a lot more honest than the media. "Unprovoked murders" was the word used by a "senior defense official" quoted by CNN:
Investigators believe that their criminal investigation into the deaths of about two dozen Iraqi civilians points toward a conclusion that Marines committed unprovoked murders, a senior defense official said Friday.
You can see the media's apolegetics in the original exchange between Rep. Murtha and Chris Matthews. Murtha calmly points out that the Iraqis were killed in "cold blood." Matthews has a hard time wrapping his head around the fact that Murtha just said what he said...
I'm just waiting till the media dubs this "the worst abuse," or "horrific abuse," or some other form of abuse. After all, they only killed dozens of unarmed, crouching, crying, praying women, men, and children at close-range.
Posted by zeynep at 03:31 PM | Comments (4)
May 18, 2006
Haditha is Arabic for My Lai
Perhaps you might remember the name. Maybe you read it here a few months ago, Haditha, a small town somewhere in Iraq. Maybe you saw the original article in Time magazine.
I hope it will be a name we remember, now that the facts of the case have become even more clear, even more substantiated. I hope we won't brush over this one too.
Here's another snapshot from the latest newsstory:
After CNN broke the news of the initial investigation in March, military officials told Knight Ridder that the civilians were killed not in the initial blast but were apparently caught in the crossfire of a subsequent gun battle as 12 to 15 Marines fought insurgents from house to house over the next five hours. At that time, military officials told Knight Ridder that four of the civilians killed were women and five were children.Subsequent reporting from Haditha by Time and Knight Ridder revealed a still different account of events, with survivors describing Marines breaking down the door of a house and indiscriminately shooting the building's occupants.
Twenty-three people were killed in the incident, relatives of the dead told Knight Ridder.
The uncle of one survivor, a 13-year-old girl, told Knight Ridder that the girl had watched the Marines open fire on her family and that she had held her 5-year-old brother in her arms as he died. The girl shook visibly as her uncle relayed her account, too traumatized to recount what happened herself.
"I understand the investigation shows that in fact there was no firefight, there was no explosion that killed the civilians on a bus," Murtha said. "There was no bus. There was no shrapnel. There was only bullet holes inside the house where the Marines had gone in. So it's a very serious incident, unfortunately. It shows the tremendous pressure these guys are under every day when they're out in combat and the stress and consequences."
Murtha, who retired as a colonel after 37 years in the Marine Corps, said nothing indicates that the Iraqis killed in the incident were at fault.
"One man was killed with an IED," Murtha said, referring to a Marine killed by the roadside bomb. "And after that, they actually went into the houses and killed women and children."
No firefight. No bus. No crossfire. Women and children, killed in cold blood. Not a single charge filed, yet.
I hope Haditha becomes a household name, a place where America confronted the reality of what it is doing. All that would be a good start but I don't know what we can ever say to Eman:
Seven members of her family were killed, some of them while trying to shield he so that she too would not become one of these litle corpses:
Posted by zeynep at 09:12 PM | Comments (6)
May 16, 2006
I know! I know!
I think Bush wants to see how low he can go with his approval ratings. Take this "immigration" "initiative," with 6,000 national guard troops at the border. Too few, obviously, to stop poor, desperate migrants. Enough, however, to upset every constituency involved.
I mean, he should have some accomplishments he can call unique and his own, no?
Posted by zeynep at 07:29 AM | Comments (2)
May 11, 2006
How Bad Do You Have To Fail?
This is such an amazing example of internalized affirmative action for rich white guys. The first two Bush presidents think Jeb would be great as president...
How bad do you have to fail, how much damage do you have to do before it gets through one's thick layers of privilege that they are not doing a good job, by any measure?
Posted by zeynep at 07:24 AM | Comments (2)
May 07, 2006
Cheney ... wants ... Democracy
Cheney ... criticizes ... lack of democracy ... in Russia. (While in Lithuania, of course).
Then, he defends his words saying that it's better to have open, honest, frank discussions:
Vice President Cheney, wrapping up an overseas trip that produced sparks in Moscow, defended his criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying Sunday that it was "more important that you have open, honest, frank discussions about your views."
What's funnier is that the Russian autocrats seem to be offended. They should be laughing in stitches.
Posted by zeynep at 09:08 PM | Comments (0)