Wednesday, December 24, 2003
HAPPY HOLIDAYS
I'm going to the island for a week for the Christmas holidays so postings might be few and far between over the next few days. Before I go, I just wanted to respond to a question a colleague asked me yesterday as to why I haven't been posting about the day to day loss of American soldiers in Iraq for the last week or two. It isn't the result of a thought-out decision on my part, but I've been beginning to feel as if such reports accomplish little. We all know it's a messed up situation over there and people continue to die on a daily basis, but I'm wary of the "if it bleeds it leads" cliche of the major news outlets. Times New Roman will always try to focus on the bigger picture, the themes underlying the daily doses of death and destruction this war is wreaking. And it's Christmas. . .I hate to be reminded of an elevated terror threat, unneccesary deaths, and flight cancellations when all I want is my family to be safe and happy for a few days. It's already Christmas eve, and there has not been a single sugarplum vision dancing in my head, only breaking news banners of crazy cattle and op-ed messages of doom. Please world, just a few days respite to play Santa and have a few drinks. . .
Tuesday, December 23, 2003
Clark Lashes Out at Bush
I would give my lunch money to see Bush and Clark in a nationally televised debate. It would almost be unsportsmanlike of Clark to really go at him full-speed, but it would certainly be a rare treat to watch. The New York Times, perhaps foreshadowing such a debate, has an article up with Clark ripping Bush's Iraq policy. Here is an excerpt:
Gen. Wesley K. Clark on Monday blamed "bad leadership" by President Bush for the nation's heightened antiterrorism alert status, saying that it was a "strategic mistake" to shift resources to Iraq from the hunt for Osama bin Laden in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
"A wise leadership would not have put us into Iraq at this time," General Clark told reporters after serving hot meals at Manna House, a nonprofit agency in this city in the northeastern part of the state. "Instead we'd have concentrated on Osama bin Laden."
The comment came on a day when several candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination took issue with the administration's financing of antiterrorist programs on the local level.
General Clark did not fault the Department of Homeland Security for raising the alert on Sunday to orange from yellow. Because there was no way to know the intelligence behind the alert, he said, the administration should be given the benefit of the doubt on that decision.
"But that doesn't change the reality," General Clark said. "We knew who attacked this country on 9/11 and it was not Saddam Hussein. It was Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network."
"We should have gone after that network and we should have gone after it directly instead of taking half the United States Army and putting it in Iraq and using $150 billion and distracting us from our world leadership in the war on terror," he said. "It was a strategic mistake. I just hope that we'll be able to protect this country and we don't have more Americans who will suffer as a result of the president's bad leadership."
General Clark has proposed spending $40 billion in his first two years in office to improve domestic security. The money, which would come from rolling back Bush tax cuts for people earning more than $200,000 a year, would help police and fire departments pay for equipment and staffing to prepare for attacks.
Gen. Wesley K. Clark on Monday blamed "bad leadership" by President Bush for the nation's heightened antiterrorism alert status, saying that it was a "strategic mistake" to shift resources to Iraq from the hunt for Osama bin Laden in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
"A wise leadership would not have put us into Iraq at this time," General Clark told reporters after serving hot meals at Manna House, a nonprofit agency in this city in the northeastern part of the state. "Instead we'd have concentrated on Osama bin Laden."
The comment came on a day when several candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination took issue with the administration's financing of antiterrorist programs on the local level.
General Clark did not fault the Department of Homeland Security for raising the alert on Sunday to orange from yellow. Because there was no way to know the intelligence behind the alert, he said, the administration should be given the benefit of the doubt on that decision.
"But that doesn't change the reality," General Clark said. "We knew who attacked this country on 9/11 and it was not Saddam Hussein. It was Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network."
"We should have gone after that network and we should have gone after it directly instead of taking half the United States Army and putting it in Iraq and using $150 billion and distracting us from our world leadership in the war on terror," he said. "It was a strategic mistake. I just hope that we'll be able to protect this country and we don't have more Americans who will suffer as a result of the president's bad leadership."
General Clark has proposed spending $40 billion in his first two years in office to improve domestic security. The money, which would come from rolling back Bush tax cuts for people earning more than $200,000 a year, would help police and fire departments pay for equipment and staffing to prepare for attacks.
Nader Not to Run as Green Candidate
Phew. Though he is still considering an independent candidacy, the man some claim gave Bush the White House by running in 2000 (therefore splitting the left), will not run as a Green. Thanks, buddy.
Saddam Held by Kurds Before U.S Capture?
Ok. I'm a little curious to know if this story has any juice to it. If you see anything, let me know. The story goes: Saddam was held by the Kurds before being delivered to his spider-hole. Rumour or fact, believe it, don't...I don't care...but if this is true I must hand it to the Bush administration for the gumption. I realise it's a dirty business but they sure can make it amusing.
Sunday, December 21, 2003
Krugman Telling it Right
Paul Krugman has a great op-ed piece in The New York Times entitled "Telling it Right". Have a look:
"This is a very, very important part of history, and we've got to tell it right." So says Thomas Kean, chairman of the independent commission investigating the 9/11 attacks. Mr. Kean promises major revelations in testimony next month: "This was not something that had to happen." We'll see: maybe those of us who expected the 9/11 commission to produce yet another whitewash were wrong. Meanwhile, one can only echo his sentiment: it's important to tell our history right, not just about the events that led up to 9/11, but about the events that followed.
The capture of Saddam Hussein has produced a great outpouring of relief among both Iraqis and Americans. He's no longer taunting us from hiding; he was a monster and deserves whatever fate awaits him. But we shouldn't let war supporters use the occasion of Saddam's capture to rewrite the recent history of U.S. foreign policy, to draw a veil over the way the nation was misled into war.
Even the Iraq war's critics usually focus on the practical failures of the Bush administration's policy, rather than its morality. After all, the war came at a heavy cost, even before the fighting began: to prepare for the Iraq campaign, the administration diverted resources away from Afghanistan before the job was done, giving Al Qaeda a chance to get away and the Taliban a chance to regroup.
And while the initial invasion went smoothly, since then almost everything in Iraq has gone badly. (Saddam's capture would have been a smaller story if it had happened in the first flush of victory; instead, it was the first real piece of good news from Iraq in months.) The security situation remains terrible; the economy remains moribund; gasoline shortages and power outages continue.
To top it all off, the ongoing disorder in Iraq is a clear and present danger to our own national security. A large part of the U.S. military's combat strength is tied down in occupation duties, leaving us ill prepared for crises elsewhere. Meanwhile, overstretch is undermining the readiness of the military as a whole.
Now maybe, just maybe, Saddam's capture will start a virtuous circle in Iraq. Maybe the insurgency will evaporate; maybe the cost to America, in blood, dollars and national security, will start to decline.
But even if all that happens, we should be deeply disturbed by the history of this war. For its message seems to be that as long as you wave the flag convincingly enough, it doesn't matter whether you tell the truth.
By now, we've become accustomed to the fact that the absence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction — the principal public rationale for the war — hasn't become a big political liability for the administration. That's bad enough. Even more startling is the news from one of this week's polls: despite the complete absence of evidence, 53 percent of Americans believe that Saddam had something to do with 9/11, up from 43 percent before his capture. The administration's long campaign of guilt by innuendo, it seems, is still working.
The war's more idealistic supporters do, I think, feel queasy about all this. That's why they lay so much stress on their hopes for democracy in Iraq. They're not just looking for a happy ending; they're looking for moral redemption for a war fought on false pretenses.
As a practical matter, I suspect that they'll be disappointed: the only leaders in Iraq with genuine popular followings seem to be Shiite clerics. I also wonder how much real commitment to democracy lies behind the administration's stirring rhetoric. Does anyone remember that Dick Cheney voted against a resolution calling for Nelson Mandela's release from prison? As recently as 2000 he defended that vote, saying that the African National Congress "was then perceived as a terrorist organization."
Which brings me to this week's other famous prisoner. While the world celebrated the capture of Saddam, a federal appeals court ruled that Jose Padilla must be released from military custody. Mr. Padilla is a U.S. citizen, arrested on American soil, who has been held for 18 months without charges as an "enemy combatant." The ruling was a stark reminder that the Bush administration, which talks so much about promoting democracy abroad, doesn't seem very concerned about following democratic rules at home.
"This is a very, very important part of history, and we've got to tell it right." So says Thomas Kean, chairman of the independent commission investigating the 9/11 attacks. Mr. Kean promises major revelations in testimony next month: "This was not something that had to happen." We'll see: maybe those of us who expected the 9/11 commission to produce yet another whitewash were wrong. Meanwhile, one can only echo his sentiment: it's important to tell our history right, not just about the events that led up to 9/11, but about the events that followed.
The capture of Saddam Hussein has produced a great outpouring of relief among both Iraqis and Americans. He's no longer taunting us from hiding; he was a monster and deserves whatever fate awaits him. But we shouldn't let war supporters use the occasion of Saddam's capture to rewrite the recent history of U.S. foreign policy, to draw a veil over the way the nation was misled into war.
Even the Iraq war's critics usually focus on the practical failures of the Bush administration's policy, rather than its morality. After all, the war came at a heavy cost, even before the fighting began: to prepare for the Iraq campaign, the administration diverted resources away from Afghanistan before the job was done, giving Al Qaeda a chance to get away and the Taliban a chance to regroup.
And while the initial invasion went smoothly, since then almost everything in Iraq has gone badly. (Saddam's capture would have been a smaller story if it had happened in the first flush of victory; instead, it was the first real piece of good news from Iraq in months.) The security situation remains terrible; the economy remains moribund; gasoline shortages and power outages continue.
To top it all off, the ongoing disorder in Iraq is a clear and present danger to our own national security. A large part of the U.S. military's combat strength is tied down in occupation duties, leaving us ill prepared for crises elsewhere. Meanwhile, overstretch is undermining the readiness of the military as a whole.
Now maybe, just maybe, Saddam's capture will start a virtuous circle in Iraq. Maybe the insurgency will evaporate; maybe the cost to America, in blood, dollars and national security, will start to decline.
But even if all that happens, we should be deeply disturbed by the history of this war. For its message seems to be that as long as you wave the flag convincingly enough, it doesn't matter whether you tell the truth.
By now, we've become accustomed to the fact that the absence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction — the principal public rationale for the war — hasn't become a big political liability for the administration. That's bad enough. Even more startling is the news from one of this week's polls: despite the complete absence of evidence, 53 percent of Americans believe that Saddam had something to do with 9/11, up from 43 percent before his capture. The administration's long campaign of guilt by innuendo, it seems, is still working.
The war's more idealistic supporters do, I think, feel queasy about all this. That's why they lay so much stress on their hopes for democracy in Iraq. They're not just looking for a happy ending; they're looking for moral redemption for a war fought on false pretenses.
As a practical matter, I suspect that they'll be disappointed: the only leaders in Iraq with genuine popular followings seem to be Shiite clerics. I also wonder how much real commitment to democracy lies behind the administration's stirring rhetoric. Does anyone remember that Dick Cheney voted against a resolution calling for Nelson Mandela's release from prison? As recently as 2000 he defended that vote, saying that the African National Congress "was then perceived as a terrorist organization."
Which brings me to this week's other famous prisoner. While the world celebrated the capture of Saddam, a federal appeals court ruled that Jose Padilla must be released from military custody. Mr. Padilla is a U.S. citizen, arrested on American soil, who has been held for 18 months without charges as an "enemy combatant." The ruling was a stark reminder that the Bush administration, which talks so much about promoting democracy abroad, doesn't seem very concerned about following democratic rules at home.
Gourevitch on the U.S in Iraq
I just read in an interesting article in The New Yorker by Philip Gourevitch entitled "Winning and Losing"
Enjoy:
One day late last summer, as the tally of bombings, shootings, and acts of sabotage against the American occupation in Iraq took on the unmistakable profile of a war of guerrilla insurgency, the office of Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict, at the Pentagon, designed and distributed e-mail flyers with a cautionary headline: “how to win a battle against terrorism and lose the war of ideas.” The e-mail invited those involved in the “wot”—the war on terrorism—to a private screening of the Italian Marxist director Gillo Pontecorvo’s 1966 masterpiece, “The Battle of Algiers.” The movie, which will be rereleased in theatres next month, is surely the most harrowing, and realistic, political epic ever filmed. It depicts the conflict between Algerian nationalist insurgents and French colonial forces in the late nineteen-fifties, or, as the flyer put it: “Children shoot soldiers at point-blank range. Women plant bombs in cafes. Soon the entire Arab population builds to a mad fervor. Sound familiar?”
For all the differences between France’s fight to keep Algeria—a country it had occupied since 1830—and America’s current dispensation in Iraq, the parallels between the drama of insurgency and counter-insurgency in “The Battle of Algiers” and our present Iraqi predicament are as clear and as depressing as the Pentagon film programmers promised. The ugly truth that Pontecorvo lays vividly bare, as his camera tacks back and forth between the Algerian guerrillas and the French paratroopers, is that terrorism works. For, although the film focusses on a chapter in the Algerian struggle when France succeeded in crushing the rebel movement, the final moments of the movie show how within a few years the French were forced to accept defeat and retreat, an outcome that in retrospect appears historically inevitable.
Such is the bind that the Bush Administration has led us into in Iraq. Appalling, intolerable—in all senses, maddening—as the terrorist tactics of the Iraqi insurgents may be, their truck bombs, donkey-cart missile launchers, and sniper rifles are tactical political instruments that have steadily and systematically succeeded in isolating American forces in Iraq. They have effectively driven the United Nations, the international staff of the Red Cross, and other aid groups from the country, and—more disastrously—they have fostered a mutual sense of alienation between the American forces and the Iraqi people they are supposed to be liberating. Triumphalist pronouncements from Washington notwithstanding, our occupying forces are now clearly on the defensive. And the more aggressive their defense becomes, the more it serves the insurgents’ purposes. When an American adviser in Iraq speaks of a new strategy of “terrorism versus terrorism,” as Seymour M. Hersh reported in these pages last week, and an American lieutenant colonel tells the Times, “With a heavy dose of fear and violence, and a lot of money for projects, I think we can convince these people that we are here to help them,” one may be forgiven for concluding that the enemy is defining the terms of the fight to his advantage.
In “The Battle of Algiers,” there comes a moment when the commander of the French paratroopers, Lieutenant Colonel Mathieu, realizes that, despite a spate of strategic successes against the insurgency, he is losing the larger battle for public opinion. At a press conference, reporters confront him with allegations that his men have tortured Algerian informants. Mathieu reminds the reporters that the press had originally been unanimous in calling for the suppression of the rebellion. “That’s why we were sent here,” he says. “And we’re neither crazy nor sadistic. . . . We are soldiers. Our duty is to win. Since we’re being precise, I’ll now ask you a question. Is France to remain in Algeria? If your answer is still yes, you must accept all the necessary consequences.”
President Bush has consistently assured us that America will “stay the course” in Iraq, but what he means by that—what that course is—is not clear. Just as the official reasons for the war keep shifting, so does the Administration’s proclaimed objective. For now, we are in Iraq because the President and his most influential advisers wanted to go to war there. Having made a misleading case for the war, the Bush team drastically mismanaged the crucial early period of the occupation, and has recently responded to the Iraqi insurgency by scrapping its original plan for political revitalization in favor of a hastier schedule of “Iraqization.” With Bush’s attention turning ever more urgently to holding on to the White House in next year’s election, he is pushing for the election of an Iraqi transitional government by the middle of next year. “We’re going to get out of there as quickly as we can, but not before we finish the mission at hand,” Andrew Card, the White House chief of staff, explained the other day.
Unlike the French mission in Algeria, Washington’s goal in Iraq is not to prevent the people from governing their own country but to help them to do so. Presumably, the insurgents—about whose politics, allegiances, organization, and objectives shockingly little is known—also want to see Iraqis in power, if not the same ones that Washington might favor. The question “Is America to remain in Iraq?” would ultimately receive the same negative answer from the occupiers as from the guerrillas. But, as the Bush Administration pushes for speedy elections and a speedy exit, Algeria’s example is again worth bearing in mind. In the early nineties, an Islamic fundamentalist party won elections in that country by a solid majority but was prevented from taking power by the secular military, which refused to accept the democratic election of an anti-democratic government. As a result, the country descended into a civil war that is reported to have claimed a hundred thousand lives.
Right now, there is no Iraqi state and, in the absence of an Iraqi leader, President Bush holds power. Of course, Iraqis won’t get to vote for him when they do eventually go to the polls, and for that, at least, he can be grateful. His apparent impatience to get out of the country suggests that he recognizes how difficult it will be to maintain the claim that he is that country’s liberator even as he serves as Commander-in-Chief of an increasingly relentless counter-insurgency campaign. The President cannot afford to lose Iraq. What is less obvious, with the guerrillas setting the agenda, is what the price would be to win it.
Enjoy:
One day late last summer, as the tally of bombings, shootings, and acts of sabotage against the American occupation in Iraq took on the unmistakable profile of a war of guerrilla insurgency, the office of Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict, at the Pentagon, designed and distributed e-mail flyers with a cautionary headline: “how to win a battle against terrorism and lose the war of ideas.” The e-mail invited those involved in the “wot”—the war on terrorism—to a private screening of the Italian Marxist director Gillo Pontecorvo’s 1966 masterpiece, “The Battle of Algiers.” The movie, which will be rereleased in theatres next month, is surely the most harrowing, and realistic, political epic ever filmed. It depicts the conflict between Algerian nationalist insurgents and French colonial forces in the late nineteen-fifties, or, as the flyer put it: “Children shoot soldiers at point-blank range. Women plant bombs in cafes. Soon the entire Arab population builds to a mad fervor. Sound familiar?”
For all the differences between France’s fight to keep Algeria—a country it had occupied since 1830—and America’s current dispensation in Iraq, the parallels between the drama of insurgency and counter-insurgency in “The Battle of Algiers” and our present Iraqi predicament are as clear and as depressing as the Pentagon film programmers promised. The ugly truth that Pontecorvo lays vividly bare, as his camera tacks back and forth between the Algerian guerrillas and the French paratroopers, is that terrorism works. For, although the film focusses on a chapter in the Algerian struggle when France succeeded in crushing the rebel movement, the final moments of the movie show how within a few years the French were forced to accept defeat and retreat, an outcome that in retrospect appears historically inevitable.
Such is the bind that the Bush Administration has led us into in Iraq. Appalling, intolerable—in all senses, maddening—as the terrorist tactics of the Iraqi insurgents may be, their truck bombs, donkey-cart missile launchers, and sniper rifles are tactical political instruments that have steadily and systematically succeeded in isolating American forces in Iraq. They have effectively driven the United Nations, the international staff of the Red Cross, and other aid groups from the country, and—more disastrously—they have fostered a mutual sense of alienation between the American forces and the Iraqi people they are supposed to be liberating. Triumphalist pronouncements from Washington notwithstanding, our occupying forces are now clearly on the defensive. And the more aggressive their defense becomes, the more it serves the insurgents’ purposes. When an American adviser in Iraq speaks of a new strategy of “terrorism versus terrorism,” as Seymour M. Hersh reported in these pages last week, and an American lieutenant colonel tells the Times, “With a heavy dose of fear and violence, and a lot of money for projects, I think we can convince these people that we are here to help them,” one may be forgiven for concluding that the enemy is defining the terms of the fight to his advantage.
In “The Battle of Algiers,” there comes a moment when the commander of the French paratroopers, Lieutenant Colonel Mathieu, realizes that, despite a spate of strategic successes against the insurgency, he is losing the larger battle for public opinion. At a press conference, reporters confront him with allegations that his men have tortured Algerian informants. Mathieu reminds the reporters that the press had originally been unanimous in calling for the suppression of the rebellion. “That’s why we were sent here,” he says. “And we’re neither crazy nor sadistic. . . . We are soldiers. Our duty is to win. Since we’re being precise, I’ll now ask you a question. Is France to remain in Algeria? If your answer is still yes, you must accept all the necessary consequences.”
President Bush has consistently assured us that America will “stay the course” in Iraq, but what he means by that—what that course is—is not clear. Just as the official reasons for the war keep shifting, so does the Administration’s proclaimed objective. For now, we are in Iraq because the President and his most influential advisers wanted to go to war there. Having made a misleading case for the war, the Bush team drastically mismanaged the crucial early period of the occupation, and has recently responded to the Iraqi insurgency by scrapping its original plan for political revitalization in favor of a hastier schedule of “Iraqization.” With Bush’s attention turning ever more urgently to holding on to the White House in next year’s election, he is pushing for the election of an Iraqi transitional government by the middle of next year. “We’re going to get out of there as quickly as we can, but not before we finish the mission at hand,” Andrew Card, the White House chief of staff, explained the other day.
Unlike the French mission in Algeria, Washington’s goal in Iraq is not to prevent the people from governing their own country but to help them to do so. Presumably, the insurgents—about whose politics, allegiances, organization, and objectives shockingly little is known—also want to see Iraqis in power, if not the same ones that Washington might favor. The question “Is America to remain in Iraq?” would ultimately receive the same negative answer from the occupiers as from the guerrillas. But, as the Bush Administration pushes for speedy elections and a speedy exit, Algeria’s example is again worth bearing in mind. In the early nineties, an Islamic fundamentalist party won elections in that country by a solid majority but was prevented from taking power by the secular military, which refused to accept the democratic election of an anti-democratic government. As a result, the country descended into a civil war that is reported to have claimed a hundred thousand lives.
Right now, there is no Iraqi state and, in the absence of an Iraqi leader, President Bush holds power. Of course, Iraqis won’t get to vote for him when they do eventually go to the polls, and for that, at least, he can be grateful. His apparent impatience to get out of the country suggests that he recognizes how difficult it will be to maintain the claim that he is that country’s liberator even as he serves as Commander-in-Chief of an increasingly relentless counter-insurgency campaign. The President cannot afford to lose Iraq. What is less obvious, with the guerrillas setting the agenda, is what the price would be to win it.
Saturday, December 20, 2003
President Wesley Clark Saves the Universe
If the United States was ever presented with a perfect candidate for President since JFK, Wesley Clark is that man. I've been intrigued by Clark since reading a bio on him during the Balkans War. His credentials blow every other Democratic candidate out of the water, and when you stand him up to Bush, he towers above the child president in character, intelligence, and experience. I've just finished watching his new campaign video called "American Son" and it was brilliant. Clark is one of those extremely rare people that combine raw talent with superhuman drive. He excels at everything he puts his mind to. If I could, I'd vote for him twice.
Friday, December 19, 2003
Libya to Dismantle WMD Programme - BBC
Breaking News from the BBC:
Libya's leader Colonel Gaddafi has said his country sought to develop weapons of mass destruction capabilities but will dismantle this programme completely, Prime Minister Tony Blair has announced.
"This decision is an historic one and a courageous one and I applaud it," Mr Blair said.
My first reaction is big deal. I doubt the program was serious. I'm suspicious that perhaps there is a quid pro quo at work, where Libya comes forward, giving Blair and Bush a news coup that will be played up as a victory in the press (until exposed as hollow), in exchange for something as yet unknown to the public. Smacks of bullshit to me. I suspect Libya's WMD capability is probably nothing more sinister than a filing cabinet filled with "how to" pages printed from a website or two. Nothing. It's Libya. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say it's politics. Gaddafi is a no show in the power arena, a hyena scared of his shadow since Reagan bombed his house. Not to be too cynical, but I think he's being used to shine up the tarnished images of Bush and Blair because, truly, getting Libya to deal is like getting a dog to sit. However, the wording of the BBC headline still bugs me: "Libya to give up WMD." Right...yet as far as the BBC knows Libya may never have possessed them, just a "program". Who knows, it might be just a filing cabinet. This story is garbage.
Libya's leader Colonel Gaddafi has said his country sought to develop weapons of mass destruction capabilities but will dismantle this programme completely, Prime Minister Tony Blair has announced.
"This decision is an historic one and a courageous one and I applaud it," Mr Blair said.
My first reaction is big deal. I doubt the program was serious. I'm suspicious that perhaps there is a quid pro quo at work, where Libya comes forward, giving Blair and Bush a news coup that will be played up as a victory in the press (until exposed as hollow), in exchange for something as yet unknown to the public. Smacks of bullshit to me. I suspect Libya's WMD capability is probably nothing more sinister than a filing cabinet filled with "how to" pages printed from a website or two. Nothing. It's Libya. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say it's politics. Gaddafi is a no show in the power arena, a hyena scared of his shadow since Reagan bombed his house. Not to be too cynical, but I think he's being used to shine up the tarnished images of Bush and Blair because, truly, getting Libya to deal is like getting a dog to sit. However, the wording of the BBC headline still bugs me: "Libya to give up WMD." Right...yet as far as the BBC knows Libya may never have possessed them, just a "program". Who knows, it might be just a filing cabinet. This story is garbage.
Thursday, December 18, 2003
9-11 Probe Getting Buried?
I am more than a bit surprised that the media isn't jumping all over former Republican Governor (NJ) Thomas Kean's comments concerning the findings of his Bush sanctioned, independent National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. What gives, CNN? Mark Gisleson poses the same question over at Bush Wars, asking his readers to stay on the look-out for any new sightings of this story. Like I said in my previous post entitled Bad Moon Rising for Bush, Kean's damning indictment that the White House was caught sleeping at the wheel has the potential to seriously threaten the jobs of some of Bush's appointee's, and perhaps even dampen Bush's chance of re-election. If his report shows the Bush administration was caught napping, then this story deserves to be front and center.
So, I say again, what gives, CNN? Is this story going to get shouted down by the sounds of trumpets marking the capture of someone irrelevant to the present War on Terror? I can't imagine that happening, but it's been a couple of days since this story broke, and still nothing. Perhaps the sound of silence is really the sound of knives being sharpened. Nevertheless, Times New Roman is comfortable out front, waiting for the big boys to catch up.
So, I say again, what gives, CNN? Is this story going to get shouted down by the sounds of trumpets marking the capture of someone irrelevant to the present War on Terror? I can't imagine that happening, but it's been a couple of days since this story broke, and still nothing. Perhaps the sound of silence is really the sound of knives being sharpened. Nevertheless, Times New Roman is comfortable out front, waiting for the big boys to catch up.
Iran Warns of Dangers in Giving Saddam a Fair Trial
It's alway disturbing to be reading the news only to find that the President of Iran agrees with me:
Iranian President Mohammad Khatami has said Saddam Hussein is unlikely to receive a fair trial because he could reveal too many embarrassing details. "Saddam will undoubtedly make statements that will not be pleasing to many people among those who are now standing against Saddam," he said. Iran - which was invaded by Iraq in 1980 - is preparing charges against the ousted Iraqi president.
Mr Khatami has said he does not "like the death penalty". "But I believe if there is one case where there should be an execution, the fairest case would be for Saddam," the moderate cleric told reporters.
It can be applied to convicted murderers, armed robbers, rapists, apostates and drug traffickers.
At least nine executions across the country have been reported by the Iranian media in the last week alone. President Khatami said Saddam Hussein had hurt "many people," including many Iranians.
"What we want is an open trial for Saddam, and that it should be fair," he said. But he said he doubted that the trial of the former Iraqi leader would be "totally fair" because of the awkward details he could reveal.
The United States backed Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war, providing financial assistance and military intelligence. After the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran, the country was regarded by Washington as more dangerous than its neighbour Iraq.
Saddam Hussein was also supported by the Soviet Union, European nations and other Arab states. BBC News Online world affairs correspondent Paul Reynolds says the French President Jacques Chirac and the US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld might find their names in the frame. In 1975, Mr Chirac - then prime minister - showed Saddam Hussein round a nuclear plant and later referred to him as "My dear friend".
Iranian President Mohammad Khatami has said Saddam Hussein is unlikely to receive a fair trial because he could reveal too many embarrassing details. "Saddam will undoubtedly make statements that will not be pleasing to many people among those who are now standing against Saddam," he said. Iran - which was invaded by Iraq in 1980 - is preparing charges against the ousted Iraqi president.
Mr Khatami has said he does not "like the death penalty". "But I believe if there is one case where there should be an execution, the fairest case would be for Saddam," the moderate cleric told reporters.
It can be applied to convicted murderers, armed robbers, rapists, apostates and drug traffickers.
At least nine executions across the country have been reported by the Iranian media in the last week alone. President Khatami said Saddam Hussein had hurt "many people," including many Iranians.
"What we want is an open trial for Saddam, and that it should be fair," he said. But he said he doubted that the trial of the former Iraqi leader would be "totally fair" because of the awkward details he could reveal.
The United States backed Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war, providing financial assistance and military intelligence. After the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran, the country was regarded by Washington as more dangerous than its neighbour Iraq.
Saddam Hussein was also supported by the Soviet Union, European nations and other Arab states. BBC News Online world affairs correspondent Paul Reynolds says the French President Jacques Chirac and the US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld might find their names in the frame. In 1975, Mr Chirac - then prime minister - showed Saddam Hussein round a nuclear plant and later referred to him as "My dear friend".
Bad Moon Rising for Bush
Former Republican Governor of New Jersey, Thomas Kean, now heading an independent commission on 9-11, has dropped a bombshell on the increasingly unfortunate Bush administration. It is the ultimate pooh-pooh on what was promising to be the first good week for the president since he prematurely announced the end of major combat operations in Iraq. Back to the doldrums, old fella.
This Breaking News from CBS news:
For the first time, the chairman of the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks is saying publicly that 9/11 could have and should have been prevented, reports CBS News Correspondent Randall Pinkston.
"This is a very, very important part of history and we've got to tell it right," said Thomas Kean. "As you read the report, you're going to have a pretty clear idea what wasn't done and what should have been done," he said. "This was not something that had to happen."
Appointed by the Bush administration, Kean, a former Republican governor of New Jersey, is now pointing fingers inside the administration and laying blame. "There are people that, if I was doing the job, would certainly not be in the position they were in at that time because they failed. They simply failed," Kean said.
To find out who failed and why, the commission has navigated a political landmine, threatening a subpoena to gain access to the president's top-secret daily briefs. Those documents may shed light on one of the most controversial assertions of the Bush administration – that there was never any thought given to the idea that terrorists might fly an airplane into a building. I don't think anybody could have predicted that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile," said national security adviser Condoleeza Rice on May 16, 2002.
"How is it possible we have a national security advisor coming out and saying we had no idea they could use planes as weapons when we had FBI records from 1991 stating that this is a possibility," said Kristen Breitweiser, one of four New Jersey widows who lobbied Congress and the president to appoint the commission. The widows want to know why various government agencies didn't connect the dots before Sept. 11, such as warnings from FBI offices in Minnesota and Arizona about suspicious student pilots. "If you were to tell me that two years after the murder of my husband that we wouldn't have one question answered, I wouldn't believe it," Breitweiser said. Kean admits the commission also has more questions than answers. Asked whether we should at least know if people sitting in the decision-making spots on that critical day are still in those positions, Kean said, "Yes, the answer is yes. And we will."
Kean promises major revelations in public testimony beginning next month from top officials in the FBI, CIA, Defense Department, National Security Agency and, maybe, President Bush and former President Clinton.
I can't begin to imagine how Bush can possibly counterspin this. Kean is a Republican, hand-picked by Bush, and he is going to point fingers.
This Breaking News from CBS news:
For the first time, the chairman of the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks is saying publicly that 9/11 could have and should have been prevented, reports CBS News Correspondent Randall Pinkston.
"This is a very, very important part of history and we've got to tell it right," said Thomas Kean. "As you read the report, you're going to have a pretty clear idea what wasn't done and what should have been done," he said. "This was not something that had to happen."
Appointed by the Bush administration, Kean, a former Republican governor of New Jersey, is now pointing fingers inside the administration and laying blame. "There are people that, if I was doing the job, would certainly not be in the position they were in at that time because they failed. They simply failed," Kean said.
To find out who failed and why, the commission has navigated a political landmine, threatening a subpoena to gain access to the president's top-secret daily briefs. Those documents may shed light on one of the most controversial assertions of the Bush administration – that there was never any thought given to the idea that terrorists might fly an airplane into a building. I don't think anybody could have predicted that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile," said national security adviser Condoleeza Rice on May 16, 2002.
"How is it possible we have a national security advisor coming out and saying we had no idea they could use planes as weapons when we had FBI records from 1991 stating that this is a possibility," said Kristen Breitweiser, one of four New Jersey widows who lobbied Congress and the president to appoint the commission. The widows want to know why various government agencies didn't connect the dots before Sept. 11, such as warnings from FBI offices in Minnesota and Arizona about suspicious student pilots. "If you were to tell me that two years after the murder of my husband that we wouldn't have one question answered, I wouldn't believe it," Breitweiser said. Kean admits the commission also has more questions than answers. Asked whether we should at least know if people sitting in the decision-making spots on that critical day are still in those positions, Kean said, "Yes, the answer is yes. And we will."
Kean promises major revelations in public testimony beginning next month from top officials in the FBI, CIA, Defense Department, National Security Agency and, maybe, President Bush and former President Clinton.
I can't begin to imagine how Bush can possibly counterspin this. Kean is a Republican, hand-picked by Bush, and he is going to point fingers.
