Showing posts with label War. Show all posts
Showing posts with label War. Show all posts
Sunday, August 19, 2007
New York Times Op-Ed Worth Reading:
August 19, 2007
Op-Ed Contributors
The War as We Saw It
By BUDDHIKA JAYAMAHA, WESLEY D. SMITH, JEREMY ROEBUCK, OMAR MORA, EDWARD SANDMEIER, YANCE T. GRAY and JEREMY A. MURPHY
Baghdad
VIEWED from Iraq at the tail end of a 15-month deployment, the political debate in Washington is indeed surreal. Counterinsurgency is, by definition, a competition between insurgents and counterinsurgents for the control and support of a population. To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched. As responsible infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day. (Obviously, these are our personal views and should not be seen as official within our chain of command.)
The claim that we are increasingly in control of the battlefields in Iraq is an assessment arrived at through a flawed, American-centered framework. Yes, we are militarily superior, but our successes are offset by failures elsewhere. What soldiers call the “battle space” remains the same, with changes only at the margins. It is crowded with actors who do not fit neatly into boxes: Sunni extremists, Al Qaeda terrorists, Shiite militiamen, criminals and armed tribes. This situation is made more complex by the questionable loyalties and Janus-faced role of the Iraqi police and Iraqi Army, which have been trained and armed at United States taxpayers’ expense.
A few nights ago, for example, we witnessed the death of one American soldier and the critical wounding of two others when a lethal armor-piercing explosive was detonated between an Iraqi Army checkpoint and a police one. Local Iraqis readily testified to American investigators that Iraqi police and Army officers escorted the triggermen and helped plant the bomb. These civilians highlighted their own predicament: had they informed the Americans of the bomb before the incident, the Iraqi Army, the police or the local Shiite militia would have killed their families.
As many grunts will tell you, this is a near-routine event. Reports that a majority of Iraqi Army commanders are now reliable partners can be considered only misleading rhetoric. The truth is that battalion commanders, even if well meaning, have little to no influence over the thousands of obstinate men under them, in an incoherent chain of command, who are really loyal only to their militias.
Similarly, Sunnis, who have been underrepresented in the new Iraqi armed forces, now find themselves forming militias, sometimes with our tacit support. Sunnis recognize that the best guarantee they may have against Shiite militias and the Shiite-dominated government is to form their own armed bands. We arm them to aid in our fight against Al Qaeda.
However, while creating proxies is essential in winning a counterinsurgency, it requires that the proxies are loyal to the center that we claim to support. Armed Sunni tribes have indeed become effective surrogates, but the enduring question is where their loyalties would lie in our absence. The Iraqi government finds itself working at cross purposes with us on this issue because it is justifiably fearful that Sunni militias will turn on it should the Americans leave.
In short, we operate in a bewildering context of determined enemies and questionable allies, one where the balance of forces on the ground remains entirely unclear. (In the course of writing this article, this fact became all too clear: one of us, Staff Sergeant Murphy, an Army Ranger and reconnaissance team leader, was shot in the head during a “time-sensitive target acquisition mission” on Aug. 12; he is expected to survive and is being flown to a military hospital in the United States.) While we have the will and the resources to fight in this context, we are effectively hamstrung because realities on the ground require measures we will always refuse — namely, the widespread use of lethal and brutal force.
Given the situation, it is important not to assess security from an American-centered perspective. The ability of, say, American observers to safely walk down the streets of formerly violent towns is not a resounding indicator of security. What matters is the experience of the local citizenry and the future of our counterinsurgency. When we take this view, we see that a vast majority of Iraqis feel increasingly insecure and view us as an occupation force that has failed to produce normalcy after four years and is increasingly unlikely to do so as we continue to arm each warring side.
Coupling our military strategy to an insistence that the Iraqis meet political benchmarks for reconciliation is also unhelpful. The morass in the government has fueled impatience and confusion while providing no semblance of security to average Iraqis. Leaders are far from arriving at a lasting political settlement. This should not be surprising, since a lasting political solution will not be possible while the military situation remains in constant flux.
The Iraqi government is run by the main coalition partners of the Shiite-dominated United Iraqi Alliance, with Kurds as minority members. The Shiite clerical establishment formed the alliance to make sure its people did not succumb to the same mistake as in 1920: rebelling against the occupying Western force (then the British) and losing what they believed was their inherent right to rule Iraq as the majority. The qualified and reluctant welcome we received from the Shiites since the invasion has to be seen in that historical context. They saw in us something useful for the moment.
Now that moment is passing, as the Shiites have achieved what they believe is rightfully theirs. Their next task is to figure out how best to consolidate the gains, because reconciliation without consolidation risks losing it all. Washington’s insistence that the Iraqis correct the three gravest mistakes we made — de-Baathification, the dismantling of the Iraqi Army and the creation of a loose federalist system of government — places us at cross purposes with the government we have committed to support.
