Thursday, March 30, 2006
 DAILY WAR NEWS FOR THURSDAY, March 30, 2006Photo:
Workers remove from a balcony in Rome's City Hall the poster of
American reporter Jill Carroll - who was kidnapped three months ago in
a bloody ambush that killed her translator -, and who was released from
captivity Thursday March 30, 2006. Like other colleagues in Iraq,
Carrol's poster was hung in Rome's City Hall after her kidnapping. (AP
Photo/Pier Paolo Cito)Bring 'em on: U.S. airman killed and another wounded by roadside bomb while conducting operation near Baghdad.Bring 'em on: U.S. soldier dies from wounds received in clashes in Fallujah on March 28.Bring 'em on: U.S. soldier dies in Rutbah on March 28, after improvised explosive device detonates near his Humvee.OTHER SECURITY INCIDENTSBaghdad:Suicide car bomb goes off at entrance of a police commando headquarters near Green Zone.
The blast was powerful but the cement barriers protected the guards,
minimizing the casualties to two wounded along with killing of the
suicide bomber.Assailants in speeding cars gun down police commando as he was leaving his house in south Baghdad.Police discover body of strangled man in a northern Baghdad neighborhood. Suicide
car bomber rams police convoy in west Baghdad's Yarmouk neighborhood,
killing one police commando and wounding three others. Two civilians also were hurt.Roadside bombs hits minibus and a police patrol, wounding at least five civilians.Gunmen wound at least two policemen in Baghdad, authorities said.Armed men in Baghdad target bakery in the neighborhood of Dura, shooting dead three people.Attack on bakery in the neighborhood of Amiriyah, with one employee wounded in a hail of bullets.Bomb explodes in west of Baghdad as a commando convoy passed, wounding five commandos.Basra:Drive-by shooters kill lawyer as she gets out of taxi in Basra.Kirkuk:Policeman killed and three others wounded when roadside bomb hits their patrol in Kirkuk."Insurgents" blow up pipeline transporting oil from Kirkuk to Beiji refinery. Nasiriyah:Two people wounded by bomb targeting a patrol of infrastructure guards protecting oil pipelines in Nasiriyah.Baiji:U.S. forces launch operation in town of Baiji, Tikrit.
Iraqi troops supported the American military units in the offensive
late last night. Roundups were staged early this morning. Heavy weapon
fire was heard in the town.Gunmen ambush and kill eight workers from Iraq's main oil refinery in Baiji. One worker was also wounded when their minibus was stopped at a roadblock after they left work for the day.IRAQ NEWSJILL CARROLL RELEASEDPolice Lt. Col. Falah al-Mohammedawi said Carroll was released near an office of the Iraqi Islamic Party,
the main Sunni political organization, in western Baghdad. The party
said in a statement that Carroll walked in at 12:15 p.m. carrying a
letter written in Arabic asking the party to help her. Carroll then was
transferred to party headquarters, given gifts that included a Quran
and handed over to fellow journalists and American officials at about
2:30 p.m., the statement said.
U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad
met with Carroll and said she was in good spirits and anxious to go
home. He also said no kidnappers were "yet" in custody, and no one in
the U.S. mission was involved in paying a ransom. "No U.S. person
entered into any arrangements with anyone. By 'U.S. person' I mean the
United States mission," Khalilzad said. During Carroll's months in
captivity, she had appeared in three videos broadcast on Arab
television, pleading for her life.
Her captors had demanded the
release of all women detainees in Iraq by Feb. 26 and said Carroll
would be killed if that did not happen. The date came and went with no
word about her fate. On Feb. 28, Iraq's Interior Minister Bayan Jabr
said Carroll was being held by the Islamic Army in Iraq, the insurgent
group that freed two French journalists in 2004 after four months in
captivity.
She was last seen in a videotape broadcast Feb. 9 by
the private Kuwaiti television station Al-Rai. Her twin sister, Katie,
issued a plea for her release on Al-Arabiya television late Wednesday.
Carroll
is the fourth Western hostage to be freed in eight days. On March 23,
U.S. and British soldiers, acting on intelligence gained from a
detainee, freed Briton Norman Kember, 74, and Canadians James Loney,
41, and Harmeet Singh Sooden, 32, from a house west of Baghdad.
Carroll's televised comments [to Baghdad TV upon release]
"I
was treated very well, it's important people know that. That I was not
harmed, they never said they would hit me, never threatened me in any
way."
"I was kept in very good small, safe place, safe room,
nice furniture, they gave me clothing, plenty of food. I was allowed to
take showers, go to the bathroom when I wanted. They never hit me or
even threatened to hit me."
"I really don't know where I was.
The room had a window, but the glass was ... you know you can't see,
and curtains... I couldn't hear any sounds."
"I once did watch
television, but I didn't really know what was going on in the outside
world. Here and there I would get some news. One time they brought me
the newspaper."