Wednesday, December 17, 2003
The Dangers of Giving Saddam his Day in Court
Kenneth Roth, the Executive Director of Human Rights Watch, has an op-ed piece up in the International Herald Tribune demanding a fair trial for Saddam Hussein in the International Criminal Court:
Despite the obvious merits of an internationally led tribunal, Washington is adamantly opposed, which largely explains the path chosen by the Iraqi Governing Council. But Washington's opposition reflects its ideology, not concern for the Iraqi people. The Bush administration calculates that a tribunal of Iraqis selected by its hand-picked Governing Council will be less likely to reveal embarrassing aspects of Washington's past support for Saddam Hussein, more likely to impose the death penalty despite broad international condemnation, and, most important, less likely to enhance even indirectly the legitimacy of the detested International Criminal Court.
Perhaps with less of an axe to grind, Joe Conason from the New York Observer spells out just some of the potential consequences of giving Saddam Hussein a microphone in open court:
President George W. Bush and the provisional Iraqi authorities have promised that before Saddam Hussein is executed, he will most certainly receive a fair trial. Conveniently enough, the Iraqis set up a war-crimes tribunal in Baghdad for this purpose just last week. So sometime after Saddam's Army interrogators are finished sweating the old monster, the preparations shall begin for what promises to be a courtroom spectacular.
Advocates of human rights and international law hope that the prosecution of Saddam will improve somewhat upon his regime's standard of criminal justice, which generally entailed horrific torture followed by confession and punishment. They have urged that Saddam's trial be conducted with complete fairness and transparency. Ahmed Chalabi, the Pentagon's favorite member of the Iraqi Governing Council, says that Saddam must be afforded the lawful treatment he denied his victims.
Those laudable aims presumably require that he be permitted to defend himself legally, no matter how indefensible he actually is. Human Rights Watch, which demanded action against Iraqi atrocities before such concerns became fashionable in Washington, now insists that the captured dictator "must be allowed to conduct a vigorous defense that includes the right to legal counsel at an early stage."
Apart from blaming his underlings for the genocidal crimes on his indictment, what defense can he (or his lawyers) offer? Following in the style of Slobodan Milosevic, he may well wish to spend his final days on the public stage bringing shame to those who brought him down. Unfortunately, it isn't hard to imagine how he might accomplish that if he can call witnesses and subpoena documents.
Charged with the use of poison gas against Kurds and Iranians during the Iran-Iraq war, Saddam could summon a long list of Reagan and Bush administration officials who ignored or excused those atrocities when they were occurring.
An obvious prospective witness is Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who acted as a special envoy to Baghdad during the early 1980's. On a courtroom easel, Saddam might display the famous December 1983 photograph of him shaking hands with Mr. Rumsfeld, who acknowledges that the United States knew Iraq was using chemical weapons. If his forces were using Tabun, mustard gas and other forbidden poisons, he might ask, why did Washington restore diplomatic relations with Baghdad in November 1984?
As for his horrendous persecution of the Kurds in 1988, Saddam could call executives from the banks and defense and pharmaceutical companies from various countries that sold him the equipment and materials he is alleged to have used. He might put former President George Herbert Walker Bush on the witness stand and ask, "Why did your administration and Ronald Reagan's sell my government biological toxins such as anthrax and botulism, as well as poisonous chemicals and helicopters?"
Saddam could also subpoena Henry Kissinger, whose consulting firm's chief economist ventured to Baghdad in June 1989 to advise the Iraqi government on restructuring its debt. "After my forces allegedly murdered thousands of Kurdish civilians in 1988," he might inquire, "why would you and other American businessmen want to help me refinance and rearm my government?"
Indeed, Saddam could conceivably seek the testimony of dozens of men and women who once served in the Reagan and Bush administrations, starting with former Secretary of State George Shultz, and ask them to explain why they opposed every Congressional effort to place sanctions on his government, up until the moment his army invaded Kuwait during the summer of 1990. Pursuing the same general theme, he might call Vice President Dick Cheney, who sought to remove sanctions against Iraq when he served as the chief executive of Halliburton Corp.
The long, shadowy history of American relations with Saddam would be illuminated not only through witness testimony but literally thousands of documents in U.S. government files. Memos uncovered by the National Security Archive show that Reagan and Bush administration officials knew exactly how the Iraqi government was procuring what it needed to build weapons of mass destruction, including equipment intended for construction of a nuclear arsenal.
From time to time, during those crucial years when Saddam consolidated his power and prepared for war, U.S. diplomats issued rote condemnations of his worst actions. Then, as the record shows, they would privately reassure Saddam that the United States still desired close and productive relations. The other governments that were Saddam's accomplices include both opponents and supporters of this administration's pre-emptive war -- from France, Germany and Russia, to Japan, Italy and the United Kingdom.
Pertinent as these issues are to Saddam's case, they do not mitigate his record of murder and corruption. And the man dragged from his pathetic hideout near Tikrit hardly seems to possess the will or the capability to raise them. Either way, he will get what he deserves. Yet it will be hard to boast that justice and history have been fully served if his foreign accomplices escape their share of opprobrium.
Is there really going to be a fair trial in Iraq? I'm not suggesting that he deserves one, but a lot of dirt can come out of this. Keeping in mind what a 6 month interrogation might do to even the strongest of minds, and the fact that Saddam has refrained from making smart choices in the past, I doubt Saddam will be afforded the same freedoms to defend himself that Milosevic is presently enjoying to American displeasure in the Hague. As with Milosevic, it would be much better to line him up against a wall and offer him a smoke. Well, as of this morning, it doesn't look as if Saddam has access to legal counsel. Big deal, right? As far as Saddam being granted the justice he denied millions, without a lawyer with him in that room with his CIA interrogators for the next 6 months, how can any trial be fair? I guess Justice is not only blind, but also American. And in this case, I'm fine with that. Just don't give me garbage about a fair trial, because for the sake of entertainment I'd like to have the world hear the depths to which the U.S was responsible for supporting his brutalities, especially in an election year. Anybody know if Johnnie Cochran is a democrat?
Despite the obvious merits of an internationally led tribunal, Washington is adamantly opposed, which largely explains the path chosen by the Iraqi Governing Council. But Washington's opposition reflects its ideology, not concern for the Iraqi people. The Bush administration calculates that a tribunal of Iraqis selected by its hand-picked Governing Council will be less likely to reveal embarrassing aspects of Washington's past support for Saddam Hussein, more likely to impose the death penalty despite broad international condemnation, and, most important, less likely to enhance even indirectly the legitimacy of the detested International Criminal Court.
Perhaps with less of an axe to grind, Joe Conason from the New York Observer spells out just some of the potential consequences of giving Saddam Hussein a microphone in open court:
President George W. Bush and the provisional Iraqi authorities have promised that before Saddam Hussein is executed, he will most certainly receive a fair trial. Conveniently enough, the Iraqis set up a war-crimes tribunal in Baghdad for this purpose just last week. So sometime after Saddam's Army interrogators are finished sweating the old monster, the preparations shall begin for what promises to be a courtroom spectacular.
Advocates of human rights and international law hope that the prosecution of Saddam will improve somewhat upon his regime's standard of criminal justice, which generally entailed horrific torture followed by confession and punishment. They have urged that Saddam's trial be conducted with complete fairness and transparency. Ahmed Chalabi, the Pentagon's favorite member of the Iraqi Governing Council, says that Saddam must be afforded the lawful treatment he denied his victims.
Those laudable aims presumably require that he be permitted to defend himself legally, no matter how indefensible he actually is. Human Rights Watch, which demanded action against Iraqi atrocities before such concerns became fashionable in Washington, now insists that the captured dictator "must be allowed to conduct a vigorous defense that includes the right to legal counsel at an early stage."
Apart from blaming his underlings for the genocidal crimes on his indictment, what defense can he (or his lawyers) offer? Following in the style of Slobodan Milosevic, he may well wish to spend his final days on the public stage bringing shame to those who brought him down. Unfortunately, it isn't hard to imagine how he might accomplish that if he can call witnesses and subpoena documents.
Charged with the use of poison gas against Kurds and Iranians during the Iran-Iraq war, Saddam could summon a long list of Reagan and Bush administration officials who ignored or excused those atrocities when they were occurring.
An obvious prospective witness is Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who acted as a special envoy to Baghdad during the early 1980's. On a courtroom easel, Saddam might display the famous December 1983 photograph of him shaking hands with Mr. Rumsfeld, who acknowledges that the United States knew Iraq was using chemical weapons. If his forces were using Tabun, mustard gas and other forbidden poisons, he might ask, why did Washington restore diplomatic relations with Baghdad in November 1984?
As for his horrendous persecution of the Kurds in 1988, Saddam could call executives from the banks and defense and pharmaceutical companies from various countries that sold him the equipment and materials he is alleged to have used. He might put former President George Herbert Walker Bush on the witness stand and ask, "Why did your administration and Ronald Reagan's sell my government biological toxins such as anthrax and botulism, as well as poisonous chemicals and helicopters?"
Saddam could also subpoena Henry Kissinger, whose consulting firm's chief economist ventured to Baghdad in June 1989 to advise the Iraqi government on restructuring its debt. "After my forces allegedly murdered thousands of Kurdish civilians in 1988," he might inquire, "why would you and other American businessmen want to help me refinance and rearm my government?"
Indeed, Saddam could conceivably seek the testimony of dozens of men and women who once served in the Reagan and Bush administrations, starting with former Secretary of State George Shultz, and ask them to explain why they opposed every Congressional effort to place sanctions on his government, up until the moment his army invaded Kuwait during the summer of 1990. Pursuing the same general theme, he might call Vice President Dick Cheney, who sought to remove sanctions against Iraq when he served as the chief executive of Halliburton Corp.
The long, shadowy history of American relations with Saddam would be illuminated not only through witness testimony but literally thousands of documents in U.S. government files. Memos uncovered by the National Security Archive show that Reagan and Bush administration officials knew exactly how the Iraqi government was procuring what it needed to build weapons of mass destruction, including equipment intended for construction of a nuclear arsenal.
From time to time, during those crucial years when Saddam consolidated his power and prepared for war, U.S. diplomats issued rote condemnations of his worst actions. Then, as the record shows, they would privately reassure Saddam that the United States still desired close and productive relations. The other governments that were Saddam's accomplices include both opponents and supporters of this administration's pre-emptive war -- from France, Germany and Russia, to Japan, Italy and the United Kingdom.
Pertinent as these issues are to Saddam's case, they do not mitigate his record of murder and corruption. And the man dragged from his pathetic hideout near Tikrit hardly seems to possess the will or the capability to raise them. Either way, he will get what he deserves. Yet it will be hard to boast that justice and history have been fully served if his foreign accomplices escape their share of opprobrium.
Is there really going to be a fair trial in Iraq? I'm not suggesting that he deserves one, but a lot of dirt can come out of this. Keeping in mind what a 6 month interrogation might do to even the strongest of minds, and the fact that Saddam has refrained from making smart choices in the past, I doubt Saddam will be afforded the same freedoms to defend himself that Milosevic is presently enjoying to American displeasure in the Hague. As with Milosevic, it would be much better to line him up against a wall and offer him a smoke. Well, as of this morning, it doesn't look as if Saddam has access to legal counsel. Big deal, right? As far as Saddam being granted the justice he denied millions, without a lawyer with him in that room with his CIA interrogators for the next 6 months, how can any trial be fair? I guess Justice is not only blind, but also American. And in this case, I'm fine with that. Just don't give me garbage about a fair trial, because for the sake of entertainment I'd like to have the world hear the depths to which the U.S was responsible for supporting his brutalities, especially in an election year. Anybody know if Johnnie Cochran is a democrat?
Saddam is bin Laden to Many Americans
I always find it terrifying when it is revealed to me how staggeringly ignorant (but decidedly passionate) we all can be. The American love affair with the idea that Saddam was responsible for 9/11 continues to hold fast despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, including an admission as such from Bush himself. Indeed, almost 70% of Americans believe that Saddam Hussein had a hand in the WTC and Pentagon attacks. That is infinitely more terrifying than Bush getting re-elected because it re-enforces the old truth that you get what you deserve. If the Bush administration has disavowed the notion, why is it so prevalent? What weirdness is at play that has warped the convictions of the majority? Rumour? Gut feeling? Fox News? It would be easier if I was confident enough to say 70% of Americans are just plain gullible, but I'm not. It's a mystery that provides me with little but unease. Read this commentary from Jimmy Breslin in the New York Daily:
The guide from the tour bus stood in the center of a crowd in winter hats and announced, "This used to be called Ground Zero. We don't use that anymore. We now call it the World Trade Center." Behind him yesterday was the Russian steppes. Brooding and empty, with nothing to stop the icy wind coming off the river. In the wild exulting over the capture of a defeated man, Hussein, you'd think that the trade center would not be as continually and vigorously inspected by sightseers. After all, Hussein had nothing to do with this. Bin Laden is your man.
Yet small crowds such as this one with their tour guide gathered through the afternoon for the length of the fence looking out at the famous and frozen real estate. Each person you spoke to, and they were from all over the country, were pleased that the new trade center would be the world's tallest building. Also, they were supremely happy because Saddam Hussein had had something to do with blowing up the Twin Towers.
Here was a woman in the cold, Linda Jacobs, standing with her husband, Ken, from Newport News, Va., and saying, "He probably did. Who knows. But he probably did." Her husband said, "Oh. yeah. He was in on it." A couple from Knoxville, Tenn., Elaine and Will, agreed. "I believe he was in on it on some level," she said. "He was around there someplace," the husband said. Betty Hipp, San Antonio. "Of course Saddam was responsible." I was out there for some time, taking notes and hometowns, and it was all the same. Saddam is bin Laden.
To thaw out, I went into the Burger King on the corner of Liberty and Church, where Mary Garcia, 53, was behind the counter and looking out the big window and right at the trade center and the people there to look at it. "For me Hussein did it, the other guy, too. These people both is together in Iraq and in the trade center," Garcia said. "If Saddam don't do nothing, why he go into a hole? Because he is afraid we catch him for the World Trade Center that he did with bin Laden? The both of them together." She said she has a son in Iraq, Sgt. Peter Garcia. "He was from Italy, they send him to Iraq. He's married already in Italy. His wife doesn't stay at the base in Italy. She goes home to Puerto Rico with the baby. "Yesterday I get up in the morning and I hear they caught this Saddam. I go, oh, thank you God. Oh, how happy could you make me? Now maybe my son comes home."
It is a rule of mine not to use man on the street interviews, but this was so unanimous and forceful that I had to listen. And as I did, I could hear George Bush and his people all saying: "We went and got Saddam because it is better to fight terrorists in Iraq than in Manhattan."
No matter that Saddam had nothing to do with the attack. There were 15 Saudi Arabians who were in the suicide attack. Then immediately, the FBI gathered up those members of bin Laden's sprawling family who were in America and got them on planes to Switzerland. And soon, the Saudi Arabian prince was at Waco, Texas, for an amiable day with Bush.
How could you not blame Saddam Hussein for everything? He murdered his own, yes. And he was going to kill all of us with nuclear weapons. "I know they are there," Bush announced. There was nothing nuclear about Saddam hiding in his hole. There was no anthrax or smallpox, just rats and lice.
But the unmistakable feeling is that more and more of the American public will consider Saddam Hussein a partner in terror with Osama bin Laden and that it was a wonderful thing we did, going to war to catch one of them.
This belief in two enemies probably is going to be welcomed by Larry Silverstein, the builder who by mouth alone, has made it appear that he owns the land, the buildings, the sky above and the water below. Silverstein has $3.5 billion coming as insurance for the raid. He contends that they were two separate attacks, one on Tower One, a second on Tower Two. Therefore, he wants to be paid double. Seven billion. The insurance companies involved are inclined to do battle. Without the double insurance payment, people around him say, he won't be able to build a front stoop to a building made of thin air. "Two attacks," Larry says.
"Larry, it is the World Trade Center attack," he is told, including by judges in early rulings that were at least ominous for Silverstein.
Perhaps there was a chance in the freezing air yesterday. He can claim that Osama bin Laden made one attack on a tower and then Saddam Hussein's suicide bombers went into the second tower. Two people. Two attacks. Two payments!
The guide from the tour bus stood in the center of a crowd in winter hats and announced, "This used to be called Ground Zero. We don't use that anymore. We now call it the World Trade Center." Behind him yesterday was the Russian steppes. Brooding and empty, with nothing to stop the icy wind coming off the river. In the wild exulting over the capture of a defeated man, Hussein, you'd think that the trade center would not be as continually and vigorously inspected by sightseers. After all, Hussein had nothing to do with this. Bin Laden is your man.
Yet small crowds such as this one with their tour guide gathered through the afternoon for the length of the fence looking out at the famous and frozen real estate. Each person you spoke to, and they were from all over the country, were pleased that the new trade center would be the world's tallest building. Also, they were supremely happy because Saddam Hussein had had something to do with blowing up the Twin Towers.
Here was a woman in the cold, Linda Jacobs, standing with her husband, Ken, from Newport News, Va., and saying, "He probably did. Who knows. But he probably did." Her husband said, "Oh. yeah. He was in on it." A couple from Knoxville, Tenn., Elaine and Will, agreed. "I believe he was in on it on some level," she said. "He was around there someplace," the husband said. Betty Hipp, San Antonio. "Of course Saddam was responsible." I was out there for some time, taking notes and hometowns, and it was all the same. Saddam is bin Laden.
To thaw out, I went into the Burger King on the corner of Liberty and Church, where Mary Garcia, 53, was behind the counter and looking out the big window and right at the trade center and the people there to look at it. "For me Hussein did it, the other guy, too. These people both is together in Iraq and in the trade center," Garcia said. "If Saddam don't do nothing, why he go into a hole? Because he is afraid we catch him for the World Trade Center that he did with bin Laden? The both of them together." She said she has a son in Iraq, Sgt. Peter Garcia. "He was from Italy, they send him to Iraq. He's married already in Italy. His wife doesn't stay at the base in Italy. She goes home to Puerto Rico with the baby. "Yesterday I get up in the morning and I hear they caught this Saddam. I go, oh, thank you God. Oh, how happy could you make me? Now maybe my son comes home."
It is a rule of mine not to use man on the street interviews, but this was so unanimous and forceful that I had to listen. And as I did, I could hear George Bush and his people all saying: "We went and got Saddam because it is better to fight terrorists in Iraq than in Manhattan."
No matter that Saddam had nothing to do with the attack. There were 15 Saudi Arabians who were in the suicide attack. Then immediately, the FBI gathered up those members of bin Laden's sprawling family who were in America and got them on planes to Switzerland. And soon, the Saudi Arabian prince was at Waco, Texas, for an amiable day with Bush.
How could you not blame Saddam Hussein for everything? He murdered his own, yes. And he was going to kill all of us with nuclear weapons. "I know they are there," Bush announced. There was nothing nuclear about Saddam hiding in his hole. There was no anthrax or smallpox, just rats and lice.
But the unmistakable feeling is that more and more of the American public will consider Saddam Hussein a partner in terror with Osama bin Laden and that it was a wonderful thing we did, going to war to catch one of them.
This belief in two enemies probably is going to be welcomed by Larry Silverstein, the builder who by mouth alone, has made it appear that he owns the land, the buildings, the sky above and the water below. Silverstein has $3.5 billion coming as insurance for the raid. He contends that they were two separate attacks, one on Tower One, a second on Tower Two. Therefore, he wants to be paid double. Seven billion. The insurance companies involved are inclined to do battle. Without the double insurance payment, people around him say, he won't be able to build a front stoop to a building made of thin air. "Two attacks," Larry says.
"Larry, it is the World Trade Center attack," he is told, including by judges in early rulings that were at least ominous for Silverstein.
Perhaps there was a chance in the freezing air yesterday. He can claim that Osama bin Laden made one attack on a tower and then Saddam Hussein's suicide bombers went into the second tower. Two people. Two attacks. Two payments!
Next Few Weeks Make or Break for Iraq
I said it yesterday and I'll say it agin: the next few weeks are vital for the United States and the future of Iraq. We are going to see how the capture of Saddam Hussein will play out. We don't know at all whether or not the insurgency will gasp it's way into oblivion now that Saddam is gone, paving the way for undisrupted elections and the peace that is essential for a democracy to take root, or whether Saddam was not nearly as important as the media and the Bush administration is letting on. There is a real danger here for Bush, who has seen his polling numbers go up in the wake of the capture. If the attacks by fedayeen and ordinary Iraqis continue, Bush is running out of people and groups to blame. If Americans continue to die I believe the media will go hunting and Bush's numbers will drop. CNN is reporting that 10 have been killed and 15 wounded after a truck packed with explosives detonated in central Baghdad. Is this a death rattle or a sign that Saddam mattered little? In any event, I shall keep abreast of developments and keep you posted. Also, did you notice that Madonna has endorsed Gen. Wesley Clark for president? This could signal the turn of the tide! Watch out Dean.
Tuesday, December 16, 2003
Hans Blix Believes Iraq Destroyed their WMD in 1991
This story from Al Jazeera:
Iraq probably got rid of its weapons of mass destruction in 1991 as the country's toppled leaders claimed, the former UN chief weapons inspector has said. "The Iraqis have consistently stated that they (weapons of mass destruction) were destroyed in the summer of 1991," Hans Blix told journalists in Stockholm on Tuesday. "My guess is that there are no weapons of mass destruction left."
Blix was in Stockholm to announce the creation of a new independent international commission on weapons of mass destruction (WMD). He said there was reason to look further into Iraqi claims after the capture of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
"Saddam must have knowledge about what he ordered. He should know about what he built" and "he must have some information himself on when they destroyed their weapons of mass destruction." Blix added the capture of Saddam Hussein was unlikely to bring the occupation forces in Iraq any closer to finding the elusive weapons, but that he may still tell investigators how Iraq acquired, developed and eventually got rid of the weapons. A former Swedish diplomat, Blix was charged with searching for weapons of mass destruction in the 15 weeks leading up to the US-led invasion of Iraq.
He criticised the US for making claims to justify its strike on Iraq that it couldn't back up. "I think that much of what was said was not sufficiently well based," he said.
Blix has been assigned to lead a new Swedish-financed commission on weapons of mass destruction, which is set to work in 2004 and 2005 on finding ways of limiting the spread of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. The new commission will cover the general threat posed by weapons of mass destruction, but Blix said it would also discuss countries of particular concern, like North Korea, Iran, Iraq and the Indian peninsula, as well as the risk posed by terrorist organisations.
OK then, the question is this: if American intelligence was so poor, can the U.S ever be trusted to give the right information again? Clearly not 100%. The danger of such inexactitude will become apparent when and if another crisis arises where American security is threatened and the "evidence" comes from the CIA.
The world will be suspicious to the point where instinct will point them in the direction of serious doubt. I'm being generous here, for it seems to me that no nation would go to war with such bad intelligence being the lynchpin of their purpose. In the words of Roger Daltry from The Who: "I won't get fooled again."
Iraq probably got rid of its weapons of mass destruction in 1991 as the country's toppled leaders claimed, the former UN chief weapons inspector has said. "The Iraqis have consistently stated that they (weapons of mass destruction) were destroyed in the summer of 1991," Hans Blix told journalists in Stockholm on Tuesday. "My guess is that there are no weapons of mass destruction left."
Blix was in Stockholm to announce the creation of a new independent international commission on weapons of mass destruction (WMD). He said there was reason to look further into Iraqi claims after the capture of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
"Saddam must have knowledge about what he ordered. He should know about what he built" and "he must have some information himself on when they destroyed their weapons of mass destruction." Blix added the capture of Saddam Hussein was unlikely to bring the occupation forces in Iraq any closer to finding the elusive weapons, but that he may still tell investigators how Iraq acquired, developed and eventually got rid of the weapons. A former Swedish diplomat, Blix was charged with searching for weapons of mass destruction in the 15 weeks leading up to the US-led invasion of Iraq.
He criticised the US for making claims to justify its strike on Iraq that it couldn't back up. "I think that much of what was said was not sufficiently well based," he said.
Blix has been assigned to lead a new Swedish-financed commission on weapons of mass destruction, which is set to work in 2004 and 2005 on finding ways of limiting the spread of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. The new commission will cover the general threat posed by weapons of mass destruction, but Blix said it would also discuss countries of particular concern, like North Korea, Iran, Iraq and the Indian peninsula, as well as the risk posed by terrorist organisations.
OK then, the question is this: if American intelligence was so poor, can the U.S ever be trusted to give the right information again? Clearly not 100%. The danger of such inexactitude will become apparent when and if another crisis arises where American security is threatened and the "evidence" comes from the CIA.
The world will be suspicious to the point where instinct will point them in the direction of serious doubt. I'm being generous here, for it seems to me that no nation would go to war with such bad intelligence being the lynchpin of their purpose. In the words of Roger Daltry from The Who: "I won't get fooled again."
What Happens Now?
This piece from Iraqi writer Tariq Ali called The New Model of Imperialism: Saddam on Parade examines the significance of his capture:
My first reaction to the capture of Saddam Hussein was both anger and disgust. Anger with the old dictator who could not even die honourably. He preferred to be captured by his old friends than to go down fighting, the one decent thing he could have done for his country.
I felt no pity for Saddam. He had killed some dear comrades of mine and imprisoned too many others, but the US had no right to do this. It was the responsibility of the Iraqi people.
I also felt disgust with the way in which the TV networks were covering this event. CNN and BBC World had become total propaganda networks, to such an extent that it must have made Berlusconi smile. Parading a captured prisoner in this fashion is the new model of imperialism. The latter-day equivalent of how barbarian chieftains were paraded in ancient Rome, prior to their execution.
For years the US had built up Saddam as the big bogeyman in the Middle-East. Now that he has gone what possible excuse is there for the Western soldiers to remain in Iraq? Why not an immediate general election to elect a Constituent Assembly? Is it because an elected Assembly would demand an immediate end to the Occupation, Iraqi control of Iraqi oil and Iraqi firms to reconstruct their country? These demands will unite the bulk of Iraqis regardless of their religious or ethnic origin.
What effect will Saddam's arrest have on the resistance? Several weeks ago I wrote that even if Saddam was captured and killed, the resistance would continue. There is no reason to change that view. In fact those who were, till now, reluctant to back the resistance will now come out openly against the Occupation. Those in the US and elsewhere who argued that the resistance was led by Saddam and the remnants of the old regime, will now get a big shock. This week a peaceful mass uprising in Hilla removed a US-appointed Governor. The slogan chanted by the people was: "Free elections now!' Actions of this type are bound to increase.
If it is true, as the warmongers argued once they couldn't find any 'weapons of mass destruction', that they were ridding Iraq of a tyrant, the logic should now be an immediate end to the Occupation. I don't think this will happen. That is why a political resistance could spread throughout the country. Banning trades-unions as the Occupation has done won't make too much difference. The Iraqi underground is vibrant and hopeful.
And what will they do with Saddam? The Occupation of Iraq is illegal and so the US will not tempt international law by trying him in the Hague. There is a further problem. In order to help Kissinger and other US war criminals it was agreed that leaders cannot be charged retrospectively. If there is a tribunal in Iraq, it will, like every other institution today, be US-dominated. Will it be public? And what if old rogue decides to tell the whole story of his collaboration with the US throughout the Eighties of the last century? What if he reveals his conversations with Donald Rumsfeld during the Iran-Iraq war? Its a problem for them. So they will do what suits their interests.
After all, the Emperor Hirohito in Japan sanctioned and supported a war that led to the deaths of tens of millions during the Second World war. He was needed against Communism and so they transformed him into a friendly marine biologist.
I don't think they need Saddam any more, so he can't be transformed into a friendly neighbourhood archaelogist, but they will try and get what they want out of him, though even a broken and defeated Saddam is unlikely to help them find the weapons that never existed.
My first reaction to the capture of Saddam Hussein was both anger and disgust. Anger with the old dictator who could not even die honourably. He preferred to be captured by his old friends than to go down fighting, the one decent thing he could have done for his country.
I felt no pity for Saddam. He had killed some dear comrades of mine and imprisoned too many others, but the US had no right to do this. It was the responsibility of the Iraqi people.
I also felt disgust with the way in which the TV networks were covering this event. CNN and BBC World had become total propaganda networks, to such an extent that it must have made Berlusconi smile. Parading a captured prisoner in this fashion is the new model of imperialism. The latter-day equivalent of how barbarian chieftains were paraded in ancient Rome, prior to their execution.
For years the US had built up Saddam as the big bogeyman in the Middle-East. Now that he has gone what possible excuse is there for the Western soldiers to remain in Iraq? Why not an immediate general election to elect a Constituent Assembly? Is it because an elected Assembly would demand an immediate end to the Occupation, Iraqi control of Iraqi oil and Iraqi firms to reconstruct their country? These demands will unite the bulk of Iraqis regardless of their religious or ethnic origin.
What effect will Saddam's arrest have on the resistance? Several weeks ago I wrote that even if Saddam was captured and killed, the resistance would continue. There is no reason to change that view. In fact those who were, till now, reluctant to back the resistance will now come out openly against the Occupation. Those in the US and elsewhere who argued that the resistance was led by Saddam and the remnants of the old regime, will now get a big shock. This week a peaceful mass uprising in Hilla removed a US-appointed Governor. The slogan chanted by the people was: "Free elections now!' Actions of this type are bound to increase.
If it is true, as the warmongers argued once they couldn't find any 'weapons of mass destruction', that they were ridding Iraq of a tyrant, the logic should now be an immediate end to the Occupation. I don't think this will happen. That is why a political resistance could spread throughout the country. Banning trades-unions as the Occupation has done won't make too much difference. The Iraqi underground is vibrant and hopeful.
And what will they do with Saddam? The Occupation of Iraq is illegal and so the US will not tempt international law by trying him in the Hague. There is a further problem. In order to help Kissinger and other US war criminals it was agreed that leaders cannot be charged retrospectively. If there is a tribunal in Iraq, it will, like every other institution today, be US-dominated. Will it be public? And what if old rogue decides to tell the whole story of his collaboration with the US throughout the Eighties of the last century? What if he reveals his conversations with Donald Rumsfeld during the Iran-Iraq war? Its a problem for them. So they will do what suits their interests.
After all, the Emperor Hirohito in Japan sanctioned and supported a war that led to the deaths of tens of millions during the Second World war. He was needed against Communism and so they transformed him into a friendly marine biologist.
I don't think they need Saddam any more, so he can't be transformed into a friendly neighbourhood archaelogist, but they will try and get what they want out of him, though even a broken and defeated Saddam is unlikely to help them find the weapons that never existed.
Resistance Continues But for How Long?
It doesn't look like Saddam's capture is solving much in the short term. These next few weeks are crucial for the U.S occupation. If the insurgency continues unabated, killing more Americans and those helping them, it will reveal the irrelevance of Hussein to the overall effort to de-stabilise the country. On the other hand, if the attacks begin to slow down we could see an accelerated withdrawal of the bulk of American forces, perhaps before the spring, clearing the way for a political solution, a smoother UN entry, and maybe, just maybe, some semblance of a rocky peace. The news coming out today doesn't look too promising for the U.S, but as I said, it will take weeks for the dust of Saddam's capture to settle. This from The New York Times:
American soldiers killed 11 attackers who ambushed their patrol using a flock of pigeons as a signal of the force's approach, a United States military statement said today. The incident, which occurred Monday, appeared to be a further sign that the insurgency has not slowed after the capture of Saddam Hussein.
American officials have said that the capture of Mr. Hussein by American forces from an underground hole on Saturday would not completely quell the violence in the country against military forces. Since Mr. Hussein was detained, there have been several car bombs and attacks against American forces and the Iraqi police who work with them.
But the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Myers, told reporters at Baghdad airport today that the capture of Mr. Hussein would send a signal to anti-American insurgents.
"When you take this leader who at one time was a popular leader in the region and find him in a hole in the ground, that is a powerful signal that you may be on the wrong team and maybe should be thinking about some other line of work," he said, in remarks carried by the Reuters news agency.
On Monday, American soldiers from the Second Infantry Division traveling through the city of Samarra, about 60 miles north of Baghdad, saw a large flock of pigeons take flight, apparently as a signal to announce the arrival of the soldiers.
Moments later, two men on a motorcycle firing automatic weapons used children leaving school as cover to attack the patrol, the statement said. American forces deployed snipers. As the patrol continued, gunmen using an overgrown field as cover attacked it with automatic weapons, while others fired rocket-propelled grenades and mortars, the statement said.
The statement said the soldiers killed 11 attackers, and that there were no American casualties. In November, American soldiers killed 46 guerrilla attackers in a firefight in Samarra — the largest battle in the country since coalition forces toppled Mr. Hussein's government last spring.
Today, protests in support of Saddam Hussein broke out in at least two Iraqi towns, Falluja and Ramadi, while American forces were wounded by a roadside bomb in Tikrit, news agencies reported. The American military said in a statement that in Falluja some demonstrators with assault rifles fired into the air, and the Iraqi police called in American forces to help push back rioters at the American-backed mayor's office. It said that after the crowd dispersed, American troops shot dead one "enemy" after a rocket-propelled grenade was fired at a tank.
In the past 24 hours, the military said, five "enemy personnel" were shot dead during joint patrols by American and Iraqi forces in Khaldiya and when the soldiers and Iraqi forces were fired on after up to 750 people gathered for a pro-Saddam rally in Ramadi.
American soldiers killed 11 attackers who ambushed their patrol using a flock of pigeons as a signal of the force's approach, a United States military statement said today. The incident, which occurred Monday, appeared to be a further sign that the insurgency has not slowed after the capture of Saddam Hussein.
