Amnesty International - Library - Iraq: Torture not isolated -- independent investigations vital

Note to self: read Amnesty International - Library - Iraq: Torture not isolated -- independent investigations vital

Viewers response to CBS 60 Minutes II--abuse of Iraqi prisoners

Read CBS 60 Minutes II Mailbag. Here are some excerpts. The majority express opinions like these:

I am a retired Special Forces soldier. I would like to personally express my deepest gratitude and thanks for 60 Minutes II, for airing a crucial depiction of crimes committed by our American soldiers. Please air this special footage as much as you can, to inform the American public of these atrocities. The inhumane mistreatment, sexual assaults and Geneva Convention war crimes should be dealt with immediately.

Again, I sincerely thank you and the CBS organization for your fairness, sympathy and deep concern of others who experience these types of war crimes.
--Master Sgt. Robert Childs, Jr.

As a U.S. Marine who served our nation for more than 24 years, including multiple tours in Vietnam, I am appalled, ashamed and angry about U.S. servicemen and women torturing Iraqi prisoners. I totally reject any claim that those accused failed to receive adequate training in the handling of POWs or the requirements of the Geneva Convention. Such training would have only reinforced the rules of common decency that should govern the behavior, one human being toward another.

These soldiers, including their commanding officer, a brigadier general, are disgrace to this nation. They, too, should stand before the bar of justice at a war crimes tribunal. They are no better than the evil regime which honorable Americans have fought and died to oust.
--Master Gunnery Sgt. Donald M. O'Neal

Of course, there are people that think torture is good, or at least shouldn't be publicized when our soldiers get caught red-handed:

Why in God's name would you choose to air such a story at this time? This is something our country didn't need to know now. Everyone in this country is hanging on for dear life to support the troops, and you have taken all our faith in goodness away. How many more reports can we watch like this before support fades?

We are losing our fight with other countries to support us, and now you have just sealed it. ... We've just lost the goal of helping anyone over there because of this show, and God help us. You are no better then those who did these horrible acts. Your reports are bringing down this country.
--Betsy Berra

Was I supposed to be horrified by the report of Iraqi prisoners being positioned in "pornographic" positions and humiliated by American soldiers? I was not. During your report, all I could think of was the murder, torture, maiming, burning and beheading of innocent civilians, women and children included, carried out by terrorists and supporters of Saddam Hussein. At least these men were men of war.

They had to pose for pornographic pictures? So what. We cannot imagine sitting at home on our couches the horrors our soldiers must face every day. Why not focus your attention on the unfair practices of our enemy?
--Sally Ainsley

Are you guys nuts? Do you think showing this is going to help the Americans in captivity and our other allies? I fully understand the need for an open and free press, but you have to balance that with the lives of our own people. You are just going to infuriate an already bad situation. How would you feel if your son's life was on the edge of a knife somewhere in a Baghdad hole?
--Ari Kettunen

Ghost Town Orange suggests that American soldiers should think about the consequences of their actions. The guilty parties are the soldiers involved and their officers--not CBS's reporters.

One more letter:

As the sister of a brother who just returned from a year long tour in Iraq, and the wife of a warrant officer currently serving in Iraq, I am disgusted with the soldiers' treatment of Iraqi prisoners. I'm not sure why, but I was especially shocked by the female soldier's behavior. These soldiers bring dishonor to our country. I would be disappointed and ashamed of my husband and brother if I ever discovered that they treated another human being in that manner.

... At some point, these soldiers need to accept responsibility for their actions. It is not the Army's fault. Being prior military, I know I was taught to bring honor and respect to my country. These soldiers should be sent to prison and dishonorably discharged from the military.
--T. Schurr (emphasis added)

You'll notice that some of the 'pro-torture' letters were written by women. So don't expect women in the military to be any better than the rest of us.

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

I thought we invaded Iraq to keep things like this from happening

See what a good job we are doing winning hearts and minds in Iraq. James Risen in The New York Times > Treatment of Prisoners: G.I.'s Are Accused of Abusing Iraqi Captives:

American soldiers at a prison outside Baghdad have been accused of forcing Iraqi prisoners into acts of sexual humiliation and other abuses in order to make them talk, according to officials and others familiar with the charges.

The charges, first announced by the military in March, were documented by photographs taken by guards inside the prison, but were not described in detail until some of the pictures were made public.

Some of the photographs, and descriptions of others, were broadcast Wednesday night by the CBS News program "60 Minutes II" and were verified by military officials.

Courts martial are pending for the soldiers involved.

The CBS News program reported that poorly trained American reservists were forcing Iraqis to conduct simulated sexual acts, among other things, in order to break down their will before they were turned over to others for interrogation.

Charges against the soldiers included assault, cruelty, indecent acts and maltreatment of detainees, Pentagon officials have previously said.

Gary Myers, the lawyer for one of the enlisted men charged, said in an interview that the military had treated the six soldiers as scapegoats and had failed to address adequately the responsibilities of senior commanders and intelligence personnel involved in the interrogations.

[snip]

In one photograph obtained by the program, naked Iraq prisoners are stacked in a human pyramid, one with a slur written on his skin in English. In another, a prisoner stands on a box, his head covered, wires attached to his body. The program said that according to the United States Army, he had been told that if he fell off the box, he would be electrocuted. Other photographs show male prisoners positioned to simulate sex with each other.