"I don't know what happened. They just came to me early this morning and said, 'OK, we are letting you go now.'" Muslim discontent awaits Rice in northern England:
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will face Muslim resentment
over the war in Iraq when she travels to northern England this week to
meet her British opposite number Jack Straw. Rice will travel to
Liverpool, a city steeped in left wing radicalism, and Straw's home
town of Blackburn, where 20 percent of the population is Muslim.She
will speak on U.S. foreign policy in the somewhat incongruous setting
of Blackburn Rovers' soccer stadium, and had been due to visit a mosque
in the city until the invitation was withdrawn on Wednesday. No one at
the Masjid al Hidayah mosque was available for comment but the Foreign
Office confirmed the cancellation, saying it was a pity.The
Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), the largest lobby group for the
country's 1.6 million Muslims, said there was widespread opposition to
U.S. foreign policy and Rice's visit. "This particular U.S.
administration has upset many Muslims in the UK and around the world
... so it is not particularly surprising that the visit to a Blackburn
mosque has had to be cancelled," MCB spokesman Inayat Bunglawala said.
"The U.S. government needs to demonstrate that it is prepared to be
more even-handed in its relations with Muslims and Muslim countries."The
Stop The War coalition, which plans to demonstrate against the war in
Iraq everywhere Rice goes, said the governing committee of the mosque
had had a change of heart. "This decision is evidence that the bulk of
the community, Muslim and otherwise, are strongly against the visit,"
Stop The War spokesman Alex Martindale said in a statement.REPORTSVideo: We're Sorry:
We have a powerful film this evening. We follow a group of former US
soldiers who have returned from Iraq deeply affected by the experience.
As they march across America to protest against the war they reveal
their own experiences of the conflict, make some disturbing allegations
about military practices in Iraq and reflect on how it feels to come
home. We'll discuss some of the issues raised with the former Judge
Advocate General for the US Army who is also a decorated combat veteran.BBC Newsnight program broadcast 03/29/06COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS
Iraq has not fallen: It is a rarity these days to see good news coming out of Iraq.Sure,
I am not talking about the planted US military version of events or the
bloggers on "assignment in Iraq" embedded with some military unit.Nor
am I talking about the so-called valor and bravery of the Iraqi Army as
it storms the hideouts of "insurgents" and scores kills against women
and children.No,
I am indeed talking about the voice of one woman, who has in nearly
three years saved the writing of history from those who seek to enslave
it, refashion it to their own whims and manipulate it for generations
to come.Today,
purported victors may attempt to write history, but the internet has
made that impossible. Call it a matter of your own best invention
turning its guns on you.I would ask readers of my blog and wherever else this short treatise may appear not to take Riverbend's nomination as a finalist for the prestigious Samuel Johnson literary prize lightly.It is an achievement that speaks volumes to the tenacity, no, the very indomitable spirit of the Iraqi people.A
people who while under a senseless and merciless occupation and facing
the break-up of their country continue to press on. Ever forward, ever
defying the odds, ever thinking, innovating, producing and
accomplishing.It
is a pity that Riverbend's achievements will get no airplay or
broadcast time in her own country, a testament to the terrible
reppressive forces which have swept Iraq.Consider
that this is a woman who has been forced to quit her job because
conditions in her country took a detour to the worst becoming so few
women could venture outside their homes. And those who did resorted to
the head covering - hijab - in case they weren't already covered.Consider
that English - the language in which she writes - is not her native
tongue, and yet she is nominated for a prize in English Literature.Consider also that she shares the nomination with 18 others of mostly Anglo-Saxon descent.Consider she is the only Arab, the only Iraq, the only Muslim on this year's list.Consider
these things as you read her blog, the stories of what she must endure,
what her people must endure, of what the whole nation has had to endure.Consider these things when you read of the night her home was raided and the fears which are impounded in every word she writes.Riverbend's testimony to history is no less significant than the Diary of Anne Frank, for it reveals the human component that is so readily snuffed out by warfare.It reveals the beating heart of life where war seeks none.It
does not matter if it is Riverbend's name that is sounded in June when
the winner is announced. She has already won, and we Iraqis have won
right alongside her.There
are those who have sought to discredit her. Those that have doubted her
existence, those that have shunned her because they were paid to.But
she - and us - has emerged the victor. This was not the first time she
was nominated for a prize, nor, I am sure, will it be the last.It is a small victory if one considers the overall defeat of the human experience during warfare.The Times of London had this headline in describing her: Literary honor for Baghdad blogger.Honor indeed.Iraqis, stand proud.American and Arab Youth Share Ideas on the occupation [Excerpts from an e-mail exchange]In
an e-mail-based dialogue, sponsored by IslamOnline.net's Muslim Affairs
section, between American student Evan Hays and Iraqi-Palestinian
student Khalid Jarrar.Evan
L. Hays, 21, is a senior student at in Illinois who has traveled
through Egypt, Turkey, Syria, and Jordan, where he studied the people,
language, politics, history, and faith of the Middle East.Khalid
Jarrar, 23, is an Iraqi-Palestinian student with a major in
environmental engineering who lived in Iraq from July 1991 through July
2005 and has recently moved to Jordan. Khalid maintains a blog, Tell me a secret, where he writes about ordinary Iraqis and daily life in post-war Iraq. Excerpt from Part 1
Evan:
Iraq is better off without Saddam Hussein. I will not shrink from this
statement. In fact, I believe that even the liberal media in the United
States, as well as most true Muslims, believe this deep down, even if
they do not always vocalize it.