American officials have said that the capture of Mr. Hussein by American forces from an underground hole on Saturday would not completely quell the violence in the country against military forces. Since Mr. Hussein was detained, there have been several car bombs and attacks against American forces and the Iraqi police who work with them.
But the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Myers, told reporters at Baghdad airport today that the capture of Mr. Hussein would send a signal to anti-American insurgents.
"When you take this leader who at one time was a popular leader in the region and find him in a hole in the ground, that is a powerful signal that you may be on the wrong team and maybe should be thinking about some other line of work," he said, in remarks carried by the Reuters news agency.
On Monday, American soldiers from the Second Infantry Division traveling through the city of Samarra, about 60 miles north of Baghdad, saw a large flock of pigeons take flight, apparently as a signal to announce the arrival of the soldiers.
Moments later, two men on a motorcycle firing automatic weapons used children leaving school as cover to attack the patrol, the statement said. American forces deployed snipers. As the patrol continued, gunmen using an overgrown field as cover attacked it with automatic weapons, while others fired rocket-propelled grenades and mortars, the statement said.
The statement said the soldiers killed 11 attackers, and that there were no American casualties. In November, American soldiers killed 46 guerrilla attackers in a firefight in Samarra — the largest battle in the country since coalition forces toppled Mr. Hussein's government last spring.
Today, protests in support of Saddam Hussein broke out in at least two Iraqi towns, Falluja and Ramadi, while American forces were wounded by a roadside bomb in Tikrit, news agencies reported. The American military said in a statement that in Falluja some demonstrators with assault rifles fired into the air, and the Iraqi police called in American forces to help push back rioters at the American-backed mayor's office. It said that after the crowd dispersed, American troops shot dead one "enemy" after a rocket-propelled grenade was fired at a tank.
In the past 24 hours, the military said, five "enemy personnel" were shot dead during joint patrols by American and Iraqi forces in Khaldiya and when the soldiers and Iraqi forces were fired on after up to 750 people gathered for a pro-Saddam rally in Ramadi.
Monday, December 15, 2003
Osama bin Hard to Find
This from Reuters:
And then there was one. The capture of Saddam Hussein throws the spotlight on the world's other most wanted man, the elusive Osama bin Laden. The leader of al Qaeda and suspected architect of the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington could remain at liberty for much longer as difficult Afghan terrain, friendly tribes, a deep well of loyalty and his role as an ideological inspiration all combine to protect him.
"Saddam is no longer a problem now, so bin Laden is the focus," U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad said. Many analysts argue that with bin Laden still free and possibly planning more attacks on U.S. soil and elsewhere, including perhaps in Iraq itself, he poses a far more potent threat than the former Iraqi leader. "The single biggest weakness of the U.S. has been the failure to target and neutralize Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri," said terrorism expert Rohan Gunaratna, referring to the al Qaeda chief's Egyptian deputy. Capturing bin Laden presents a much more formidable challenge to U.S. troops and intelligence, analysts say.
"Unlike Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden is not viewed as a tyrant who has butchered many people around him," said Husain Haqqani of the Carnegie Endowment in Washington. "Saddam was in a circle with room for betrayal but there are very few such in the Osama circle. "And he has local support, he is like a fish swimming in favorable waters," said Haqqani. That is one of several critical factors that analysts say have helped bin Laden evade the manhunt. "For more than 10 years, Osama has lived along the Afghan-Pakistan border and enjoys significant support there," said Gunaratna, author of "Inside Al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror." "The Americans have not done anything for these people and they see Osama as their hero and they will protect him," he said.
Protecting a guest is a way of life in the ancient honor code of the Pashtun tribes that populate the region where bin Laden is believed to have taken refuge. "Anyone who handed over Osama bin Laden would be seen as a traitor in the Muslim world," said counter-terror expert Clive Williams of the Australian National University in Canberra. "They would rather be prepared to martyr themselves."
In addition to the loyalty of people in the region, bin Laden is operating in terrain so rugged and mountainous that it provides a natural barrier against those searching for him. "Saddam Hussein was totally isolated in a country effectively under U.S. control while Osama has the advantage of having people on both sides of the border," said Haqqani. "There are warlords and local commanders on the Afghan side and possibly low-level government functionaries on the Pakistan side who are ideologically sympathetic," he said.
Also, analysts noted the lure of the militant Islamic ideology that martyrs would be rewarded in the afterlife, compared with Saddam's vehemently secular Baath party. Such differences are crucial, they said.
Saddam was no guerrilla fighter with an organized clandestine network of agents and safe houses like al Qaeda, said Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistani expert on Afghanistan and author of a book on the Taliban. "Saddam's capture was a question of intelligence," said Rashid, adding that the chances of someone approaching the U.S. forces with intelligence about bin Laden were remote. "This entire region is hostile to the Americans and hostile to the Pakistani government," he said. That reduces the attraction of the $25 million reward on bin Laden's head.
"For the Afghans, their honor is more important," said Gunaratna. "Money is a just a green piece of paper." While some analysts say elements of Pakistan's military Inter Services Intelligence may be sympathetic to bin Laden, others cite signs that Pakistan is already tracking down those protecting him if he is hiding in the lawless border tribal regions. "What we are seeing is that Pakistan is investing more resources in developing intelligence on that border, but it is a very long border," said Gunaratna of the highly porous 2,450-km (1,500-mile) frontier with Afghanistan.
Analysts say Pakistan is eager to cooperate with U.S. forces in tracking down members of al Qaeda to boost relations with the United States. Since the September 11 attacks, some 460 al Qaeda members, including several top leaders, have been arrested in Pakistan. But Washington has not given the hunt for bin Laden the importance that it could have, analysts said.
It has devoted limited resources to Afghanistan, with only 12,000 troops based in the rugged, landlocked country compared with more than 10 times that number in Iraq. "Afghanistan is a forgotten war and it is a mistake not to pay attention to it," said Haqqani, adding that U.S. interest evaporated with the overthrow of the Taliban and the apparent dispersal of al Qaeda's leadership in November 2001. "The Americans need to put resources and men on the ground. That is an absolute necessity," Haqqani said.
And then there was one. The capture of Saddam Hussein throws the spotlight on the world's other most wanted man, the elusive Osama bin Laden. The leader of al Qaeda and suspected architect of the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington could remain at liberty for much longer as difficult Afghan terrain, friendly tribes, a deep well of loyalty and his role as an ideological inspiration all combine to protect him.
"Saddam is no longer a problem now, so bin Laden is the focus," U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad said. Many analysts argue that with bin Laden still free and possibly planning more attacks on U.S. soil and elsewhere, including perhaps in Iraq itself, he poses a far more potent threat than the former Iraqi leader. "The single biggest weakness of the U.S. has been the failure to target and neutralize Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri," said terrorism expert Rohan Gunaratna, referring to the al Qaeda chief's Egyptian deputy. Capturing bin Laden presents a much more formidable challenge to U.S. troops and intelligence, analysts say.
"Unlike Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden is not viewed as a tyrant who has butchered many people around him," said Husain Haqqani of the Carnegie Endowment in Washington. "Saddam was in a circle with room for betrayal but there are very few such in the Osama circle. "And he has local support, he is like a fish swimming in favorable waters," said Haqqani. That is one of several critical factors that analysts say have helped bin Laden evade the manhunt. "For more than 10 years, Osama has lived along the Afghan-Pakistan border and enjoys significant support there," said Gunaratna, author of "Inside Al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror." "The Americans have not done anything for these people and they see Osama as their hero and they will protect him," he said.
Protecting a guest is a way of life in the ancient honor code of the Pashtun tribes that populate the region where bin Laden is believed to have taken refuge. "Anyone who handed over Osama bin Laden would be seen as a traitor in the Muslim world," said counter-terror expert Clive Williams of the Australian National University in Canberra. "They would rather be prepared to martyr themselves."
In addition to the loyalty of people in the region, bin Laden is operating in terrain so rugged and mountainous that it provides a natural barrier against those searching for him. "Saddam Hussein was totally isolated in a country effectively under U.S. control while Osama has the advantage of having people on both sides of the border," said Haqqani. "There are warlords and local commanders on the Afghan side and possibly low-level government functionaries on the Pakistan side who are ideologically sympathetic," he said.
Also, analysts noted the lure of the militant Islamic ideology that martyrs would be rewarded in the afterlife, compared with Saddam's vehemently secular Baath party. Such differences are crucial, they said.
Saddam was no guerrilla fighter with an organized clandestine network of agents and safe houses like al Qaeda, said Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistani expert on Afghanistan and author of a book on the Taliban. "Saddam's capture was a question of intelligence," said Rashid, adding that the chances of someone approaching the U.S. forces with intelligence about bin Laden were remote. "This entire region is hostile to the Americans and hostile to the Pakistani government," he said. That reduces the attraction of the $25 million reward on bin Laden's head.
"For the Afghans, their honor is more important," said Gunaratna. "Money is a just a green piece of paper." While some analysts say elements of Pakistan's military Inter Services Intelligence may be sympathetic to bin Laden, others cite signs that Pakistan is already tracking down those protecting him if he is hiding in the lawless border tribal regions. "What we are seeing is that Pakistan is investing more resources in developing intelligence on that border, but it is a very long border," said Gunaratna of the highly porous 2,450-km (1,500-mile) frontier with Afghanistan.
Analysts say Pakistan is eager to cooperate with U.S. forces in tracking down members of al Qaeda to boost relations with the United States. Since the September 11 attacks, some 460 al Qaeda members, including several top leaders, have been arrested in Pakistan. But Washington has not given the hunt for bin Laden the importance that it could have, analysts said.
It has devoted limited resources to Afghanistan, with only 12,000 troops based in the rugged, landlocked country compared with more than 10 times that number in Iraq. "Afghanistan is a forgotten war and it is a mistake not to pay attention to it," said Haqqani, adding that U.S. interest evaporated with the overthrow of the Taliban and the apparent dispersal of al Qaeda's leadership in November 2001. "The Americans need to put resources and men on the ground. That is an absolute necessity," Haqqani said.
Defiant in U.S Custody, What's Next for Saddam?
I've always thought Saddam was a nasty man, really the worst kind of scum, up there in the pantheon of skidmarks on par with Ceaucescu, Noriega, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and Nixon. Seeing him laid out, man-handled by a bald medic on TV looking about as "into it" as a cro magnon man snatched by aliens, I realised how omnipotent and inexorable the present projection of American power really is. As to how people stand up to the U.S is beyond me. Is it bravery? Not according to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld:
"Here was a man who was photographed hundreds of times shooting off rifles and showing how tough he was, and in fact, he wasn't very tough, he was cowering in a hole in the ground, and had a pistol and didn't use it and certainly did not put up any fight at all. . .In the last analysis, he seemed not terribly brave. . ."
I suppose not. Hussein was a killer when he was a teenager, and really dug it for all his life. He is responsible for killing millions and started two really unintelligent wars (but not this one). He stood once astride his country like a colossus, but for the last 8 months he has been in a hole. Being down a hole that long just sucks, even if you're sleeping on a pillow of $750,000 in crisp $100 bills, packing a pistol and two AK-47's. What was he hoping for? To live to fight another day? To save himself from simple humiliation? To defeat the invaders? None of that matters now. Anyway, would we give a shit?
Have we so demonized Saddam that we have stripped him of his only remaining possession: his humanity? Yes. Have we whipped ourselves up into a frenzy of vengeance that we are under threat of losing our own? Maybe.
No one will shed a tear for Saddam, but if he is put on trial and allowed to defend himself, to make statements of his own choosing before the world? It's tough to say. Really, it would be better for Bush if the dictator was set against a wall and shot, today. Talk of a trial by Iraqi's is already getting support from the Bush administration. What could happen then?
This from a friend on the island,
"And if Saddam has a sense of humor and has his wits about him, he shall
call a few good witnesses:
- April Glaspy, the then US ambassador in Baghdad, to prove the US
complicity in giving him a green light to invade Kuwait,
- Dick Cheney & Donald Rumsfeld, for all the help and support they gave
him in the war against Iran and the 1988 massacre of the Kurds, and
- Norman Schwarzkopf, The US millitary commander, for allowing and
facilitating the massacre of the Iraqi Shi'its after the first Gulf War."
This might not require a sense of humour but common sense. Saddam has displayed little of that. The press is going to go on a rampage of vilification to steel our hearts to pity. We are meant to hate him, and we do. But we must ready ourselves, so the thinking goes, for the moment when he has the microphone. Does he pull a Ghandi, mesmerising all with a rhetorical labyrinth of well-reasoned points, challenging our moral authority, challenging the U.S case, all the while retaining his dignity and composure? Not in a million years. He will do as always, just blunder along, digging himself deeper in our disdain, like a Milosevic or a Mugabe, mad-mouthing rants in platitude while alternately pouting like a child.
This excerpt from today's Time exclusive:
After his capture, Saddam was taken to a holding cell at the Baghdad Airport. He didn’t answer any of the initial questions directly, the official said, and at times seemed less than fully coherent. The transcript was full of “Saddam rhetoric type stuff,” said the official who paraphrased Saddam’s answers to some of the questions. When asked “How are you?” said the official, Saddam responded, “I am sad because my people are in bondage.” When offered a glass of water by his interrogators, Saddam replied, “If I drink water I will have to go to the bathroom and how can I use the bathroom when my people are in bondage?”
Not exactly the argument I'd choose. Whatever the case, it's been a good day. I'm sure somewhere out there more people were made happy by his capture than those who were made sad.
"Here was a man who was photographed hundreds of times shooting off rifles and showing how tough he was, and in fact, he wasn't very tough, he was cowering in a hole in the ground, and had a pistol and didn't use it and certainly did not put up any fight at all. . .In the last analysis, he seemed not terribly brave. . ."
I suppose not. Hussein was a killer when he was a teenager, and really dug it for all his life. He is responsible for killing millions and started two really unintelligent wars (but not this one). He stood once astride his country like a colossus, but for the last 8 months he has been in a hole. Being down a hole that long just sucks, even if you're sleeping on a pillow of $750,000 in crisp $100 bills, packing a pistol and two AK-47's. What was he hoping for? To live to fight another day? To save himself from simple humiliation? To defeat the invaders? None of that matters now. Anyway, would we give a shit?
Have we so demonized Saddam that we have stripped him of his only remaining possession: his humanity? Yes. Have we whipped ourselves up into a frenzy of vengeance that we are under threat of losing our own? Maybe.
No one will shed a tear for Saddam, but if he is put on trial and allowed to defend himself, to make statements of his own choosing before the world? It's tough to say. Really, it would be better for Bush if the dictator was set against a wall and shot, today. Talk of a trial by Iraqi's is already getting support from the Bush administration. What could happen then?
This from a friend on the island,
"And if Saddam has a sense of humor and has his wits about him, he shall
call a few good witnesses:
- April Glaspy, the then US ambassador in Baghdad, to prove the US
complicity in giving him a green light to invade Kuwait,
- Dick Cheney & Donald Rumsfeld, for all the help and support they gave
him in the war against Iran and the 1988 massacre of the Kurds, and
- Norman Schwarzkopf, The US millitary commander, for allowing and
facilitating the massacre of the Iraqi Shi'its after the first Gulf War."
This might not require a sense of humour but common sense. Saddam has displayed little of that. The press is going to go on a rampage of vilification to steel our hearts to pity. We are meant to hate him, and we do. But we must ready ourselves, so the thinking goes, for the moment when he has the microphone. Does he pull a Ghandi, mesmerising all with a rhetorical labyrinth of well-reasoned points, challenging our moral authority, challenging the U.S case, all the while retaining his dignity and composure? Not in a million years. He will do as always, just blunder along, digging himself deeper in our disdain, like a Milosevic or a Mugabe, mad-mouthing rants in platitude while alternately pouting like a child.
This excerpt from today's Time exclusive:
After his capture, Saddam was taken to a holding cell at the Baghdad Airport. He didn’t answer any of the initial questions directly, the official said, and at times seemed less than fully coherent. The transcript was full of “Saddam rhetoric type stuff,” said the official who paraphrased Saddam’s answers to some of the questions. When asked “How are you?” said the official, Saddam responded, “I am sad because my people are in bondage.” When offered a glass of water by his interrogators, Saddam replied, “If I drink water I will have to go to the bathroom and how can I use the bathroom when my people are in bondage?”
Not exactly the argument I'd choose. Whatever the case, it's been a good day. I'm sure somewhere out there more people were made happy by his capture than those who were made sad.
Sunday, December 14, 2003
"We got him" Says Bremer - Saddam to go on Trial
Alright! Great job finding a bearded, pathetic shell of a man living in a dirt hole. It's a great day for Iraq and a victory for Bush, but let's keep our eyes on the ball. I'm sure the celebration will cast away the clouds of doubt for a few days over why the Americans went into Iraq in the first place, but once the music stops there will still be no WMD found and no link with Al Qaeda. Did the U.S go to war to put Saddam on trial? Will his people will put him on trial, burn him at the stake, and then say "thanks America, here is your exit visa"? Is that the new spin? I'm afraid we're going to see a lot of that in the coming days, but the more pressing question is this: in the short term will this make the Iraqi people more responsive to the outstretched hands of America therefore limiting the daily attacks against them? I hope so. This was a war where the endgame is still malleable. There has been too much killing for stupid reasons. Just make sure you keep your eyes on the goal-posts, I think they're going to move yet again.
DNA Tests Say it's Saddam: Al Jazeera
Al Jazeera has this for sale in the final graf of it's breaking news story:
Intifad Qanbar, the spokesperson for the US-backed Iraqi Governing Council, claimed DNA tests had shown that the captive was Hussein.
Intifad Qanbar, the spokesperson for the US-backed Iraqi Governing Council, claimed DNA tests had shown that the captive was Hussein.
BREAKING NEWS: SADDAM HUSSEIN CAUGHT?
Nothing as yet confirmed. CNN is going bananas.
Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has possibly been captured in a raid near his hometown of Tikrit, U.S. officials say. However, the officials told CNN on Sunday that the identity of the individual, who was one of a number of wanted Iraqis caught, was still being confirmed. A coalition news conference in Baghdad, scheduled for 1200 GMT (7 a.m. ET), is expected to shed more light on whether the Iraqi leader was captured. The raid was based on intelligence that Saddam was at a particular location in the area, the officials said. The former Iraqi leader is number one on the coalition's 55 most wanted list, and his evasion has been a political sore spot for the U.S. administration.
The BBC has it from an Iranian source that the U.S have got him:
Ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has been arrested in Iraq, according to unconfirmed reports. He was detained in his ancestral home town of Tikrit, Iraqi Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani said on the official Iranian news agency IRNA.
This from Reuters:
"The American forces in Tikrit announced that Saddam was arrested on Sunday. The Americans said that they will announce the news officially in the next few hours," IRNA quoted Talabani as saying.
This is going to be a busy news day...
Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has possibly been captured in a raid near his hometown of Tikrit, U.S. officials say. However, the officials told CNN on Sunday that the identity of the individual, who was one of a number of wanted Iraqis caught, was still being confirmed. A coalition news conference in Baghdad, scheduled for 1200 GMT (7 a.m. ET), is expected to shed more light on whether the Iraqi leader was captured. The raid was based on intelligence that Saddam was at a particular location in the area, the officials said. The former Iraqi leader is number one on the coalition's 55 most wanted list, and his evasion has been a political sore spot for the U.S. administration.
The BBC has it from an Iranian source that the U.S have got him:
Ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has been arrested in Iraq, according to unconfirmed reports. He was detained in his ancestral home town of Tikrit, Iraqi Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani said on the official Iranian news agency IRNA.
This from Reuters:
"The American forces in Tikrit announced that Saddam was arrested on Sunday. The Americans said that they will announce the news officially in the next few hours," IRNA quoted Talabani as saying.
This is going to be a busy news day...
When Iraqi's Kill Their Own
Breaking News from the BBC:
A car bomb has exploded at a police station in an Iraqi town, causing several casualties, witnesses say.
One report said at least six people were killed in the blast in Khalidiyah, about 35 miles (60 km) west of Baghdad, but this could not be confirmed. US forces, backed by helicopters, have cordoned off the area, witnesses say. Scores of Iraqis have been killed or injured by bomb attacks targeting police stations and those co-operating with coalition forces.
There were no US troops in the immediate vicinity when the blast occurred, a US military spokesman told Reuters news agency. Casualties were taken to hospitals in the nearby city of Ramadi. In November, at least 18 people were killed in two car bomb attacks on police stations north of Baghdad. The blasts, in which 13 Iraqi policemen died, happened minutes apart in the towns of Khan Bani Saad and Baquba, known to be strongholds of supporters of Saddam Hussein.
These "dead end" fedayeen attacks that are killing civilians and those just trying to put back together the pieces of their lives might backfire, turning those who support any and all attempts to de-stabilize the American presence in Iraq against them. Being brutal, regardless of intent, usually doesn't fly with people who are more concerned about the infinitely more pressing bottom line of necessity. But there is no trust for the Americans. This should come as no surprise as they are an army of trained bulls in a big china shop, not taught the finer points of how not to upset people. They might be able to field-strip their weapons with ease and hog-tie suspected "terrorists" in seconds, but I have serious doubts about their social graces. The terrible truth for middle America is this: the Iraqi people, like the French, will never be grateful to you for anything. There will be no Statue of Liberty sailing the Atlantic astride tankers of crude coming all the way from Baghdad, and that's what Americans will begin to tire of first, the lack of thanks, the squalor, the otherness of it all. They can take the bodycount, no problem, but they might turn the channel if things get much uglier.
A car bomb has exploded at a police station in an Iraqi town, causing several casualties, witnesses say.
One report said at least six people were killed in the blast in Khalidiyah, about 35 miles (60 km) west of Baghdad, but this could not be confirmed. US forces, backed by helicopters, have cordoned off the area, witnesses say. Scores of Iraqis have been killed or injured by bomb attacks targeting police stations and those co-operating with coalition forces.
There were no US troops in the immediate vicinity when the blast occurred, a US military spokesman told Reuters news agency. Casualties were taken to hospitals in the nearby city of Ramadi. In November, at least 18 people were killed in two car bomb attacks on police stations north of Baghdad. The blasts, in which 13 Iraqi policemen died, happened minutes apart in the towns of Khan Bani Saad and Baquba, known to be strongholds of supporters of Saddam Hussein.
These "dead end" fedayeen attacks that are killing civilians and those just trying to put back together the pieces of their lives might backfire, turning those who support any and all attempts to de-stabilize the American presence in Iraq against them. Being brutal, regardless of intent, usually doesn't fly with people who are more concerned about the infinitely more pressing bottom line of necessity. But there is no trust for the Americans. This should come as no surprise as they are an army of trained bulls in a big china shop, not taught the finer points of how not to upset people. They might be able to field-strip their weapons with ease and hog-tie suspected "terrorists" in seconds, but I have serious doubts about their social graces. The terrible truth for middle America is this: the Iraqi people, like the French, will never be grateful to you for anything. There will be no Statue of Liberty sailing the Atlantic astride tankers of crude coming all the way from Baghdad, and that's what Americans will begin to tire of first, the lack of thanks, the squalor, the otherness of it all. They can take the bodycount, no problem, but they might turn the channel if things get much uglier.
Saturday, December 13, 2003
"Learning to be Stupid in the Culture of Cash"
A friend passed this Luciana Bohne piece to me on the state of American education. I've posted it in it's entirety. Enjoy:
You might think that reading about a Podunk University's English teacher's attempt to connect the dots between the poverty of American education and the gullibility of the American public may be a little trivial, considering we've embarked on the first, openly-confessed imperial adventure of senescent capitalism in the US, but bear with me. The question my experiences in the classroom raise is why have these young people been educated to such abysmal depths of ignorance.
"I don't read," says a junior without the slightest self-consciousness. She has not the smallest hint that professing a habitual preference for not reading at a university is like bragging in ordinary life that one chooses not to breathe. She is in my "World Literature" class. She has to read novels by African, Latin American, and Asian authors. She is not there by choice: it's just a "distribution" requirement for graduation, and it's easier than philosophy -she thinks.
The novel she has trouble reading is Isabel Allende's "Of Love and Shadows," set in the post-coup terror of Pinochet's junta's Nazi-style regime in Chile, 1973-1989. No one in the class, including the English majors, can write a focused essay of analysis, so I have to teach that. No one in the class knows where Chile is, so I make photocopies of general information from world guide surveys. No one knows what socialism or fascism is, so I spend time writing up digestible definitions. No one knows what Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" is, and I supply it because it's impossible to understand the theme of the novel without a basic knowledge of that work - which used to be required reading a few generations ago. And no one in the class has ever heard of 11 September 1973, the CIA-sponsored coup which terminated Chile's mature democracy. There is complete shock when I supply US de-classified documents proving US collusion with the generals' coup and the assassination of elected president, Salvador Allende.
Geography, history, philosophy, and political science - all missing from their preparation. I realize that my students are, in fact, the oppressed, as Paulo Freire's "The Pedagogy of the Oppressed" pointed out, and that they are paying for their own oppression. So, I patiently explain: no, our government has not been the friend of democracy in Chile; yes, our government did fund both the coup and the junta torture-machine; yes, the same goes for most of Latin America. Then, one student asks, "Why?" Well, I say, the CIA and the corporations run roughshod over the world in part because of the ignorance of the people of the United States, which apparently is induced by formal education, reinforced by the media, and cheered by Hollywood. As the more people read, the less they know and the more indoctrinated they become, you get this national enabling stupidity to attain which they go into bottomless pools of debt. If it weren't tragic, it would be funny.
Meanwhile, this expensive stupidity facilitates US funding of the bloody work of death squads, juntas, and terror regimes abroad. It permits the war we are waging - an unfair, illegal, unjust, illogical, and expensive war, which announces to the world the failure of our intelligence and, by the way, the creeping weakness of our economic system. Every man, woman, and child killed by a bomb, bullet, famine, or polluted water is a murder - and a war crime. And it signals the impotence of American education to produce brains equipped with the bare necessities for democratic survival: analyzing and asking questions.
Let me put it succinctly: I don't think serious education is possible in America. Anything you touch in the annals of knowledge is a foe of this system of commerce and profit, run amok. The only education that can be permitted is if it acculturates to the status quo, as happens in the expensive schools, or if it produces people to police and enforce the status quo, as in the state school where I teach. Significantly, at my school, which is a third-tier university, servicing working-class, first-generation college graduates who enter lower-echelon jobs in the civil service, education, or middle management, the favored academic concentrations are communications, criminal justice, and social work--basically how to mystify, cage, and control the masses.
This education is a vast waste of the resources and potential of the young. It is boring beyond belief and useless--except to the powers and interests that depend on it. When A Ukranian student, a three-week arrival on these shores, writes the best-organized and most profound essay in English of the class, American education has something to answer for--especially to our youth.
But the detritus and debris that American education has become is both planned and instrumental. It's why our media succeeds in telling lies. It's why our secretary of state can quote from a graduate-student paper, claiming confidently that the stolen data came from the highest intelligence sources. It's why Picasso's "Guernica" can be covered up during his preposterous "report" to the UN without anyone guessing the political significance of this gesture and the fascist sensibility that it protects.
Cultural fascism manifests itself in an aversion to thought and cultural refinement. "When I hear the word 'culture,'" Goebbels said, "I reach for my revolver." One of the infamous and telling reforms the Pinochet regime implemented was educational reform. The basic goal was to end the university's role as a source of social criticism and political opposition. The order came to dismantle the departments of philosophy, social and political science, humanities and the arts--areas in which political discussions were likely to occur. The universities were ordered to issue degrees only in business management, computer programming, engineering, medicine and dentistry - vocational training schools, which in reality is what American education has come to resemble, at least at the level of mass education. Our students can graduate without ever touching a foreign language, philosophy, elements of any science, music or art, history, and political science, or economics. In fact, our students learn to live in an electoral democracy devoid of politics - a feature the dwindling crowds at the voting booths well illustrate.
The poet Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote that, in the rapacity that the industrial revolution created, people first surrendered their minds or the capacity to reason, then their hearts or the capacity to empathize, until all that was left of the original human equipment was the senses or their selfish demands for gratification. At that point, humans entered the stage of market commodities and market consumers--one more thing in the commercial landscape. Without minds or hearts, they are instrumentalized to buy whatever deadens their clamoring and frightened senses--official lies, immoral wars, Barbies, and bankrupt educations.
Having gone to university overseas, I'd like to hear from any readers if the Canadian experience is all that different. Are people studying philosophy because of an overwhelming curiosity and thirst for Kant or Socrates? Or is it that "Arts" in general is the e-ticket, the get cash for beer from student loans and postpone the whole growing up thing? Are students too hoodwinked by Gap and Kokanee commercials to take learning seriously? Is it true that you can spend $500 at Banana Republic and at least "look smart?" Is that Hemingway paperback in the ass-pocket of your Levi's an accessory or the read home on the bus? I've met some pretty smart people who have gone to Canadian universities, but I've also met some pretty vapid MA's in my time. Is this as epidemic as Bohne makes it out to be? Let me know.
You might think that reading about a Podunk University's English teacher's attempt to connect the dots between the poverty of American education and the gullibility of the American public may be a little trivial, considering we've embarked on the first, openly-confessed imperial adventure of senescent capitalism in the US, but bear with me. The question my experiences in the classroom raise is why have these young people been educated to such abysmal depths of ignorance.
"I don't read," says a junior without the slightest self-consciousness. She has not the smallest hint that professing a habitual preference for not reading at a university is like bragging in ordinary life that one chooses not to breathe. She is in my "World Literature" class. She has to read novels by African, Latin American, and Asian authors. She is not there by choice: it's just a "distribution" requirement for graduation, and it's easier than philosophy -she thinks.
The novel she has trouble reading is Isabel Allende's "Of Love and Shadows," set in the post-coup terror of Pinochet's junta's Nazi-style regime in Chile, 1973-1989. No one in the class, including the English majors, can write a focused essay of analysis, so I have to teach that. No one in the class knows where Chile is, so I make photocopies of general information from world guide surveys. No one knows what socialism or fascism is, so I spend time writing up digestible definitions. No one knows what Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" is, and I supply it because it's impossible to understand the theme of the novel without a basic knowledge of that work - which used to be required reading a few generations ago. And no one in the class has ever heard of 11 September 1973, the CIA-sponsored coup which terminated Chile's mature democracy. There is complete shock when I supply US de-classified documents proving US collusion with the generals' coup and the assassination of elected president, Salvador Allende.
Geography, history, philosophy, and political science - all missing from their preparation. I realize that my students are, in fact, the oppressed, as Paulo Freire's "The Pedagogy of the Oppressed" pointed out, and that they are paying for their own oppression. So, I patiently explain: no, our government has not been the friend of democracy in Chile; yes, our government did fund both the coup and the junta torture-machine; yes, the same goes for most of Latin America. Then, one student asks, "Why?" Well, I say, the CIA and the corporations run roughshod over the world in part because of the ignorance of the people of the United States, which apparently is induced by formal education, reinforced by the media, and cheered by Hollywood. As the more people read, the less they know and the more indoctrinated they become, you get this national enabling stupidity to attain which they go into bottomless pools of debt. If it weren't tragic, it would be funny.
Meanwhile, this expensive stupidity facilitates US funding of the bloody work of death squads, juntas, and terror regimes abroad. It permits the war we are waging - an unfair, illegal, unjust, illogical, and expensive war, which announces to the world the failure of our intelligence and, by the way, the creeping weakness of our economic system. Every man, woman, and child killed by a bomb, bullet, famine, or polluted water is a murder - and a war crime. And it signals the impotence of American education to produce brains equipped with the bare necessities for democratic survival: analyzing and asking questions.
Let me put it succinctly: I don't think serious education is possible in America. Anything you touch in the annals of knowledge is a foe of this system of commerce and profit, run amok. The only education that can be permitted is if it acculturates to the status quo, as happens in the expensive schools, or if it produces people to police and enforce the status quo, as in the state school where I teach. Significantly, at my school, which is a third-tier university, servicing working-class, first-generation college graduates who enter lower-echelon jobs in the civil service, education, or middle management, the favored academic concentrations are communications, criminal justice, and social work--basically how to mystify, cage, and control the masses.
This education is a vast waste of the resources and potential of the young. It is boring beyond belief and useless--except to the powers and interests that depend on it. When A Ukranian student, a three-week arrival on these shores, writes the best-organized and most profound essay in English of the class, American education has something to answer for--especially to our youth.
But the detritus and debris that American education has become is both planned and instrumental. It's why our media succeeds in telling lies. It's why our secretary of state can quote from a graduate-student paper, claiming confidently that the stolen data came from the highest intelligence sources. It's why Picasso's "Guernica" can be covered up during his preposterous "report" to the UN without anyone guessing the political significance of this gesture and the fascist sensibility that it protects.
Cultural fascism manifests itself in an aversion to thought and cultural refinement. "When I hear the word 'culture,'" Goebbels said, "I reach for my revolver." One of the infamous and telling reforms the Pinochet regime implemented was educational reform. The basic goal was to end the university's role as a source of social criticism and political opposition. The order came to dismantle the departments of philosophy, social and political science, humanities and the arts--areas in which political discussions were likely to occur. The universities were ordered to issue degrees only in business management, computer programming, engineering, medicine and dentistry - vocational training schools, which in reality is what American education has come to resemble, at least at the level of mass education. Our students can graduate without ever touching a foreign language, philosophy, elements of any science, music or art, history, and political science, or economics. In fact, our students learn to live in an electoral democracy devoid of politics - a feature the dwindling crowds at the voting booths well illustrate.