Political reconciliation in Iraq will occur, but not at our insistence or in ways that meet our benchmarks. It will happen on Iraqi terms when the reality on the battlefield is congruent with that in the political sphere. There will be no magnanimous solutions that please every party the way we expect, and there will be winners and losers. The choice we have left is to decide which side we will take. Trying to please every party in the conflict — as we do now — will only ensure we are hated by all in the long run.
At the same time, the most important front in the counterinsurgency, improving basic social and economic conditions, is the one on which we have failed most miserably. Two million Iraqis are in refugee camps in bordering countries. Close to two million more are internally displaced and now fill many urban slums. Cities lack regular electricity, telephone services and sanitation. “Lucky” Iraqis live in gated communities barricaded with concrete blast walls that provide them with a sense of communal claustrophobia rather than any sense of security we would consider normal.
In a lawless environment where men with guns rule the streets, engaging in the banalities of life has become a death-defying act. Four years into our occupation, we have failed on every promise, while we have substituted Baath Party tyranny with a tyranny of Islamist, militia and criminal violence. When the primary preoccupation of average Iraqis is when and how they are likely to be killed, we can hardly feel smug as we hand out care packages. As an Iraqi man told us a few days ago with deep resignation, “We need security, not free food.”
In the end, we need to recognize that our presence may have released Iraqis from the grip of a tyrant, but that it has also robbed them of their self-respect. They will soon realize that the best way to regain dignity is to call us what we are — an army of occupation — and force our withdrawal.
Until that happens, it would be prudent for us to increasingly let Iraqis take center stage in all matters, to come up with a nuanced policy in which we assist them from the margins but let them resolve their differences as they see fit. This suggestion is not meant to be defeatist, but rather to highlight our pursuit of incompatible policies to absurd ends without recognizing the incongruities.
We need not talk about our morale. As committed soldiers, we will see this mission through.
Buddhika Jayamaha is an Army specialist. Wesley D. Smith is a sergeant. Jeremy Roebuck is a sergeant. Omar Mora is a sergeant. Edward Sandmeier is a sergeant. Yance T. Gray is a staff sergeant. Jeremy A. Murphy is a staff sergeant.
Op-Ed Contributors
The War as We Saw It
By BUDDHIKA JAYAMAHA, WESLEY D. SMITH, JEREMY ROEBUCK, OMAR MORA, EDWARD SANDMEIER, YANCE T. GRAY and JEREMY A. MURPHY
Baghdad
VIEWED from Iraq at the tail end of a 15-month deployment, the political debate in Washington is indeed surreal. Counterinsurgency is, by definition, a competition between insurgents and counterinsurgents for the control and support of a population. To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched. As responsible infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day. (Obviously, these are our personal views and should not be seen as official within our chain of command.)
The claim that we are increasingly in control of the battlefields in Iraq is an assessment arrived at through a flawed, American-centered framework. Yes, we are militarily superior, but our successes are offset by failures elsewhere. What soldiers call the “battle space” remains the same, with changes only at the margins. It is crowded with actors who do not fit neatly into boxes: Sunni extremists, Al Qaeda terrorists, Shiite militiamen, criminals and armed tribes. This situation is made more complex by the questionable loyalties and Janus-faced role of the Iraqi police and Iraqi Army, which have been trained and armed at United States taxpayers’ expense.
A few nights ago, for example, we witnessed the death of one American soldier and the critical wounding of two others when a lethal armor-piercing explosive was detonated between an Iraqi Army checkpoint and a police one. Local Iraqis readily testified to American investigators that Iraqi police and Army officers escorted the triggermen and helped plant the bomb. These civilians highlighted their own predicament: had they informed the Americans of the bomb before the incident, the Iraqi Army, the police or the local Shiite militia would have killed their families.
As many grunts will tell you, this is a near-routine event. Reports that a majority of Iraqi Army commanders are now reliable partners can be considered only misleading rhetoric. The truth is that battalion commanders, even if well meaning, have little to no influence over the thousands of obstinate men under them, in an incoherent chain of command, who are really loyal only to their militias.
Similarly, Sunnis, who have been underrepresented in the new Iraqi armed forces, now find themselves forming militias, sometimes with our tacit support. Sunnis recognize that the best guarantee they may have against Shiite militias and the Shiite-dominated government is to form their own armed bands. We arm them to aid in our fight against Al Qaeda.
However, while creating proxies is essential in winning a counterinsurgency, it requires that the proxies are loyal to the center that we claim to support. Armed Sunni tribes have indeed become effective surrogates, but the enduring question is where their loyalties would lie in our absence. The Iraqi government finds itself working at cross purposes with us on this issue because it is justifiably fearful that Sunni militias will turn on it should the Americans leave.