Khalid:
Iraq, that was built throughout years, is now destroyed, at all levels,
and is still being destroyed everyday, by the occupation and the war
that the US started-look at the killing and torture of Iraqis; bombing
cities and villages; and installing puppet governments.
The fake
government that was installed in Iraq, which consists of pro-occupation
figures, exists within and only within the boundaries of the Green
Zone, which is surrounded by concrete walls, American soldiers, and
American tanks-all to protect the government from the anger of people,
the Iraqi people, whose voice you never hear in the media anymore. This
government that is being attacked everyday at all levels by Iraqis,
unable itself, let alone Iraqis, will fall, because it was installed as
a result of external pressure and foreign intervention, something that
never worked in Iraq throughout history, under many occupations that
tried to control it and oppress the will of its people.
I
believe in the strength of Iraqis. I believe in the spirit of Iraqis. I
believe in God above all, and therefore I know that this occupation,
too, will be terminated, and that the occupation will leave against its
will and against all its plans and despite the presence of the military
bases that were built in Iraq for the occupation to stay (just like the
American occupation in other countries around the world, except that in
Iraq, occupations never last, and are always forced to leave.)
Saddam
was a terrible dictator, a phase that every country goes through till
it revolts and achieves its granted democracy, a natural process that
results in a democratic state where people rule themselves by electing
governments that represent them. Saddam used violence against everyone
who dared to criticize him, and so does the occupation. Saddam killed
his enemies, or the people who stood against him, while the occupation
kills innocent people everyday, people walking the streets, living in
their cities. The occupation used cluster bombs against civilians,
bombs that still kill innocent people. They were used against a
neighbor who lived right next to where I lived. Their remains kept
exploding and killing people whenever they stepped over them.
Both
Saddam and the occupation kill whoever they think are "bad people" or
"insurgents," except that the occupation does that much more widely.
Other than that, Saddam was a good "manager" in terms of providing the
basic needs of life-water, security, food. Now we still have the same
country of secret police and muhabarat (intelligence) except that we
lost the small positive side of Saddam; we don't have water, security,
electricity, or food rations anymore.
Excerpt from Part 2
Evan:
I also am disappointed and shocked that Khalid takes such a stand on
the "resistance," as this is implicitly saying that he is in favor of
the terrorism that continues to kill far more people over the last year
than the military battles have for quite some time. (…)
At this
point I am not asking the readers to even support American military
actions, but I am asking the readers to at least see this resistance
for what it is, and finally to get involved for peace if they really do
want to change things. Join the Red Crescent or the Arab League or
various Muslim human rights organizations and go to Iraq-the more hands
that there are working for peace, the sooner American soldiers will
leave, but more importantly, the sooner the destructive ideology of the
"resistance" will be defeated.
Khalid:
The resistance is the force of the oppressed against this oppressor.
The resistance couldn't possibly have started or continued, if it
wasn't for the funding and protection of Iraqi people. Imagine four
people in a car, carrying their weapons and waiting for an American
convoy to pass so they can attack it. How many Iraqis see them? How
many Iraqis can report them anonymously? How many Iraqis can attack
them? But none of that happens! People protect them, and cheer for them
when they perform their operations. They help the attackers in their
escape after they are done. Some people even divide their income
between their families and the resistance, some people work half-time
to provide for their families and dedicate the rest of their day to
working with the resistance. It is a public grassroots movement, and
the official numbers and report show that it's increasing and getting
smarter and stronger. These are facts that AP can't report because they
don't know about them, and Talabani won't talk about them because he
doesn't like them.
I heard you talking over and over about the
innocent Iraqis who were killed by the terrorists (well, according to
your definition of terrorists, not mine). My question is: Do you
support the killing of Iraqis by the American Army? Over 100,000 Iraqis
have been killed. Cluster bombs and white phosphorus were used against
civilians. Yes, civilians in civilian areas, as you know that kind of
weapon doesn't discriminate. It's practically a weapon of mass
destruction so to speak, in the sense that it's designed to kill as
many people as possible in an area. Well, you might say that some of
the resistance were among those civilians that were killed. Do you
support killing these numbers of innocent civilians, just because
maybe
they work with the resistance? If the situation were the opposite and
your country were occupied and the occupiers killed civilians,
including your family members, by using white phosphorus-which means
that they practically burned to death-just because some of the
resistance happened to be in the neighbor, what would you think? (Sorry
if I sound rude; I need to let you understand that I am not talking
about theories. Those people who burned to ashes were families of other
people you know.)
Excerpt from Part 5
Evan: I
pray that you do not view me as someone who is not deeply saddened by
the pain in Iraq, someone who does not greatly appreciate Iraq and its
people, someone who does not respect Islam, etc. I am simply someone
trying to find out what is right, as we all are in this life. Perhaps
you as readers are more inclined to believe Khalid's points because he
is an Iraqi, and quite probably you are right to do so.
Khalid:
I have said before and will repeat that the goal of this debate is not
getting closer to each other, but to demonstrate the facts and answer
the questions, and let the readers see for themselves the elements of
the case of each one of us. I represent the common anti-war side, and
you represent the common pro-war side, so there is nothing personal
here, and I have nothing personal against you of course. If you want a
better way to get closer to an Iraqi, consider asking your government
to stop occupying his country. (...)