The poet Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote that, in the rapacity that the industrial revolution created, people first surrendered their minds or the capacity to reason, then their hearts or the capacity to empathize, until all that was left of the original human equipment was the senses or their selfish demands for gratification. At that point, humans entered the stage of market commodities and market consumers--one more thing in the commercial landscape. Without minds or hearts, they are instrumentalized to buy whatever deadens their clamoring and frightened senses--official lies, immoral wars, Barbies, and bankrupt educations.
Having gone to university overseas, I'd like to hear from any readers if the Canadian experience is all that different. Are people studying philosophy because of an overwhelming curiosity and thirst for Kant or Socrates? Or is it that "Arts" in general is the e-ticket, the get cash for beer from student loans and postpone the whole growing up thing? Are students too hoodwinked by Gap and Kokanee commercials to take learning seriously? Is it true that you can spend $500 at Banana Republic and at least "look smart?" Is that Hemingway paperback in the ass-pocket of your Levi's an accessory or the read home on the bus? I've met some pretty smart people who have gone to Canadian universities, but I've also met some pretty vapid MA's in my time. Is this as epidemic as Bohne makes it out to be? Let me know.
Friday, December 12, 2003
The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us About Iraq
Alternet has an excerpt up taken from a new book called "The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us About Iraq". I've posted about half of it, so if you're intrigued, go check out the rest:
To steer the United States into a preemptive war with a country 6,000 miles away, the Bush administration had to establish five key “facts” in the public’s mind as a precursor to deploying hundreds of thousands of troops and spending billions of dollars in the effort:
1. Iraq had something to do with 9/11 and/or Al Qaeda.
2. Iraq illegally possessed chemical and biological weapons which were a threat to the United States and/or its allies.
3. Iraq was fast pursuing and might even already possess the means to build and deliver a nuclear bomb.
4. Occupying Iraq would not only be a “cakewalk,” but we would also find in the aftermath a nation full of people who would welcome us and cooperate fully in the rebuilding of their country.
5. Iraq was a nation which, with U.S. aid and guidance, could within a short time become a democratic model for the rest of the region.
These five lies were hardly arbitrary, but chosen with a clear under-standing of what it takes to overcome the innate isolationism of Americans. To wage war, the American public needs to feel an immediate sense of clear and present danger, be it Pearl Harbor or the menacing presence of Soviet nuclear weapons placed in Cuba. We are poorly educated about the world beyond, but have an innate grasp of power relationships, understanding that if you can’t hurt us we don’t have to think much about you.
The fact that Iraq holds under its dry soil the world’s second largest oil reserves only complicated the pitch for occupation: Americans don’t like to think of themselves as imperialists, getting their hands dirty to secure wealth. Thanks to our history as a former colony, U.S. foreign policy has always been clothed in the rhetoric of moral exceptional-ism – the idea that wars must be undertaken at least partly for the greater good of humanity.
The larger vision behind the invasion of Iraq – as the first step toward the creation of a new American empire – was unlikely to win a ringing endorsement from a nation that likes to think of itself always as the “good guy in the white hat.” Despite Saddam’s many excesses, most Americans wouldn’t have minded if Saddam Hussein were to be overthrown, choke on a pretzel, or be stoned for adultery – and all Iraq’s oil siphoned into the Great Lakes, for that matter – but they were damned unlikely to want to risk American lives to accomplish any of it.
And then, after the unbelievable horror of 9/11, shocked out of our post–Cold War illusion of omnipotence, Americans – whether liberal or conservative – sought security, revenge, and reaffirmation of our long-held belief that we are the world’s beacon of light. Faced with these strong and often conflicting emotions, the White House offered a simple panacea: an open-ended “war on terror,” posed as a new “crusade” to wreak havoc on America’s enemies and anybody who would harbor them. U.S. presidents know that to sell a war to the American people, they need at least two basic ingredients: self-defense and moral duty. In terrorism, the Bush administration found the perfect enemy – shadowy, insubstantial, and infinitely malleable to interpretation. In his 2002 State of the Union speech, flushed with the resounding victory in Afghanistan, Bush proclaimed:
“Thousands of dangerous killers, schooled in the methods of murder, often supported by outlaw regimes, are now spread throughout the world like ticking time bombs, set to go off without warning....These enemies view the entire world as a battlefield, and we must pursue them wherever they are. So long as training camps operate, so long as nations harbor terrorists, freedom is at risk and America and our allies must not, and will not, allow it.”
Forget the Taliban. It was now time for a full-blown “axis of evil,” a wish list of targets that could be picked off one by one in this unending war; unfortunately for Saddam, Iraq was #1. Over the coming year, the Bush administration would persistently work to convince the American public that: one, Saddam has already attacked the United States through his connections with Al Qaeda; and two, he could and would do so again using biological and chemical weapons or, if we were to waste any more time, a nuclear bomb.
In chapters two, three, and four, we deconstruct each of these myths – Saddam’s link to Al Qaeda, his threatening stash of bio-chemical weapons, and his nuclear weapons program – in detail. As these chapters reveal, the Bush administration did not have good evidence to support its allegations. It instead combined vague assertions, outright falsehoods, and exaggerated rhetoric that were repeated over and over again until they were established as “facts” in the public debate.
While establishing Saddam’s credentials as a terrorist required “imaginative” uses of intelligence, the moral card was much easier to play in the post-9/11 era. The national tragedy brought out the uglier side of American exceptionalism: the need to objectify entire nations as “evil.” Whatever the motives for war, Americans have always needed to believe in their righteousness in waging it.
To steer the United States into a preemptive war with a country 6,000 miles away, the Bush administration had to establish five key “facts” in the public’s mind as a precursor to deploying hundreds of thousands of troops and spending billions of dollars in the effort:
1. Iraq had something to do with 9/11 and/or Al Qaeda.
2. Iraq illegally possessed chemical and biological weapons which were a threat to the United States and/or its allies.
3. Iraq was fast pursuing and might even already possess the means to build and deliver a nuclear bomb.
4. Occupying Iraq would not only be a “cakewalk,” but we would also find in the aftermath a nation full of people who would welcome us and cooperate fully in the rebuilding of their country.
5. Iraq was a nation which, with U.S. aid and guidance, could within a short time become a democratic model for the rest of the region.
These five lies were hardly arbitrary, but chosen with a clear under-standing of what it takes to overcome the innate isolationism of Americans. To wage war, the American public needs to feel an immediate sense of clear and present danger, be it Pearl Harbor or the menacing presence of Soviet nuclear weapons placed in Cuba. We are poorly educated about the world beyond, but have an innate grasp of power relationships, understanding that if you can’t hurt us we don’t have to think much about you.
The fact that Iraq holds under its dry soil the world’s second largest oil reserves only complicated the pitch for occupation: Americans don’t like to think of themselves as imperialists, getting their hands dirty to secure wealth. Thanks to our history as a former colony, U.S. foreign policy has always been clothed in the rhetoric of moral exceptional-ism – the idea that wars must be undertaken at least partly for the greater good of humanity.
The larger vision behind the invasion of Iraq – as the first step toward the creation of a new American empire – was unlikely to win a ringing endorsement from a nation that likes to think of itself always as the “good guy in the white hat.” Despite Saddam’s many excesses, most Americans wouldn’t have minded if Saddam Hussein were to be overthrown, choke on a pretzel, or be stoned for adultery – and all Iraq’s oil siphoned into the Great Lakes, for that matter – but they were damned unlikely to want to risk American lives to accomplish any of it.
And then, after the unbelievable horror of 9/11, shocked out of our post–Cold War illusion of omnipotence, Americans – whether liberal or conservative – sought security, revenge, and reaffirmation of our long-held belief that we are the world’s beacon of light. Faced with these strong and often conflicting emotions, the White House offered a simple panacea: an open-ended “war on terror,” posed as a new “crusade” to wreak havoc on America’s enemies and anybody who would harbor them. U.S. presidents know that to sell a war to the American people, they need at least two basic ingredients: self-defense and moral duty. In terrorism, the Bush administration found the perfect enemy – shadowy, insubstantial, and infinitely malleable to interpretation. In his 2002 State of the Union speech, flushed with the resounding victory in Afghanistan, Bush proclaimed:
“Thousands of dangerous killers, schooled in the methods of murder, often supported by outlaw regimes, are now spread throughout the world like ticking time bombs, set to go off without warning....These enemies view the entire world as a battlefield, and we must pursue them wherever they are. So long as training camps operate, so long as nations harbor terrorists, freedom is at risk and America and our allies must not, and will not, allow it.”
Forget the Taliban. It was now time for a full-blown “axis of evil,” a wish list of targets that could be picked off one by one in this unending war; unfortunately for Saddam, Iraq was #1. Over the coming year, the Bush administration would persistently work to convince the American public that: one, Saddam has already attacked the United States through his connections with Al Qaeda; and two, he could and would do so again using biological and chemical weapons or, if we were to waste any more time, a nuclear bomb.
In chapters two, three, and four, we deconstruct each of these myths – Saddam’s link to Al Qaeda, his threatening stash of bio-chemical weapons, and his nuclear weapons program – in detail. As these chapters reveal, the Bush administration did not have good evidence to support its allegations. It instead combined vague assertions, outright falsehoods, and exaggerated rhetoric that were repeated over and over again until they were established as “facts” in the public debate.
While establishing Saddam’s credentials as a terrorist required “imaginative” uses of intelligence, the moral card was much easier to play in the post-9/11 era. The national tragedy brought out the uglier side of American exceptionalism: the need to objectify entire nations as “evil.” Whatever the motives for war, Americans have always needed to believe in their righteousness in waging it.
Pentagon to Investigate Halliburton Ops in Iraq
I'm not surprised that the story about Halliburton price-gouging U.S occupation forces in Iraq is finally getting so much play. With all the initial reservations about giving Halliburton the no-bid contracts in the first place, I would have expected this story to be at the head of the news-cycle. As it stands, this bit of news is almost two months old, with CBS reporting back on the 16th of October that "Vice President Dick Cheney's former company, Halliburton, is gouging U.S. taxpayers while importing gasoline into Iraq." In recent days the story has exploded, getting coverage on all the major networks. The Guardian is now reporting that the Pentagon is going to look into it, after being over-charged $120,000,000 (USD). And people were suspicious of Halliburton...sheesh!
Iraqis Get Palestinian Experience
Check out this interesting story from Time on how the U.S is taking lessons from Israel on how to occupy Iraq. It's no surprise Iraqi's see their struggle as little different from that of the Palestinians. Here is a brief excerpt:
The idea U.S. forces in Iraq may be taking lessons in occupation and counterinsurgency from the Israeli Defense Force may have only just begun to make the news in America, but it has been obvious to Iraqis for some time. For residents of the Sunni Triangle, who have spent years watching TV images of the residents of the West Bank and Gaza living under siege, surrounded by checkpoints and suffering periodic air strikes and military sweeps, the Palestinian experience offers a ready template for understanding the turn taken by their own lives over the past six months. Whole villages have been surrounded by razor wire, their residents forced to pass through checkpoints; U.S. aircraft and artillery have blasted buildings suspected of being used by insurgents; there have even been instances of family members of suspected insurgents being taken into custody when their wanted relatives can't be found. As one Iraqi waiting on line at a checkpoint last week told the New York Times, "I see no difference between us and the Palestinians." That's a worrying development for U.S. authorities, since in the eyes of much of the Arab world, the humiliation of occupation has served to justify terrorism against the Israelis.
The idea U.S. forces in Iraq may be taking lessons in occupation and counterinsurgency from the Israeli Defense Force may have only just begun to make the news in America, but it has been obvious to Iraqis for some time. For residents of the Sunni Triangle, who have spent years watching TV images of the residents of the West Bank and Gaza living under siege, surrounded by checkpoints and suffering periodic air strikes and military sweeps, the Palestinian experience offers a ready template for understanding the turn taken by their own lives over the past six months. Whole villages have been surrounded by razor wire, their residents forced to pass through checkpoints; U.S. aircraft and artillery have blasted buildings suspected of being used by insurgents; there have even been instances of family members of suspected insurgents being taken into custody when their wanted relatives can't be found. As one Iraqi waiting on line at a checkpoint last week told the New York Times, "I see no difference between us and the Palestinians." That's a worrying development for U.S. authorities, since in the eyes of much of the Arab world, the humiliation of occupation has served to justify terrorism against the Israelis.
Paul Martin Sworn in as Prime Minister of Canada
I woke up to find everything had changed, and then I blinked, realising that nothing had. It appears the yellow lines in the middle of the road had been painted over, and that's about it. Here is the story of Paul Martin's coronation from The Globe and Mail:
Paul Martin became Canada's 21st Prime Minister on Friday, ending his 15-year quest for the top job in the federal government.
Mr. Martin was sworn in during a ceremony at Ottawa's Rideau Hall just before 10:30 a.m. EST at a ceremony presided over by Governor-General Adrienne Clarkson. It was the final step in his journey to become prime minister after his election as Liberal Leader last month. Mr. Martin officially took office Friday from former prime minister Jean Chrétien, who resigned earlier in the morning.
Upon entering Rideau Hall with his family, Mr. Martin placed a flag on a chair to represent his deceased father, Paul Martin. Before the oath-taking of Mr. Martin and the 38 members of his new cabinet, the ballroom of Rideau Hall was filled with the bars of O Canada, followed by in a traditional aboriginal cleansing ceremony for Mr. Martin. He was then was sworn in — repeating his oath in French, then English. "I, Paul Martin, do solemnly and sincerely promise and swear that I will truly and faithfully, and to the best of my skill and knowledge, execute the powers and trust reposed in me as Prime Minister, so help me God," Mr. Martin said, followed by a hearty round of applause.
His two closest allies, Saskatchewan's Ralph Goodale and Alberta's Anne McLellan, were named Finance Minister, and Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, respectively. Former international trade minister Pierre Pettigrew moves to the Health portfolio — and with it the responsibility of improving Canada's health care system.
In all, Mr. Martin named 22 new ministers to his cabinet and kept 16 of Mr. Chrétien's ministers. The sweeping changes made by Mr. Martin are part of his effort to overhaul the way the federal government is run. "I want to lead an effective government, a focused government, a caring government. Above all else, I want to lead a government that makes a positive difference in the lives of Canadians," Mr. Martin said in a statement Friday.
The cabinet contains a number of new faces and key members of the Liberal backbenches, including Ontario MP David Pratt, former defence committee vice-chairman as Defence Minister, Manitoba's Reginald Alcock as Treasury Board President and Toronto MP Joe Volpe as one part of the newly divided Human Resources ministry and Liza Frulla as minister of the other half. Ontario MP Bob Speller was named to the Agriculture Ministry. Veteran MP Jim Peterson returns to cabinet as Trade Minister and Liberal caucus chairman Stan Keyes moves to National Revenue.
Some of the ministers of Mr. Chrétien's cabinet who stayed on were re-affirmed as ministers. New Brunswick MP Claudette Bradshaw, kept her Labour portfolio along and Bill Graham remains Foreign Affairs Minister. David Anderson also stays on as the Environment Minister. Quebecker Lucienne Robillard moves over from Treasury Board to Industry and former defence minister John McCallum was demoted to Veteran's Affairs.
Members of the new cabinet began arriving at Rideau Hall in Ottawa just after 9:30 a.m., minutes after Mr. Chrétien resigned. Mr. Martin arrived with wife, Sheila, shaking hands and smiling but not speaking to the press. Soon after Ms. McLellan arrived, she said she is "looking forward to it" [her new role as Deputy Prime Minister]. It's an exciting day, it's a great day for the country." Former international trade minister Pierre Pettigrew said he was pleased to be vaulted to Health. "I'm very happy," he told members of the media as he entered Rideau Hall.
Prominent members of Mr. Chrétien's inner circle who have received their walking papers include human resources minister Jane Stewart (the scandal-plagued department will be broken in two by Mr. Martin), justice minister Martin Cauchon, heritage minister Sheila Copps, intergovernmental affairs minister Stéphane Dion, transport minister David Collenette and industry minister Allan Rock. Mr. Martin appointed Mr. Rock as the new ambassador to the United Nations on Friday. Mr. Martin will hold a press conference this afternoon and his parliamentary secretaries, who will have more power than those in Mr. Chrétien's cabinet, will be sworn in at 4:30 p.m. EST.
Meanwhile, his final act as prime minister, Mr. Chrétien arrived at Rideau Hall from his residence at 24 Sussex Dr. shortly after 9 a.m. with his wife, Aline, by limousine and RCMP escort. Walking quickly past reporters as he headed in to resign, one joked: "Are you going to change your mind?" He ran up the steps into a private meeting with Ms. Clarkson. Mr. Chrétien's actual resignation to Ms. Clarkson was done in private. He spent about 25 minutes. with the Governor-General.
After the ceremony, he seemed to be in a jovial mood, laughing with officials and waving as he walked out. Afterward, as he said on Thursday, he planned to "go back to the house, and life will be beautiful."
Mr. Chrétien did not speak with reporters on his way out as he and Mrs. Chrétien left for their new residence at an Ottawa condominium. Rather than leave in a motorcade, they chose to walk away as private citizens.
Paul Martin became Canada's 21st Prime Minister on Friday, ending his 15-year quest for the top job in the federal government.
Mr. Martin was sworn in during a ceremony at Ottawa's Rideau Hall just before 10:30 a.m. EST at a ceremony presided over by Governor-General Adrienne Clarkson. It was the final step in his journey to become prime minister after his election as Liberal Leader last month. Mr. Martin officially took office Friday from former prime minister Jean Chrétien, who resigned earlier in the morning.
Upon entering Rideau Hall with his family, Mr. Martin placed a flag on a chair to represent his deceased father, Paul Martin. Before the oath-taking of Mr. Martin and the 38 members of his new cabinet, the ballroom of Rideau Hall was filled with the bars of O Canada, followed by in a traditional aboriginal cleansing ceremony for Mr. Martin. He was then was sworn in — repeating his oath in French, then English. "I, Paul Martin, do solemnly and sincerely promise and swear that I will truly and faithfully, and to the best of my skill and knowledge, execute the powers and trust reposed in me as Prime Minister, so help me God," Mr. Martin said, followed by a hearty round of applause.
His two closest allies, Saskatchewan's Ralph Goodale and Alberta's Anne McLellan, were named Finance Minister, and Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, respectively. Former international trade minister Pierre Pettigrew moves to the Health portfolio — and with it the responsibility of improving Canada's health care system.
In all, Mr. Martin named 22 new ministers to his cabinet and kept 16 of Mr. Chrétien's ministers. The sweeping changes made by Mr. Martin are part of his effort to overhaul the way the federal government is run. "I want to lead an effective government, a focused government, a caring government. Above all else, I want to lead a government that makes a positive difference in the lives of Canadians," Mr. Martin said in a statement Friday.
The cabinet contains a number of new faces and key members of the Liberal backbenches, including Ontario MP David Pratt, former defence committee vice-chairman as Defence Minister, Manitoba's Reginald Alcock as Treasury Board President and Toronto MP Joe Volpe as one part of the newly divided Human Resources ministry and Liza Frulla as minister of the other half. Ontario MP Bob Speller was named to the Agriculture Ministry. Veteran MP Jim Peterson returns to cabinet as Trade Minister and Liberal caucus chairman Stan Keyes moves to National Revenue.
Some of the ministers of Mr. Chrétien's cabinet who stayed on were re-affirmed as ministers. New Brunswick MP Claudette Bradshaw, kept her Labour portfolio along and Bill Graham remains Foreign Affairs Minister. David Anderson also stays on as the Environment Minister. Quebecker Lucienne Robillard moves over from Treasury Board to Industry and former defence minister John McCallum was demoted to Veteran's Affairs.
Members of the new cabinet began arriving at Rideau Hall in Ottawa just after 9:30 a.m., minutes after Mr. Chrétien resigned. Mr. Martin arrived with wife, Sheila, shaking hands and smiling but not speaking to the press. Soon after Ms. McLellan arrived, she said she is "looking forward to it" [her new role as Deputy Prime Minister]. It's an exciting day, it's a great day for the country." Former international trade minister Pierre Pettigrew said he was pleased to be vaulted to Health. "I'm very happy," he told members of the media as he entered Rideau Hall.
Prominent members of Mr. Chrétien's inner circle who have received their walking papers include human resources minister Jane Stewart (the scandal-plagued department will be broken in two by Mr. Martin), justice minister Martin Cauchon, heritage minister Sheila Copps, intergovernmental affairs minister Stéphane Dion, transport minister David Collenette and industry minister Allan Rock. Mr. Martin appointed Mr. Rock as the new ambassador to the United Nations on Friday. Mr. Martin will hold a press conference this afternoon and his parliamentary secretaries, who will have more power than those in Mr. Chrétien's cabinet, will be sworn in at 4:30 p.m. EST.
Meanwhile, his final act as prime minister, Mr. Chrétien arrived at Rideau Hall from his residence at 24 Sussex Dr. shortly after 9 a.m. with his wife, Aline, by limousine and RCMP escort. Walking quickly past reporters as he headed in to resign, one joked: "Are you going to change your mind?" He ran up the steps into a private meeting with Ms. Clarkson. Mr. Chrétien's actual resignation to Ms. Clarkson was done in private. He spent about 25 minutes. with the Governor-General.
After the ceremony, he seemed to be in a jovial mood, laughing with officials and waving as he walked out. Afterward, as he said on Thursday, he planned to "go back to the house, and life will be beautiful."
Mr. Chrétien did not speak with reporters on his way out as he and Mrs. Chrétien left for their new residence at an Ottawa condominium. Rather than leave in a motorcade, they chose to walk away as private citizens.
U.S Green Zone in Baghdad Shelled
Here is an excerpt from this mornings lead story from Reuters:
Iraqi insurgents bombarded the fortified headquarters of the U.S.-led coalition in Baghdad early Friday, the first attack on the compound since U.S. forces launched a mass anti-guerrilla offensive a month ago. In Washington, the Bush administration was braced for a possible legal battle over its decision to bar France, Germany, Russia and other countries that opposed the Iraq war from participating in its reconstruction. Shortly after midnight in Baghdad, several loud booms shook the city. Sirens wailed and loudspeakers warned residents inside the headquarters complex to take evasive action.
The U.S. military could not immediately confirm what sort of munitions were fired, but sources said mortars were probably used to hammer the two square mile area, known as the Green Zone, on the banks of the Tigris river. "There were four points of impact within the Green Zone," a U.S. military spokeswoman said Friday. "Two coalition force members were slightly wounded from flying debris, but the injuries are not life-threatening." One building in the area, which comprises dozens of palaces once part of Saddam Hussein's presidential compound, was slightly damaged. Smoke billowed from two locations.
It was the first bombardment on the headquarters, which is protected by concrete walls, since mid-November when guerrillas fired on the area several nights running. It was also the first assault on the complex since U.S. forces launched a major counteroffensive against insurgents last month. The attack came after a suicide car bomb blast on a U.S. military base west of Baghdad which killed one U.S. soldier and wounded 14, three of them seriously. It was the third suicide attack on U.S. forces in Iraq this week.
Iraqi insurgents bombarded the fortified headquarters of the U.S.-led coalition in Baghdad early Friday, the first attack on the compound since U.S. forces launched a mass anti-guerrilla offensive a month ago. In Washington, the Bush administration was braced for a possible legal battle over its decision to bar France, Germany, Russia and other countries that opposed the Iraq war from participating in its reconstruction. Shortly after midnight in Baghdad, several loud booms shook the city. Sirens wailed and loudspeakers warned residents inside the headquarters complex to take evasive action.
The U.S. military could not immediately confirm what sort of munitions were fired, but sources said mortars were probably used to hammer the two square mile area, known as the Green Zone, on the banks of the Tigris river. "There were four points of impact within the Green Zone," a U.S. military spokeswoman said Friday. "Two coalition force members were slightly wounded from flying debris, but the injuries are not life-threatening." One building in the area, which comprises dozens of palaces once part of Saddam Hussein's presidential compound, was slightly damaged. Smoke billowed from two locations.
It was the first bombardment on the headquarters, which is protected by concrete walls, since mid-November when guerrillas fired on the area several nights running. It was also the first assault on the complex since U.S. forces launched a major counteroffensive against insurgents last month. The attack came after a suicide car bomb blast on a U.S. military base west of Baghdad which killed one U.S. soldier and wounded 14, three of them seriously. It was the third suicide attack on U.S. forces in Iraq this week.
Thursday, December 11, 2003
Bush Defends Contract Decision
After again watching the Robin Cook speech I posted below, it's difficult to watch Bush speak and not cringe with horror. His down-home way of speaking is difficult to take sometimes, especially so today when he weighed in to defend his decision to keep the lucrative Iraqi reconstruction contracts for, as he put it, "friendly coalition folks". It reminds me of an old Saturday Night Live skit when Jon Lovitz playing Dukakis is debating Bush's dad played by Dana Carvey. After listening to Bush Sr. ramble on, aimlessly repeating "stay the course...a thousand points of light...stay the course", Dukakis exclaims "I can't believe I'm losing to this guy!" That pretty much expresses the frustrations of every Democrat out there. Read the story on Bush's comments in The Washington Post.
Robin Cook's Resignation Revisited
I was reading an article this morning that reminded me of Robin Cook and the best speech of his life. Last March, with Blair steering the ship of state towards a war the British people did not want, Robin Cook resigned from Blair's Cabinet in protest. His resignation speech to the House of Commons, hand's down the best speech I've heard in modern times, electrified the world with its eloquence and made many think twice about the "adventure" Britain was on the verge of embarking upon. If you close your eyes while listening you can almost hear Churchill (or Sir Alec Guiness as Obi Wan Kenobi). After a quick search, I found the entire speech stored on the BBC in both text and video. The same page is now permanently stored in my "watch online" section. It's interesting to go back and see how right he was. Reading it is not nearly as powerful as watching it, so please, indulge your thirst for eloquence in an increasingly dumbed down arena and enjoy!
Aftermath of the New Hampshire Debate
Here are a couple excerpts from Slate's take on the Democrats post-Gore-endorses-Dean debate held in New Hampshire on Tuesday:
This was Ted Koppel's worst performance as a moderator. You can forgive him for experimenting with a couple of questions about the horse race. But when the experiment failed and he persisted, that's on him. When he asked inside-baseball questions and got substantive answers instead, he chided the candidates for failing to stoop to his level. First he asked John Kerry why Howard Dean couldn't beat President Bush. Kerry talked instead about why he would make the best president. Koppel then turned to Dick Gephardt and said, "I'm not really asking you—at least, I wasn't then—whether you think you're the better candidate. I was simply asking you whether you thought that Howard Dean could beat George W. Bush." Later, Koppel asked Carol Moseley Braun whether Al Gore's endorsement of Dean would make blacks loyal to Dean. Braun talked instead about what Democrats should stand for. Koppel then said, "Sen. Edwards, what I was trying to get to with Ambassador Braun was whether loyalty can, in any way, be transferred by an endorsement." Edwards wisely ignored the question as well.
This on new divisions in the Party:
The campaign is beginning to clarify the Democratic Party's fault lines. Tonight, Joe Lieberman embraced the "Clinton transformation," which he defined as military strength, fiscal responsibility, values, middle-class tax cuts, and collaboration with business to create jobs. Then Lieberman delivered the most important line of the evening: "Howard Dean—and now Al Gore, I guess—are on the wrong side of each of those issues." Boom! Just like that, Gore-Lieberman is splitsville, and Lieberman is trying to take Bill Clinton with him.
And Dean is helping. Dean said of Gore, "We both believe that the Bush tax cuts are grossly irresponsible, and they ought to be reversed. We both believe the war in Iraq was put forward on the American people unjustly." Indeed, Gore has repudiated the war far more emphatically than Clinton has. Do Gore and Clinton agree with Dean that all the Bush tax cuts should be repealed, including the parts that went to the middle class? I haven't checked it out yet, but I'm betting that Gore agrees and Clinton doesn't.
Clark, the candidate widely regarded as Clinton's favorite, chimed in on Lieberman's side of the military question: "The time has passed in America when this party can be the party of compassion and let the executive branch run foreign policy. It won't work. We have to be the party that can stand toe to toe with George W. Bush on national security."
This was the big story of the night. Dean can't afford to have Gore's endorsement of him become more evidence that he's a left-winger. He has to patch up the Clinton-Gore rift. If he wins the nomination, he'll almost certainly have to name a running mate from the Clinton wing.
I believe we might see an exciting finish to an otherwise boring race. Probably 5 of the 9 candidates will drop out soon, and this is who I see still standing: Dean and Clark (no doubt this is the real battle), with Kerry and Gephardt refusing to die despite their numbers.
This was Ted Koppel's worst performance as a moderator. You can forgive him for experimenting with a couple of questions about the horse race. But when the experiment failed and he persisted, that's on him. When he asked inside-baseball questions and got substantive answers instead, he chided the candidates for failing to stoop to his level. First he asked John Kerry why Howard Dean couldn't beat President Bush. Kerry talked instead about why he would make the best president. Koppel then turned to Dick Gephardt and said, "I'm not really asking you—at least, I wasn't then—whether you think you're the better candidate. I was simply asking you whether you thought that Howard Dean could beat George W. Bush." Later, Koppel asked Carol Moseley Braun whether Al Gore's endorsement of Dean would make blacks loyal to Dean. Braun talked instead about what Democrats should stand for. Koppel then said, "Sen. Edwards, what I was trying to get to with Ambassador Braun was whether loyalty can, in any way, be transferred by an endorsement." Edwards wisely ignored the question as well.
This on new divisions in the Party:
The campaign is beginning to clarify the Democratic Party's fault lines. Tonight, Joe Lieberman embraced the "Clinton transformation," which he defined as military strength, fiscal responsibility, values, middle-class tax cuts, and collaboration with business to create jobs. Then Lieberman delivered the most important line of the evening: "Howard Dean—and now Al Gore, I guess—are on the wrong side of each of those issues." Boom! Just like that, Gore-Lieberman is splitsville, and Lieberman is trying to take Bill Clinton with him.
And Dean is helping. Dean said of Gore, "We both believe that the Bush tax cuts are grossly irresponsible, and they ought to be reversed. We both believe the war in Iraq was put forward on the American people unjustly." Indeed, Gore has repudiated the war far more emphatically than Clinton has. Do Gore and Clinton agree with Dean that all the Bush tax cuts should be repealed, including the parts that went to the middle class? I haven't checked it out yet, but I'm betting that Gore agrees and Clinton doesn't.
Clark, the candidate widely regarded as Clinton's favorite, chimed in on Lieberman's side of the military question: "The time has passed in America when this party can be the party of compassion and let the executive branch run foreign policy. It won't work. We have to be the party that can stand toe to toe with George W. Bush on national security."
This was the big story of the night. Dean can't afford to have Gore's endorsement of him become more evidence that he's a left-winger. He has to patch up the Clinton-Gore rift. If he wins the nomination, he'll almost certainly have to name a running mate from the Clinton wing.
I believe we might see an exciting finish to an otherwise boring race. Probably 5 of the 9 candidates will drop out soon, and this is who I see still standing: Dean and Clark (no doubt this is the real battle), with Kerry and Gephardt refusing to die despite their numbers.
CIA Recruiting for New Iraqi Spy Service
Nothing says "I love you" more than the gift of an internal spy service. Yes, in the battle for hearts and minds in Iraq, the U.S "now hope to recruit agents from among former regime officials for the new service which will be largely trained, equipped and funded by the CIA". Read the BBC story here.
Watching Press Secretary Scott McClellan and Nausea
Bush's new Press Secretary Scott McClellan is not very good up there at the podium. I just watched his latest briefing at the White House and I must say he is about as interesting, eloquent and charismatic as a mute hedgehog in the dark. Ari Fleisher used to get these long-winded pitches from reporters and he'd bat them out of the park. He'd listen intently, smile even as the reporter prattled along, and then he'd proceed to answer the question, even if it was tough. Scott McClellan seems to have difficulty bunting. Have a look for yourself.
American Trained Iraqi Soldiers Quitting
Caught this snippet buried in a piece from The Guardian:
In Washington, U.S. defense officials said 250 of the 700 Iraqi soldiers trained by the U.S.-led occupation authority have quit. The battalion completed a nine-week basic training course in October and was to be the core of a new Iraqi army.
It was uncertain exactly why a third abandoned their new jobs, though some had complained that the starting salary - $60 a month for privates - was too low, officials said.
Now, I'm not in bed with organised labor, and I don't know whether or not these guys are being intimidated out by fedayeen, coaxed out by American heavy-handedness, or have been inspired by the B.C Ferry strike, but I'd sure as hell honk my horn for them. Call me a terrorist.
In Washington, U.S. defense officials said 250 of the 700 Iraqi soldiers trained by the U.S.-led occupation authority have quit. The battalion completed a nine-week basic training course in October and was to be the core of a new Iraqi army.
It was uncertain exactly why a third abandoned their new jobs, though some had complained that the starting salary - $60 a month for privates - was too low, officials said.
Now, I'm not in bed with organised labor, and I don't know whether or not these guys are being intimidated out by fedayeen, coaxed out by American heavy-handedness, or have been inspired by the B.C Ferry strike, but I'd sure as hell honk my horn for them. Call me a terrorist.