In short, we operate in a bewildering context of determined enemies and questionable allies, one where the balance of forces on the ground remains entirely unclear. (In the course of writing this article, this fact became all too clear: one of us, Staff Sergeant Murphy, an Army Ranger and reconnaissance team leader, was shot in the head during a “time-sensitive target acquisition mission” on Aug. 12; he is expected to survive and is being flown to a military hospital in the United States.) While we have the will and the resources to fight in this context, we are effectively hamstrung because realities on the ground require measures we will always refuse — namely, the widespread use of lethal and brutal force.
Given the situation, it is important not to assess security from an American-centered perspective. The ability of, say, American observers to safely walk down the streets of formerly violent towns is not a resounding indicator of security. What matters is the experience of the local citizenry and the future of our counterinsurgency. When we take this view, we see that a vast majority of Iraqis feel increasingly insecure and view us as an occupation force that has failed to produce normalcy after four years and is increasingly unlikely to do so as we continue to arm each warring side.
Coupling our military strategy to an insistence that the Iraqis meet political benchmarks for reconciliation is also unhelpful. The morass in the government has fueled impatience and confusion while providing no semblance of security to average Iraqis. Leaders are far from arriving at a lasting political settlement. This should not be surprising, since a lasting political solution will not be possible while the military situation remains in constant flux.
The Iraqi government is run by the main coalition partners of the Shiite-dominated United Iraqi Alliance, with Kurds as minority members. The Shiite clerical establishment formed the alliance to make sure its people did not succumb to the same mistake as in 1920: rebelling against the occupying Western force (then the British) and losing what they believed was their inherent right to rule Iraq as the majority. The qualified and reluctant welcome we received from the Shiites since the invasion has to be seen in that historical context. They saw in us something useful for the moment.
Now that moment is passing, as the Shiites have achieved what they believe is rightfully theirs. Their next task is to figure out how best to consolidate the gains, because reconciliation without consolidation risks losing it all. Washington’s insistence that the Iraqis correct the three gravest mistakes we made — de-Baathification, the dismantling of the Iraqi Army and the creation of a loose federalist system of government — places us at cross purposes with the government we have committed to support.
Political reconciliation in Iraq will occur, but not at our insistence or in ways that meet our benchmarks. It will happen on Iraqi terms when the reality on the battlefield is congruent with that in the political sphere. There will be no magnanimous solutions that please every party the way we expect, and there will be winners and losers. The choice we have left is to decide which side we will take. Trying to please every party in the conflict — as we do now — will only ensure we are hated by all in the long run.
At the same time, the most important front in the counterinsurgency, improving basic social and economic conditions, is the one on which we have failed most miserably. Two million Iraqis are in refugee camps in bordering countries. Close to two million more are internally displaced and now fill many urban slums. Cities lack regular electricity, telephone services and sanitation. “Lucky” Iraqis live in gated communities barricaded with concrete blast walls that provide them with a sense of communal claustrophobia rather than any sense of security we would consider normal.
In a lawless environment where men with guns rule the streets, engaging in the banalities of life has become a death-defying act. Four years into our occupation, we have failed on every promise, while we have substituted Baath Party tyranny with a tyranny of Islamist, militia and criminal violence. When the primary preoccupation of average Iraqis is when and how they are likely to be killed, we can hardly feel smug as we hand out care packages. As an Iraqi man told us a few days ago with deep resignation, “We need security, not free food.”
In the end, we need to recognize that our presence may have released Iraqis from the grip of a tyrant, but that it has also robbed them of their self-respect. They will soon realize that the best way to regain dignity is to call us what we are — an army of occupation — and force our withdrawal.
Until that happens, it would be prudent for us to increasingly let Iraqis take center stage in all matters, to come up with a nuanced policy in which we assist them from the margins but let them resolve their differences as they see fit. This suggestion is not meant to be defeatist, but rather to highlight our pursuit of incompatible policies to absurd ends without recognizing the incongruities.
We need not talk about our morale. As committed soldiers, we will see this mission through.
Buddhika Jayamaha is an Army specialist. Wesley D. Smith is a sergeant. Jeremy Roebuck is a sergeant. Omar Mora is a sergeant. Edward Sandmeier is a sergeant. Yance T. Gray is a staff sergeant. Jeremy A. Murphy is a staff sergeant.
Monday, July 30, 2007
Viva Peace
Apparently the war in Iraq is going well--from the tone of the article, one might think "splendidly" instead of just "well."
Also, check out a long story on Obama's rise to prominence. Interesting info. And since the war's going so well and has made us so much safer, I guess it doesn't matter who's president in 08. Guess I'll vote Romney and hope he selects Jesus Christ as his VP.