"The pictures show Americans, men and women, in military uniforms, posing with naked Iraqi prisoners," states a transcript of the program's script, made available Wednesday night. "And in most of the pictures, the Americans are laughing, posing, pointing or giving the camera a thumbs-up."

The CBS News program said the Army also had photographs showing a detainee with wires attached to his genitals and another showing a dog attacking an Iraqi prisoner. The program also reported that the Army's investigation of the case included a statement from an Iraqi detainee who charges that a translator hired to work at the prison raped a male juvenile prisoner.

At the Abu Ghraib prison, where the photographs were taken, American forces have been holding hundreds of Iraqis since the American-led invasion of Iraq. The prison is infamous as a site where Saddam Hussein tortured prisoners while he was in power.

I suppose no one remembers the buzz after the invasion when conservatives were arguing that when terrorists are involved, maybe torture is justified.

Torturing the terrorist is unconstitutional? Probably. But millions of lives surely outweigh constitutionality. Torture is barbaric? Mass murder is far more barbaric. Indeed, letting millions of innocents die in deference to one who flaunts his guilt is moral cowardice, an unwillingness to dirty one's hands. If you caught the terrorist, could you sleep nights knowing that millions died because you couldn't bring yourself to apply the electrodes?

Note the gap in logic here: millions of lives were not at stake from terrorist Iraqis. There were no WMD in Iraq. There is no connection between Iraq and 9/11. There is no connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda.

Sunday Times - Iraq victim was top-secret apartheid killer

One of the mercenaries recently killed in Iraq was an assassin for the apartheid government of South Africa. Read the Sunday Times - 'Iraq victim was top-secret apartheid killer' by Julian Rademeyer:

A security contractor killed in Iraq last week was once one of South Africa's most secret covert agents, his identity guarded so closely that even the Truth and Reconciliation Commission did not discover the extent of his involvement in apartheid's silent wars.
Gray Branfield, 55, admitted to being part of a death squad which gunned down Joe Gqabi, the ANC's chief representative and Umkhonto weSizwe operational head in Zimbabwe on July 31 1981. Gqabi was shot 19 times when three assassins ambushed him as he reversed down the driveway of his Harare home.

Branfield was a member of the "SA Defence Force's secret Project Barnacle, a precursor to the notorious Civil Co-operation Bureau (CCB) death squad."

Begging the question

Juan Cole shows us how to respond to fallacious questions that supporters of the war like to ask. Christopher Hitchens asked a series of questions (scroll down to find the post 'Hitchens Questions on Iraq') [no link to single post?] which led to this reply:

My reply would be simple. If you are arguing for war, you don't have to ask all these fancy questions. There are really only two questions you have to answer. The first is, would you yourself be willing to die fighting for this cause you have espoused? The second is, would you be willing to see your 18-year-old son or daughter killed for this cause? (I do not ask if you would be glad or satisfied; I ask if you would be willing).

My answer with regard to the aftermath of September 11 and defeating al-Qaeda in Afghanistan is, yes, I would have been willing to go fight and die myself to protect my country from another such attack. And, had my son been of age and had he enlisted after September 11, I could have accepted that and everything it entailed.

With regard to Iraq, the answer to both questions in my case is "no." I would not have been willing to risk my own life to dislodge Saddam Hussein from power. And, I would certainly not have been willing to see my son risk his, nor would I like to see him ever sent to Iraq as a draftee, because I believe the entire aftermath of the war has been handled with gross incompetence, and I certainly don't want my flesh and blood mauled by the machinations of Richard Perle and his buddies.

With regard to Mr. Hitchens's questions, most of them are logical fallacies, of the same form as "have you stopped beating your wife?" There are some questions that are traps. For instance, there are many reasons for which Saddam might have harbored one person wanted in connection with the first world trade center bombing that are not particularly sinister. It certainly is untrue that Saddam had anything to do with that bombing. It was done by al-Qaeda. The question is a trick because it tries to lead the reader in a particular direction, even though the evidence does not.

Wen questions have false, misleading, or fallacious (link to Positive Atheism website) premises, they don't have to be answered. But what do we do when the majority of Americans still believe there was a connection between 9/11 and Saddam Hussein?

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

Cats

Archaeologists on Cyprus have excavated the 9,500-year-old remains of a cat (at bottom in top photograph) buried with a human (at top in top photograph) and decorative artifacts. At bottom, the cat skeleton is shown in a plaster shell during excavation.
Top photograph courtesy P. Gérard/Science, bottom photograph courtesy K. Debue/Science [caption and pictures from National Geographic]
Oldest Known Pet Cat? 9,500-Year-Old Burial Found on Cyprus

The carefully interred remains of a human and a cat were found buried with seashells, polished stones, and other decorative artifacts in a 9,500-year-old grave site on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. This new find, from the Neolithic village of Shillourokambos, predates early Egyptian art depicting cats by 4,000 years or more.

Dogs were domesticated earlier--burials of dogs with people have been found that are 12,000 years old.

The report of the discovery was published in the 9 April 2004 issue of Science. Supporting online material available here (full text only for subscribers!)