Wednesday, December 10, 2003
Forget Iraqi Contracts, Europe, Forgive Iraqi Debt Instead
Check out Josh Marshall's most recent piece up at his site, Talking Points Memo:
"Read this lede from an article in the Times and tell me with a straight face that these guys have any idea what they're doing ...
President Bush found himself in the awkward position on Wednesday of calling the leaders of France, Germany and Russia to ask them to forgive Iraq's debts, just a day after the Pentagon excluded those countries and others from $18 billion in American-financed Iraqi reconstruction projects.
White House officials were fuming about the timing and the tone of the Pentagon's directive, even while conceding that they had approved the Pentagon policy of limiting contracts to 63 countries that have given the United States political or military aid in Iraq.
I mean, it defies ridicule (what will I do?). The tone? How were they supposed ot sugar-coat it?
Please ...
Clearly, we need to come up with a new executive branch foreign policy appointee, someone whose job it would be to coordinate all this stuff, who could make sure the right hand knows what the left hand is doing, someone who could ride herd over interagency disputes.
Ideally, that person would work out of the White House.
We could call the new post the National Security Coordinator or maybe the National Security Advisor. Something like that.
Just a thought.
And you wonder why they're bringing Jim Baker into the mix? Forget about Rove's phone records. I want the last month's phone records between Dubya and pops ..."
"Read this lede from an article in the Times and tell me with a straight face that these guys have any idea what they're doing ...
President Bush found himself in the awkward position on Wednesday of calling the leaders of France, Germany and Russia to ask them to forgive Iraq's debts, just a day after the Pentagon excluded those countries and others from $18 billion in American-financed Iraqi reconstruction projects.
White House officials were fuming about the timing and the tone of the Pentagon's directive, even while conceding that they had approved the Pentagon policy of limiting contracts to 63 countries that have given the United States political or military aid in Iraq.
I mean, it defies ridicule (what will I do?). The tone? How were they supposed ot sugar-coat it?
Please ...
Clearly, we need to come up with a new executive branch foreign policy appointee, someone whose job it would be to coordinate all this stuff, who could make sure the right hand knows what the left hand is doing, someone who could ride herd over interagency disputes.
Ideally, that person would work out of the White House.
We could call the new post the National Security Coordinator or maybe the National Security Advisor. Something like that.
Just a thought.
And you wonder why they're bringing Jim Baker into the mix? Forget about Rove's phone records. I want the last month's phone records between Dubya and pops ..."
U.S Awarding Iraqi Contracts to Only "Force Contributing Nations"
Not surprisingly, the United States is going to dole out lucrative reconstruction contracts in Iraq to those who didn't object to their war. This from the Washington Post: "The directive, signed by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz and posted Tuesday on a Pentagon Web site, effectively excludes firms from Russia, Germany, France, China and Canada from a large portion of the biggest nation-rebuilding effort since World War II." Check out the Wolfowitz directive in pdf format here. It seems the U.S is not very interested in rebuilding their relationships that have taken hits over Iraq. It's clearly their way or the highway.
China, Taiwan, and the U.S.A
I just read this brief to get some background on the news coming out of Asia. The link will now permanently reside in the right column under the heading "briefings and background". It's a pretty good realpolitik shakedown on the myriad military realities facing the decision-makers in Beijing, Taipei, and Washington. Enjoy at your leisure.
Tuesday, December 09, 2003
John Kerry Gets Grilled By Press Illuminati
William Rivers Pitt has a new piece up called The Trial of John Kerry. Here is an excerpt:
We sat in a circle around Kerry and grilled him for two long hours. In an age of retail politicians who avoid substance the way vampires avoid sunlight, in an age when the sitting President flounders like a gaffed fish whenever he must speak to reporters without a script, Kerry's decision to open himself to the slings and arrows of this group was bold and impressive. He was fresh from two remarkable speeches - one lambasting the PATRIOT Act, another outlining his foreign policy ideals while eviscerating the Bush record - and had his game face on. He needed it, because Eric Alterman lit into him immediately on the all-important issue of his vote for the Iraq War Resolution. The prosecution had begun.
"Senator," said Alterman, "I think you may be the most qualified candidate in the race, and perhaps also the one who best represents my own values. But there was one overriding issue facing this nation during the past four years, and Howard Dean was there when it counted, and you weren't. A lot of people feel that moment entitles him to their vote, even if you have a more progressive record and would be a stronger candidate in November. How are you going to win back those people who you lost with your vote for this awful war?"
There it was. Your record is the best, Mr. Kerry. But you voted for the war, Mr. Kerry. Howard Dean was right, Mr. Kerry, and you were not. Your campaign has been wounded, perhaps mortally, because of this. Explain yourself, and while you're at it, explain how you are going to win back enough Dean voters to keep you from becoming a footnote in this race.
For over a year now, Kerry has struggled to respond to that question. His answers have seemed vague, overly nuanced and evasive. On Thursday, seated before the sharpest knives in the journalistic drawer and facing the unconcealed outrage of Alterman, the Senator from Massachusetts explained why he did what he did. The comments below reflect Kerry's answers over the course of a long conversation and debate on the matter.
"This was the hardest vote I have ever had to cast in my entire career," Kerry said. "I voted for the resolution to get the inspectors in there, period. Remember, for seven and a half years we were destroying weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. In fact, we found more stuff there than we thought we would. After that came those four years when there was no intelligence available about what was happening over there. I believed we needed to get the weapons inspectors back in. I believed Bush needed this resolution in order to get the U.N. to put the inspectors back in there. The only way to get the inspectors back in was to present Bush with the ability to threaten force legitimately. That's what I voted for."
"The way Powell, Eagleberger, Scowcroft, and the others were talking at the time," continued Kerry, "I felt confident that Bush would work with the international community. I took the President at his word. We were told that any course would lead through the United Nations, and that war would be an absolute last resort. Many people I am close with, both Democrats and Republicans, who are also close to Bush told me unequivocally that no decisions had been made about the course of action. Bush hadn't yet been hijacked by Wolfowitz, Perle, Cheney and that whole crew. Did I think Bush was going to charge unilaterally into war? No. Did I think he would make such an incredible mess of the situation? No. Am I angry about it? You're God damned right I am. I chose to believe the President of the United States. That was a terrible mistake."
It's a shame, really, that Kerry's run for President is at deaths door. Here was a guy who had a real chance because of his record in politics, not just the way he worked a room, combed his hair, or handled a chainsaw. He is as consistent as one could hope a liberal could be on every hot-ticket issue, but he just hasn't caught fire like Dean. I hope it's not too late for Kerry, for if only he was still standing after the dust of the Democratic nomination race has settled, he'd be a formidable opponent to the sitting child president. Kerry would cream Bush in the debates without getting freakshow-angry like Dean. He could embarrass Dubya without exercising too much effort. Indeed, rhetorically, Kerry is like Cicero to Bush's John Wayne. It's really too bad. I hope he doesn't pull out of the race too soon, but it doesn't look good. If the news from the Kerry camp in the next few months is bad, I hope he doesn't retire from politics because there are few in Washington like him left.
We sat in a circle around Kerry and grilled him for two long hours. In an age of retail politicians who avoid substance the way vampires avoid sunlight, in an age when the sitting President flounders like a gaffed fish whenever he must speak to reporters without a script, Kerry's decision to open himself to the slings and arrows of this group was bold and impressive. He was fresh from two remarkable speeches - one lambasting the PATRIOT Act, another outlining his foreign policy ideals while eviscerating the Bush record - and had his game face on. He needed it, because Eric Alterman lit into him immediately on the all-important issue of his vote for the Iraq War Resolution. The prosecution had begun.
"Senator," said Alterman, "I think you may be the most qualified candidate in the race, and perhaps also the one who best represents my own values. But there was one overriding issue facing this nation during the past four years, and Howard Dean was there when it counted, and you weren't. A lot of people feel that moment entitles him to their vote, even if you have a more progressive record and would be a stronger candidate in November. How are you going to win back those people who you lost with your vote for this awful war?"
There it was. Your record is the best, Mr. Kerry. But you voted for the war, Mr. Kerry. Howard Dean was right, Mr. Kerry, and you were not. Your campaign has been wounded, perhaps mortally, because of this. Explain yourself, and while you're at it, explain how you are going to win back enough Dean voters to keep you from becoming a footnote in this race.
For over a year now, Kerry has struggled to respond to that question. His answers have seemed vague, overly nuanced and evasive. On Thursday, seated before the sharpest knives in the journalistic drawer and facing the unconcealed outrage of Alterman, the Senator from Massachusetts explained why he did what he did. The comments below reflect Kerry's answers over the course of a long conversation and debate on the matter.
"This was the hardest vote I have ever had to cast in my entire career," Kerry said. "I voted for the resolution to get the inspectors in there, period. Remember, for seven and a half years we were destroying weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. In fact, we found more stuff there than we thought we would. After that came those four years when there was no intelligence available about what was happening over there. I believed we needed to get the weapons inspectors back in. I believed Bush needed this resolution in order to get the U.N. to put the inspectors back in there. The only way to get the inspectors back in was to present Bush with the ability to threaten force legitimately. That's what I voted for."
"The way Powell, Eagleberger, Scowcroft, and the others were talking at the time," continued Kerry, "I felt confident that Bush would work with the international community. I took the President at his word. We were told that any course would lead through the United Nations, and that war would be an absolute last resort. Many people I am close with, both Democrats and Republicans, who are also close to Bush told me unequivocally that no decisions had been made about the course of action. Bush hadn't yet been hijacked by Wolfowitz, Perle, Cheney and that whole crew. Did I think Bush was going to charge unilaterally into war? No. Did I think he would make such an incredible mess of the situation? No. Am I angry about it? You're God damned right I am. I chose to believe the President of the United States. That was a terrible mistake."
It's a shame, really, that Kerry's run for President is at deaths door. Here was a guy who had a real chance because of his record in politics, not just the way he worked a room, combed his hair, or handled a chainsaw. He is as consistent as one could hope a liberal could be on every hot-ticket issue, but he just hasn't caught fire like Dean. I hope it's not too late for Kerry, for if only he was still standing after the dust of the Democratic nomination race has settled, he'd be a formidable opponent to the sitting child president. Kerry would cream Bush in the debates without getting freakshow-angry like Dean. He could embarrass Dubya without exercising too much effort. Indeed, rhetorically, Kerry is like Cicero to Bush's John Wayne. It's really too bad. I hope he doesn't pull out of the race too soon, but it doesn't look good. If the news from the Kerry camp in the next few months is bad, I hope he doesn't retire from politics because there are few in Washington like him left.
Breaking News: Deadly Car Bomb in Moscow
This from the BBC:
A car has exploded near Moscow's Red Square, with at least three people reportedly killed in the blast.
Windows were blown out of buildings on the capital's main shopping street, Tverskaya, although one eyewitness said damage was not extensive. The street is only a few hundred metres from the Kremlin in the heart of the Russian capital. The blast comes days after a suicide bomb attack on a train in southern Russia that killed at least 36 people.
A car has exploded near Moscow's Red Square, with at least three people reportedly killed in the blast.
Windows were blown out of buildings on the capital's main shopping street, Tverskaya, although one eyewitness said damage was not extensive. The street is only a few hundred metres from the Kremlin in the heart of the Russian capital. The blast comes days after a suicide bomb attack on a train in southern Russia that killed at least 36 people.
Monday, December 08, 2003
Breaking News: 31 U.S Soldiers Injured by Car Bomb in Iraq
This from CNN:
Thirty-one U.S. soldiers have been injured after a car bomb exploded outside at the entrance to their barracks in a northern Iraqi town, the U.S. Army says. The blast happened when a car drove through a gate to the base of 3rd Brigade of 101 Airborne division early Tuesday at Tal Afar, about 50 kilometers (30 miles) west of Mosul, the base's spokesman said. The injuries were mostly caused by flying debris and none were life threatening, Major Trey Cate of the 101st Airborne said. Officials say U.S. troops opened fire on the vehicle after it failed to stop at an entry point. The vehicle then detonated. "Whether it was a suicide attack or not, I don't know," the spokesman said.
Thirty-one U.S. soldiers have been injured after a car bomb exploded outside at the entrance to their barracks in a northern Iraqi town, the U.S. Army says. The blast happened when a car drove through a gate to the base of 3rd Brigade of 101 Airborne division early Tuesday at Tal Afar, about 50 kilometers (30 miles) west of Mosul, the base's spokesman said. The injuries were mostly caused by flying debris and none were life threatening, Major Trey Cate of the 101st Airborne said. Officials say U.S. troops opened fire on the vehicle after it failed to stop at an entry point. The vehicle then detonated. "Whether it was a suicide attack or not, I don't know," the spokesman said.
Al Gore to Endorse Howard Dean
This is terrible news for the U.S and ultimately the world. I am certain that if Dean wins the Democratic nomination to run against George W. Bush in the 2004 election the Democrats will lose. Dean has all the support he can get, but he won't sway any Republican-leaning voters. He's from Vermont, damnit! I really hope I'm wrong, but I just can't see Dean beating Bush unless Bush screws up more monumentally than he already has or Dean has General Wesley Clark as his running-mate. I've always believed that Clark was the guy the Democrats would turn to, that Gore would eventually endorse, but Reuters has Dean getting the nod on Tuesday. Clark remains the only candidate who could destroy Bush on foreign policy, even go the right of him on the War on Terror, thus bringing staunch Republican voters to his side. Oh, and he's also a Rhodes scholar, 1st in his class at West Point, a Vietnam vet, a four-star General, hails from Arkansas, and is half-Jewish. That's the South, including Florida, therefore the ballgame. What gives, Gore? Dumbass.
In the end, a Gore endorsement may mean nothing in comparison to a Bill and Hillary nod, but I can't imagine Dean losing momentum and party support now that he is polling way ahead of the pack in New Hampshire and Iowa. I've always thought Gore was a bit of a wooden turd, but now I'm totally convinced. By endorsing Dean, he is not only dooming the U.S to another 4 years of Bushdom, but also pulling the rug out from underneath poor old Joe Lieberman, his "friend" and 2000 running-mate. That's not very classy, Al.
I don't think the Democrats have shot themselves in the foot, I think they may have just gone ahead and blown their brains out.
In the end, a Gore endorsement may mean nothing in comparison to a Bill and Hillary nod, but I can't imagine Dean losing momentum and party support now that he is polling way ahead of the pack in New Hampshire and Iowa. I've always thought Gore was a bit of a wooden turd, but now I'm totally convinced. By endorsing Dean, he is not only dooming the U.S to another 4 years of Bushdom, but also pulling the rug out from underneath poor old Joe Lieberman, his "friend" and 2000 running-mate. That's not very classy, Al.
I don't think the Democrats have shot themselves in the foot, I think they may have just gone ahead and blown their brains out.
U.S Adopting Israeli Tactics in Iraq
A friend sent me this Dexter Filkins article from The New York Times that discusses the American tactical changes which have taken place in Iraq over the last month. Read on:
As the guerrilla war against Iraqi insurgents intensifies, American soldiers have begun wrapping entire villages in barbed wire. In selective cases, American soldiers are demolishing buildings thought to be used by Iraqi attackers. They have begun imprisoning the relatives of suspected guerrillas, in hopes of pressing the insurgents to turn themselves in. The Americans embarked on their get-tough strategy in early November, goaded by what proved to be the deadliest month yet for American forces in Iraq, with 81 soldiers killed by hostile fire. The response they chose is beginning to echo the Israeli counterinsurgency campaign in the occupied territories. So far, the new approach appears to be succeeding in diminishing the threat to American soldiers. But it appears to be coming at the cost of alienating many of the people the Americans are trying to win over. Abu Hishma is quiet now, but it is angry, too.
In Abu Hishma, encased in a razor-wire fence after repeated attacks on American troops, Iraqi civilians line up to go in and out, filing through an American-guarded checkpoint, each carrying an identification card printed in English only. "If you have one of these cards, you can come and go," coaxed Lt. Col. Nathan Sassaman, the battalion commander whose men oversee the village, about 50 miles north of Baghdad. "If you don't have one of these cards, you can't." The Iraqis nodded and edged their cars through the line. Over to one side, an Iraqi man named Tariq muttered in anger. "I see no difference between us and the Palestinians," he said. "We didn't expect anything like this after Saddam fell."
The practice of destroying buildings where Iraqi insurgents are suspected of planning or mounting attacks has been used for decades by Israeli soldiers in Gaza and the West Bank. The Israeli Army has also imprisoned the relatives of suspected terrorists, in the hopes of pressing the suspects to surrender. The Israeli military has also cordoned off villages and towns thought to be hotbeds of guerrilla activity, in an effort to control the flow of people moving in and out. American officials say they are not purposefully mimicking Israeli tactics, but they acknowledge that they have studied closely the Israeli experience in urban fighting. Ahead of the war, Israeli defense experts briefed American commanders on their experience in guerrilla and urban warfare. The Americans say there are no Israeli military advisers helping the Americans in Iraq.
Writing in the July issue of Army magazine, an American brigadier general said American officers had recently traveled to Israel to hear about lessons learned from recent fighting there. "Experience continues to teach us many lessons, and we continue to evaluate and address those lessons, embedding and incorporating them appropriately into our concepts, doctrine and training," Brig. Gen. Michael A. Vane wrote. "For example, we recently traveled to Israel to glean lessons learned from their counterterrorist operations in urban areas." General Vane is deputy chief of staff for doctrine concepts and strategy, at the United States Army Training and Doctrine Command. American officers here say their new hard-nosed approach reflects a more realistic appreciation of the military and political realities faced by soldiers in the so-called Sunni triangle, the area north and west of Baghdad that is generating the most violence against the Americans. Underlying the new strategy, the Americans say, is the conviction that only a tougher approach will quell the insurgency and that the new strategy must punish not only the guerrillas but also make clear to ordinary Iraqis the cost of not cooperating."You have to understand the Arab mind," Capt. Todd Brown, a company commander with the Fourth Infantry Division, said as he stood outside the gates of Abu Hishma. "The only thing they understand is force — force, pride and saving face."
Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top military commander in Iraq, announced the get-tough strategy in early November. After the announcement, some American officers warned that the scenes that would follow would not be pretty. Speaking today in Baghdad, General Sanchez said attacks on allied forces or gunfights with adversaries across Iraq had dropped to under 20 a day from 40 a day two weeks ago. "We've considerably pushed back the numbers of engagements against coalition forces," he said. "We've been hitting back pretty hard. We've forced them to slow down the pace of their operations." In that way, the new American approach seems to share the successes of the Israeli military, at least in the short term; Israeli officers contend that their strategy regularly stops catastrophes like suicide bombings from taking place. "If you do nothing, they will just get stronger," said Martin van Creveld, professor of military history and strategy at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He briefed American marines on Israeli tactics in urban warfare in September.
The problems in Abu Hishma, a town of 7,000, began in October, when the American military across the Sunni triangle decided to ease off on their military operations to coincide with the onset of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. In Abu Hishma, as in other towns, the backing off by the Americans was not reciprocated by the insurgents. American troops regularly came under mortar fire, often traced to the surrounding orchards.
Meanwhile, the number of bombs planted on nearby roads rose sharply. Army convoys regularly took fire from a house a few miles away from the village. The last straw for the Americans came on Nov. 17, when a group of guerrillas fired a rocket-propelled grenade into the front of a Bradley armored personnel carrier. The grenade, with an armored piercing tip, punched through the Bradley's shell and killed Staff Sgt. Dale Panchot, one of its crewmen. The grenade went straight into the sergeant's chest. With the Bradley still smoldering, the soldiers of the First Battalion, Eighth Infantry, part of the Fourth Infantry Division, surrounded Abu Hishma and searched for the guerrillas. Soldiers began encasing the town in razor wire.
The next day, an American jet dropped a 500-bomb on the house that had been used to attack them. The Americans arrested eight sheiks, the mayor, the police chief and most members of the city council. "We really hammered the place," Maj. Darron Wright said. Two and a half weeks later, the town of Abu Hishma is enclosed in a barbed-wire fence that stretches for five miles. Men ages 18 to 65 have been ordered to get identification cards. There is only way into the town and one way out.
"This fence is here for your protection," reads the sign posted in front of the barbed-wire fence. "Do not approach or try to cross, or you will be shot." American forces have used the tactic in other cities, including Awja, the birthplace of Saddam Hussein. American forces also sealed off three towns in western Iraq for several days. "With a heavy dose of fear and violence, and a lot of money for projects, I think we can convince these people that we are here to help them," Colonel Sassaman said.
The bombing of the house, about a mile outside the barbed wire, is another tactic that echoes those of the Israeli Army. In Iraq, the Americans have bulldozed, bombed or otherwise rendered useless a number of buildings which they determined were harboring guerrillas. In Tikrit, residents pointed out a home they said had been bulldozed by American tanks. The occupants had already left, they said. "I watched the Americans flatten that house," said Abdullah al-Ajili, who lives down the road.
American officers acknowledge that they have destroyed buildings around Tikrit. In a recent news conference, General Sanchez explained the strategy but ignored a question about parallels to the Israeli experience. "Well, I guess what we need to do is go back to the laws of war and the Geneva Convention and all of those issues that define when a structure ceases to be what it is claimed to be and becomes a military target," General Sanchez said. "We've got to remember that we're in a low-intensity conflict where the laws of war still apply."
In Abu Hishma, residents complain that the village is locked down for 15 hours a day, meaning that they are unable to go to the mosque for morning and evening prayers. They say the curfew does not allow them time to stand in the daylong lines for gasoline and get home before the gate closes for the night. But mostly, it is a loss of dignity that the villagers talk about. For each identification card, every Iraqi man is assigned a number, which he must hold up when he poses for his mug shot. The card identifies his age and type of car. It is all in English. "This is absolutely humiliating," said Yasin Mustafa, a 39-year-old primary school teacher. "We are like birds in a cage."
Colonel Sassaman said he would maintain the wire enclosure until the villagers turned over the six men who killed Sergeant Panchot, though he acknowledged they may have slipped far away. Colonel Sassaman is feared by many of Abu Hishma's villagers, who hold him responsible for the searches and razor wire around the town. But some said they understood what a difficult job he had, trying to pick out a few bad men from a village of 7,000 people. "Colonel Sassaman, you should come and live in this village and be a sheik," Hassan Ali al-Tai told the colonel outside the checkpoint. The colonel smiled, and Mr. Tai turned to another visitor.
"Colonel Sassaman is a very good man," he said. "If he got rid of the barbed wire and the checkpoint, everyone would love him."
As the guerrilla war against Iraqi insurgents intensifies, American soldiers have begun wrapping entire villages in barbed wire. In selective cases, American soldiers are demolishing buildings thought to be used by Iraqi attackers. They have begun imprisoning the relatives of suspected guerrillas, in hopes of pressing the insurgents to turn themselves in. The Americans embarked on their get-tough strategy in early November, goaded by what proved to be the deadliest month yet for American forces in Iraq, with 81 soldiers killed by hostile fire. The response they chose is beginning to echo the Israeli counterinsurgency campaign in the occupied territories. So far, the new approach appears to be succeeding in diminishing the threat to American soldiers. But it appears to be coming at the cost of alienating many of the people the Americans are trying to win over. Abu Hishma is quiet now, but it is angry, too.
In Abu Hishma, encased in a razor-wire fence after repeated attacks on American troops, Iraqi civilians line up to go in and out, filing through an American-guarded checkpoint, each carrying an identification card printed in English only. "If you have one of these cards, you can come and go," coaxed Lt. Col. Nathan Sassaman, the battalion commander whose men oversee the village, about 50 miles north of Baghdad. "If you don't have one of these cards, you can't." The Iraqis nodded and edged their cars through the line. Over to one side, an Iraqi man named Tariq muttered in anger. "I see no difference between us and the Palestinians," he said. "We didn't expect anything like this after Saddam fell."
The practice of destroying buildings where Iraqi insurgents are suspected of planning or mounting attacks has been used for decades by Israeli soldiers in Gaza and the West Bank. The Israeli Army has also imprisoned the relatives of suspected terrorists, in the hopes of pressing the suspects to surrender. The Israeli military has also cordoned off villages and towns thought to be hotbeds of guerrilla activity, in an effort to control the flow of people moving in and out. American officials say they are not purposefully mimicking Israeli tactics, but they acknowledge that they have studied closely the Israeli experience in urban fighting. Ahead of the war, Israeli defense experts briefed American commanders on their experience in guerrilla and urban warfare. The Americans say there are no Israeli military advisers helping the Americans in Iraq.
Writing in the July issue of Army magazine, an American brigadier general said American officers had recently traveled to Israel to hear about lessons learned from recent fighting there. "Experience continues to teach us many lessons, and we continue to evaluate and address those lessons, embedding and incorporating them appropriately into our concepts, doctrine and training," Brig. Gen. Michael A. Vane wrote. "For example, we recently traveled to Israel to glean lessons learned from their counterterrorist operations in urban areas." General Vane is deputy chief of staff for doctrine concepts and strategy, at the United States Army Training and Doctrine Command. American officers here say their new hard-nosed approach reflects a more realistic appreciation of the military and political realities faced by soldiers in the so-called Sunni triangle, the area north and west of Baghdad that is generating the most violence against the Americans. Underlying the new strategy, the Americans say, is the conviction that only a tougher approach will quell the insurgency and that the new strategy must punish not only the guerrillas but also make clear to ordinary Iraqis the cost of not cooperating."You have to understand the Arab mind," Capt. Todd Brown, a company commander with the Fourth Infantry Division, said as he stood outside the gates of Abu Hishma. "The only thing they understand is force — force, pride and saving face."
Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top military commander in Iraq, announced the get-tough strategy in early November. After the announcement, some American officers warned that the scenes that would follow would not be pretty. Speaking today in Baghdad, General Sanchez said attacks on allied forces or gunfights with adversaries across Iraq had dropped to under 20 a day from 40 a day two weeks ago. "We've considerably pushed back the numbers of engagements against coalition forces," he said. "We've been hitting back pretty hard. We've forced them to slow down the pace of their operations." In that way, the new American approach seems to share the successes of the Israeli military, at least in the short term; Israeli officers contend that their strategy regularly stops catastrophes like suicide bombings from taking place. "If you do nothing, they will just get stronger," said Martin van Creveld, professor of military history and strategy at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He briefed American marines on Israeli tactics in urban warfare in September.
The problems in Abu Hishma, a town of 7,000, began in October, when the American military across the Sunni triangle decided to ease off on their military operations to coincide with the onset of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. In Abu Hishma, as in other towns, the backing off by the Americans was not reciprocated by the insurgents. American troops regularly came under mortar fire, often traced to the surrounding orchards.
Meanwhile, the number of bombs planted on nearby roads rose sharply. Army convoys regularly took fire from a house a few miles away from the village. The last straw for the Americans came on Nov. 17, when a group of guerrillas fired a rocket-propelled grenade into the front of a Bradley armored personnel carrier. The grenade, with an armored piercing tip, punched through the Bradley's shell and killed Staff Sgt. Dale Panchot, one of its crewmen. The grenade went straight into the sergeant's chest. With the Bradley still smoldering, the soldiers of the First Battalion, Eighth Infantry, part of the Fourth Infantry Division, surrounded Abu Hishma and searched for the guerrillas. Soldiers began encasing the town in razor wire.
The next day, an American jet dropped a 500-bomb on the house that had been used to attack them. The Americans arrested eight sheiks, the mayor, the police chief and most members of the city council. "We really hammered the place," Maj. Darron Wright said. Two and a half weeks later, the town of Abu Hishma is enclosed in a barbed-wire fence that stretches for five miles. Men ages 18 to 65 have been ordered to get identification cards. There is only way into the town and one way out.
"This fence is here for your protection," reads the sign posted in front of the barbed-wire fence. "Do not approach or try to cross, or you will be shot." American forces have used the tactic in other cities, including Awja, the birthplace of Saddam Hussein. American forces also sealed off three towns in western Iraq for several days. "With a heavy dose of fear and violence, and a lot of money for projects, I think we can convince these people that we are here to help them," Colonel Sassaman said.
The bombing of the house, about a mile outside the barbed wire, is another tactic that echoes those of the Israeli Army. In Iraq, the Americans have bulldozed, bombed or otherwise rendered useless a number of buildings which they determined were harboring guerrillas. In Tikrit, residents pointed out a home they said had been bulldozed by American tanks. The occupants had already left, they said. "I watched the Americans flatten that house," said Abdullah al-Ajili, who lives down the road.
American officers acknowledge that they have destroyed buildings around Tikrit. In a recent news conference, General Sanchez explained the strategy but ignored a question about parallels to the Israeli experience. "Well, I guess what we need to do is go back to the laws of war and the Geneva Convention and all of those issues that define when a structure ceases to be what it is claimed to be and becomes a military target," General Sanchez said. "We've got to remember that we're in a low-intensity conflict where the laws of war still apply."
In Abu Hishma, residents complain that the village is locked down for 15 hours a day, meaning that they are unable to go to the mosque for morning and evening prayers. They say the curfew does not allow them time to stand in the daylong lines for gasoline and get home before the gate closes for the night. But mostly, it is a loss of dignity that the villagers talk about. For each identification card, every Iraqi man is assigned a number, which he must hold up when he poses for his mug shot. The card identifies his age and type of car. It is all in English. "This is absolutely humiliating," said Yasin Mustafa, a 39-year-old primary school teacher. "We are like birds in a cage."
Colonel Sassaman said he would maintain the wire enclosure until the villagers turned over the six men who killed Sergeant Panchot, though he acknowledged they may have slipped far away. Colonel Sassaman is feared by many of Abu Hishma's villagers, who hold him responsible for the searches and razor wire around the town. But some said they understood what a difficult job he had, trying to pick out a few bad men from a village of 7,000 people. "Colonel Sassaman, you should come and live in this village and be a sheik," Hassan Ali al-Tai told the colonel outside the checkpoint. The colonel smiled, and Mr. Tai turned to another visitor.
"Colonel Sassaman is a very good man," he said. "If he got rid of the barbed wire and the checkpoint, everyone would love him."
Sunday, December 07, 2003
It's Official: Zimbabwe is Out of Commonwealth
Robert Mugabe has officially quit the British Commonwealth. I can guarantee this, however: it will return when he is gone. How long that will take is another matter. This will more than likely accelerate his demise but he has been in power for over 20 years, so we'll see. I once traveled through "Zim" with some University pals on my way to Mozambique and Malawi, and I've never seen a more lush and seemingly bountiful country. I sympathise with its citizens, not in a colonial or paternalistic way, but in total recognition that Mugabe has constructed a new roadmap on how to run a country head-first into the ground. My heart goes out to the great Zimbabwean people, the proud Matabele and Mashonas, who must endure the worsening of their situation with this new twist to their downfall, but I'm certain Zim will be back on track once Mugabe screws up so irreversibly that the people take matters into their own hands and get rid of him. I doubt his end will be "velvet". More on this breaking story here at CNN.
Gingrich Weighs In On U.S Folly in Iraq
Newt Gingrich, a close confidant of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and former House Speaker, has gone on the record critisising American strategy in Iraq. This from Newsweek:
The military has been hitting hard lately in Iraq, using overwhelming firepower to kill the enemy in operations with videogame names like Iron Hammer and Ivy Cyclone II. But behind the scenes, some military experts, including high-ranking officers in U.S. Special Forces (Army Green Berets, Navy SEALs and the like), are beginning to complain that America’s strategy in Iraq is wrongheaded. “This is what Westmoreland was doing in Vietnam,” says a top Special Forces commander, referring to the firepower-heavy tactics favored by the military’s senior commander in Vietnam, Gen. William Westmoreland, who lost sight of America’s essential mission in that lost war: winning the hearts and minds of the people.
One center of private concerns with America’s Iraq strategy is the Defense Policy Board, a collection of outside experts—mostly heavyweight conservatives—who regularly consult with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Disquiet in this quarter is particularly significant, since the DPB pushed from the outset for the invasion of Iraq. Last week one of the more colorful and outspoken members of the group, former House speaker Newt Gingrich, went public with his worries and ideas in an interview with NEWSWEEK. He was careful to say that he does not speak about the board’s deliberations “on or off the record,” but he proceeded to hold forth in his insightful, if mildly bombastic, way about the shortcomings of administration policy in Iraq.
Sitting in his office in downtown Washington, Gingrich searched on his computer for the Web site of the Coalition Provisional Authority, set up in Baghdad to oversee the reconstruction and democratization of Iraq. “I’m told over there that CPA stands for ‘Can’t Produce Anything’,” says Gingrich. “Home page of the New Iraq,” he quotes. Then: “The opening quote is, of course, by [CPA chief Paul] Bremer. Next quote is by Bush. Next quote is by U.S. Ambassador Steve Mann.” He scrolls down. “Now this is a big breakthrough. They do have the new Iraqi ambassador to the U.S. On the front page. That is a breakthrough,” he repeats, adding, sotto voce, “I have been beating the crap out of them for two weeks on this.” His basic point: where are the Iraqi faces in the New Iraq? “Americans can’t win in Iraq,” he says. “Only Iraqis can win in Iraq.”
Gingrich argues that the administration has been putting far too much emphasis on a military solution and slighting the political element. “The real key here is not how many enemy do I kill. The real key is how many allies do I grow,” he says. “And that is a very important metric that they just don’t get.” He contends that the civilian-run CPA is fairly isolated and powerless, hunkered down inside its bunker in Baghdad. The military has the money and the daily contact with the locals. But it’s using the same tactics in a guerrilla struggle that led to defeat in Vietnam.