Consider the possibility of
someone you love being burned or shredded with White Phosphorus (WP) or
cluster bombs. Imagine your country occupied and the scenes of the
military of another country on your land building military bases, and
then spreading a propaganda about protecting your freedom. I hope that
you will never have to go through that, but I am asking you to look
closely at the life of Iraqis. They are not a political theory; they
are people, humans, who are suffering from the lack of medicine, food,
and security. But they still have their dignity, which is urging them
to fight at all levels, a fight that won't stop, not till the last man
falls, not till the last pen is broken, not before Iraq gets its
freedom back, someday.
Military expert has fighting words for Bush:Eric
Haney, a retired command sergeant major of the U.S. Army, was a
founding member of Delta Force, the military's elite covert
counter-terrorist unit. He culled his experiences for "Inside Delta
Force". Today he serves as an executive producer and technical adviser
for "The Unit," CBS' new hit drama based on his book, who drew 18
million viewers in its first two airings.Q: What is the cost to our country [of the war in Iraq]?A:
For the first thing, our credibility is utterly zero. So we destroyed
whatever credibility we had. ... And I say "we," because the American
public went along with this. They voted for a second Bush
administration out of fear, so fear is what they're going to have from
now on.Our
military is completely consumed, so were there a real threat -
thankfully, there is no real threat to the U.S. in the world, but were
there one, we couldn't confront it. Right now, that may not be a bad
thing, because that keeps Bush from trying something with Iran or with
Venezuela.The
harm that has been done is irreparable. There are more than 2,000
American kids that have been killed. Tens of thousands of innocent
Iraqis have been killed ñ which no one in the U.S. really cares about
those people, do they? I never hear anybody lament that fact. It has
been a horror, and this administration has worked overtime to divert
the American public's attention from it. Their lies are coming home to
roost now, and it's gonna fall apart. But somebody's gonna have to
clear up the aftermath and the harm that it's done just to what America
stands for. It may be two or three generations in repairing.Q: What do you make of the torture debate? Cheney ...A:
(Interrupting) That's Cheney's pursuit. The only reason anyone tortures
is because they like to do it. It's about vengeance, it's about
revenge, or it's about cover-up. You don't gain intelligence that way.
Everyone in the world knows that. It's worse than small-minded, and
look what it does.I've
argued this on Bill O'Reilly and other Fox News shows. I ask, who would
you want to pay to be a torturer? Do you want someone that the American
public pays to torture? He's an employee of yours. It's worse than
ridiculous. It's criminal; it's utterly criminal. This administration
has been masters of diverting attention away from real issues and
debating the silly. Debating what constitutes torture: Mistreatment of
helpless people in your power is torture, period. And (I'm saying this
as) a man who has been involved in the most pointed of our activities.
I know it, and all of my mates know it. You don't do it. It's an act of
cowardice. I hear apologists for torture say, "Well, they do it to us."
Which is a ludicrous argument. ... The Saddam Husseins of the world are
not our teachers. Christ almighty, we wrote a Constitution saying
what's legal and what we believed in. Now we're going to throw it away.Q:
As someone who repeatedly put your life on the line, did some of the
most hair-raising things to protect your country, and to see your
country behave this way, that must be ...A:
It's pretty galling. But ultimately I believe in the good and the
decency of the American people, and they're starting to see what's
happening and the lies that have been told. We're seeing this current
house of cards start to flutter away. The American people come around.
They always do.Why many Iraqis were willing to confront a formidable military machine with only small arms and their own wits:
It is now lost to history, but the run-up to the ferocious first battle
of Fallujah in April, 2004 - triggered by the mutilation of four
private security contractors - actually began a full year earlier when
American troops fired on a peaceful protest organized around a host of
local issues, killing 13 Iraqi civilians. It was exactly this sort of
ferocious reaction to peaceful protest that made the US military such a
factor in the stoking of what would become an ongoing rebellion.In
fact, in 2003, the occupation response to protests was forceful, almost
gleeful, repression. Top officials of the CPA and the US military
command considered these demonstrations, peaceful or not, the most
tangible signs of ongoing Ba'athist attempts to facilitate a future
return to power. They therefore applied the occupation's iron heel on
the theory that forceful suppression would soon defeat or demoralize
any "dead-enders" intent on restoring the old regime.Protests
were met with arrests, beatings, and - in any circumstances deemed
dangerous to US troops - overwhelming, often lethal military force.