Blogs from and about Iraq

Note to self: read some of these.
In no particular order--
Iraqis:

• Salam Pax
• Iraq the Model
• A Family in Baghdad
• Raed in the middle
• Secrets in Baghdad
• Me vs. Myself
• Healing Iraq
• Riverbend
• G in Baghdad
• Ishtar
• The Mesopotamian
• Ays
• Hammorabi
• Nabil
• Baghdadee
• Fayrouz
• Baghdad Burning
• Iraq at a glance
• Iraq and Iraqis
• Road of a nation
• Ihath - Losing myself
• Sun of Iraq
• Kurdo's world
• Iraqi spirit
• The Iraqi Agora
• Shlonkom Bakazay?

Soldiers:

• turningtables
• Chief Wiggles
• Baghdaddy
• Bear
• Boots on the ground
• Letters from Baghdad
• Chromedomezone
• Iraq Now
• Sgt. Omar Masry

other Arabs:

• Babel On
• Deeds
• From my rock
• Big Pharaoh
• Mahmood's den
• Free Arab Forum
• Angry Arab
• Blogs by Iranians
• The Religious Police
• Arab Street Files
• Kuwait Unplugged

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

Gravity Probe B

I've mentioned Gravity Probe B before, but here is the latest from Nature --Gravity probe to test Einstein: Satellite will measure how the Earth warps space.:

A spacecraft designed to test Einstein's general theory of relativity is set to blast off today.

NASA's Gravity Probe B will orbit the Earth's poles for about 16 months, looking for tiny distortions in the fabric of space caused by the mass of our planet.

This test of general relativity theory will be 100 times more sensitive than any previous efforts, says Sasha Buchman, science mission manager for the experiment at Stanford University, California.

The experiment was first proposed in 1959. It has cost US$700 million, and has been threatened with cancellation numerous times. The results are expected in 2006.

According to the Gravity Probe B website, the satellite was successfully launched today.

Furl

Check out John Battelle's Searchblog: Grokking Furl: Storage, Search, and the PersonalWeb and Furl itself. Here's a bit of what John Battelle says about Furl:

Mike [Giles] started Furl about a year ago to solve a problem he - and a lot of us - had with bookmarks. Namely, bookmarking is a lame, half-assed, unsearchable, flat, linkrotten approach to recalling that which you've seen and care to recall on the web. Now, a lot of folks have made stabs at solving this particular problem, but Mike's got a lot of very cool features built into his beta, and more on the way.

And from my conversation with him, he's got one more thing that others might be missing: a clear sense of what Furl could do if it were part of a massively scaled platform like AOL, Yahoo, Google, or MSN. If I'm reading him right, he's smart enough to realize that what he's built will probably be a feature set on everyone of those platforms before the end of 2005, and he's also smart enough to know that by launching Furl, he's forced all of them to consider him as the person to watch in the space.

So what is it about Furl that made me write that past paragraph? After all, it's just a web page-saving application. Right? Well, yes and no. Furl does a good job of helping you manage your web browsing. It adds several features that others don' t have - full text search on your saved pages, for example. But Furl saves the entire web page you've "furled", not just the URL, which prevents link rot, on the one hand, and creates what I'll call a "PersonalWeb," on the other.

Now, having your own PersonalWeb is a very cool thing. Every page you care about is now saved forever, and is searchable. How I wish I had Furl while I was researching my book for the past year. This application was inconceivable before the cost of storage and bandwidth began to fall toward zero.

This is a neat tool. Instead of saving bookmarked links that eventually 'rot', now I can save, search, and share webpages on my own PersonalWeb. Here is the link to Ghost Town Orange's filing cabinet.

April 19

I wonder if anyone remembers what Timothy McVeigh wore on April 19, 1995, the day he blew up the Murrah Federal Building in OKC?

He was dressed for the mission in his favorite T-shirt. On the front was a picture of Abraham Lincoln with the motto "sic semper tyrannis," the words Booth shouted before he shot Lincoln. The translation: Thus ever to tyrants.

On the back of the T-shirt was a tree with blood dripping from the branches. It read, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

This T-shirt was sold by Southern Partisan, a white supremacist neo-Confederate magazine.

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

South Africa

While browsing for South African Election results, I found this interesting story: SA cave yields oldest known jewellery (Randolph E. Schmid, in the Mail & Guardian):

About 75 000 years ago someone living in a cave overlooking the Indian Ocean bored holes in a set of shells and strung them as beads -- the earliest known human jewellery.

The newly found beads are more than 30 000 years older than any other known human jewellery.

The discovery of the Stone Age beads in South Africa supports the theory that traits associated with modern people, such as using symbolic items, developed early, rather than thousands of years later after humans migrated to the Middle East and Europe.

The previously oldest known human ornaments are perforated teeth and eggshell beads from Bulgaria and Turkey, 41 000 to 43 000 years old, and 40 000-year-old ostrich-shell beads from Kenya.