I'm just glad Rage Against the Machine got back together and immediately started beef with Ann Coulter, and that this somehow relates to Rosie.
Perhaps, if John Edwards wins the Democratic nomination and everybody else bombs badly enough, he can select Rage frontman Zack De la Rocha as his VP. Then we're just one John vs. Mitt / Zack vs. Christ arm-wrestling competition away from restoring morality to the pale house.
Viva Rage.
Also, check out a long story on Obama's rise to prominence. Interesting info. And since the war's going so well and has made us so much safer, I guess it doesn't matter who's president in 08. Guess I'll vote Romney and hope he selects Jesus Christ as his VP.
I'm just glad Rage Against the Machine got back together and immediately started beef with Ann Coulter, and that this somehow relates to Rosie.
Perhaps, if John Edwards wins the Democratic nomination and everybody else bombs badly enough, he can select Rage frontman Zack De la Rocha as his VP. Then we're just one John vs. Mitt / Zack vs. Christ arm-wrestling competition away from restoring morality to the pale house.
Viva Rage.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Contagious Stupidity
From today's NYTimes:
WTF?
Isn't it 5th-grade wisdom - perhaps rather 2nd or 1st - that an invasion with no justifiable purpose that has only gone from worse to worst is not and was never worth supporting? Why does America now so value its presence in Iraq? (Did no one else read Theater of War?)
The article doesn't help a ton, and neither does Mark Schmitt's snarky attempt at boo-hooing Democratic pres. candidates' ability to make detailed plans.
It's not comforting to e-open the paper and see that 1) Americans are increasingly, not decreasingly comfortable with the idea that America invaded Iraq, way back when (Gawd, that was, like, four American Idols ago!) and 2) New America Foundation members are not fans of good policy papers.
They want more blather. Empty, Republicrackerish blather, good for nothing, to be held to nothing, to be sprinkled like the chaff of millet on the strong winds of a next CBS fall lineup, or the next celebrity murder-suicide.
"The candidates disappear behind a screen of white paper," Schmitt writes. Paper = reading = the intellectual = reason. And we can't have that. We're a country of Faith, a good, honest, Sarkozy-ian realm...
Ba-humfuckery.
I suppose comfort isn't to be wanted or even warranted these days. I'll keep my policy papers and my anti-war stance, thankyouver'much. How much longer before this America now starts to resemble the Britain of Children of Men? Not much longer, perhaps. But by then I'll have my alligator ranch, so the New American "centrist" faux-radicals won't be able to sneer at me without (reptilian, masticatory) repercussions.
Americans’ support for the initial invasion of Iraq has risen somewhat as the White House has continued to ask the public to reserve judgment about the war until at least the fall. In a New York Times/CBS News poll conducted over the weekend, 42 percent of Americans said that looking back, taking military action in Iraq was the right thing to do, while 51 percent said the United States should have stayed out of Iraq.
WTF?
Isn't it 5th-grade wisdom - perhaps rather 2nd or 1st - that an invasion with no justifiable purpose that has only gone from worse to worst is not and was never worth supporting? Why does America now so value its presence in Iraq? (Did no one else read Theater of War?)
The article doesn't help a ton, and neither does Mark Schmitt's snarky attempt at boo-hooing Democratic pres. candidates' ability to make detailed plans.
It's not comforting to e-open the paper and see that 1) Americans are increasingly, not decreasingly comfortable with the idea that America invaded Iraq, way back when (Gawd, that was, like, four American Idols ago!) and 2) New America Foundation members are not fans of good policy papers.
They want more blather. Empty, Republicrackerish blather, good for nothing, to be held to nothing, to be sprinkled like the chaff of millet on the strong winds of a next CBS fall lineup, or the next celebrity murder-suicide.
"The candidates disappear behind a screen of white paper," Schmitt writes. Paper = reading = the intellectual = reason. And we can't have that. We're a country of Faith, a good, honest, Sarkozy-ian realm...
Ba-humfuckery.
I suppose comfort isn't to be wanted or even warranted these days. I'll keep my policy papers and my anti-war stance, thankyouver'much. How much longer before this America now starts to resemble the Britain of Children of Men? Not much longer, perhaps. But by then I'll have my alligator ranch, so the New American "centrist" faux-radicals won't be able to sneer at me without (reptilian, masticatory) repercussions.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Protest to Close Guantánamo
Culture Project sends much love to our friends at the Living Theatre (Not In My Name, No Sir!), who are currently staging protests and protest-performances of their latest show, The Brig. Their aims are to close Guantánamo and end the war in Iraq. Details via www.livingtheatre.org. IN short:
THE BRIG @ Ground Zero -Join us to demonstrate our refusal to be complicit in this unjust war.