Home invasions of people suspected of anti-occupation attitudes or
activities became commonplace, resulting in thousands of arrests and
numerous firefights.Detention
and torture in Abu Ghraib and other American-controlled prisons were
just one facet of this larger strategy, fueled by official pressure -
once a low-level rebellion boiled up - to get quick information for
further harsh, repressive strikes. In general, the Iraqi population
came to understand that dissent of whatever sort would be met by savage
repression.This
policy might have worked if, as Bush administration officials regularly
claimed, the resistance had indeed been nothing but remnants of the
Saddam regime, thirsting for a return to power. It might even have
worked - or at least worked somewhat better - if the growing resistance
had rested only on the anger people felt about the occupation of their
homeland by an alien army. In these circumstances, protesters might
have decided to bide their time in the face of overwhelming
demonstrations of force.It
was, however, an unworkable policy in the face of a deepening disaster
caused by the CPA's own economic nostrums which, by generating new
problems, kept recruiting new protesters (and deepening the anger of
existing rebels). In this context, the CPA's heavy-handed responses
were like oil to the flames. The rear guard of a deposed regime was a
tiny part of their problem when protest and rebellion were
fundamentally being fueled by a rapidly growing economic depression
endangering the livelihoods of a majority of the Iraqi population.In
such circumstances, each act of repression added the provocation of
brutality, false arrest, torture and murder to the economic crimes that
triggered the protests to begin with. And each act of repression
convinced more Iraqis that peaceful protest would not work; that, if
they were going to save their lives and those of their families, a more
aggressive, belligerent approach would be necessary.In
this context, the American policy of repression backfired royally,
stoking an ever angrier, more violent, more widespread, better
supported resistance. Eventually, in both Sunni and Shi'ite areas,
major uprisings occurred and, in the Sunni cities, these developed into
more-or-less continuous warfare that by November resulted in about 700
small-scale military engagements per week.
Could
the US have suppressed even this economically driven rebellion, had it
flooded the country with American troops (as Shinseki recommended) and
kept the Hussein army more or less intact, using it - as Saddam had -
to suppress growing discontent? Perhaps, but as long as American
administrators were intent on privatizing the country, this too might
have backfired.As
a start, the American Army was not trained or prepared to act as the
sort of local police force that might have contained protests generated
by economic discontent. Even Shinseki's estimates rested on the
existence of a viable Iraqi military to maintain law and order. Yet,
retaining an army after overthrowing a government and rearranging its
economic foundations is quite a different feat from retaining one after
a coup d'etat that changes little except the leadership.CPA
officials rightly feared major resistance from all the forces that
served, and were served by, the old system, including the military,
which in the Iraqi case benefited from government-controlled
enterprises as much as any other part of the establishment.Certainly,
an alien army entered Iraq, destroyed that country's sovereignty, and
stoked nationalist resentments. But major media outlets in this country
have lost track of the fact that what also entered Iraq was an American
administration wedded at home and abroad to a fierce, unbending, and
alien set of economic ideas.By
focusing attention only on the lack of US (and Iraqi) military power
brought to bear in the early days after the fall of Baghdad, they
ignore some of the deeper reasons why many Iraqis were willing to
confront a formidable military machine with only small arms and their
own wits. They ignore - and cause the American public to ignore - the
fact that there was little resistance just after the fall of Baghdad
and that it expanded as the economy declined and repression set in.
They ignore the eternal verity that the willingness to fight and die is
regularly animated by the conviction that otherwise things will only
get worse.
Fighting Two Fronts In Iraq:
One week into the fourth year of the war in Iraq, the United States is
now fighting two robust insurgencies, not one. The first insurgency, of
course, is the Sunni-led one, a resistance movement made up of former
and current Iraqi Baathists, many loyal to Saddam Hussein, former Iraqi
military officers and fighters from the old Republican Guard and a
coalition of tribal and Sunni religious leaders bitterly opposed to the
U.S. occupation. That force shows no sign of weakening. And indeed, it
is steadily killing American soldiers and Marines, along with scores of
Iraqi army and police recruits weekly.But
now a Shiite insurgency has emerged-nearly full-blown and with Iranian
support-to confront the occupation. Because it can draw on the majority
of Iraq's population, and because it can count on lethal assistance
from Tehran, it is a far more deadly threat to U.S. forces than the
first insurgency. It's safe to say that most Americans, who've been
paying attention to the first insurgency, have failed to notice the
emergence of the second.(...)So
the United States is now engaged in a two-front war in Iraq. One
obvious danger is that as tensions between the United States and
Iran-linked Shiites in Iraq grow, the simmering conflict between the
United States and Iran could come to a boil. The United States is
already pushing hard for a showdown with Tehran over its alleged
program to develop nuclear weapons. And there are clear signs of a U.S.
effort to force regime change in Iran (see "Déjà Vu All Over Iran"),
with the creation of a State Department Office of Iranian Affairs, U.S.
efforts to recruit Iranian exiles, $85 million to support anti-regime
groups and propaganda and more. Does Khalilzad realize that by
confronting the Iraqi Shiites, he could precipitate a larger conflict
with Iran? Is that his intention?Most
likely, there is no grand plan at this stage for the Bush
administration's Iran-Iraq policy. Not only are Bush administration
officials divided among themselves, it is likely that no one in the
administration has any idea what to do about either Iraq or Iran. Both
crises are beyond the White House's ability to solve, and it is safe to
assume that they are scrambling madly, desperately trying for a magic
formula that can stabilize Iraq and neutralize Iran simultaneously. The
maddeningly shifting alliances inside Iraq among Sunnis, Shiites and
Kurds-and the internal factions of each-make finding that winning
combination almost as hard as picking the right lottery numbers. What
Bush, Karl Rove and rest of the Bush team know is that if something
isn't done, fast, the GOP is toast in the 2006 elections.For
Bush and company, it may be all politics. But for the Iraqis, it is a
steady diet of carnage. Scores of bodies turn up every day throughout
Baghdad, many tied, bound and gagged and showing signs of having been
tortured to death. Mass graves-that supposed relic of the Saddam
years-are turning up again, and this time the bodies are fresh.