Another South African story (Jane Flanagan, in the London Telegraph): African voters return Boer farmer who defected to ANC
:

An Afrikaner farmer who was born into the party that created apartheid in South Africa has become an MP for the mostly black African National Congress.
Hannes Combrink, 33, a grape farmer from the Northern Cape province, lost most of his friends and divided his family when he defected from the National Party to the

ANC, which won a landslide victory in the country's third democratic election last week.
'People refused to talk to me at farmers' meetings and wouldn't sit with me at church,' said Mr Combrink, who was the chairman of the pro-apartheid National Party youth council.
'I felt intimidated and they felt betrayed, but I just couldn't be part of all that 'whites against the blacks' stuff any more. I lost a lot of white friends, and now I mix mostly with black or brown people, which is unusual were I come from.'

Winning Hearts and Minds in Iraq: Destruction of Relief Supplies and Rampage at the Aadhamiyah Mosque

Rahul Mahajan (Empire Notes) reporting from Iraq -- This is What Occupation Looks Like -- Destruction of Relief Supplies and Rampage at the Aadhamiyah Mosque:

We talked with Issam Rashid, the chief of security for the mosque. He told us the story. At 3:30 am on Sunday morning [April 11, 2004], 100 American troops raided the mosque. They were looking for weapons and mujaheddin. They started the raid the way they virtually always do -- by smashing in the gates with tanks and then driving Hummer in. The Hummers ran over and destroyed some of the stored relief goods (the bulk of the goods had already been sent to Fallujah -- over 200 tons -- but the amount remaining was considerable). More was destroyed as soldiers ripped apart sacks looking for rifles. Rashid estimated maybe three tons of supplies were destroyed. We saw for ourselves some of the remains, sacks of beans ripped apart and strewn around.

The mosque was full of people, including 90 down from Kirkuk (many with the Red Crescent). They were all pushed down on the floor, with guns put to the backs of their heads. Another person associated with the mosque, Mr. Alber, who speaks very good English, told us that he repeatedly said, "Please, don't break down doors. Please, don't break windows. We can help you. We can have custodians unlock the doors." (Alber, by the way, was imprisoned by Saddam for running a bakery. As he said, "Under the embargo, you could eat flour, you could eat sugar, you could eat eggs, all separately. But mix them together and bake them and you were harming the economy by raising the price of sugar and you could get 15 years in prison.)

The Americans refused to listen to Alber's pleas. We went all around the mosque and the adjacent madrassah, the Imam Aadham Islamic College. We saw dozens of doors broken down, windows broken, ceilings ripped apart, and bullet holes in walls and ceilings. The way the soldiers searched for illicit arms in the ceiling was first to spray the ceiling with gunfire, then break out a panel and go up and search.

Mr. Mahajan comments in a follow-up post: "The dominant opinion in the United States, liberal or conservative, seems to be that we can't cut and run.":

At the same time as their existence in Iraq provokes violence and as their brutal methods provoke violence, U.S. forces do nothing to provide security. Kidnappings of Iraqis for ransom are rife -- nobody ever investigates. Leading academics are being killed -- ditto. People are afraid to walk the streets after 9 or 10 -- nobody does anything about this. Women are far more constricted in getting around than they used to be. The list goes on and on. The U.S. military does nothing, absolutely nothing, about these security problems.

Anyone who swallows any of this propaganda about "providing security" should spend one day talking to people in Iraq.

I'm against the occupation for what I consider to be deep-lying structural reasons that would be valid even if it were conducted more humanely (I've written on this before, but I do have to collect all my scattered thoughts here and write about it again). But I have to say, from all of my experience interviewing Iraqis, one conclusion stands out clearly: had this occupation been carried out by British, Dutch, Bulgarians, Ukrainians, Spanish, everyone but the United States, the level of resentment would be far lower, as would the level of violence. It is the arrogance and brutality of the Americans here that is the primary grievance of Iraqis (and second is the negligence and the fact that nothing works).

I wrote earlier about talking to Mr. Alber at the Abu Hanifa mosque. When we asked if the Americans apologized after raiding the mosque and finding nothing, he looked at us quizzically and then said, "No. A year ago, they would apologize. Now they don't even do that. But we know the American apology. We know what it means." While saying this, he mimed a savagely contorted face and a man taking his foot and grinding someone else into the ground. And, believe me, he is anything but an extremist. The people at the mosque have done their best to be conciliatory to the Americans.

So a lot more has to be said about this issue. But the U.S. military is doing no good to Iraq -- unless you count taking Iraq's oil money and using a tiny fraction of it to pay corrupt contractors to paint schools for ten times the cost that Iraqis could do it for. Yes, the vast majority of the money spent on "reconstruction" (and aside from repainting I've seen precious little of it) comes from Iraq's own oil money. And it's causing huge amounts of violence. This is all hidden by the cut and run phraseology.

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

'alternate histories'

If you don't like what actually happened, you can always paste over the past.

Historian Tristram Hunt comments on what if history in the Guardian:

EH Carr dismissed such whimsical exercises as a red herring worthy not of scholarly pursuit but an idle "parlour game". Characteristically EP Thompson went one stage further, dismissing "counter-factual fiction" as "unhistorical shit". Both pointed to the futility of pondering multiple variables in the past and the logical problem of assuming all other conditions remained constant. But despite their warnings, the thirst for virtual history remains undimmed. And while Carr was right to dismiss them as an amusing pastime, behind the light-hearted maybes lurk more uncomfortable historical and political agendas.