“The Army’s reaction to Vietnam was not to think about it,” he says. Rather than absorb the lessons of counterinsurgency, Gingrich says, the Army adopted “a deliberate strategy of amnesia because people didn’t want to ever do it again.” The Army rebuilt a superb fighting force for waging a conventional war. “I am very proud of what [Operation Iraqi Freedom commander Gen.] Tommy Franks did—up to the moment of deciding how to transfer power to the Iraqis. Then,” said Gingrich, “we go off a cliff.”
In essence, the Americans never did transfer power. They disbanded the Iraqi Army and the government, realized that was a mistake, and quickly tried to cobble together an Iraqi police force and military. But the Iraqis in uniform today are seen by too many Iraqi citizens as American collaborators. Gingrich faults the Americans for not quickly establishing some sort of Iraqi government, however imperfect. “The idea that we are going to have a corruption-free, pristine, League of Women Voters government in Iraq on Tuesday is beyond naivete,” he scoffs. “It is a self-destructive fantasy.” (The White House insists that it is paying close attention to local politics and has speeded up the timetable to turn over power to the Iraqis.)
The rumor mill in the Pentagon suggests that Bush’s “exit strategy” is to get American troops coming home in waves by next November’s election. Obliquely, Gingrich indicates that would be a huge mistake. The guerrillas cannot be allowed to believe that they only have to outlast the Americans to win. “The only exit strategy is victory,” Gingrich says. But not by brute American force. “We are not the enforcers. We are the reinforcers,” says Gingrich. “The distinction between these two words is central to the next year in Iraq.” Gingrich’s voice rang with his customary certainty. Hard to know if Rumsfeld and Bush are listening.
The military has been hitting hard lately in Iraq, using overwhelming firepower to kill the enemy in operations with videogame names like Iron Hammer and Ivy Cyclone II. But behind the scenes, some military experts, including high-ranking officers in U.S. Special Forces (Army Green Berets, Navy SEALs and the like), are beginning to complain that America’s strategy in Iraq is wrongheaded. “This is what Westmoreland was doing in Vietnam,” says a top Special Forces commander, referring to the firepower-heavy tactics favored by the military’s senior commander in Vietnam, Gen. William Westmoreland, who lost sight of America’s essential mission in that lost war: winning the hearts and minds of the people.
One center of private concerns with America’s Iraq strategy is the Defense Policy Board, a collection of outside experts—mostly heavyweight conservatives—who regularly consult with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Disquiet in this quarter is particularly significant, since the DPB pushed from the outset for the invasion of Iraq. Last week one of the more colorful and outspoken members of the group, former House speaker Newt Gingrich, went public with his worries and ideas in an interview with NEWSWEEK. He was careful to say that he does not speak about the board’s deliberations “on or off the record,” but he proceeded to hold forth in his insightful, if mildly bombastic, way about the shortcomings of administration policy in Iraq.
Sitting in his office in downtown Washington, Gingrich searched on his computer for the Web site of the Coalition Provisional Authority, set up in Baghdad to oversee the reconstruction and democratization of Iraq. “I’m told over there that CPA stands for ‘Can’t Produce Anything’,” says Gingrich. “Home page of the New Iraq,” he quotes. Then: “The opening quote is, of course, by [CPA chief Paul] Bremer. Next quote is by Bush. Next quote is by U.S. Ambassador Steve Mann.” He scrolls down. “Now this is a big breakthrough. They do have the new Iraqi ambassador to the U.S. On the front page. That is a breakthrough,” he repeats, adding, sotto voce, “I have been beating the crap out of them for two weeks on this.” His basic point: where are the Iraqi faces in the New Iraq? “Americans can’t win in Iraq,” he says. “Only Iraqis can win in Iraq.”
Gingrich argues that the administration has been putting far too much emphasis on a military solution and slighting the political element. “The real key here is not how many enemy do I kill. The real key is how many allies do I grow,” he says. “And that is a very important metric that they just don’t get.” He contends that the civilian-run CPA is fairly isolated and powerless, hunkered down inside its bunker in Baghdad. The military has the money and the daily contact with the locals. But it’s using the same tactics in a guerrilla struggle that led to defeat in Vietnam.
“The Army’s reaction to Vietnam was not to think about it,” he says. Rather than absorb the lessons of counterinsurgency, Gingrich says, the Army adopted “a deliberate strategy of amnesia because people didn’t want to ever do it again.” The Army rebuilt a superb fighting force for waging a conventional war. “I am very proud of what [Operation Iraqi Freedom commander Gen.] Tommy Franks did—up to the moment of deciding how to transfer power to the Iraqis. Then,” said Gingrich, “we go off a cliff.”
In essence, the Americans never did transfer power. They disbanded the Iraqi Army and the government, realized that was a mistake, and quickly tried to cobble together an Iraqi police force and military. But the Iraqis in uniform today are seen by too many Iraqi citizens as American collaborators. Gingrich faults the Americans for not quickly establishing some sort of Iraqi government, however imperfect. “The idea that we are going to have a corruption-free, pristine, League of Women Voters government in Iraq on Tuesday is beyond naivete,” he scoffs. “It is a self-destructive fantasy.” (The White House insists that it is paying close attention to local politics and has speeded up the timetable to turn over power to the Iraqis.)
The rumor mill in the Pentagon suggests that Bush’s “exit strategy” is to get American troops coming home in waves by next November’s election. Obliquely, Gingrich indicates that would be a huge mistake. The guerrillas cannot be allowed to believe that they only have to outlast the Americans to win. “The only exit strategy is victory,” Gingrich says. But not by brute American force. “We are not the enforcers. We are the reinforcers,” says Gingrich. “The distinction between these two words is central to the next year in Iraq.” Gingrich’s voice rang with his customary certainty. Hard to know if Rumsfeld and Bush are listening.
Saturday, December 06, 2003
Bomb Hurts 18 in Kandahar Market
This from Reuters:
A bomb wounded at least 18 people in the main market of the southern Afghan city of Kandahar on Saturday and President Hamid Karzai called it a "terrorist" attempt to disrupt a key constitutional assembly.
Police blamed the Taliban or allied Islamic militants fighting the U.S.-backed government for the blast which shattered windows in a hotel.
A Reuters reporter saw 18 wounded people in hospital.
A spokesman for the hardline Islamic Taliban which used to rule Afghanistan denied responsibility, saying: "Taliban do no attack civilian targets."
Karzai said the blast was meant to disrupt elections for a Grand Assembly, or Loya Jirga, due to meet this month in Kabul to approve a new constitution to allow for a presidential election in June.
"They want to frighten people and disrupt the election process," he said in a statement.
A police officer at the scene said the bomb may have been rigged to a bicycle, while local intelligence chief General Mohammad Salim said it had been hidden inside a pressure cooker.
Victims, all male Afghan shopkeepers or bystanders, were seen bleeding on the street in Kandahar's main market which was crowded with people at the time.
Afghan and U.S. troops quickly cordoned off the area. Two of the worst wounded were transferred to the U.S. hospital at Kandahar air base. A later controlled explosion by U.S. troops caused some renewed panic in the city.
A bomb wounded at least 18 people in the main market of the southern Afghan city of Kandahar on Saturday and President Hamid Karzai called it a "terrorist" attempt to disrupt a key constitutional assembly.
Police blamed the Taliban or allied Islamic militants fighting the U.S.-backed government for the blast which shattered windows in a hotel.
A Reuters reporter saw 18 wounded people in hospital.
A spokesman for the hardline Islamic Taliban which used to rule Afghanistan denied responsibility, saying: "Taliban do no attack civilian targets."
Karzai said the blast was meant to disrupt elections for a Grand Assembly, or Loya Jirga, due to meet this month in Kabul to approve a new constitution to allow for a presidential election in June.
"They want to frighten people and disrupt the election process," he said in a statement.
A police officer at the scene said the bomb may have been rigged to a bicycle, while local intelligence chief General Mohammad Salim said it had been hidden inside a pressure cooker.
Victims, all male Afghan shopkeepers or bystanders, were seen bleeding on the street in Kandahar's main market which was crowded with people at the time.
Afghan and U.S. troops quickly cordoned off the area. Two of the worst wounded were transferred to the U.S. hospital at Kandahar air base. A later controlled explosion by U.S. troops caused some renewed panic in the city.
Mugabe Says He's Taking Zimbabwe Out of Commonwealth
Looks as if Robert Mugabe, though lacking in any political abilities excepting those reminiscent of Mussolini, has headed international opposition off at the pass by saying he's taking Zimbabwe out of the Commonwealth before they kick him out. Read the following Reuters report up at CNN:
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe said on Saturday his government would pull out of the 54-nation Commonwealth group following a resolution passed by his ruling ZANU-PF party.
The Commonwealth had been hijacked by racists interfering in Zimbabwe's internal affairs, he said at a political meeting at home, but gave no sign of when the southern African country would withdraw from the club of mostly former British colonies.
The group suspended Zimbabwe last year, saying Mugabe had rigged his re-election in 2002 and harassed opponents.
At a summit in Nigeria on Saturday, Commonwealth leaders haggled over whether to readmit Zimbabwe, a row that has split the body on racial lines. (Full story)
In Zimbabwe, a combative Mugabe, waving the fist salute of the ZANU-PF party, said there was no backing down from the resolution because his government had been treated unfairly.
"If we say we are doing this, we will do it. We never retreat," he said at the end of ZANU-PF's annual meeting.
"The Commonwealth is a mere club, but it has become like an 'Animal Farm' where some members are more equal than others. How can (British Prime Minister Tony) Blair claim to regulate and direct events and still say all of us are equals?" he said.
Quitting the group would lose Zimbabwe some political clout but would make little economic difference.
The two-day meeting was held in the south of the country at Masvingo, best known for the stone ruins of Great Zimbabwe on its outskirts -- relics of an ancient trading civilisation that gave its name to the independent modern state.
Mugabe, 79, in power since independence from Britain in 1980, also said he had no intention of retiring before his six-year presidential term ends in 2008, and attacked those he said were jostling for his office.
"Any time you say it's time to retire, I will retire without any fuss. Until the people say so...I have a mandate from the people," Mugabe said.
"I want to thank you for affirming the leadership and for sending a message to those amongst us who might think time for a leadership change has come."
Mugabe was loudly cheered by over 3,000 delegates as he defended his record and promised to tackle a deepening economic crisis -- marked by chronic food, foreign currency and fuel shortages, record inflation and unemployment.
Foreign Minister Stan Mudenge told reporters cabinet would meet soon to study the resolution to quit, which he expected to be upheld. He said the Commonwealth was being "run by a dishonourable man," referring to secretary-general Don McKinnon.
"He lied on this so-called canvassing of opinion, when he said there was an overwhelming majority consensus in the Commonwealth to continue with the suspension of Zimbabwe. That can only be done by a man who acts dishonourably," said Mudenge.
"The reason he does that is because he is upset that we took land from white Zimbabweans and that is racist. I see no difficulty in moving my colleagues in cabinet to accept the resolution."
Things are going to get a lot worse in Zimbabwe before they get better.
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe said on Saturday his government would pull out of the 54-nation Commonwealth group following a resolution passed by his ruling ZANU-PF party.
The Commonwealth had been hijacked by racists interfering in Zimbabwe's internal affairs, he said at a political meeting at home, but gave no sign of when the southern African country would withdraw from the club of mostly former British colonies.
The group suspended Zimbabwe last year, saying Mugabe had rigged his re-election in 2002 and harassed opponents.
At a summit in Nigeria on Saturday, Commonwealth leaders haggled over whether to readmit Zimbabwe, a row that has split the body on racial lines. (Full story)
In Zimbabwe, a combative Mugabe, waving the fist salute of the ZANU-PF party, said there was no backing down from the resolution because his government had been treated unfairly.
"If we say we are doing this, we will do it. We never retreat," he said at the end of ZANU-PF's annual meeting.
"The Commonwealth is a mere club, but it has become like an 'Animal Farm' where some members are more equal than others. How can (British Prime Minister Tony) Blair claim to regulate and direct events and still say all of us are equals?" he said.
Quitting the group would lose Zimbabwe some political clout but would make little economic difference.
The two-day meeting was held in the south of the country at Masvingo, best known for the stone ruins of Great Zimbabwe on its outskirts -- relics of an ancient trading civilisation that gave its name to the independent modern state.
Mugabe, 79, in power since independence from Britain in 1980, also said he had no intention of retiring before his six-year presidential term ends in 2008, and attacked those he said were jostling for his office.
"Any time you say it's time to retire, I will retire without any fuss. Until the people say so...I have a mandate from the people," Mugabe said.
"I want to thank you for affirming the leadership and for sending a message to those amongst us who might think time for a leadership change has come."
Mugabe was loudly cheered by over 3,000 delegates as he defended his record and promised to tackle a deepening economic crisis -- marked by chronic food, foreign currency and fuel shortages, record inflation and unemployment.
Foreign Minister Stan Mudenge told reporters cabinet would meet soon to study the resolution to quit, which he expected to be upheld. He said the Commonwealth was being "run by a dishonourable man," referring to secretary-general Don McKinnon.
"He lied on this so-called canvassing of opinion, when he said there was an overwhelming majority consensus in the Commonwealth to continue with the suspension of Zimbabwe. That can only be done by a man who acts dishonourably," said Mudenge.
"The reason he does that is because he is upset that we took land from white Zimbabweans and that is racist. I see no difficulty in moving my colleagues in cabinet to accept the resolution."
Things are going to get a lot worse in Zimbabwe before they get better.
Pentagon Guru Richard Perle's Ethics Problem
The Financial Times has Richard Perle in Trouble Again.
"Richard Perle, a prominent Pentagon adviser, lobbied on behalf of Boeing's bid for a controversial $18bn government contract a year after the aerospace company made a $20m investment in the venture capital fund he runs. Mr Perle, a former Reagan-era assistant defence secretary, is considered one of the most influential civilian members of Washington's defence establishment. He was appointed in 2001 by Donald Rumsfeld, defence secretary, to chair the Defence Policy Board, a group of former military and policy experts who meet regularly with Mr Rumsfeld and top Pentagon officials.
In August, Mr Perle co-authored an Op-Ed piece in the Wall Street Journal arguing in favour of a deal in which the Air Force would lease 100 767 aircraft refuelling tankers from Boeing. The piece was published at a time when the deal was under intense attack by critics who claimed the tankers were unnecessary and the deal too expensive. Mr Perle and Thomas Donnelly, both members of the American Enterprise Institute think-tank, wrote that a "special government green-eyeshade mentality" was holding up a crucial deal. Mr Perle did not disclose that Boeing had committed to invest $20m in his venture capital fund, Trireme Partners, in mid-2002. The investment marked one of the largest early stakes taken in the fund by a corporate partner.
Mr Perle on Thursday denied he had received any compensation from Boeing or any benefit related to the article. "The people involved in Trireme have nothing to do with the tanker deal," Mr Perle said. "I never discussed the tanker issue or my views on the tanker issue with anyone at Boeing that had anything to do with Trireme." He added that Trireme's relationship with Boeing was "fundamentally" handled by Gerald Hillman, a partner in the fund, who is also a Defence Policy Board member. Boeing said it briefed Mr Perle on the tanker deal on July 14, giving him the same presentation it had made to several journalists, policy analysts and watch-dog groups. But the company said it had "no hand" in writing or placing Mr Perle's Op-Ed piece. In addition to Trireme, Boeing said it had invested $250m in 29 similar funds.
Internal Boeing e-mails portray a lobbying campaign the company undertook to have "friends on the Hill" and "think-tanks" drum up support for the deal. One Boeing e-mail refers to an Op-Ed article in support of the company by retired Admiral Archie Clemins as being "ghost-written"."
Check out this previous post of mine on the Prince of Darkness, Richard Perle.
"Richard Perle, a prominent Pentagon adviser, lobbied on behalf of Boeing's bid for a controversial $18bn government contract a year after the aerospace company made a $20m investment in the venture capital fund he runs. Mr Perle, a former Reagan-era assistant defence secretary, is considered one of the most influential civilian members of Washington's defence establishment. He was appointed in 2001 by Donald Rumsfeld, defence secretary, to chair the Defence Policy Board, a group of former military and policy experts who meet regularly with Mr Rumsfeld and top Pentagon officials.
In August, Mr Perle co-authored an Op-Ed piece in the Wall Street Journal arguing in favour of a deal in which the Air Force would lease 100 767 aircraft refuelling tankers from Boeing. The piece was published at a time when the deal was under intense attack by critics who claimed the tankers were unnecessary and the deal too expensive. Mr Perle and Thomas Donnelly, both members of the American Enterprise Institute think-tank, wrote that a "special government green-eyeshade mentality" was holding up a crucial deal. Mr Perle did not disclose that Boeing had committed to invest $20m in his venture capital fund, Trireme Partners, in mid-2002. The investment marked one of the largest early stakes taken in the fund by a corporate partner.
Mr Perle on Thursday denied he had received any compensation from Boeing or any benefit related to the article. "The people involved in Trireme have nothing to do with the tanker deal," Mr Perle said. "I never discussed the tanker issue or my views on the tanker issue with anyone at Boeing that had anything to do with Trireme." He added that Trireme's relationship with Boeing was "fundamentally" handled by Gerald Hillman, a partner in the fund, who is also a Defence Policy Board member. Boeing said it briefed Mr Perle on the tanker deal on July 14, giving him the same presentation it had made to several journalists, policy analysts and watch-dog groups. But the company said it had "no hand" in writing or placing Mr Perle's Op-Ed piece. In addition to Trireme, Boeing said it had invested $250m in 29 similar funds.
Internal Boeing e-mails portray a lobbying campaign the company undertook to have "friends on the Hill" and "think-tanks" drum up support for the deal. One Boeing e-mail refers to an Op-Ed article in support of the company by retired Admiral Archie Clemins as being "ghost-written"."
Check out this previous post of mine on the Prince of Darkness, Richard Perle.
Pentagon Guru Richard Perle
The Financial Times has Richard Perle in Trouble Again.
"Richard Perle, a prominent Pentagon adviser, lobbied on behalf of Boeing's bid for a controversial $18bn government contract a year after the aerospace company made a $20m investment in the venture capital fund he runs. Mr Perle, a former Reagan-era assistant defence secretary, is considered one of the most influential civilian members of Washington's defence establishment. He was appointed in 2001 by Donald Rumsfeld, defence secretary, to chair the Defence Policy Board, a group of former military and policy experts who meet regularly with Mr Rumsfeld and top Pentagon officials.
In August, Mr Perle co-authored an Op-Ed piece in the Wall Street Journal arguing in favour of a deal in which the Air Force would lease 100 767 aircraft refuelling tankers from Boeing. The piece was published at a time when the deal was under intense attack by critics who claimed the tankers were unnecessary and the deal too expensive. Mr Perle and Thomas Donnelly, both members of the American Enterprise Institute think-tank, wrote that a "special government green-eyeshade mentality" was holding up a crucial deal. Mr Perle did not disclose that Boeing had committed to invest $20m in his venture capital fund, Trireme Partners, in mid-2002. The investment marked one of the largest early stakes taken in the fund by a corporate partner.
Mr Perle on Thursday denied he had received any compensation from Boeing or any benefit related to the article. "The people involved in Trireme have nothing to do with the tanker deal," Mr Perle said. "I never discussed the tanker issue or my views on the tanker issue with anyone at Boeing that had anything to do with Trireme." He added that Trireme's relationship with Boeing was "fundamentally" handled by Gerald Hillman, a partner in the fund, who is also a Defence Policy Board member. Boeing said it briefed Mr Perle on the tanker deal on July 14, giving him the same presentation it had made to several journalists, policy analysts and watch-dog groups. But the company said it had "no hand" in writing or placing Mr Perle's Op-Ed piece. In addition to Trireme, Boeing said it had invested $250m in 29 similar funds.
Internal Boeing e-mails portray a lobbying campaign the company undertook to have "friends on the Hill" and "think-tanks" drum up support for the deal. One Boeing e-mail refers to an Op-Ed article in support of the company by retired Admiral Archie Clemins as being "ghost-written"."
"Richard Perle, a prominent Pentagon adviser, lobbied on behalf of Boeing's bid for a controversial $18bn government contract a year after the aerospace company made a $20m investment in the venture capital fund he runs. Mr Perle, a former Reagan-era assistant defence secretary, is considered one of the most influential civilian members of Washington's defence establishment. He was appointed in 2001 by Donald Rumsfeld, defence secretary, to chair the Defence Policy Board, a group of former military and policy experts who meet regularly with Mr Rumsfeld and top Pentagon officials.
In August, Mr Perle co-authored an Op-Ed piece in the Wall Street Journal arguing in favour of a deal in which the Air Force would lease 100 767 aircraft refuelling tankers from Boeing. The piece was published at a time when the deal was under intense attack by critics who claimed the tankers were unnecessary and the deal too expensive. Mr Perle and Thomas Donnelly, both members of the American Enterprise Institute think-tank, wrote that a "special government green-eyeshade mentality" was holding up a crucial deal. Mr Perle did not disclose that Boeing had committed to invest $20m in his venture capital fund, Trireme Partners, in mid-2002. The investment marked one of the largest early stakes taken in the fund by a corporate partner.
Mr Perle on Thursday denied he had received any compensation from Boeing or any benefit related to the article. "The people involved in Trireme have nothing to do with the tanker deal," Mr Perle said. "I never discussed the tanker issue or my views on the tanker issue with anyone at Boeing that had anything to do with Trireme." He added that Trireme's relationship with Boeing was "fundamentally" handled by Gerald Hillman, a partner in the fund, who is also a Defence Policy Board member. Boeing said it briefed Mr Perle on the tanker deal on July 14, giving him the same presentation it had made to several journalists, policy analysts and watch-dog groups. But the company said it had "no hand" in writing or placing Mr Perle's Op-Ed piece. In addition to Trireme, Boeing said it had invested $250m in 29 similar funds.
Internal Boeing e-mails portray a lobbying campaign the company undertook to have "friends on the Hill" and "think-tanks" drum up support for the deal. One Boeing e-mail refers to an Op-Ed article in support of the company by retired Admiral Archie Clemins as being "ghost-written"."
Thursday, December 04, 2003
Suicide Bomber Kills 19 Aboard Russian Train
Breaking news from the BBC:
Nineteen people are reported dead, and about 50 injured, in an explosion on a commuter train in southern Russia. The blast derailed the train between the resort towns of Mineralnye Vody and Kislovodsk, near the troubled region of Chechnya. Officials in Moscow said the blast was caused by a female suicide bomber wearing an explosive belt. An explosion on a train in the same area left at least four people dead in September. The explosion happened shortly before 0800 local time (0500GMT). Russia's emergencies ministry has said that it was the result of a "terrorist act", and that a bomb destroyed the train's second carriage. The ministry said 15 people had died at the scene, and four more had died in hospital. Local officials described pulling bodies from the train, which has been thrown onto its side. Four people were killed in a blast three months ago in the same area. The blast tore the second carriage in two. Some people may still be trapped inside, the BBC's Steve Rosenberg in Moscow says. There are about 30 ambulances on the scene, which is littered with shattered glass. An electrical fire is hampering relief efforts, the Associated Press news agency reports. Our correspondent says senior officials have already left Moscow to investigate. Russia has recently been rocked by bombings and other attacks, which the government blames on Chechen rebels. No one has claimed responsibility for the train explosions.
Nineteen people are reported dead, and about 50 injured, in an explosion on a commuter train in southern Russia. The blast derailed the train between the resort towns of Mineralnye Vody and Kislovodsk, near the troubled region of Chechnya. Officials in Moscow said the blast was caused by a female suicide bomber wearing an explosive belt. An explosion on a train in the same area left at least four people dead in September. The explosion happened shortly before 0800 local time (0500GMT). Russia's emergencies ministry has said that it was the result of a "terrorist act", and that a bomb destroyed the train's second carriage. The ministry said 15 people had died at the scene, and four more had died in hospital. Local officials described pulling bodies from the train, which has been thrown onto its side. Four people were killed in a blast three months ago in the same area. The blast tore the second carriage in two. Some people may still be trapped inside, the BBC's Steve Rosenberg in Moscow says. There are about 30 ambulances on the scene, which is littered with shattered glass. An electrical fire is hampering relief efforts, the Associated Press news agency reports. Our correspondent says senior officials have already left Moscow to investigate. Russia has recently been rocked by bombings and other attacks, which the government blames on Chechen rebels. No one has claimed responsibility for the train explosions.
Bush Considering Return to the Moon
CNN has a crazy story up. It looks as if the Bush camp is floating the idea around that since China has accelerated their space program, it's time the U.S went back to the moon. It would probably cost hundreds of billions of dollars and take 15 years, and there are never any gaurantees with NASA these days, but the prospect of a Red Moon might rekindle the Cold War mentality that brought the U.S to its surface in the first place. But the whole idea is mired in impracticalities. If they could do it for the price of a school bus, there might be a deal. Perhaps if Bush could reel back the hands of the clock and save the $90,000,000,000 he is spending in Iraq the American people might be more receptive. Or perhaps he can repeal his tax cuts. The Yanks love bold strokes. Aim high, they say. Indeed, the only way this could possibly be a success for Bush is if the entire Democratic Party volunteered to be astronauts and were flown to the moon paying for the voyage out of their own pockets.
White House Makeover
Behind tightly closed doors, the White House must secretly be cursing their strategic media consultant, The Rendon Group, for the piss-poor job they've done spinning this presidency. The "Mission Accomplished" banner, the flight suit stunt, the Iraq trip complete with show turkey and fly-by fib, they all smell of PR run amuck. It is their job to make the White House and its primary resident appear in a good light at every turn, to ensure that Bush is gilded in innocence and the blame shifted elsewhere when things backfire or when they get caught in a lie.
Read their blurb:
The Rendon Group (TRG) is a Global Strategic Communications Consultancy providing products and services to both public and private sector clients. TRG's expertise includes strategic communications consultation, planning and evaluation; information strategy and operations; public and media relations planning and implementation; crisis management; news collection and analysis; information mapping; survey research; media production; and tactical communications team deployment. To date, TRG has worked in eighty (80) countries, frequently on location in a conflict environment, and has considerable experience in establishing field offices to support program objectives.
TRG has more than 20 years experience assisting governments, organizations and corporations in the development of overall communications and public relations policies utilizing state of the art technological tools as well as traditional public relations tools. TRG assembles special teams, selected specifically for their skills, dedicated to working directly with each client to achieve strategic goals and objectives.
Whatever, they seem to suck at it. They certainly did a better job for Bush's daddy. Remember the camera crews liberating Kuwait City with all the people along the road waving perfectly cut mini-American flags? Where did they get those so fast? Yes, enter The Rendon Group. These aren't guys pushing pens in some downtown Boston loft, but are professionals in khaki's hooched in forward areas, getting briefings and intel on situations which have the potential to damage the President's image, and not just to Americans but to the world at large. Outsourcing for message and image help is always a sign that your image looks bad without make-up. Though Bush might seek comfort in the fact that The Rendon Group has lots of experience with powder-puffing governments, it should be pointed out that their primary clients are the Government of Haiti, the Government of Panama, the Columbian Ministry of Defense, the United States Department of Defense, and oddly enough the Liberal Party of Quebec. None of those are covergirls at the moment while the White House could lose the make-up and consider plastic surgery.
Read their blurb:
The Rendon Group (TRG) is a Global Strategic Communications Consultancy providing products and services to both public and private sector clients. TRG's expertise includes strategic communications consultation, planning and evaluation; information strategy and operations; public and media relations planning and implementation; crisis management; news collection and analysis; information mapping; survey research; media production; and tactical communications team deployment. To date, TRG has worked in eighty (80) countries, frequently on location in a conflict environment, and has considerable experience in establishing field offices to support program objectives.
TRG has more than 20 years experience assisting governments, organizations and corporations in the development of overall communications and public relations policies utilizing state of the art technological tools as well as traditional public relations tools. TRG assembles special teams, selected specifically for their skills, dedicated to working directly with each client to achieve strategic goals and objectives.
Whatever, they seem to suck at it. They certainly did a better job for Bush's daddy. Remember the camera crews liberating Kuwait City with all the people along the road waving perfectly cut mini-American flags? Where did they get those so fast? Yes, enter The Rendon Group. These aren't guys pushing pens in some downtown Boston loft, but are professionals in khaki's hooched in forward areas, getting briefings and intel on situations which have the potential to damage the President's image, and not just to Americans but to the world at large. Outsourcing for message and image help is always a sign that your image looks bad without make-up. Though Bush might seek comfort in the fact that The Rendon Group has lots of experience with powder-puffing governments, it should be pointed out that their primary clients are the Government of Haiti, the Government of Panama, the Columbian Ministry of Defense, the United States Department of Defense, and oddly enough the Liberal Party of Quebec. None of those are covergirls at the moment while the White House could lose the make-up and consider plastic surgery.
Trudeau Reports From Iraq
Alexandre Trudeau (son of former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau) has been reporting in Iraq since the war began: Here is his latest article for Macleans concerning the mood of American troops. It is well worth the read:
Of the two great rivers flowing through Iraq, the Euphrates is slower and bluer. It runs into the country from Syria, cutting across Iraq's western desert as it heads toward the Mesopotamian flood plain in the south. Along its shores, the river provides one continuous oasis through an inhospitable wasteland, a channel of life beside which ancient villages are splayed out.
The town of Fallujah is 50 km west of Baghdad. From there on up, the Euphrates hosts innumerable little farming communities, inhabited by Sunni Muslims. From Baghdad to Ramadi, along the Euphrates, the villages form the bottom side of what the Americans call the Sunni triangle. This is the heartland of the resistance to the American occupation.
I long shunned becoming embedded with the American forces. Since the beginning of the war, what interested me was the freedom of Iraq's civilian population, not the machine that came to deliver it. But eight months into the American presence here, I feel compelled to embed myself with them (shortly before George W. Bush's surprise visit) to have a look at what the Americans are all about. My Iraqi friends are anxious to hear what I might learn from spending time with the strange and aloof forces that now control their country and promise freedom. I could think of no better place to experience this than the Sunni triangle, along the banks of the Euphrates. Like Tikrit to the north, the river towns of Fallujah and Ramadi have been a hub of insurgence.
On a dreary day, I arrive in Fallujah in search of the Americans. It is a scary place. Unlike other big towns in central Iraq, Americans are nowhere to be seen: no checkpoints, no compounds, no patrols. Local police are bunkered down behind sandbags, cement walls and barbed wire. There is graffiti everywhere. It reads: "It is OK to steal from the Americans. It is OK to kill Americans." Or, "Blessed is he who kills Americans." And, "Saddam is a hero of the Arabs. Yes, yes Saddam." Leaning up against the buildings, stern young men scan the passing traffic. I try to disappear into the seat of my friend Anmar's car. Luckily, Anmar's Volkswagen has to be the dirtiest piece of junk on the road, so no one pays attention to us. Up ahead, a boy tracks cars with his toy pistol, occasionally firing an imaginary shot. "Don't get stuck in traffic," I tell Anmar. He begins chain-smoking.
The American base is several kilometres outside of the city, the barracks over 1,000 m inside the outer walls. At the gate, I wait for the appropriate official to take me in. It is cold. The boys at the gate are almost delirious. "Great place, isn't it?" they say, and laugh. "At least you are not in Fallujah being shot at," I tell them. One of them replies, "I'd rather be shot dead than stuck here."
Once I get inside, a friendly major tells me: "In Fallujah, we have decided to let the Iraqi authorities look after the town themselves. The bad guys occasionally try and shoot in here with artillery or mortars. But you saw how far we are from the outside walls. We're too far for them to aim properly. Plus we can acquire mortar or artillery rounds and respond instantly." I ask him to explain what he means by "acquire." "We triangulate the origin of the projectile while it is still in the air and fire right back on the position with deadly force," he says.
I also visit their medical facilities. The base's chief internist explains that they are equipped with all they need, including a dentist and a psychiatrist. "This way we don't send anybody home that we can treat here. With so many soldiers already deployed, we have to preserve manpower," the doctor says. Top military officials have promised to station over 100,000 new soldiers in Iraq next year, to replace the 130,000 currently serving there who will be going home shortly. It is sure to be a real squeeze.
THE NEXT BIG BASE up the Euphrates is in Ramadi, a town that is only slightly less tense than Fallujah. The Americans have camped in one of Uday Hussein's fishing palaces on the banks of the river. Inside, I am lodged in an ornate sandstone villa -- one of many now converted into barracks. My bunkmates are anxiously glued to the television to see whether "the Bachelor" will choose to marry the blond or the brunette in the show's final episode.
Ramadi is a headquarters base. To experience actual operations, the next morning I travel even farther up the Euphrates. A hundred kilometres north, a road climbs out of the river basin at the beautiful town of Al-Baghdadi. It goes through a valley in a desert plateau, and at the end of it is Saddam Hussein's Al-Asad air force base, now being used by U.S forces. Old MiG jet fighters are strewn across the valley floor, each half-entombed in the ground. One theory holds that Saddam, in his numerous conflicts, was reluctant to use his jet fighters for fear they might be destroyed in combat. So he buried them. Now they sit in their individual graves, slowly disintegrating in the desert.