Post-Saddam Iraq has become a nightmare, a Mad Max world in which
warlords rule. It is not, as the president wants us to believe, a model
for democracy in the Middle East. And the French, the Russians, the
Chinese, the Arab League, the United Nations, the State Department, the
CIA and the U.S. anti-war movement can all say: I told you so.The prophecy of America's false prophet:
The recent statements by U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on
predictions regarding the outbreak of a civil war in Iraq raise fury
and disgust now matter their incentives and targets.We
have followed U.S. media and statements by U.S. officials since last
Wednesday's bloody events and the subsequent violent attacks. These
statements say that a civil war is imminent if not already there in
Iraq.But what
is strange is the fact that some of these statements warn of the
dangers of the sectarian push by some quarters in the society and its
dangers to the national solidarity and the Iraqi national unity.I
want first to say to the U.S. administration and assure it that the
Iraqi people have lived together in cohesion throughout centuries
despite their religious, sectarian and ethnic differences. And that the
colonial powers have constantly tried to split the Iraqi society by
playing the card of the sectarian, ethnic or religious differences in
its ranks.These
powers' aim has always been to split the society as a means to spread
their control over it. But our society has shown remarkable patriotism
due to its awareness of the great conspiracy the forces of sedition and
enemies of the homeland are concocting.But
what raises suspicions and anxiety is that we suddenly find the
American occupier expressing its keenness for the unity of our people
and country. Did not the occupation encourage in the aftermath of its
invasion of Iraq sectarian division ... when it devoted its energies to
establish sectarian politics by giving each sect or nationality a
specific number of seats.Throughout
its modern political history Iraq was not ruled by sectarian policies
and it was not obligatory for any government to reflect the country's
sectarian, ethnic or religious construction in its formation.(...)This
is why we are not surprised by Mr. Rumsfeld's statements and
predictions of civil war. We are also not surprised when his troops
withdrew from the streets of Baghdad last Wednesday when these blood
events took place and hid themselves in their holes.Since
the bombing of the holy shrine in Samarra, Iraqis have seen no trace of
Mr. Rumsfeld's troops. Even his planes have disappeared from Iraqi
skies. Mr. Rumsfeld's motto is "let them kill each other."But
the Iraqis have broken the spears of the conspiracy and torn its sails
and are steadfast in the face of the strong winds of evil. And God
willing the prophecy of this false prophet (Rumsfled) will not come
true.-- Editorial in Azzaman, a pro-Western Iraqi paperAmerican War Crimes:
From my point of view, the American State has committed innumerable and
grave war crimes by starting and prosecuting the Iraq War. I do not
refer to crimes defined by international law or by past war crimes
tribunals. I am no lawyer and neither are most Americans, but we
understand what many crimes are. For my purposes here, it does not help
us understand American war crimes in Iraq to subject our State's deeds
in that country to an abstruse tangle of international code and
interpretation. It does help us to look at what has happened from a
simple commonsense point of view.Let
us think of war crimes as a subset of all crimes. They are those crimes
committed in the course of war, start to finish. There are many crimes
that we are accustomed to domestically, such as murder, theft, rape,
arson, kidnapping, assault, maiming, causing bodily injury, vandalism,
and property destruction. We know what these crimes are. They also
occur in the course of war. To simplify matters, I speak of all these
crimes as one category: crimes against property, or crimes that violate
property rights. I do not mean to minimize the severity of the loss of
human life by lumping it together with the loss of a building. I mean
to make an accurate simplification. Murder is a property crime, since
each person owns his own body. Rape violates the property right of a
person, since it uses his or her body against his or her will.
Kidnapping involves physically controlling a person's body, again a
property crime. Obviously crimes like theft, arson, and property
destruction all violate property rights. Maiming a person is a crime. I
think it helps us to count all these crimes together as one set of
property crimes in order to sense the enormity of their totality.But
I have said "if there are war crimes in Iraq." Have there been American
war crimes in Iraq? To answer affirmatively, we need to document three
facts: property destruction, American responsibility for property
destruction, and criminality of the American acts. I believe that most
Americans know that there has been massive property destruction, and
they know that Americans are directly responsible for much of it. They
have seen some of it on television. However, most Americans probably
don't believe that America's acts have been criminal acts.The
property destruction in Iraq is well-known. No one denies it. The only
arguments are over how big it has been. A recent BBC News article
places civilian Iraqi deaths at a minimum of between 33,710 and 37,832.
Other estimates range far higher. No one knows how many Iraqi civilians
have been injured. The group Iraq Body Count reports 42,500 injuries.