The conservatives who contribute to this literature portray themselves as battling against the dominant but flawed ideologies of Marxist and Whig history. Such analyses of the past, they say, never allow for the role of accident and serendipity. Instead, the past is presented as a series of milestones in an advance towards communism or liberal democracy. It is the calling of these modern iconoclasts to reintroduce the crooked timber of humanity back into history.

The unfortunate truth is that, rather than constituting a rebel grouping, "what if" history is eerily close to the mainstream of modern scholarship. The past 20 years has witnessed a brutal collapse in what was once called social history. The rigorous, data-based study of class, inequality, work patterns and gender relations has fallen away in the face of cultural history and post-modern inquiry.

Research into structures and processes, along with a search for explanation, is overshadowed by histories of understanding and meaning. In many cases this has led to a declining emphasis on the limitations that social context - class status, economic prospects, family networks - can place on the historical role of the individual. Instead, what we are offered in the postmodern world of contingency and irony is a series of biographical discourses in which one narrative is as valid as another. One history is as good as another and with it the blurring of factual, counter-factual and fiction. All history is "what if" history.

Here is the last question from probably the worst presidential press conference ever:

Let's see, last question here. Hold on for a second. Those who yell will not be asked. I'll tell you a guy who I've never heard from -- Don [Gonyea, of NPR].

Q I appreciate it.

THE PRESIDENT: It's a well-received -- (laughter.)

Q Following on both Judy's and John's questions, and it comes out of what you just said in some ways, with public support for your policies in Iraq falling off the way they have -- quite significantly over the past couple of months -- I guess I'd like to know if you feel in any way that you've failed as a communicator on this topic? Because --

THE PRESIDENT: Gosh, I don't know. I mean --

Q Well, you deliver a lot of speeches and a lot of them contain similar phrases, and they vary very little from one to the next. And they often include a pretty upbeat assessment of how things are going -- with the exception of tonight's pretty somber assessment, this evening.

THE PRESIDENT: It's a pretty somber assessment today, Don, yes.

Q I guess I just wonder if you feel that you have failed in any way? You don't have many of these press conferences, where you engage in this kind of exchange. Have you failed in any way to really make the case to the American public?

THE PRESIDENT: I guess if you put it into a political context, that's the kind of thing the voters will decide next November. That's what elections are about. They'll take a look at me and my opponent and say, let's see, which one of them can better win the war on terror? Who best can see to it that Iraq emerges as a free society?

Don, if I tried to fine-tune my messages based upon polls, I think I'd be pretty ineffective. I know I would be disappointed in myself. I hope today you've got a sense of my conviction about what we're doing. If you don't, maybe I need to learn to communicate better.

I feel strongly about what we're doing. I feel strongly that the course this administration has taken will make America more secure and the world more free, and, therefore, the world more peaceful. It's a conviction that's deep in my soul. And I will say it as best as I possibly can to the American people.

I look forward to the debate and the campaign. I look forward to helping -- for the American people to hear, what is a proper use of American power; do we have an obligation to lead, or should we shirk responsibility. That's how I view this debate. And I look forward to making it, Don. I'll do it the best I possibly can. I'll give it the best shot. I'll speak as plainly as I can.

One thing is for certain, though, about me -- and the world has learned this -- when I say something, I mean it. And the credibility of the United States is incredibly important for keeping world peace and freedom.

Thank you all very much.

Since President Bush mentions incredibly important credibility, read this interview with German Army General Klaus Reinhardt (the former commander of the NATO-led Kosovo force KFOR) on what is going on in Iraq:

Q [Anke Hagedorn, of Deutsche Welle]: The U.S. has obviously underestimated the amount of resistance to an occupying power in Iraq. In your opinion, was this development to be expected? What have the Americans done wrong?

A: In the decisive time directly after the war ended, when the wave of plundering and murdering began, the Americans put the basic requirements of the civilian population in question. It was during this time that the waterworks, the power networks and many schools, for example, were destroyed. And that's when the Americans basically lost the trust of the Iraqi people, who were hoping that life would get better after Saddam Hussein. As long as the Americans aren't able to improve conditions for the Iraqis, as long as they are unable to change how they are perceived from occupier to friends committed to helping Iraq over the long term, then it seems to me that the Americans have lost their credibility.

President Bush, America's credibility does not rest on the ability to 'kick butt.'

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

Justice Scalia has reporters tapes erased

Justice Scalia must think he's an emperor: Legal Experts Express Concern About Erasure of Scalia Tapes. But one wouldn't expect him to have much use for the 4th Amendment.

Update

April 12, 8:15 PM
I apologize to Justice Scalia: it was the US Marshall's fault (from EditorandPublisher.com:

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has apologized to the two reporters whose audio recorders were seized during a speech that the Justice gave last week at a high school in Hattiesburg, Miss.

In a letter to Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press Executive Director Lucy Dalglish, Scalia said he didn't approve of the actions by a U.S. Marshal, who seized the recorders and ordered the recordings erased. "You were correct that the action was not taken at my direction; I was upset as you were," Scalia wrote. "I have written to the reporters involved, extending my apology."

Justice Scalia said that he is revising his 'media policy' to allow print journalists to tape-record his appearances; he still does not want to be recorded or video-ed for broadcast.