Two free street theatre performances of THE BRIG
Ground Zero: Church Street (at entrance to PATH train)
Sunday, July 1st, 4 PM
Wednesday, July 4th, 2 PM
The Living Theatre - 212 792 8050 - www.livingtheatre.org
From Living's letter about the protests:
"I don't have to tell you guys about the worsening situation in Iraq, or Afghanistan. Our banners say: Support the troops AND Stop the war. We are inviting lots of friends and reaching out to other groups. We believe also that some press will be there, and some 'friends' from the other side."
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Lugar Leaves Dark Side; Dark Side Completely Surprised, Consoles Itself With Cherry Garcia While Crying Into Phone To Friend
Great news for those of us who want some sort of withdrawal from Iraq, now:
Republican senator and warmaker Richard Lugar now disagrees with Generalissimo Bush and the current administration's all-war all-the-time no-withdrawal plans, which Lugar had previously backed, on every vote, in every way.
So this is not a wishy-washy person. Lugar supported a policy. He saw that policy steadily go wrong. In his words, "The costs and risks of continuing down the current path outweigh the potential benefits that might be achieved... We’re talking $620 billion. We’re talking over 3,500 people killed. I have a picture of one of our marines that’s on my desk so I don’t forget, O.K.?"
And now he wants to change that policy. (The policy being America's state religion, Constant Warfare, or more recently Constant Antithetical Counterinsurgency [Generating Endlessly Reinvigorated Insurgents].)
Says Lugar:
"The administration and Congress must suspend what has become almost knee-jerk political combat over Iraq. Those who offer constructive criticism of the surge strategy are not defeatists, any more than those who warn against a precipitous withdrawal are militarists."
Also in the news today, a poll (though we are suspicious of polls) indicating that America's youth are increasingly progressive-minded, and that Obama and Hillary are the only candidates that register in their immediate consciousnesses.
This surprises no young person I know: I grew up in an predominantly black area, and I was raised to believe that women and men deserve the same rights. I would much rather vote for - or are at least am much more intrigued by the thought of being a citizen during the presidency of - a black or woman president than another white man. Seems about time.
Of course, the psychology behind voter-volition - who we vote for and why - is more complex than race, gender, party, or individual charm, though it is certainly influenced by all of these factors. I would never recommend voting on someone purely because that someone is black or a woman. I simply note that the succession of white men who mired America in small-to-medium wars with real, really impoverished people during the latter half of the twentieth century have left something of a bad taste in the mouths of many.
The psychology behind torture - much discussed today in a New York Times article about the CIA, now-and-then (meaning of course 'Nam and 'Raq), as well as in an older call-to-arms for the mental health community on Alternet - is not so complex. Torture is wrong; the use of torture indicates, as William James would say, a "sick soul."
The Times' CIA article includes a graphic comparing tactics used in the seventies to tactics used today; the side-by-side, tale-of-the-tape effect is chilling: While it is true that there is no evidence of the government monitoring peace groups the way it did during Vietnam, tactics still in use against anyone Bush considers a terrorist or possible terrorist include eavesdropping, "waterboarding, heat, cold, and sleep deprivation."
Meaning that there are still three classes of Enemy, in the minds of the priests of Constant War. There are national criminals, who are arrested and tried in an Enlightened manner. There are extranational soldiers, who, if captured, are treated as honorable combatants to be held accountable for their non-American government's actions according to international law. And then there are the Really Bad People, the ones who can be disappeared (under Pinochet in Chile), or spied upon or poisoned (see the CIA vs. Dr. Rev. M.L.K., Jr., or Castro), or tortured (Gitmo).
These last can be tortured indefinitely in good conscience because they are not fellow capitalists on a mission from a power whose thoughts on market regulations differ from those of the GOP's; these enemies are Satans who must be Crusaded against, kept from view, and finally expunged from the record of gentlemanly combat.
And the war can never end against these Enemies, who are as Protean as they are numerous: For every defeated insurgency, for every toppled Soviet Union, there comes a Bin Laden, an Al-Qaeda of Mesopotamia.
Roses to Lugar; thorns to the military psychologists who should know better than to condone - much less operate - torture operations at Gitmo. And thorns finally to CIA agents who, in the course of defending freedom or whathaveyou, cross a stark line and become the very icons of those who least embody freedom, least embody nobility, peace, or justice.
Republican senator and warmaker Richard Lugar now disagrees with Generalissimo Bush and the current administration's all-war all-the-time no-withdrawal plans, which Lugar had previously backed, on every vote, in every way.
So this is not a wishy-washy person. Lugar supported a policy. He saw that policy steadily go wrong. In his words, "The costs and risks of continuing down the current path outweigh the potential benefits that might be achieved... We’re talking $620 billion. We’re talking over 3,500 people killed. I have a picture of one of our marines that’s on my desk so I don’t forget, O.K.?"