Al-Asad was built with funding from Yugoslavia, and features a sports centre, theatre and indoor swimming pool. Along the edge of the valley, hangars have been cut into the cliffs. On top of the plateau is a vast series of runways and bunkers.
Once again I am greeted cordially by the American soldiers. I eat pork chops for lunch in a huge mess hall. All eyes are focused on the big-screen television as the latest Michael Jackson drama unfolds. "Great! Now all of America is going to be stuck speculating about Michael Jackson's freaky sex life for the next six months," a soldier jokes. "It's better than hearing about us in this damn place," another replies.
Al-Asad is only a short stop along my way. To see any real action, I fly farther up the river by helicopter. A tall young officer in surfer shades is along for the ride. "What do Canadians think of all this?" he asks as we are waiting to lift off. "I think most of us support the UN as the best chance we have for a more peaceful world and are a little suspicious of the American presence here," I respond. "I guess we just don't quite understand what is happening here and why." He considers this and says, "A good part of my own family is Canadian from New Brunswick. I always have a lot of explaining to do when I see them." Before flying into the desert, we momentarily hover over the camp, taking in its full expanse: dozens of helicopters (menacing Apaches, Blackhawks and Chinooks), hundreds of Humvees, and thousands of men to run them all. The officer continues: "You know that I was the one to schedule the Chinook flight out of here -- the one that got shot down over Fallujah. Sixteen men died. They were on their way to Baghdad, going on leave. They were on their way out of here. I tell you we're the first ones to want peace so that we can get the hell out." He pauses. "I don't have all the answers. But answers or not, I have a job to do."
The helicopter glides over the western Iraqi desert, which goes on without a blade of grass for miles. An eerie industrial complex emerges on the horizon ahead: silos and smokestacks in the desert haze -- a vision from Mad Max. It is a phosphate plant whose production stalled due to sanctions. Beside it is a huge railroad facility. This has been converted into my next destination: Tiger Base.
IT IS AN IMPRESSIVE sight, a picture-perfect example of the American military in full operation. At Tiger Base, helicopters are always buzzing overhead, while heavily armoured vehicles constantly roll in and out of the camp -- high-tech Abrams and Bradley tanks. As I arrive, engineer units plow out more docking facilities for more vehicles. The soldiers sleep in big circus-style tents. Rows of them line the abandoned railway tracks. At night, the desert is frighteningly cold. The tents are not heated. Water for showering is in short supply. Now and again, soldiers are served hot meals. There is no lounge, no pool table, no entertainment. In the evening, the troops listen to death metal, play video games and read frat-boy magazines until it gets too cold to sit around. Then they go to bed -- bored and tired.
In the tent next to mine, one young soldier is all too eager to tell me his story. "In the last week," he says, "I been shot at, I been mortared and I nearly been blown up. I damn near freeze my black ass off every night to boot. They didn't tell me all this when I signed up. Goddamn!"
TIGER BASE is set up southeast of the Syrian-Iraqi border at Al-Qa'im on the Euphrates. The Third Armored Cavalry Regiment from Colorado Springs is a few days into Operation Rifles Blitz -- a major crackdown on resistance activities in the region. "We call this place 'the Jihad Superbowl,' " the regiment's colonel tells me. "This border area has long been a smuggler's paradise. Now it's become a haven for anti-coalition cell organizers. Through here, they bring people and equipment in and out of Iraq, then pass them down the 'Rat Line,' the Euphrates River communities. We are here to disrupt all that." That means sealing off three towns whose population totals some 120,000. It means systematically going through every home in the area looking for weapons, banned communication devices like satellite phones, and wanted persons. It means arresting suspicious Iraqis and foreigners. So far the regiment has detained over 317 suspects and inspected 3,054 homes. It is an immense operation.
One night at Tiger Base, damn near freezing my ass off, I am invited to the operations area. Donning a helmet and a bulletproof vest (as per regulations), I am loaded into the back of a Bradley. With me in its dark belly, the armoured vehicle thunders off into the desert. Dust streams in through the air vents. After a good half-hour of rocking and rolling, the vehicle stops and the back hatch is dropped. Outside, more desert.
The commanding officers gather for their orders. They are a tough, competent bunch. As they talk, artillery fire sounds out. Some suspicious location has surely just been annihilated. In the distance, flares shoot into the air. Pointing to a map, the officers list off what areas have been covered and what has been found. They also describe how much money has been passed out, since every household that is searched and found to be in compliance is given US$20. Every informer is paid for useful information.
After that, I am loaded into another Bradley and soon after dropped off in the middle of a row of tanks, arrayed in a defensive pattern. City lights twinkle on the horizon. For the young men here, Tiger Base is a luxury, somewhere to sleep and relax, but rarely. The captain sends me on to the village of Sadah with a tank platoon. I ride in a Humvee jeep, which is driven between tanks to protect us from mines. The desert path to town has been ground to a fine dust by armoured vehicles. We travel in the billowing clouds of an artificial dust storm.
In the village, a severe curfew is in place. Anyone seen in the streets between dusk and dawn will be arrested or shot. My Humvee takes position on a little rise just outside of town on the edge of the farmland between the village and the river. We are there to enforce the curfew. Our tool for observation is a piece of classified equipment: a laser-sighting device mounted on the Humvee's turret. It can pinpoint a person 20 km away. "What you see is not light, but electrons converted into images," the sergeant explains. I focus on the minaret of a little mosque, somewhere across the river and press the range button. The device tells me that the object is 17,465 m away. "The next step will be to relay that information by satellite to our howitzers," he says. "So up to a range of 20 km, you can see your target and bring hellfire down upon it within a matter of seconds." I ask him, "Do you have any enemy worthy of all this technology?" He says simply, "No one will dare to become our enemy ever again."
At dawn, I join a group of foot soldiers who are doing door-to-door searches in the village we've been observing, or the "zone," as the troops refer to it. It doesn't appear dangerous. In the valley between the desert hills, the Euphrates is magnificent. On its banks, people have irrigated plots of wheat, corn and onions. They lead their herds out to graze in the grasses by the river. In their gardens grow oranges, grapes and date palms.
The young soldiers enter people's compounds with a mix of menace and apprehension. As they march in, gripping their weapons, they awkwardly tell the inhabitants "Peace be with you" in broken Arabic. Young girls nervously watch Americans prod through their household belongings. Old men act as if they have seen it all before. In my helmet and flak jacket, I might as well be a soldier, and give up trying to speak with these people. This is Operation Rifles Blitz in full swing. When arrests are made, the suspects' hands are tied and they are made to wear a bag on their heads. They are then driven out of town to the detention centre, a fenced-off plot of land in the desert. The detainees are given two blankets each. They huddle together for warmth at night. They remain there for days.
Between the Americans and the Iraqis there is such misunderstanding. From within their awesome military machine, the American soldiers don't really understand what they are doing in Iraq. It is not surprising that the Iraqis cannot comprehend what the Americans are up to, or relate to freedoms the U.S. claims to offer. To reach out, the Americans need to appreciate the splendour -- and livelihoods -- granted to these people by the Euphrates. To reach out, the Americans have to show some appreciation for the things that move Iraqis -- and some sensitivity to their ancient humanity.
For now, the gap between the two only grows wider. Perhaps, years from now, one of these soldiers will return and be haunted by this river -- and the memory of the young man who once walked along its banks without really seeing it.
Of the two great rivers flowing through Iraq, the Euphrates is slower and bluer. It runs into the country from Syria, cutting across Iraq's western desert as it heads toward the Mesopotamian flood plain in the south. Along its shores, the river provides one continuous oasis through an inhospitable wasteland, a channel of life beside which ancient villages are splayed out.
The town of Fallujah is 50 km west of Baghdad. From there on up, the Euphrates hosts innumerable little farming communities, inhabited by Sunni Muslims. From Baghdad to Ramadi, along the Euphrates, the villages form the bottom side of what the Americans call the Sunni triangle. This is the heartland of the resistance to the American occupation.
I long shunned becoming embedded with the American forces. Since the beginning of the war, what interested me was the freedom of Iraq's civilian population, not the machine that came to deliver it. But eight months into the American presence here, I feel compelled to embed myself with them (shortly before George W. Bush's surprise visit) to have a look at what the Americans are all about. My Iraqi friends are anxious to hear what I might learn from spending time with the strange and aloof forces that now control their country and promise freedom. I could think of no better place to experience this than the Sunni triangle, along the banks of the Euphrates. Like Tikrit to the north, the river towns of Fallujah and Ramadi have been a hub of insurgence.
On a dreary day, I arrive in Fallujah in search of the Americans. It is a scary place. Unlike other big towns in central Iraq, Americans are nowhere to be seen: no checkpoints, no compounds, no patrols. Local police are bunkered down behind sandbags, cement walls and barbed wire. There is graffiti everywhere. It reads: "It is OK to steal from the Americans. It is OK to kill Americans." Or, "Blessed is he who kills Americans." And, "Saddam is a hero of the Arabs. Yes, yes Saddam." Leaning up against the buildings, stern young men scan the passing traffic. I try to disappear into the seat of my friend Anmar's car. Luckily, Anmar's Volkswagen has to be the dirtiest piece of junk on the road, so no one pays attention to us. Up ahead, a boy tracks cars with his toy pistol, occasionally firing an imaginary shot. "Don't get stuck in traffic," I tell Anmar. He begins chain-smoking.
The American base is several kilometres outside of the city, the barracks over 1,000 m inside the outer walls. At the gate, I wait for the appropriate official to take me in. It is cold. The boys at the gate are almost delirious. "Great place, isn't it?" they say, and laugh. "At least you are not in Fallujah being shot at," I tell them. One of them replies, "I'd rather be shot dead than stuck here."
Once I get inside, a friendly major tells me: "In Fallujah, we have decided to let the Iraqi authorities look after the town themselves. The bad guys occasionally try and shoot in here with artillery or mortars. But you saw how far we are from the outside walls. We're too far for them to aim properly. Plus we can acquire mortar or artillery rounds and respond instantly." I ask him to explain what he means by "acquire." "We triangulate the origin of the projectile while it is still in the air and fire right back on the position with deadly force," he says.
I also visit their medical facilities. The base's chief internist explains that they are equipped with all they need, including a dentist and a psychiatrist. "This way we don't send anybody home that we can treat here. With so many soldiers already deployed, we have to preserve manpower," the doctor says. Top military officials have promised to station over 100,000 new soldiers in Iraq next year, to replace the 130,000 currently serving there who will be going home shortly. It is sure to be a real squeeze.
THE NEXT BIG BASE up the Euphrates is in Ramadi, a town that is only slightly less tense than Fallujah. The Americans have camped in one of Uday Hussein's fishing palaces on the banks of the river. Inside, I am lodged in an ornate sandstone villa -- one of many now converted into barracks. My bunkmates are anxiously glued to the television to see whether "the Bachelor" will choose to marry the blond or the brunette in the show's final episode.
Ramadi is a headquarters base. To experience actual operations, the next morning I travel even farther up the Euphrates. A hundred kilometres north, a road climbs out of the river basin at the beautiful town of Al-Baghdadi. It goes through a valley in a desert plateau, and at the end of it is Saddam Hussein's Al-Asad air force base, now being used by U.S forces. Old MiG jet fighters are strewn across the valley floor, each half-entombed in the ground. One theory holds that Saddam, in his numerous conflicts, was reluctant to use his jet fighters for fear they might be destroyed in combat. So he buried them. Now they sit in their individual graves, slowly disintegrating in the desert.
Al-Asad was built with funding from Yugoslavia, and features a sports centre, theatre and indoor swimming pool. Along the edge of the valley, hangars have been cut into the cliffs. On top of the plateau is a vast series of runways and bunkers.
Once again I am greeted cordially by the American soldiers. I eat pork chops for lunch in a huge mess hall. All eyes are focused on the big-screen television as the latest Michael Jackson drama unfolds. "Great! Now all of America is going to be stuck speculating about Michael Jackson's freaky sex life for the next six months," a soldier jokes. "It's better than hearing about us in this damn place," another replies.
Al-Asad is only a short stop along my way. To see any real action, I fly farther up the river by helicopter. A tall young officer in surfer shades is along for the ride. "What do Canadians think of all this?" he asks as we are waiting to lift off. "I think most of us support the UN as the best chance we have for a more peaceful world and are a little suspicious of the American presence here," I respond. "I guess we just don't quite understand what is happening here and why." He considers this and says, "A good part of my own family is Canadian from New Brunswick. I always have a lot of explaining to do when I see them." Before flying into the desert, we momentarily hover over the camp, taking in its full expanse: dozens of helicopters (menacing Apaches, Blackhawks and Chinooks), hundreds of Humvees, and thousands of men to run them all. The officer continues: "You know that I was the one to schedule the Chinook flight out of here -- the one that got shot down over Fallujah. Sixteen men died. They were on their way to Baghdad, going on leave. They were on their way out of here. I tell you we're the first ones to want peace so that we can get the hell out." He pauses. "I don't have all the answers. But answers or not, I have a job to do."
The helicopter glides over the western Iraqi desert, which goes on without a blade of grass for miles. An eerie industrial complex emerges on the horizon ahead: silos and smokestacks in the desert haze -- a vision from Mad Max. It is a phosphate plant whose production stalled due to sanctions. Beside it is a huge railroad facility. This has been converted into my next destination: Tiger Base.
IT IS AN IMPRESSIVE sight, a picture-perfect example of the American military in full operation. At Tiger Base, helicopters are always buzzing overhead, while heavily armoured vehicles constantly roll in and out of the camp -- high-tech Abrams and Bradley tanks. As I arrive, engineer units plow out more docking facilities for more vehicles. The soldiers sleep in big circus-style tents. Rows of them line the abandoned railway tracks. At night, the desert is frighteningly cold. The tents are not heated. Water for showering is in short supply. Now and again, soldiers are served hot meals. There is no lounge, no pool table, no entertainment. In the evening, the troops listen to death metal, play video games and read frat-boy magazines until it gets too cold to sit around. Then they go to bed -- bored and tired.
In the tent next to mine, one young soldier is all too eager to tell me his story. "In the last week," he says, "I been shot at, I been mortared and I nearly been blown up. I damn near freeze my black ass off every night to boot. They didn't tell me all this when I signed up. Goddamn!"
TIGER BASE is set up southeast of the Syrian-Iraqi border at Al-Qa'im on the Euphrates. The Third Armored Cavalry Regiment from Colorado Springs is a few days into Operation Rifles Blitz -- a major crackdown on resistance activities in the region. "We call this place 'the Jihad Superbowl,' " the regiment's colonel tells me. "This border area has long been a smuggler's paradise. Now it's become a haven for anti-coalition cell organizers. Through here, they bring people and equipment in and out of Iraq, then pass them down the 'Rat Line,' the Euphrates River communities. We are here to disrupt all that." That means sealing off three towns whose population totals some 120,000. It means systematically going through every home in the area looking for weapons, banned communication devices like satellite phones, and wanted persons. It means arresting suspicious Iraqis and foreigners. So far the regiment has detained over 317 suspects and inspected 3,054 homes. It is an immense operation.
One night at Tiger Base, damn near freezing my ass off, I am invited to the operations area. Donning a helmet and a bulletproof vest (as per regulations), I am loaded into the back of a Bradley. With me in its dark belly, the armoured vehicle thunders off into the desert. Dust streams in through the air vents. After a good half-hour of rocking and rolling, the vehicle stops and the back hatch is dropped. Outside, more desert.
The commanding officers gather for their orders. They are a tough, competent bunch. As they talk, artillery fire sounds out. Some suspicious location has surely just been annihilated. In the distance, flares shoot into the air. Pointing to a map, the officers list off what areas have been covered and what has been found. They also describe how much money has been passed out, since every household that is searched and found to be in compliance is given US$20. Every informer is paid for useful information.
After that, I am loaded into another Bradley and soon after dropped off in the middle of a row of tanks, arrayed in a defensive pattern. City lights twinkle on the horizon. For the young men here, Tiger Base is a luxury, somewhere to sleep and relax, but rarely. The captain sends me on to the village of Sadah with a tank platoon. I ride in a Humvee jeep, which is driven between tanks to protect us from mines. The desert path to town has been ground to a fine dust by armoured vehicles. We travel in the billowing clouds of an artificial dust storm.
In the village, a severe curfew is in place. Anyone seen in the streets between dusk and dawn will be arrested or shot. My Humvee takes position on a little rise just outside of town on the edge of the farmland between the village and the river. We are there to enforce the curfew. Our tool for observation is a piece of classified equipment: a laser-sighting device mounted on the Humvee's turret. It can pinpoint a person 20 km away. "What you see is not light, but electrons converted into images," the sergeant explains. I focus on the minaret of a little mosque, somewhere across the river and press the range button. The device tells me that the object is 17,465 m away. "The next step will be to relay that information by satellite to our howitzers," he says. "So up to a range of 20 km, you can see your target and bring hellfire down upon it within a matter of seconds." I ask him, "Do you have any enemy worthy of all this technology?" He says simply, "No one will dare to become our enemy ever again."
At dawn, I join a group of foot soldiers who are doing door-to-door searches in the village we've been observing, or the "zone," as the troops refer to it. It doesn't appear dangerous. In the valley between the desert hills, the Euphrates is magnificent. On its banks, people have irrigated plots of wheat, corn and onions. They lead their herds out to graze in the grasses by the river. In their gardens grow oranges, grapes and date palms.
The young soldiers enter people's compounds with a mix of menace and apprehension. As they march in, gripping their weapons, they awkwardly tell the inhabitants "Peace be with you" in broken Arabic. Young girls nervously watch Americans prod through their household belongings. Old men act as if they have seen it all before. In my helmet and flak jacket, I might as well be a soldier, and give up trying to speak with these people. This is Operation Rifles Blitz in full swing. When arrests are made, the suspects' hands are tied and they are made to wear a bag on their heads. They are then driven out of town to the detention centre, a fenced-off plot of land in the desert. The detainees are given two blankets each. They huddle together for warmth at night. They remain there for days.
Between the Americans and the Iraqis there is such misunderstanding. From within their awesome military machine, the American soldiers don't really understand what they are doing in Iraq. It is not surprising that the Iraqis cannot comprehend what the Americans are up to, or relate to freedoms the U.S. claims to offer. To reach out, the Americans need to appreciate the splendour -- and livelihoods -- granted to these people by the Euphrates. To reach out, the Americans have to show some appreciation for the things that move Iraqis -- and some sensitivity to their ancient humanity.
For now, the gap between the two only grows wider. Perhaps, years from now, one of these soldiers will return and be haunted by this river -- and the memory of the young man who once walked along its banks without really seeing it.
Call for Iraq Intelligence Inquiry in Israel
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz is reporting that Knesset member Yossi Sarid has called for an inquiry into Israels participation in producing intelligence on the Iraqi weapons threat. Here is a brief excerpt:
Sarid was responding to a report published in Haaretz on Thursday, which concluded that Israel was "a full partner" of the American and British conception regarding Iraq's non-conventional capabilities. Sarid, who filed the request with head of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Likud MK Yuval Steinitz, said Thursday that the report proves that the assessments made by Israeli intelligence were exaggerated and caused damage to the country by necessitating that Israel prepare for "threats that did not exist." According to the report from the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, the demands inside the U.S. and Britain for investigations into the intelligence failure on the eve of the war in Iraq "forgets there was a third senior partner to the assessment [that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and the ability to deliver them] - and that third partner was Israel." The report was written by Brig. Gen. (res.) Shlomo Brum, a former deputy commander of the IDF Planning Branch.
Sarid was responding to a report published in Haaretz on Thursday, which concluded that Israel was "a full partner" of the American and British conception regarding Iraq's non-conventional capabilities. Sarid, who filed the request with head of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Likud MK Yuval Steinitz, said Thursday that the report proves that the assessments made by Israeli intelligence were exaggerated and caused damage to the country by necessitating that Israel prepare for "threats that did not exist." According to the report from the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, the demands inside the U.S. and Britain for investigations into the intelligence failure on the eve of the war in Iraq "forgets there was a third senior partner to the assessment [that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and the ability to deliver them] - and that third partner was Israel." The report was written by Brig. Gen. (res.) Shlomo Brum, a former deputy commander of the IDF Planning Branch.
Church and State: the Future of Iraq
Thomas Friedman has written this interesting editorial called God and Man in Baghdad for The New York Times:
Are you sitting down?
We've encountered many surprises since we invaded Iraq, but now that the political process is under way the biggest surprise may be just around the corner, and it's this: The first post-Saddam democratic government that the U.S. gives birth to in Iraq may be called the Islamic Republic of Iraq — and that's not necessarily a bad thing. I told you to sit down.
The challenge of reforming any of the 22 nondemocratic Arab states comes down to a very simple question: How do you get from here to there — how do you go from an authoritarian monarchy or a military regime to a more representative government — without ending up with a Khomeini-like theocracy à la Iran or a civil war à la Algeria?
Virtually all of these Arab states suffer from the same problem: because of decades of political repression, one-man rule and economic stagnation, there is no viable middle class and no legitimate, independent political parties and institutions to fill the void once the authoritarian leadership is removed. Iraq exhibits this problem in spades.
As a result, in the Sunni and Shiite areas of Iraq, the primary sources of legitimacy, and political expression, are tribal and religious. This dependence upon, and respect for, religious authority will be reflected in the first post-Saddam government — whether it comes about by indirect or direct elections. Because Shiites make up 60 percent of Iraq, and because the only current legitimate Shiite leaders are religious figures, their views and aspirations will have to be taken into account.
There is, however, good reason to believe that Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most revered Shiite cleric in Iraq and the only one who can claim to speak for Iraqi Shiites as a whole, does not aspire to be a Khomeini. Many Iraqi Shiite clerics have lived in Iran and avowedly do not want to follow its authoritarian path. Moreover, because Shiites are a majority in Iraq, they are the ones with the greatest stake in keeping Iraq a unified state. Given their numbers, any democratic Iraq is one where Shiites, be they liberals or conservatives, will have great influence. But to keep Iraq unified the Shiites will have to respect the rights and aspirations of Iraq's Kurds and Sunnis, as well as other minorities.
What is unfolding in Iraq today — a tug of war between Ayatollah Sistani and the Governing Council over how an interim government should be elected — is something inevitable, essential and inescapably messy.
"What we are witnessing," explains Yitzhak Nakash, the Brandeis University professor who is the author of "The Shi'is of Iraq," "is a very healthy bargaining session over what will be the relationship between religion and politics in Iraq and over the process of choosing legitimate national and communal leaders. It is very important that the Americans show respect for the views of Sistani — whose tacit support for the U.S. presence in Iraq has been enormously important — and let Sistani and the other Iraqi political forces thrash this out on their own."
Ayatollah Sistani is "not a Khomeini," adds Mr. Nakash, and he does not envisage an Iraq ruled directly by clerics. The ayatollah comes from the quietist school of Shiite clerics, who have traditionally attempted to shield themselves from politics. In demanding elections, he's obviously looking out for Shiite interests, but he's also insisting that the new Iraqi government be as legitimate and stable as possible.
"If there is going to be a stable government in Iraq, it has to come about after some genuine public debate and after some consensus is reached regarding the relationship between religion and state, and between the clerics and the politicians," Mr. Nakash said. "Otherwise, no Iraqi government will last once the Americans leave. It will not have a legitimate base."
If things go reasonably well, the result will be an initial Iraqi government that is more religious than Turkey but more democratic than Iran. Not bad.
We must not try to abort this unfolding discussion among Iraqis. In fact, we should be proud of it. We are fostering a much-needed free political dialogue in the heart of the Arab world. Our job is to make sure there is enough security for this critical discussion, so I would bring every U.S. soldier from Europe and Japan to Iraq to make this work.
There is no more important political project for the U.S. in the world today than seeing whether Iraq can get from Saddam to Jefferson without going through Khomeini.
Are you sitting down?
We've encountered many surprises since we invaded Iraq, but now that the political process is under way the biggest surprise may be just around the corner, and it's this: The first post-Saddam democratic government that the U.S. gives birth to in Iraq may be called the Islamic Republic of Iraq — and that's not necessarily a bad thing. I told you to sit down.
The challenge of reforming any of the 22 nondemocratic Arab states comes down to a very simple question: How do you get from here to there — how do you go from an authoritarian monarchy or a military regime to a more representative government — without ending up with a Khomeini-like theocracy à la Iran or a civil war à la Algeria?
Virtually all of these Arab states suffer from the same problem: because of decades of political repression, one-man rule and economic stagnation, there is no viable middle class and no legitimate, independent political parties and institutions to fill the void once the authoritarian leadership is removed. Iraq exhibits this problem in spades.
As a result, in the Sunni and Shiite areas of Iraq, the primary sources of legitimacy, and political expression, are tribal and religious. This dependence upon, and respect for, religious authority will be reflected in the first post-Saddam government — whether it comes about by indirect or direct elections. Because Shiites make up 60 percent of Iraq, and because the only current legitimate Shiite leaders are religious figures, their views and aspirations will have to be taken into account.
There is, however, good reason to believe that Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most revered Shiite cleric in Iraq and the only one who can claim to speak for Iraqi Shiites as a whole, does not aspire to be a Khomeini. Many Iraqi Shiite clerics have lived in Iran and avowedly do not want to follow its authoritarian path. Moreover, because Shiites are a majority in Iraq, they are the ones with the greatest stake in keeping Iraq a unified state. Given their numbers, any democratic Iraq is one where Shiites, be they liberals or conservatives, will have great influence. But to keep Iraq unified the Shiites will have to respect the rights and aspirations of Iraq's Kurds and Sunnis, as well as other minorities.
What is unfolding in Iraq today — a tug of war between Ayatollah Sistani and the Governing Council over how an interim government should be elected — is something inevitable, essential and inescapably messy.
"What we are witnessing," explains Yitzhak Nakash, the Brandeis University professor who is the author of "The Shi'is of Iraq," "is a very healthy bargaining session over what will be the relationship between religion and politics in Iraq and over the process of choosing legitimate national and communal leaders. It is very important that the Americans show respect for the views of Sistani — whose tacit support for the U.S. presence in Iraq has been enormously important — and let Sistani and the other Iraqi political forces thrash this out on their own."
Ayatollah Sistani is "not a Khomeini," adds Mr. Nakash, and he does not envisage an Iraq ruled directly by clerics. The ayatollah comes from the quietist school of Shiite clerics, who have traditionally attempted to shield themselves from politics. In demanding elections, he's obviously looking out for Shiite interests, but he's also insisting that the new Iraqi government be as legitimate and stable as possible.
"If there is going to be a stable government in Iraq, it has to come about after some genuine public debate and after some consensus is reached regarding the relationship between religion and state, and between the clerics and the politicians," Mr. Nakash said. "Otherwise, no Iraqi government will last once the Americans leave. It will not have a legitimate base."
If things go reasonably well, the result will be an initial Iraqi government that is more religious than Turkey but more democratic than Iran. Not bad.
We must not try to abort this unfolding discussion among Iraqis. In fact, we should be proud of it. We are fostering a much-needed free political dialogue in the heart of the Arab world. Our job is to make sure there is enough security for this critical discussion, so I would bring every U.S. soldier from Europe and Japan to Iraq to make this work.
There is no more important political project for the U.S. in the world today than seeing whether Iraq can get from Saddam to Jefferson without going through Khomeini.
Israeli General Admits Iraq Intel Was Bunk
A story in todays Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports that an Israeli General has admitted his countrys intelligence estimates of Iraqi weapons programs were deeply flawed.
"Israeli intelligence was a full partner with the U.S. and Britain in developing a false picture of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction capability. . . It badly overestimated the Iraqi threat to Israel and reinforced the American and British belief that the weapons existed."
The only shocking thing about this revelation is that it is coming from an Israeli General.
"Israeli intelligence was a full partner with the U.S. and Britain in developing a false picture of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction capability. . . It badly overestimated the Iraqi threat to Israel and reinforced the American and British belief that the weapons existed."
The only shocking thing about this revelation is that it is coming from an Israeli General.
Reuters On White House Fibbing
Reuters is reporting details on the Air Force One/British Airways fly-by over the mid-Atlantic that now appears never to have taken place.
In another White House correction, the Bush administration on Wednesday changed its story of a British Airways pilot's spotting of Air Force One during the president's stealth trip to Iraq last week.
The original story -- which held that the airline's pilot had talked to Air Force One and that he kept the secret of President Bush's Thanksgiving Day flight to Baghdad -- had been told by White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett to reporters as he sought to portray the drama of Bush's trip. But after British Airways denied such a conversation took place, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said on Wednesday the airline's pilot never contacted Air Force One. "The conversation was between the British Airways plane and the London control tower," McClellan said. It was also the London control tower, not an Air Force One pilot as in the original story, that misidentified Air Force One as a much smaller "Gulfstream 5" aircraft, McClellan said.
He said Air Force One pilots overheard the conversation while flying over the west coast of England, and the British Airways plane could be identified by its call sign when it spoke to the tower. McClellan declined to say whether Air Force One had sent a false electronic identification or whether controllers were in on the deception. British Airways said it could not confirm the new account. White House officials have said the elaborate secrecy surrounding the trip was needed to ensure Bush's security in Iraq, but some critics accused the administration of dramatizing the trip for political purposes. McClellan explained the change in the White House story by saying, "I don't think everybody was clear on exactly how that conversation happened." The White House has come under criticism for backtracking on its account of other high profile events. In October it conceded it had helped with a large "Mission Accomplished" banner on an aircraft carrier where Bush announced in May that major fighting had ended in Iraq. Bush had initially said his advance team did not put up the banner, whose message critics viewed as premature given continued attacks on occupying forces in Iraq. Also, the White House had initially said Bush needed to fly to the carrier on a jet because the vessel would be hundreds of miles offshore. But the administration later acknowledged that Bush decided on flying by jet, even through the carrier had ended up within easy helicopter range, because he wanted to share in the pilots' experience. British Airways said it could not confirm the White House's new version of the Air Force One story. "We've had no reports from any of our pilots with regard to Air Force One," airline spokeswoman Honor Verrier said.
This President and the guys who manage him are a scary bunch. I understand that his popularity was waning over the worsening situation in Iraq, the intelligence manipulation, and a gazillion other things, but can everything be put right by making up cute stories? By the numbers, apparently it can.
In another White House correction, the Bush administration on Wednesday changed its story of a British Airways pilot's spotting of Air Force One during the president's stealth trip to Iraq last week.
The original story -- which held that the airline's pilot had talked to Air Force One and that he kept the secret of President Bush's Thanksgiving Day flight to Baghdad -- had been told by White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett to reporters as he sought to portray the drama of Bush's trip. But after British Airways denied such a conversation took place, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said on Wednesday the airline's pilot never contacted Air Force One. "The conversation was between the British Airways plane and the London control tower," McClellan said. It was also the London control tower, not an Air Force One pilot as in the original story, that misidentified Air Force One as a much smaller "Gulfstream 5" aircraft, McClellan said.
He said Air Force One pilots overheard the conversation while flying over the west coast of England, and the British Airways plane could be identified by its call sign when it spoke to the tower. McClellan declined to say whether Air Force One had sent a false electronic identification or whether controllers were in on the deception. British Airways said it could not confirm the new account. White House officials have said the elaborate secrecy surrounding the trip was needed to ensure Bush's security in Iraq, but some critics accused the administration of dramatizing the trip for political purposes. McClellan explained the change in the White House story by saying, "I don't think everybody was clear on exactly how that conversation happened." The White House has come under criticism for backtracking on its account of other high profile events. In October it conceded it had helped with a large "Mission Accomplished" banner on an aircraft carrier where Bush announced in May that major fighting had ended in Iraq. Bush had initially said his advance team did not put up the banner, whose message critics viewed as premature given continued attacks on occupying forces in Iraq. Also, the White House had initially said Bush needed to fly to the carrier on a jet because the vessel would be hundreds of miles offshore. But the administration later acknowledged that Bush decided on flying by jet, even through the carrier had ended up within easy helicopter range, because he wanted to share in the pilots' experience. British Airways said it could not confirm the White House's new version of the Air Force One story. "We've had no reports from any of our pilots with regard to Air Force One," airline spokeswoman Honor Verrier said.
This President and the guys who manage him are a scary bunch. I understand that his popularity was waning over the worsening situation in Iraq, the intelligence manipulation, and a gazillion other things, but can everything be put right by making up cute stories? By the numbers, apparently it can.
Bush Spin-Doctors Moonlighting as Inventors
The Washington Post this morning is reporting that the gorgeous turkey Bush held up for photographers during his 2 hour visit to Iraq was fake. So too was the mid-Atlantic "incident" with a British Airways flight. His spin-jockeys have no apparent qualms with just making stuff up if they believe it will make their boss look good. Shameless, really, but nevertheless an entirely successful exercise in lying. Here are the results of Bush's heroic trip:
A poll conducted four days after Thanksgiving by the National Annenberg Election Survey put Bush's job approval rating at 61 percent, up from 56 percent during the four days before the holiday. His job disapproval rating dropped from 41 percent to 36 percent. His personal popularity increased from 65 percent to 72 percent. The polls of 789 people before Thanksgiving and 847 people after Thanksgiving each had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
It's difficult to comprehend the gullibility of Americans sometimes. I love 'em, but c'mon fellas, snap out of it.