Nathan Newman on War, Globalism & Sectarianism

Interesting reading: Nathan Newman Reflections: War, Globalism & Sectarianism

White House releases August 6 memo; Earth spins out of orbit as secret sources and methods are revealed

Here is an image of the first page:
The second page continues:

Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.

The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full field investigations throughout the US that it considers Bin Ladin-related. CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our Embassy in the UAE in May saying that a group of Bin Ladin supporters was in the US planning attacks with explosives.

Image and text from Reuters.

I am sure it took much effort to apply magic marker to all the top-secret sources. Here is what Aljazeera has to say: 'Memo contradicts Condoleezza Rice.'
And here is what the New York Times report said before the full memo was released.

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

Which New York Times Columnist am I?

You are Paul Krugman! You're a brilliant economist with a knack for both making sense of the current economic situation and exposing the Bush administration's lies about it. You somehow came out as the best anti-war writer on the Op-Ed staff. Other economists hate your guts for selling out to the liberals. To hell with 'em.

Which New York Times Op-Ed Columnist Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla
Here's a link to the Unofficial Paul Krugman Archive.
Update, April 10, 2004. The Quizilla image of Krugman isn't working, so I have fixed it. He even looks a bit like me. :-)
Or maybe it's just his beard. . .

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

More reason to doubt any good news from Iraq (is there any?)

A gaggle of Republican political appointees staff the Office of Strategic Communications (in Baghdad. Apparently they view their job as making sure President Bush is re-elected. Recent press releases from the propagandists include:

Bremer, Barzani Regret Badran's Resignation; Thank Him for Excellent Service

Scrap Metal Export Licensing Procedure

Iraqi Olympic Hopefuls Arrive in Colorado to Begin Training

Optimists Club Organizes Baghdad Chapter

Beautification Plan for Baghdad Ready to Begin

The Reality is Nothing Like What You See on Television

Here's a piece of the AP story:

The U.S. team stands in deep contrast to the British team that works alongside it, almost all of whom are civil or foreign service employees, not political appointees. Many of the British in Iraq display regional knowledge or language skills that most of the Americans lack.

The drive to re-elect Bush is a sensitive topic. Several coalition officials angered by what they see as CPA politicking -- with U.S. accomplishments in Iraq being trumpeted to help Bush -- grumbled privately, but would not go on record with complaints.

But Gordon Robison, a former CPA contractor who helped build the Pentagon-funded Al-Iraqiya television station in Baghdad, said Republicans in the press room intensely followed the Democratic presidential primaries as John Kerry emerged as the presumed nominee.

"Iraq is in danger of costing George W. Bush his presidency and the CPA's media staff are determined to see that does not happen," Robison said. "I had the impression in dealing with the civilians in the Green Room that they viewed their job as essentially political, promoting what the Coalition Provisional Authority is doing in Iraq as a political arm of the Bush administration," he added.

Our taxes at work. Lovely.

Their job would be so much easier if criticizing the President were a felony or at the very least a high misdemeanor:

There needs to be a law passed where any person who disrespects the "Office of the Presidency" by making false accusations and spreading deliberate rumors about the president, should be charged with a felony or at the very least a high misdemeanor.

You can read more at the link. (This web-page must be a parody--the weird photo of the author in front of the American flag, the mixed metaphors and otherwise poor writing--this can't be a real conservative, can it?) I guess Republicans no longer believe in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (when Republicans are in the White House.)

SCLM

The New York Times informs us that Op-Ed page writers can just make stuff up. Read all about it here. Now you know why Friedman, Safire, Brooks, and Dowd are so frequently wrong. They don't have to be factual. Tom Tomorrow says that the Times should preface each opinion piece with this little gem of honesty:

EDITOR'S NOTICE: Even though some of the things in the following column may sound to any reasonable reader like statements of objective "fact," everything that follows is actually nothing more than a statement of the author's "beliefs," which, while they may be illogical, crackbrained or infuriating, are nevertheless exempt in every respect from the Times' error correction policy.

Of course, Krugman is always 100% factual:-) despite what Krugman stalker Luskin says.

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

If it weren't for the election, they'd be drafting troops now

In 2000, the Republican Party promised "help is on the way" for the U.S. military. I wonder if the Republican-leaning officer corps still leans that way? Telegraph | News | US commander will not take blame for unrest:

America's top commander in Iraq has warned Washington that he will not be "the fall guy" if violence in the country worsens, it emerged yesterday, as word leaked out that US generals are "outraged" by their lack of soldiers.

America's generals consider current troop strengths of 130,000 in Iraq inadequate, reported the columnist Robert Novak, a doyen of the old-school Right in Washington.

[snip]

But officers who will not speak out in public let it be known that major reinforcements might be impossible to find. US forces are so overstretched in Iraq and Afghanistan that "there are simply no large units available and suitable for assignment", Novak wrote in his column in The Washington Post.

The leaks have revived memories of the bitter debate that raged in Washington in the run-up to the Iraq war, as uniformed chiefs clashed with Mr Rumsfeld and his aides, who predicted that US forces would be welcomed as "liberators", allowing troop numbers to be reduced rapidly.

Relations between the uniformed military and the Pentagon's civilian chiefs are currently worse than at any time in living memory, Novak wrote, citing a former high-ranking national security official who served in previous Republican administrations.