Then there is destruction and damage done to all sorts of goods, from
homes to capital goods to possessions. There are vast economic losses
as businesses have been disrupted and destroyed. Civilians no doubt
have been arrested and, at times, tortured.The
American responsibility for a large fraction of this property
destruction is well-known. Our military forces have actively been
engaged in it from day one of the war. Domestic Iraqi elements and
foreign interlopers have also done their share of crime and
destruction. Again, my purpose is not to allocate the crimes among the
groups and persons responsible. I am unable to do that. As an American
whose taxes support the carnage, who'd like to see it ended, and who'd
like to prevent a repeat performance, my interest here is in American
culpability, in getting us to clean up our own act. This does not mean
I do not condemn the crimes being committed by Arabs, Iraqis, or other
nationalities. I do.This
brings us to the third element, which is the criminality of the
American acts. There is no doubt that American armed forces and
possibly paid civilian contractors have destroyed large amounts of
property. They have also seized large amounts of property. Whether or
not these are crimes hinges on one question: Were these acts done in
self-defense or not? It seems almost self-evident that many property
rights violations have been visited upon people who either were not
attacking Americans in Iraq or had not attacked them in America. But
this is apparently not enough to condemn Americans for their acts. The
rules of war allow for "collateral damage." I won't question that
doctrine here, although it can be questioned. But collateral damage is
only allowable if there is justification for fighting the war in the
first place. The major concern is still the criminality or
non-criminality of America's presence in Iraq.Criminality
surely does not hinge on whether or not Iraq was or was not a democracy
as this has nothing at all to do with self-defense, notwithstanding the
ravings of the President and his cabal of neoconservatives. It has
nothing to do with bringing freedom to anyone, because this goal also
has nothing to do with American self-defense. Whether or not America is
capable of bringing freedom and whether or not it has actually done
this are pertinent questions and acts much to be doubted, but even if
we were capable and did bring freedom to Iraq this would not justify
attacking the country. There is no self-defense issue involved in
"liberating" Iraq because there has been no attack on America by the
Iraqis. While this sounds quite like the Soviet Union's liberation of
its satellites after World War II, if we are generous and give the
American State the benefit of the doubt as to its honorable intentions,
there is still no way to justify the slaughter of tens of thousands of
Iraqis while liberating their country. But the basic issue remains that
doing the supposed good deed of bringing freedom does not excuse acts
of aggression. If this rationale for war-making is accepted, which
means that committing wrongs to accomplish a supposed right is morally
acceptable, then I am justified in cutting out your kidney in order to
give it to a person who can't live without it. I am justified in taking
your home and turning it over to homeless people. When the President
uses such a rationale, he only shows us that he is bereft of proper
moral education.Criminality
does not hinge on whether or not the Iraqi people suffered under Saddam
Hussein. This has nothing to do with American self-defense. It does not
hinge on provocative words or statements uttered by Iraqi leaders,
although no one says this brought on the war. Political leaders make
all sorts of statements and to construe them as an actual attack that
requires self-defense would be folly. That would make for wars at the
pleasure of any country that felt itself insulted or threatened by the
words of another. This is not to say that there is no situation in
which the combination of words and deeds, such as the massing of armies
at a border or the sailing of warships or the overflights of airplanes,
might trigger hostilities by a party under threat of attack.Nor
does American self-defense hinge on whether or not Iraq did or did not
obey various United Nations resolutions or cooperate fully or partially
with U.N. officials. Just because there is an international political
body that the states have set up does not change the substance of
whether acts are criminal or not. The states have anointed the U.N. as
a power that provides a legal cover when enough member states have
enough votes to act. These political procedures do not mean that all
actions taken under the U.N. aegis suddenly become non-crimes or always
lawful no matter what their content is. The U.N. is not above the law
although it is convenient for it to think it is. Anyway, in the Iraqi
case, there was no Iraqi crime committed that justified Americans
"defending" themselves by a wholesale attack and bombardment of Iraq
and by a continuing war that has created huge property damage in Iraq.
If this were so, I think we would hear President Bush reminding us
about it today as justification for continuing our defense efforts. We
hear nothing of the kind.We
hear that the damage America has done is justified because the world is
now a safer place with Saddam toppled from power. But this too, besides
being a fantasy, has nothing to do with American self-defense. American
and world safety may or may not have been lower with Saddam in office,
but that does not justify attacking him. We are not talking about a
serial killer haunting the streets of Los Angeles. We are talking about
the head of a foreign country and making war on another country, with
all its attendant death and destruction. If the U.S. or any other
country starts wars on the flimsy basis of increasing its safety, then
any country anywhere is justified in starting a war merely by
identifying a country, neighboring or otherwise, as reducing its
"safety." Hitler surely could, and probably did, justify his many
aggressions on grounds such as this. Perhaps he spoke of some other
reasons than safety, like Anschluß or Lebensraum,
but the basic idea is the same, namely, "we are justified in attacking
because it makes us better off." This has nothing to do with
self-defense and everything to do with immoral behavior.The
criminality or lack of it in America's actions does not hinge on the
pragmatic strategy of attacking the terrorists before they attack us.
It's quite obvious that the terrorists who brought down the Trade
Towers died in the effort. Their actions trace back to Al-Qaeda, not
Iraq, not Saddam Hussein, and still less to the Iraqi people against
whom many crimes have been committed. Al-Qaeda fostered a number of
terrorist acts in the past 25 years, and no one has ever tied them to
Saddam Hussein as the kingpin. He's on trial now, but not for causing
terrorism against the United States or Great Britain or Spain or
Indonesia. And if there had been evidence that showed Saddam's
complicity in international terrorist acts, that still would not have
justified the sort of war that America began, executed, and is carrying
out today, long after his capture. There is such a thing as a
proportionate response to crimes. The damage inflicted by America on
Iraq is out of all proportion to the crimes supposedly committed by
Saddam Hussein that are supposed to justify the American action.Were
American actions justified by self-defense? The answer is "no." This
means that the officials of the American State committed war crimes.