A poll conducted four days after Thanksgiving by the National Annenberg Election Survey put Bush's job approval rating at 61 percent, up from 56 percent during the four days before the holiday. His job disapproval rating dropped from 41 percent to 36 percent. His personal popularity increased from 65 percent to 72 percent. The polls of 789 people before Thanksgiving and 847 people after Thanksgiving each had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
It's difficult to comprehend the gullibility of Americans sometimes. I love 'em, but c'mon fellas, snap out of it.
U.S Military Stands by Original Version of Samarra Battle
In an apparent disconnect, the military spokesman for the U.S 4th Infantry Division LTC Bill Macdonald says he has no information that contradicts the militarys assessment of the Battle of Samarra, asserting that "At this time, we do not know of any civilian casualties in the attack on our convoy." This hardly gels with eyewitness reports that at least 8 civilians were killed and scores wounded. No bodies of the 54 attackers were ever recovered, begging the question of how they were counted. This from Seth Porges:
Despite eyewitness testimonies to the contrary, a 4th Infantry Division spokesperson in Baghdad told E&P Online Wednesday that the military stands by its assertion that there were no civilian casualties in the firefight that left numerous Iraqi insurgents dead in the city of Samarra Sunday.
"In an incident like this we have an initial assessment, followed by more detailed assessments," 4th Infantry Division Public Affairs officer LTC Bill MacDonald said via e-mail. "At this time, we do not know of any civilian casualties in the attack on our convoy."
Military reports and press coverage of the incident have been shrouded in controversy. The military claims that 54 Iraqi guerrillas and no civilians were killed in the battle that left no Americans dead. However, hospital accounts and Iraqi eyewitness testimonies have accounted for no more than eight Iraqi deaths, including several civilians, and dozens of civilian injuries.
Following initial coverage of the incident, in which the military's official death toll had been reported, many newspapers issued follow-up reports noting the discrepancy in the reported casualties versus witness and hospital reports.
MacDonald also reiterated the official view regarding the number of Iraqis killed in the battle, all based on soldiers' accounts, as no dead bodies were recovered. The military has asserted that the dead must have been carried away by their comrades in the dark of night.
"We are very confident of our assessment," MacDonald said. "Commanders are responsible for providing timely, accurate information. This process includes quick assessment of the situation as it happens, followed by a more detailed analyses and After Action reviews. All this is done immediately after the event, so we know exactly what happened and when."
The military has touted the deadly battle as a lesson to would-be Iraqi insurgents. However, newspaper reports following the incident report many Iraqi witnesses only growing angrier towards the American military following the deaths. "If I had a gun, I would have attacked the Americans myself," Iraqi shopkeeper Satar Nasiaf told The New York Times Tuesday. "The Americans were shooting in every direction."
Despite eyewitness testimonies to the contrary, a 4th Infantry Division spokesperson in Baghdad told E&P Online Wednesday that the military stands by its assertion that there were no civilian casualties in the firefight that left numerous Iraqi insurgents dead in the city of Samarra Sunday.
"In an incident like this we have an initial assessment, followed by more detailed assessments," 4th Infantry Division Public Affairs officer LTC Bill MacDonald said via e-mail. "At this time, we do not know of any civilian casualties in the attack on our convoy."
Military reports and press coverage of the incident have been shrouded in controversy. The military claims that 54 Iraqi guerrillas and no civilians were killed in the battle that left no Americans dead. However, hospital accounts and Iraqi eyewitness testimonies have accounted for no more than eight Iraqi deaths, including several civilians, and dozens of civilian injuries.
Following initial coverage of the incident, in which the military's official death toll had been reported, many newspapers issued follow-up reports noting the discrepancy in the reported casualties versus witness and hospital reports.
MacDonald also reiterated the official view regarding the number of Iraqis killed in the battle, all based on soldiers' accounts, as no dead bodies were recovered. The military has asserted that the dead must have been carried away by their comrades in the dark of night.
"We are very confident of our assessment," MacDonald said. "Commanders are responsible for providing timely, accurate information. This process includes quick assessment of the situation as it happens, followed by a more detailed analyses and After Action reviews. All this is done immediately after the event, so we know exactly what happened and when."
The military has touted the deadly battle as a lesson to would-be Iraqi insurgents. However, newspaper reports following the incident report many Iraqi witnesses only growing angrier towards the American military following the deaths. "If I had a gun, I would have attacked the Americans myself," Iraqi shopkeeper Satar Nasiaf told The New York Times Tuesday. "The Americans were shooting in every direction."
Ten Steps to Destroy Your Country
There is a great piece on Mugabe in today's Atlantic Online. Samantha Power, author of "How To Kill a Country", is interviewed. She reports that Mugabe has rapidly brought Zimbabwe to its knees by following policies of sef-destruction. She maintains that Mugabe has followed these "ten steps" to destroying his country. 1. Destroy the engine of productivity 2. Bury the truth 3. Crush dissent 4. Legislate the impossible 5. Teach hate 6. Scare off foreigners 7. Invade a neighbor 8. Ignore a deadly enemy 9. Commit genocide 10. Blame the imperialists.
Sounds pretty effective.
Sounds pretty effective.
Wednesday, December 03, 2003
Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe is a Scumbag
Robert Mugabe is a scumbag. He is a corrupt dictator holding on to power in Zimbabwe by hook and by crook and it's high time he went the way of the dodo. He has a policy of systematic intimidation of any political opposition and his foot soldiers threaten, torture, rape and often murder those who are opposed to him and his inept rule. He continues to drive the whites and their wealth, as well as foreign investment, out of the country by condoning seizures of white-owned farmland, calling it "redistribution". He intimidates the court, holds people without trial, and enriches himself and his syncophantic cronies at the expense of his own people. He is what everyone loathes, the template stereotype of a despotic demagogue.
Because of Mugabe's continued intransigence in the face of growing international pressure to reform, Zimbabwe has been suspended from the British Commonwealth. Mugabe's response is far from Groucho's famous quip "I would never belong to a club that would have me as a member", saying that his suspension is due instead to the "Anglo-Saxon unholy alliance" of Australia, Britain, and New Zealand. Don't forget about Canada, Mugabe! We think you suck, too. But now some African leaders are making noise for Zimbabwe's return to the fold. Read the BBC story here. I was lucky enough to shake Mandela's hand once, and speak to him briefly. It's a pity Mugabe doesn't have any vision other than self-interest and self-preservation. I certainly wouldn't want to be part of a club that had him as a member.
Because of Mugabe's continued intransigence in the face of growing international pressure to reform, Zimbabwe has been suspended from the British Commonwealth. Mugabe's response is far from Groucho's famous quip "I would never belong to a club that would have me as a member", saying that his suspension is due instead to the "Anglo-Saxon unholy alliance" of Australia, Britain, and New Zealand. Don't forget about Canada, Mugabe! We think you suck, too. But now some African leaders are making noise for Zimbabwe's return to the fold. Read the BBC story here. I was lucky enough to shake Mandela's hand once, and speak to him briefly. It's a pity Mugabe doesn't have any vision other than self-interest and self-preservation. I certainly wouldn't want to be part of a club that had him as a member.
Tuesday, December 02, 2003
India Silent on Musharraf's Offer
Not surprisingly, India is keeping mum on yesterday's offer from Pakistani President Musharraf to withdraw from Kashmir if it does the same. Indian Foreign Minister Shashank skipped the matter completely by blowing off questions by reporters today during a press conference at his Ministry. He implied that India need not respond to each and every utterance of the Pakistani President, but that India was committed to dialogue. Whoopdeedoo. I know it's a big deal for the Indians and Pakistanis, but I wish both of them took a more Mandela-esque approach to the situation, shook hands and rolled up their sleeves to heal this superating wound. 50 years of being bad neighbors doesn't make friendship easy, but nothing ever gets accomplished unless you compromise or fight. It looks like the fighting has done little other than make the hatred on both sides a cultural facet more enshrined than law so maybe it's time to seek alternative arrangements. Talk is cheap, fellows.
Monday, December 01, 2003
Musharraf Extends Olive Branch Towards India
There was an interesting move today from Pakistani President Musharraf. He has offered the Indian Prime Minister a deal: Pakistan will pull back its 50,000 soldiers from the Line of Control in Kashmir, a highly volatile border region between the two countries, if India does the same with its 700,000 troops. Sounds pretty silly, 50,000 Pakistani soldiers turning their backs on 700,000 Indians, especially when it is remembered that things heat up in Kashmir when extremist groups, who answer to no one, do most of the fighting and keep the region on edge. India blames Pakistan for supporting and actively encouraging attacks by Islamic militants across the LoC, but as Musharraf so deftly put it today, "Even if two sparrows cross the Line of Control, India will accuse Pakistan of providing them covering fire". Yet all of this talk of peace is a waste of breath unless some hard facts are acknowledged. The most important facet of this conflict that gets lost in media translation is that this on-again off-again war is about religion, not property. It always has been and always will, right up to the final settlement or the mushroom clouds. But if the extremism on both sides was watered down by solid initiatives from pragmatic leadership in India and Pakistan there might be a future for Kashmir. As it stands now, Musharraf's move today might be due to pressure from Washington, or a sincere bid to ease the tension brought on by a minor skirmish today. The politics of South Asia can be incredibly labyrinthine at times, and I cant' tell what's really happening here with this move. But neither can CNN, so I don't feel too bad. That being said, I can't see it leading to much, though I hope I'm wrong. Read more on this story at CNN and the BBC.
SecDef Rumsfeld Lives in the Silver Lining
Reuters has Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld telling NATO ministers in Brussels today:
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, in Brussels for a meeting of NATO ministers, said there was a contradiction in Iraq between the relative stability of most of the country and deadly guerrilla attacks in some places.
"What you have in Iraq...is a contradiction," he told a news conference. "There is no question but there are periodic incidents where people are being killed and wounded. We know that."
"We also know that the schools are open, that the hospitals are open, the clinics are open, that people are engaged in economic activity throughout the country, and that the vast majority of the country is not in conflict, it is a relatively stable circumstance."
I guess the SecDef is a "glass half-full" kind of guy.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, in Brussels for a meeting of NATO ministers, said there was a contradiction in Iraq between the relative stability of most of the country and deadly guerrilla attacks in some places.
"What you have in Iraq...is a contradiction," he told a news conference. "There is no question but there are periodic incidents where people are being killed and wounded. We know that."
"We also know that the schools are open, that the hospitals are open, the clinics are open, that people are engaged in economic activity throughout the country, and that the vast majority of the country is not in conflict, it is a relatively stable circumstance."
I guess the SecDef is a "glass half-full" kind of guy.
Pentagon Version of Events Gets Thin as Press Reports Circulate on Battle of Samarra
OK, it's starting to appear as if the Pentagon wasn't exactly forthcoming with the truth concerning what transpired during the Battle of Samarra. AlterNet has a story up called "Terrorists or Civilians?" which echoes my view that the American units involved went a bit overboard, and that the Pentagon is doing a dance. Have a look:
Reports out of Iraq about yesterday's deadly gun battle in Samarra are painting markedly different portraits of what happened. Locals and Americans agree that the so-called fedayeen irregulars attacked a U.S. military convoy delivering cash to two banks. What happened next is emerging only through the fog of war.
While the U.S. military is claiming that the 54 Iraqis killed in Samarra late Sunday were terrrorist insurgents, reports filed by Middle East news organizations claim that most of the dead are innocent civilians. Albawaba.com reports, "Locals provided different versions about the incident. According to them, occupation troops killed unarmed bystanders when they opened fire on all directions. Workers at a nearby pharmaceutical plant said at least two colleagues were shot dead and many injured as they walked out of the factory gates at the end of their shift. An AFP reporter saw blood spattered on the ground and bullet holes in the sentry box to left of the white factory gates." According to this Agence France Presse report, the dead included "eight civilians including a woman and a child."
From AP:
The scars of the battle were evident Monday. About a dozen cars lay destroyed in the streets, many apparently crushed by tanks, and bullet holes pocked many buildings. A rowdy crowd gathered at one spot, chanting pro-Saddam slogans. One man fired warning shots in the air when journalists arrived at the scene. There was no U.S. military presence in the city center. Shops opened, and residents moved around town.
At a news conference at a U.S. military base in Samarra, Col. Frederick Rudesheim said the Iraqi guerrillas acted in "a concerted fashion'' against the American convoys. At the U.S. base, half a dozen suspects were seen with bags over their heads and their hands bound by plastic cuffs. Many residents said Saddam loyalists attacked the Americans, but that when U.S. forces began firing at random, many civilians got their guns and joined the fight. Many said residents were bitter about recent U.S. raids in the night.
"Why do they arrest people when they're in their homes?'' asked Athir Abdul Salam, a 19-year-old student. "They come at night to arrest people. So what do they expect those people to do?''
"Civilians shot back at the Americans,'' said 30-year-old Ali Hassan, who was wounded by shrapnel in the battle. "They claim we are terrorists. So OK, we are terrorists. What do they expect when they drive among us?''
Many residents said the Americans opened fire at random when they came under attack, targeting civilian installations. Six destroyed vehicles sat in front of the hospital, where witnesses said U.S. tanks shelled people dropping off the injured. A kindergarten was damaged, apparently by tank shells. No children were hurt.
"Luckily, we evacuated the children five minutes before we came under attack,'' said Ibrahim Jassim, a guard at the kindergarten. ``Why did they attack randomly? Why did they shoot a kindergarten with tank shells?''
Military officials in Baghdad said they haven't reported a deadlier attack since May 1, when President Bush declared major combat over. U.S. officials have only sporadically released figures on Iraqi casualties, and wouldn't say whether there has been a deadlier unreported firefight.
I don't think we've heard the last of this mess. I'll keep you posted.
Reports out of Iraq about yesterday's deadly gun battle in Samarra are painting markedly different portraits of what happened. Locals and Americans agree that the so-called fedayeen irregulars attacked a U.S. military convoy delivering cash to two banks. What happened next is emerging only through the fog of war.
While the U.S. military is claiming that the 54 Iraqis killed in Samarra late Sunday were terrrorist insurgents, reports filed by Middle East news organizations claim that most of the dead are innocent civilians. Albawaba.com reports, "Locals provided different versions about the incident. According to them, occupation troops killed unarmed bystanders when they opened fire on all directions. Workers at a nearby pharmaceutical plant said at least two colleagues were shot dead and many injured as they walked out of the factory gates at the end of their shift. An AFP reporter saw blood spattered on the ground and bullet holes in the sentry box to left of the white factory gates." According to this Agence France Presse report, the dead included "eight civilians including a woman and a child."
From AP:
The scars of the battle were evident Monday. About a dozen cars lay destroyed in the streets, many apparently crushed by tanks, and bullet holes pocked many buildings. A rowdy crowd gathered at one spot, chanting pro-Saddam slogans. One man fired warning shots in the air when journalists arrived at the scene. There was no U.S. military presence in the city center. Shops opened, and residents moved around town.
At a news conference at a U.S. military base in Samarra, Col. Frederick Rudesheim said the Iraqi guerrillas acted in "a concerted fashion'' against the American convoys. At the U.S. base, half a dozen suspects were seen with bags over their heads and their hands bound by plastic cuffs. Many residents said Saddam loyalists attacked the Americans, but that when U.S. forces began firing at random, many civilians got their guns and joined the fight. Many said residents were bitter about recent U.S. raids in the night.
"Why do they arrest people when they're in their homes?'' asked Athir Abdul Salam, a 19-year-old student. "They come at night to arrest people. So what do they expect those people to do?''
"Civilians shot back at the Americans,'' said 30-year-old Ali Hassan, who was wounded by shrapnel in the battle. "They claim we are terrorists. So OK, we are terrorists. What do they expect when they drive among us?''
Many residents said the Americans opened fire at random when they came under attack, targeting civilian installations. Six destroyed vehicles sat in front of the hospital, where witnesses said U.S. tanks shelled people dropping off the injured. A kindergarten was damaged, apparently by tank shells. No children were hurt.
"Luckily, we evacuated the children five minutes before we came under attack,'' said Ibrahim Jassim, a guard at the kindergarten. ``Why did they attack randomly? Why did they shoot a kindergarten with tank shells?''
Military officials in Baghdad said they haven't reported a deadlier attack since May 1, when President Bush declared major combat over. U.S. officials have only sporadically released figures on Iraqi casualties, and wouldn't say whether there has been a deadlier unreported firefight.
I don't think we've heard the last of this mess. I'll keep you posted.
Bush Weighs In On Iraqi Resistance
This from Bush today:
"We are confronting that danger in Iraq, where Saddam holdouts and foreign terrorists are desperately trying to throw the country into chaos," he said.
"They know that the advance of freedom in Iraq, in the heart of the Middle East, would be a major defeat for the cause of terror. The coalition of killers, the collection of killers, is trying to shake the will of America. America will not be intimidated by a bunch of thugs and assassins."
But will it be intimidated by an increasingly infuriated civilian population? Will Bush ever acknowledge that the people of Iraq aren't entirely on board and don't share his view that this is all the work of thugs and assassins? It is the Iraqi people who are fighting back now. Certainly not all of them, but call a spade a spade, Bush. Snap out of it. In referring to these attacks as terrorism and the resistance as terrorists he increasingly sounds like a third-rate dictator angered at the petulant protests of his subjects.
"We are confronting that danger in Iraq, where Saddam holdouts and foreign terrorists are desperately trying to throw the country into chaos," he said.
"They know that the advance of freedom in Iraq, in the heart of the Middle East, would be a major defeat for the cause of terror. The coalition of killers, the collection of killers, is trying to shake the will of America. America will not be intimidated by a bunch of thugs and assassins."
But will it be intimidated by an increasingly infuriated civilian population? Will Bush ever acknowledge that the people of Iraq aren't entirely on board and don't share his view that this is all the work of thugs and assassins? It is the Iraqi people who are fighting back now. Certainly not all of them, but call a spade a spade, Bush. Snap out of it. In referring to these attacks as terrorism and the resistance as terrorists he increasingly sounds like a third-rate dictator angered at the petulant protests of his subjects.
Battle of Samarra Revisisted Again
For a totally different take on the Battle of Samarra you might have a look at the reports coming out from Al Jazeera. It sounds like a pretty nasty business. Their interpretation of events in Samarra are far removed from the picture being painted by the Pentagon and the major news networks.
In Samarra, scenes of devastation dotted the town after fierce US attacks in which senior police and hospital officials said at least eight civilians were killed and dozens wounded. American troops said on Monday that 54 resistance fighters had been killed in clashes on Sunday. But our correspondent and other news agencies quoted hospital sources and Samarra residents as saying that the US fire killed eight people, all civilians.
Samarra hospital accident and emergency department anaesthetist Bassam Ibrahim said “we received the bodies of eight civilians, including a woman and a child”. It was not immediately clear whether the dead civilians included two Iranians on a visit to holy sites found dead in their bus. Hospital director Abd Tawfiq said “more than 60 people wounded by gunfire and shrapnel from US rounds are being treated at the hospital”.
Colonel Fredrick Rudesheim said the toll was 46, repeating an earlier number. He added it was not a firm toll based on a body count, but an estimate based on interviews with all the soldiers involved.
The attacks on US troops were "coordinated" and targeted two convoys transporting new Iraqi currency as part of an exchange scheme to replace old notes, added Rudesheim. AFP correspondents saw a civilian bus completely burned out 30 metres from the main entrance to the town’s hospital.
The correspondents were shown two Iranian passports said to belong to the visitors killed in the bus. Nine others, also Iranians, were wounded, said the police guard outside the hospital.
Iranian officials expressed concern over the incident and called for an immediate investigation into the attack. Tehran warned the incident could further harm Iranian-US ties. Reda Yosofyan, a member of the Iranian parliament's national security and foreign policy commission, said Washington was directly responsible for the Iranians' death. "This event will evoke even more distrust between Iran and the US," he told Aljazeera.net. Yosofyan also called on the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council to investigate the incident and report the findings to Tehran. But Council spokesman Hamid al-Kefai said he did not know of any Iranian deaths in the Samarra attack. "We cannot discuss anything which we do not know about," he told Aljazeera.net. Yosofyan warned that such incidents might harm future ties between Baghdad and Tehran if they were not investigated.
When contacted by Aljazeera.net, a US military spokesman in Baghdad said they had no information on any Iranian deaths. In response to the toll, he said, "I cannot respond to that because I do not have the details." These are not the first Iranian casualties as a result of US fire since the Washington-led invasion of Iraq. In the early days of the invasion, a stray missile landed near Iran's western border, injuring a number of civilians.
The town’s police chief Colonel Ismail Mahmud Muhammad said about 20 of the injured sustained their injuries while worshipping at a mosque during sunset prayers. Resistance fighters who had attacked occupation forces had withdrawn when the Americans returned fire, said Muhammad. Troops had done so indiscriminately with all weapons in their arsenal, he added. “There was an attack and an exchange of fire between the Americans and the resistance lasting half an hour. The resistance withdrew, then bombardments started using all manner of weapons in all directions and without any discrimination,” said Muhammad. He also said eight civilians were killed, including a child.
Shaikh Mohammed Abd al-Karim, in charge of security on the local municipal council, cited police reports that the clashes had begun when assailants attacked a US convoy after it had delivered money to the al-Rashid Bank. "There were shots, and then a half-hour exchange with the
assailants, who then fled," he said. "Then there was a massive US bombardment in which buildings, including mosques and schools, were hit by the Americans." Abd al-Karim said that Apache helicopter gunships had opened fire during the bombardment of the built-up area, although flares carried by the assault aircraft can sometimes be mistaken for cannon fire. The impact of a rocket could be seen on one of the outer walls of the al-Shafi mosque, nearly 50 metres from the hospital. Its windows had been shattered by the blast.
Ali Abd Allah Amin, 12, who was being treated at the hospital with his five-year-old brother for wounds sustained in the mosque, said their father had been killed in the firing.
Certainly a different perspective than what we've been fed from CNN and the Pentagon. Remember, CNN gets the story from the soldiers and the Pentagon, while Al Jazeera uses as their sources the local police and security officials, hospital administrators, and eye-witnesses. I'm no PhD in Journalism, but I'm going to side with Al Jazeera on this one.
In Samarra, scenes of devastation dotted the town after fierce US attacks in which senior police and hospital officials said at least eight civilians were killed and dozens wounded. American troops said on Monday that 54 resistance fighters had been killed in clashes on Sunday. But our correspondent and other news agencies quoted hospital sources and Samarra residents as saying that the US fire killed eight people, all civilians.
Samarra hospital accident and emergency department anaesthetist Bassam Ibrahim said “we received the bodies of eight civilians, including a woman and a child”. It was not immediately clear whether the dead civilians included two Iranians on a visit to holy sites found dead in their bus. Hospital director Abd Tawfiq said “more than 60 people wounded by gunfire and shrapnel from US rounds are being treated at the hospital”.
Colonel Fredrick Rudesheim said the toll was 46, repeating an earlier number. He added it was not a firm toll based on a body count, but an estimate based on interviews with all the soldiers involved.
The attacks on US troops were "coordinated" and targeted two convoys transporting new Iraqi currency as part of an exchange scheme to replace old notes, added Rudesheim. AFP correspondents saw a civilian bus completely burned out 30 metres from the main entrance to the town’s hospital.
The correspondents were shown two Iranian passports said to belong to the visitors killed in the bus. Nine others, also Iranians, were wounded, said the police guard outside the hospital.
Iranian officials expressed concern over the incident and called for an immediate investigation into the attack. Tehran warned the incident could further harm Iranian-US ties. Reda Yosofyan, a member of the Iranian parliament's national security and foreign policy commission, said Washington was directly responsible for the Iranians' death. "This event will evoke even more distrust between Iran and the US," he told Aljazeera.net. Yosofyan also called on the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council to investigate the incident and report the findings to Tehran. But Council spokesman Hamid al-Kefai said he did not know of any Iranian deaths in the Samarra attack. "We cannot discuss anything which we do not know about," he told Aljazeera.net. Yosofyan warned that such incidents might harm future ties between Baghdad and Tehran if they were not investigated.
When contacted by Aljazeera.net, a US military spokesman in Baghdad said they had no information on any Iranian deaths. In response to the toll, he said, "I cannot respond to that because I do not have the details." These are not the first Iranian casualties as a result of US fire since the Washington-led invasion of Iraq. In the early days of the invasion, a stray missile landed near Iran's western border, injuring a number of civilians.
The town’s police chief Colonel Ismail Mahmud Muhammad said about 20 of the injured sustained their injuries while worshipping at a mosque during sunset prayers. Resistance fighters who had attacked occupation forces had withdrawn when the Americans returned fire, said Muhammad. Troops had done so indiscriminately with all weapons in their arsenal, he added. “There was an attack and an exchange of fire between the Americans and the resistance lasting half an hour. The resistance withdrew, then bombardments started using all manner of weapons in all directions and without any discrimination,” said Muhammad. He also said eight civilians were killed, including a child.
Shaikh Mohammed Abd al-Karim, in charge of security on the local municipal council, cited police reports that the clashes had begun when assailants attacked a US convoy after it had delivered money to the al-Rashid Bank. "There were shots, and then a half-hour exchange with the
assailants, who then fled," he said. "Then there was a massive US bombardment in which buildings, including mosques and schools, were hit by the Americans." Abd al-Karim said that Apache helicopter gunships had opened fire during the bombardment of the built-up area, although flares carried by the assault aircraft can sometimes be mistaken for cannon fire. The impact of a rocket could be seen on one of the outer walls of the al-Shafi mosque, nearly 50 metres from the hospital. Its windows had been shattered by the blast.
Ali Abd Allah Amin, 12, who was being treated at the hospital with his five-year-old brother for wounds sustained in the mosque, said their father had been killed in the firing.
Certainly a different perspective than what we've been fed from CNN and the Pentagon. Remember, CNN gets the story from the soldiers and the Pentagon, while Al Jazeera uses as their sources the local police and security officials, hospital administrators, and eye-witnesses. I'm no PhD in Journalism, but I'm going to side with Al Jazeera on this one.
Battle of Samarra Revisited
I'm not very surprised that a new perspective is emerging on the Battle of Samarra that resulted in the deaths of 46 (or 54, depending on what you read) Iraqi insurgents. The Guardian reporting:
The aftermath of the weekend battle in Samarra, which the US has claimed was the deadliest since the war ended, today appeared murkier than first reports suggested, as residents of the central Iraqi city accused Washington of exaggerating its death toll.
Initial US statements put the number of Iraqi dead at 46, with five American soldiers injured, but the US today put its figure up to 54 Iraqi fatalities.
It also said that many of the dead Iraqis were wearing the uniform of the Fedayeen, the militia most closely associated with Saddam Hussein and most loyal to him
But the Associated Press reported that some in Samarra believed fatalities were much lower than the US's figures and that most of the dead were armed civilians.
It quoted one of the city residents claiming that civilians had grabbed their guns when the US soldiers fired on insurgents who had attempted to ambush their convoy.
"Civilians shot back at the Americans," said 30-year-old Ali Hassan, who was wounded by shrapnel in the battle. "They claim we are terrorists. So OK, we are terrorists."
Meanwhile, The New York Times had this to say on the battle:
The Associated Press quoted residents in Samarra as saying that American forces had responded by firing at random, prompting civilians to get guns and join the fight. The news agency said many civilians had expressed bitterness about recent American raids in the night.
CNN has an interesting twist. Quoting Pentagon reports, the attackers were apparently after money. With this much variance, we're missing the point: regardless of the outcome, this was a large engagement for such a scattered guerilla war where most of the action takes place with lone snipers and remote control, and it appears that some civilians were involved. It should also be pointed out that this talk of "fedayeen uniforms" is baloney. That's "Pentagon speak" for black shirt and black pants.
The aftermath of the weekend battle in Samarra, which the US has claimed was the deadliest since the war ended, today appeared murkier than first reports suggested, as residents of the central Iraqi city accused Washington of exaggerating its death toll.
Initial US statements put the number of Iraqi dead at 46, with five American soldiers injured, but the US today put its figure up to 54 Iraqi fatalities.
It also said that many of the dead Iraqis were wearing the uniform of the Fedayeen, the militia most closely associated with Saddam Hussein and most loyal to him
But the Associated Press reported that some in Samarra believed fatalities were much lower than the US's figures and that most of the dead were armed civilians.
It quoted one of the city residents claiming that civilians had grabbed their guns when the US soldiers fired on insurgents who had attempted to ambush their convoy.
"Civilians shot back at the Americans," said 30-year-old Ali Hassan, who was wounded by shrapnel in the battle. "They claim we are terrorists. So OK, we are terrorists."
Meanwhile, The New York Times had this to say on the battle:
The Associated Press quoted residents in Samarra as saying that American forces had responded by firing at random, prompting civilians to get guns and join the fight. The news agency said many civilians had expressed bitterness about recent American raids in the night.
CNN has an interesting twist. Quoting Pentagon reports, the attackers were apparently after money. With this much variance, we're missing the point: regardless of the outcome, this was a large engagement for such a scattered guerilla war where most of the action takes place with lone snipers and remote control, and it appears that some civilians were involved. It should also be pointed out that this talk of "fedayeen uniforms" is baloney. That's "Pentagon speak" for black shirt and black pants.
Black November by the Numbers
There has been a lot of talk about how bad November was for the American-led occupation of Iraq. Here are some numbers posted on the BBC:
NOVEMBER DEATHS IN IRAQ
US troops: 79
Non-US coalition forces: 26
Foreign civilians: 6
Iraqis killed by insurgents: At least 32*
Iraqis killed by coalition troops: At least 64*
*No official statistics are kept for Iraqi deaths
Strange the BBC doesn't include the number of Iraqi civilian deaths. Have a look at Iraq Body Count to get a clearer picture of the damage being done in the name of freedom.
NOVEMBER DEATHS IN IRAQ
US troops: 79
Non-US coalition forces: 26
Foreign civilians: 6
Iraqis killed by insurgents: At least 32*
Iraqis killed by coalition troops: At least 64*
*No official statistics are kept for Iraqi deaths
Strange the BBC doesn't include the number of Iraqi civilian deaths. Have a look at Iraq Body Count to get a clearer picture of the damage being done in the name of freedom.
CBC's "Deadline Iraq"
Erudition is out of the question this morning as I played poker until late last night and drank a tickle too much. Nevertheless, Times New Roman Online will soldier on and my state will improve as the clock ticks. A friend sent me a page this morning from the CBC on reporting during the War on Terror. I've posted the introduction to the project but have a look round the site, it's well done. Bravo, CBC, and thank-you to the contributor. I always appreciate input from readers and story-suggestions.
There were two wars in Iraq. One featured soldiers. The other featured journalists. News organizations competed with one another, and the resulting risks journalists took to be first on a given story sometimes got them killed. The fact is that journalists and journalism were often front and centre in the stories that came out of the conflict. Embedding versus unilateral. The high mortality rate of journalists. Criticisms surrounding the soundness of the coverage. The unprecedented speed and immediacy of transmitting words and pictures of combat.
Now that the war is "over", journalists and journalism are still making headlines. Christiane Amanpour of CNN has stated that the coverage of the war, particularly in America, was too driven by patriotism. John Burns of the New York Times recently said that the Iraq war highlights how corrupt journalism has become. His colleague at the Times, Judith Miller, has herself been accused by some media observers of being corrupted by Pentagon influences. The controversy around Tony Blair and the BBC's coverage of the war continues to boil.
Given all this, we thought it would be fascinating and informative to zero in on the journalists who were there. Whether there were logistical impediments to getting their stories out, or editorial concerns, or military restrictions, there was much that they couldn't, or wouldn't say, during the war. Now they can. We interviewed nearly 50 journalists from around the world, representing the broadest range of media affiliations. You can read the entire interviews from 12 of them here on our website.
And the composite picture they give us of this war is one that we didn't really see: what went on behind the scenes, the fear, the exhilaration, the tedium, the professional gratification, as well as the toll it took on them emotionally and psychologically. It is their stories, as well as footage and pictures that never saw air time during the war, that lie at the heart of "Deadline Iraq: Uncensored Stories of the War.”
There were two wars in Iraq. One featured soldiers. The other featured journalists. News organizations competed with one another, and the resulting risks journalists took to be first on a given story sometimes got them killed. The fact is that journalists and journalism were often front and centre in the stories that came out of the conflict. Embedding versus unilateral. The high mortality rate of journalists. Criticisms surrounding the soundness of the coverage. The unprecedented speed and immediacy of transmitting words and pictures of combat.
Now that the war is "over", journalists and journalism are still making headlines. Christiane Amanpour of CNN has stated that the coverage of the war, particularly in America, was too driven by patriotism. John Burns of the New York Times recently said that the Iraq war highlights how corrupt journalism has become. His colleague at the Times, Judith Miller, has herself been accused by some media observers of being corrupted by Pentagon influences. The controversy around Tony Blair and the BBC's coverage of the war continues to boil.
Given all this, we thought it would be fascinating and informative to zero in on the journalists who were there. Whether there were logistical impediments to getting their stories out, or editorial concerns, or military restrictions, there was much that they couldn't, or wouldn't say, during the war. Now they can. We interviewed nearly 50 journalists from around the world, representing the broadest range of media affiliations. You can read the entire interviews from 12 of them here on our website.
And the composite picture they give us of this war is one that we didn't really see: what went on behind the scenes, the fear, the exhilaration, the tedium, the professional gratification, as well as the toll it took on them emotionally and psychologically. It is their stories, as well as footage and pictures that never saw air time during the war, that lie at the heart of "Deadline Iraq: Uncensored Stories of the War.”