And now he wants to change that policy. (The policy being America's state religion, Constant Warfare, or more recently Constant Antithetical Counterinsurgency [Generating Endlessly Reinvigorated Insurgents].)
Says Lugar:
"The administration and Congress must suspend what has become almost knee-jerk political combat over Iraq. Those who offer constructive criticism of the surge strategy are not defeatists, any more than those who warn against a precipitous withdrawal are militarists."
Also in the news today, a poll (though we are suspicious of polls) indicating that America's youth are increasingly progressive-minded, and that Obama and Hillary are the only candidates that register in their immediate consciousnesses.
This surprises no young person I know: I grew up in an predominantly black area, and I was raised to believe that women and men deserve the same rights. I would much rather vote for - or are at least am much more intrigued by the thought of being a citizen during the presidency of - a black or woman president than another white man. Seems about time.
Of course, the psychology behind voter-volition - who we vote for and why - is more complex than race, gender, party, or individual charm, though it is certainly influenced by all of these factors. I would never recommend voting on someone purely because that someone is black or a woman. I simply note that the succession of white men who mired America in small-to-medium wars with real, really impoverished people during the latter half of the twentieth century have left something of a bad taste in the mouths of many.
The psychology behind torture - much discussed today in a New York Times article about the CIA, now-and-then (meaning of course 'Nam and 'Raq), as well as in an older call-to-arms for the mental health community on Alternet - is not so complex. Torture is wrong; the use of torture indicates, as William James would say, a "sick soul."
The Times' CIA article includes a graphic comparing tactics used in the seventies to tactics used today; the side-by-side, tale-of-the-tape effect is chilling: While it is true that there is no evidence of the government monitoring peace groups the way it did during Vietnam, tactics still in use against anyone Bush considers a terrorist or possible terrorist include eavesdropping, "waterboarding, heat, cold, and sleep deprivation."
Meaning that there are still three classes of Enemy, in the minds of the priests of Constant War. There are national criminals, who are arrested and tried in an Enlightened manner. There are extranational soldiers, who, if captured, are treated as honorable combatants to be held accountable for their non-American government's actions according to international law. And then there are the Really Bad People, the ones who can be disappeared (under Pinochet in Chile), or spied upon or poisoned (see the CIA vs. Dr. Rev. M.L.K., Jr., or Castro), or tortured (Gitmo).
These last can be tortured indefinitely in good conscience because they are not fellow capitalists on a mission from a power whose thoughts on market regulations differ from those of the GOP's; these enemies are Satans who must be Crusaded against, kept from view, and finally expunged from the record of gentlemanly combat.
And the war can never end against these Enemies, who are as Protean as they are numerous: For every defeated insurgency, for every toppled Soviet Union, there comes a Bin Laden, an Al-Qaeda of Mesopotamia.
Roses to Lugar; thorns to the military psychologists who should know better than to condone - much less operate - torture operations at Gitmo. And thorns finally to CIA agents who, in the course of defending freedom or whathaveyou, cross a stark line and become the very icons of those who least embody freedom, least embody nobility, peace, or justice.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Shame On Colonel Morris Davis
The New York Times today published a rebuttal not only of justice but of moral practice in its most forgiving sense.
The article, an op-ed piece by Morris Davis, an Air Force lawyer, generously and insipidly defends the existence of and practices within America's Guantánamo Bay detention facility.
Culture Project does not stand for everyone. But many, many people stand with us in our fight to close Guantánamo, now, and to end the Bush regime's suspension of habeas corpus ("Latin: [We command that] you have the body") that has kept hundreds of men locked in cages in Cuba, wondering why they are there and when they are going to go home, go to jail, or even die.
The questions we continue to have with regard to Guantánamo and all attendant persons and practices are not, are emphatically not: "Are the prisoners kept there particularly comfortable; do they have the Qur'an [not 'Koran,' Mr. Davis]; are their meals hot enough, fibrous enough, etc.?"
The lingering question that we have is this: Is it right to keep men detained for indefinite periods of time without charging them, in a foreign country, on the pretext that they are or may be "terrorists" or "enemy foreign combatants" or some other jargon, as opposed to ordinary, respectable criminals? If a man commits a crime - if the government thinks a man commits a crime - that man should be jailed, according to the rule of law, and given a swift and fair trial. He should not be detained forever in another country, no matter how hot his meals are (now, after our play and others like it and a general shitstorm of media attention).
Mr. Davis seems uninterested in justice in the grand, ideal, popular sense - the sense of "justice" that we think many of you out there are most interested in. Not the justice of which Geneva Conventions article specifies what number of hot meals must be provided for which class of "enemy combatant," but the kind of justice that would never hold so many men without trial for so long.