Many still in uniform bitterly recall the public dressing-down earned by the then army chief of staff, Gen Eric Shinseki, when he told Congress a month before the invasion, in February 2003, that "several hundred thousand troops" might be needed to occupy Iraq.

That estimate was slapped down as "wildly off the mark" by the deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz. Thomas White, the army secretary and a former general himself, publicly backed Gen Shinseki. Mr White was sacked shortly afterwards by Mr Rumsfeld.

A new account of the war, In the Company of Soldiers, reveals that in May 2003 Pentagon planners "predicted that US troop levels would be down to 30,000 by late summer [of 2003]".

The Republican Platform for 2004 should read: "The Bush Administration: where wishful thinking prevails."

Some links from the Whiskey Bar

Note to self--read these papers from war colleges on the Iraq situation:

Reconstructing Iraq: Insights, Challenges and Missions for Military Forces in a Post-conflict Scenario (pdf) (before the invasion)

Bounding the Global War on Terrorism (after the invasion)

The Sunni Insurgency In Iraq (after the invasion)

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

Will the 2004 Election Be Called Off?

Let us hope these fears are exaggerated: Will the 2004 Election Be Called Off? Why Three Out of Four Experts Predict a Terrorist Attack by November - Maureen Farrell at BuzzFlash.com
Here's a little snippet:

But before the Madrid bombings; before Richard Clarke’s revelations; before more whistleblowers peeked out from under the muck, David Rothkopf made everything oh-so-clear. Writing about the "military officers, policymakers, scientists, researchers and others who have studied [terrorism] for a long time," he explained how the majority of experts he spoke to not only predicted that the pre-election assaults would "be greater than those of 9/11," but that any act of terrorism would work in the President's favor. "It was the sense of the group that such an attack was likely to generate additional support for President Bush," he wrote.

Citing how "assaults before major votes have [traditionally] benefited candidates who were seen as tougher on terrorists," Rothkopf catalogued events in Israel, Russia, Turkey and Sri Lanka before explaining the symbiotic relationship between terrorists and hardliners. "So why would [terrorists] want to help [hardliners] win?" he asked. "Perhaps because terrorists see the attacks as a win-win. They can lash out against their perceived enemies and empower the hard-liners, who in turn empower them as terrorists. How? Hard-liners strike back more broadly, making it easier for terrorists as they attempt to justify their causes and their methods."

Here's a link to David J. Rothkopf's article in the Washington Post from November 23, 2003.

Quagmire Redux

For those that believe comparisons of Iraq to Vietnam are 'premature' or just plain wrong, check out Whiskey Bar: Quagmire Redux. We appear to have reached the stage in the war where more and more troops will be need just to maintain the semblance of order. If Bush wins re-election, my prediction is that about a year from now soldiers will have to be drafted, because they're not going to be able to find enough volunteers for this mess.

Marchers break through US roadblocks (April 9, 2004)

It is gratifying to see 'coalition' forces work so hard creating Iraqi unity: NEWS.com.au | Marchers break through US roadblocks (April 9, 2004):

THOUSANDS of Sunni and Shiite Muslims forced their way through US military checkpoints Thursday to ferry food and medical supplies to the besieged Sunni bastion of Fallujah where US marines are trying to crush insurgents.

Troops in armoured vehicles tried to stop the convoy of cars and pedestrians from reaching the town located 50 kilometers west of Baghdad.

But US forces were overwhelmed as residents of villages west of the capital came to the convoy's assistance, hurling insults and stones at the beleaguered troops.

[snip]

Sitting on top of supply trucks, young men also hurled empty bottles of water and waved their shoes in sign of disdain at the US troops.

The cross-community demonstration of support for Fallujah had been organized by Baghdad clerics both Sunni and Shiite amid reports that the death toll in the town had reached 105 since late Tuesday.

So it appears that the partition of Iraq will not be necessary.

Secretary of State Powell admits Iraq evidence mistake

From BBC News: Powell admits Iraq evidence mistake.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell has admitted that evidence he submitted to the United Nations to justify war on Iraq may have been wrong.
In February last year he told the UN Security Council that Iraq had developed mobile laboratories for making biological weapons.

On Friday he conceded that information "appears not to be... that solid".

How many mobile weapons laboratories have been found in Iraq? Chemical weapons? Biological weapons? Nuclear weapons?

None. Zip. Nada.

Former FBI translator says Rice is lying

From a story by Andrew Buncombe of the Independent 'I saw papers that show US knew al-Qa'ida would attack cities with aeroplanes':

A former translator for the FBI with top-secret security clearance says she has provided information to the panel investigating the 11 September attacks which proves senior officials knew of al-Qa'ida's plans to attack the US with aircraft months before the strikes happened.

She said the claim by the National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, that there was no such information was "an outrageous lie".

Sibel Edmonds said she spent more than three hours in a closed session with the commission's investigators providing information that was circulating within the FBI in the spring and summer of 2001 suggesting that an attack using aircraft was just months away and the terrorists were in place. The Bush administration, meanwhile, has sought to silence her and has obtained a gagging order from a court by citing the rarely used "state secrets privilege".

She told The Independent yesterday: "I gave [the commission] details of specific investigation files, the specific dates, specific target information, specific managers in charge of the investigation. I gave them everything so that they could go back and follow up. This is not hearsay. These are things that are documented. These things can be established very easily."