This means that they should be indicted and tried for war crimes.
The Cowards Path: An open letter to Ralph Nader:Dear Mr. Nader,Sir, I owe you an apology...(...)In
the 2000 elections even as I was impassioned by your words, and
although inspired by your courage in a way that has alluded me since my
youth. I sat silently applauding you (I even considered
"vote-swapping"), but in the end, I cast my vote for Al Gore. I was
completely secure in my convictions. As desperately, as we needed you,
it was far more critical to elect Al Gore than to risk (I'd been doing
my homework over the last twenty years) allowing America to fall into
the hands of George Bush and Dick Cheney.When
the 2004 elections rolled around--again I was mute, but this time I was
even more resolute in my convictions, that a vote for you was a vote
squandered. You were a luxury that we could not afford. Our
constitution was under threat-Bush must clearly and definitively be
re-defeated!Moreover,
as the Downing Street Memo exposed Bush and the lies he told taking us
to war in Iraq, a war of profit, a war of pestilence wrought on the
peoples of Iraq after so many years enduring the tyrannies of Saddam
Hussein. A pestilence that will haunt the peoples of the Middle East as
well as the men and women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, who's
patriotism has been exploited so unconscionably by this regime.
Depleted Uranium is the legacy that will resonate for generations to
come. Brutality, torture and empire will now be the values most often
associated with the United States. Mean-spirited debate and incivility
are the new currency in Bush's America.Yet,
while the lies and corruption continue to spill forth, we have in our
democratic leadership, people unwilling to stand up, unwilling to stand
up to protect our representative democracy, our basic civil liberties
and our constitution. I like many across the country have stood by,
nearly pulling out my hair, making phone calls, writing letters,
signing petitions, watching in anguish, as our democratic leadership
serves up more power and legitimacy to this regime.Now,
here we are, a year and a half into Bush's second term-Lent. Lent, and
although I no longer consider myself a catholic, I still find myself
falling into the ritual of self-reflection, and a good habit indeed-one
of my few...and sir, I owe you an apology...I
understand now, that I am a war criminal. I am responsible. I am
complicit in disseminating depleted uranium throughout the Middle East.
I am responsible for the renditions, for Abu Ghraib, for the torture,
for the illegal spying, etc. I am responsible. I am responsible for it
all.I am
responsible because, when we choose the cowardly path as we step into
the ballot box, we choose cowardly people to represent us. We choose
fear to dictate our actions rather than courage. Little wonder that
that is what we see reflected back to us by our leadership. More
importantly, in choosing weak and cowardly people, we choose to allow
unspeakable acts to be committed in our name and for that, sir - I owe
you and the world, an apology.
The apocalyptic president:
In his latest PR offensive President Bush came to Cleveland, Ohio, on
Monday [March 20] to answer the paramount question on Iraq that he said
was on people's minds: "They wonder what I see that they don't." After
mentioning "terror" 54 times and "victory" five, dismissing "civil war"
twice and asserting that he is "optimistic", he called on a citizen in
the audience, who homed in on the invisible meaning of recent events in
the light of two books, American Theocracy, by Kevin Phillips, and the
book of Revelation. Phillips, the questioner explained, "makes the
point that members of your administration have reached out to prophetic
Christians who see the war in Iraq and the rise of terrorism as signs
of the apocalypse. Do you believe this? And if not, why not?"Bush's
immediate response, as transcribed by CNN, was: "Hmmm." Then he said:
"The answer is I haven't really thought of it that way. Here's how I
think of it. First, I've heard of that, by the way." The official White
House website transcript drops the strategic comma, and so changes the
meaning to: "First I've heard of that, by the way."But
it is certainly not the first time Bush has heard of the apocalyptic
preoccupation of much of the religious right, having served as
evangelical liaison on his father's 1988 presidential campaign. The Rev
Jerry Falwell told Newsweek how he brought Tim LaHaye, then an
influential rightwing leader, to meet him; LaHaye's Left Behind novels, dramatising the rapture, Armageddon and the second coming, have sold tens of millions.But
it is almost certain that Cleveland was the first time Bush had heard
of Phillips's book. He was the visionary strategist for Nixon's 1968
presidential campaign; his 1969 book, The Emerging Republican Majority,
spelled out the shift of power from the north-east to the south and
south-west, which he was early to call "the sunbelt"; he grasped that
southern Democrats would react to the civil-rights revolution by
becoming southern Republicans; he also understood the resentments of
urban ethnic Catholics towards black people on issues such as crime,
school integration and jobs. But he never imagined that evangelical
religion would transform the coalition he helped to fashion into
something that horrifies him.In American Theocracy,
Phillips describes Bush as the founder of "the first American religious
party"; September 11 gave him the pretext for "seizing the
fundamentalist moment"; he has manipulated a "critical religious
geography" to hype issues such as gay marriage. "New forces were being
interwoven. These included the institutional rise of the religious
right, the intensifying biblical focus on the Middle East, and the
deepening of insistence on church-government collaboration within the
GOP electorate." It portended a potential "American Disenlightenment,"
apparent in Bush's hostility to science.Even
Bush's failures have become pretexts for advancing his transformation
of government. Exploiting his ow
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