It is right that the United States should respect international law regarding the detention of prisoners. It is more right that we should not detain them indefinitely, caged like dogs, and call ourselves heroes for closing Camp X-Ray five years ago, or for admitting that not every inmate is guilty, or for handing out Qur'ans.
From wikipedia and MSNBC.com:
Most of the detainees still at Guantánamo are not scheduled for trial. As of November 2006, according to MSNBC.com, out of 775 detainees who have been brought to Guantánamo, approximately 340 have been released, leaving 435 detainees. Of those 435, 110 have been labeled as ready for release. Of the other 325, only "more than 70" will face trial, the Pentagon says. That leaves about 250 who may be held indefinitely.
The article, an op-ed piece by Morris Davis, an Air Force lawyer, generously and insipidly defends the existence of and practices within America's Guantánamo Bay detention facility.
Culture Project does not stand for everyone. But many, many people stand with us in our fight to close Guantánamo, now, and to end the Bush regime's suspension of habeas corpus ("Latin: [We command that] you have the body") that has kept hundreds of men locked in cages in Cuba, wondering why they are there and when they are going to go home, go to jail, or even die.
The questions we continue to have with regard to Guantánamo and all attendant persons and practices are not, are emphatically not: "Are the prisoners kept there particularly comfortable; do they have the Qur'an [not 'Koran,' Mr. Davis]; are their meals hot enough, fibrous enough, etc.?"
The lingering question that we have is this: Is it right to keep men detained for indefinite periods of time without charging them, in a foreign country, on the pretext that they are or may be "terrorists" or "enemy foreign combatants" or some other jargon, as opposed to ordinary, respectable criminals? If a man commits a crime - if the government thinks a man commits a crime - that man should be jailed, according to the rule of law, and given a swift and fair trial. He should not be detained forever in another country, no matter how hot his meals are (now, after our play and others like it and a general shitstorm of media attention).
Mr. Davis seems uninterested in justice in the grand, ideal, popular sense - the sense of "justice" that we think many of you out there are most interested in. Not the justice of which Geneva Conventions article specifies what number of hot meals must be provided for which class of "enemy combatant," but the kind of justice that would never hold so many men without trial for so long.
It is right that the United States should respect international law regarding the detention of prisoners. It is more right that we should not detain them indefinitely, caged like dogs, and call ourselves heroes for closing Camp X-Ray five years ago, or for admitting that not every inmate is guilty, or for handing out Qur'ans.
From wikipedia and MSNBC.com:
Most of the detainees still at Guantánamo are not scheduled for trial. As of November 2006, according to MSNBC.com, out of 775 detainees who have been brought to Guantánamo, approximately 340 have been released, leaving 435 detainees. Of those 435, 110 have been labeled as ready for release. Of the other 325, only "more than 70" will face trial, the Pentagon says. That leaves about 250 who may be held indefinitely.
Monday, June 18, 2007
Another extraordinary New Yorker piece
Sy Hersh has a disturbing article in this week's New Yorker about Abu Ghraib. Though we all know what happened, and have suspected people much higher up knew what was going on and either encouraged it or looked the other way, this piece is eye-opening nonetheless.
Monday, May 7, 2007
Interesting Story Concerning Theater and Conflict
May 7, 2007, NYTimes, "In Iraq, the Play Was the Thing," by HUSSAIN ABDUL-HUSSAIN:
IN 1982, our second-grade teacher at Baghdad’s Mansour school made the following announcement: “The year-end play is about our war with the Persian enemy. The top 20 students in class will play Iraqis; the bottom 20 will play Persians.”
This was at the height of the Iran-Iraq war, and during our first rehearsal the students assigned to play Persians — that is, Iranians — broke out in tears. Although many of the children were, like me, from Shiite families, they insisted that they were Iraqis first, that they loved their Sunni-led country and did not want to play the role of the enemy.
After some negotiations, the girls were spared and only the boys from the lower half were selected to play the roles of the “soldiers of Khomeini the hypocrite.” Their script was scrapped, and instead they were told simply to run across stage as the rest of us, playing the role of the Iraqi Army, mowed them down in battle.
But the play did not end when the curtain fell. Those of us from the Iraqi cast took to bragging and, in the tradition of schoolchildren everywhere, bullying the “Persians.” With tears in their eyes, they repeatedly had to beg the teacher to make us stop.
Now, a quarter of a century later, I called one of my classmates, Ayad, a Shiite who still lives in Iraq. I reminded him of the play, and of how he and I, the top two students in the class, got to play the roles of the Iraqi generals who would win the war against the Iranians. “It was the good old days,” he told me.
Ayad owns a hotel in the southern city of Karbala, home to two of Shiism’s most important shrines. His wife and two daughters wear veils. He believes that the violence in Iraq is a Sunni and American conspiracy against Shiites, and he argues that Iran is the best ally of Iraqi Shiites.