She added: "There was general information about the time-frame, about methods to be used ­ but not specifically about how they would be used ­ and about people being in place and who was ordering these sorts of terror attacks. There were other cities that were mentioned. Major cities ­ with skyscrapers."

The accusations from Mrs Edmonds, 33, a Turkish-American who speaks Azerbaijani, Farsi, Turkish and English, will reignite the controversy over whether the administration ignored warnings about al-Qa'ida. That controversy was sparked most recently by Richard Clarke, a former counter-terrorism official, who has accused the administration of ignoring his warnings.

But we all know that Richard Clarke is a disgruntled former employee with a book to sell . . .

Plame investigation broadening

Today's New York Times story: Prosecutors Are Said to Have Expanded Inquiry Into Leak of C.I.A. Officer's Name by David Johnston and Richard W. Stevenson (excerpts):

The expansion of the inquiry's scope comes at a time when prosecutors, after a hiatus of about a month, appear to be preparing to seek additional testimony before a federal grand jury, lawyers with clients in the case said. It is not clear whether the renewed grand jury activity represents a concluding session or a prelude to an indictment.

The broadened scope is a potentially significant development that represents exactly what allies of the Bush White House feared when Attorney General John Ashcroft removed himself from the case last December and turned it over to Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the United States attorney in Chicago.

[snip]

Mr. Fitzgerald is said by lawyers involved in the case and government officials to be examining possible discrepancies between documents he has gathered and statements made by current or former White House officials during a three-month preliminary investigation last fall by the F.B.I. and the Justice Department. Some officials spoke to F.B.I. agents with their lawyers present; others met informally with agents in their offices and even at bars near the White House.

The White House took the unusual step last year of specifically denying any involvement in the leak on the part of several top administration officials, including Karl Rove, President Bush's senior adviser, and I. Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff. The White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, has repeatedly said no one wants to get to the bottom of the case more than Mr. Bush.

But Mr. Bush himself has said he does not know if investigators will ever be able to determine who disclosed the identity of the C.I.A. officer, Valerie Plame, to Robert Novak, who wrote in his syndicated column last July that Ms. Plame, the wife of former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, was a C.I.A. employee.

Mr. Wilson was a critic of the administration's Iraq policies. Democrats have accused the White House of leaking his wife's name in retaliation because Mr. Wilson, in a July 6, 2003, Op-Ed commentary in The New York Times, disputed Mr. Bush's statement in his State of the Union address that January that Iraq was trying to develop a nuclear bomb and had sought to buy uranium in Africa.

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

Ralph Nader is a Phony

and Randi Rhodes is mad at him: click here for the transcript from Nader's appearance on the first day of Air America (by cker at Daily Kos). Here's a link to the mp3 of Nader's appearance. From the comments section of Daily Kos:

The reason i think that this exchange was not only entertaining, but NECESSARY is because Nader and his far left constituencies need to learn that progressive thinking without pragmatism is about as effective as useful as a one-legged-dog with rabies.
--beedee

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

Alistair Cooke, 1908-2004

Although he was best known to Americans as host of Masterpiece Theater, Alistair Cooke was best known around the world for his long-running program Letter from America on the BBC. Here is BBC's obituary. I listened to Letter from America off and on for at least 20 years. I was saddened a bit by Mr. Cooke's retirement in February. Here is a link to his last letter.

White House Approved Departure of Saudis After Sept. 11, Ex-Aide Says

Reminder to self: White House Approved Departure of Saudis After Sept. 11, Ex-Aide Says (New York Times story by Eric Lichtblau, Septermber 3, 2003.) This refers to the evacuation of Saudi nationals right after September 11, 2001. They were allowed to fly out when other planes were still grounded after the terrorist attacks. The evacuated Saudis included relatives of Osama bin Laden. Amazing.

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

Top Focus Before 9/11 Wasn't on Terrorism (washingtonpost.com)

According to Robin Wright's story, Top Focus Before 9/11 Wasn't on Terrorism (washingtonpost.com), National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice was scheduled to give a speech on September 11, 2001:

On Sept. 11, 2001, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice was scheduled to outline a Bush administration policy that would address "the threats and problems of today and the day after, not the world of yesterday" -- but the focus was largely on missile defense, not terrorism from Islamic radicals.

The Washington Post has excerpts from the speech, which was not delivered.

The address was designed to promote missile defense as the cornerstone of a new national security strategy, and contained no mention of al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden or Islamic extremist groups, according to former U.S. officials who have seen the text.

The speech did mention terrorism: rogue states, like Iraq, might use missiles to deliver WMD.

The text also implicitly challenged the Clinton administration's policy, saying it did not do enough about the real threat -- long-range missiles.

Read the lies:

"The president's commitment to fighting terrorism isn't measured by the number of speeches, but by the concrete actions taken to fight the threat," said James R. Wilkinson, deputy national security adviser for communications, when asked about the speech. "The first major foreign policy directive of this administration was the new strategy to eliminate al Qaeda that the White House ordered soon after taking office. It was eliminating al Qaeda, not missile defense, not Iraq, and not the [Anti-Ballistic Missile] Treaty," he said.

They will never stop lying.