Ayad has two elder brothers. One was conscripted during the Iran-Iraq war and received medals for his courageous performance in battle. The other ran away when he was drafted and ended up living as a refugee in Iran. However, he was treated poorly there, living in poverty and under permanent suspicion, so after some years he fled to Beirut. After the Americans ousted Saddam Hussein, he returned to Iraq, and now works at Ayad’s hotel.
“We think America did a great thing by toppling Saddam,” Ayad told me, speaking for himself and his family. “But now they should hand us the country and leave.”
I asked him whether he fears that an American withdrawal might allow the Sunni insurgents to strike harder in Shiite areas. “We outnumber them,” he said. “And with the support of our Iranian brothers, we can take the Sunnis.”
“And then what?” I replied.
“Then the Shiites will rule Iraq.”
Ayad believes that there is no problem in establishing an Islamic government in Baghdad styled after that of the Iranian Republic. The Sunnis, he said, have “oppressed us since the days of the Prophet, and now it is our chance to hit back and rule.”
According to Ayad, a Shiite takeover in Iraq would set a good model for the Shiites of Lebanon, where they number about a third of the population, and Bahrain, where they are a majority.
“Perhaps the Shiite minority in Saudi Arabia will act too, rid themselves of the Sunni oppression against them, and rule or at least separate themselves from Riyadh and create their own state,” my friend argued.
It is exactly this possibility that has made the Sunni Arab regimes fear a Shiite regional revolt and moved some to support the Sunni insurgency in Iraq or at least to voice their resentment of the Iraqi Shiite government, which is seen as being biased against Iraqi Sunnis. “But we are Iraqis,” I told Ayad. “We are Arabs. We have our cultural differences with the Persians. We don’t even speak the same language.”
Ayad insisted otherwise: “When we fought the Persians during the 1980s, we were wrong. We’re Shiites before being Iraqis. Sunnis invented national identity to rule us.”
At this point, I understood that it was pointless to argue further. When the Baathist regime collapsed, I initially felt that there was a good chance for national unity, that Sunnis and Shiites would band together in the absence of the dictator who had played them against each other. Talking to Ayad, I realized how wrong I had been.
To change the subject, I asked Ayad about his business. He told me he had just erected flags on top of the entrance to his hotel. He chose the flags of Iraq, Iran, Lebanon and Bahrain. When I asked why he chose the flags of these four nations, he said: “These are the countries where Shiites come from to do their pilgrimage in Karbala,” he said. “It is good for business.”
Hussain Abdul-Hussain, a media analyst, is a former reporter for The Daily Star of Lebanon.
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
National Priorities...
Just found this sobering site. It charts the real-time cost of the Iraq War and then calculates the cost to each community in various categories. Check out the link about setting up an LED display in your town. The first one went up in Northampton, Mass (a great old college town).
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Oh. My. God.
This is Michelle Malkin. Neocon who believed in (and wrote the book defending) the Japanese internment. This is simply....... amazing.
Monday, April 16, 2007
LAWRENCE WRIGHT WINS PULITZER
Our primary homeslice Lawrence Wright's The Looming Tower just won the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction.
We congratulate him with all our hearts.
The man is a double paragon of journalistic thoroughness and good prose style. He is also one of the easiest-to-work-with people you could ever meet. And a snappy dresser.
(For those of you who missed Wright's My Trip To Al-Qaeda, stay tuned for a very short remounting of the show some time in June.)
We congratulate him with all our hearts.
The man is a double paragon of journalistic thoroughness and good prose style. He is also one of the easiest-to-work-with people you could ever meet. And a snappy dresser.
(For those of you who missed Wright's My Trip To Al-Qaeda, stay tuned for a very short remounting of the show some time in June.)
Saturday, April 14, 2007
How much?
How much is an Iraqi life worth? Well, to the US Government, somewhere between $700 and $3000 it seems. See, US Soldiers (who we support, really, we support our troops, okay?) maybe because of duress or inadequate training, or inadequate security, or inadequate leadership - well they keep murdering innocent Iraqis. We don't read about it much over here (we don't want to waste the beautiful mind of Barbara Bush, for heaven's sake!) but over the past four years, our government has paid out 32 million dollars to the families of innocent, non-combatants that we have 'accidentally' murdered. Not all the innocents we've murdered get compensated, however. There was that shepherd that was tending his flock when we detonated a few tons of explosives on him 'by accident'. But that was considered by the US military to be 'combat-related'. Uh huh. If you really want to read more (and why would you, it's so friggin' horrific?) you can read a great post on another fantastic blog called Firedoglake, here. They also link to the actual records the ACLU collected which outlay each victim and the measley payments we doled out to their families. It truly made me sick to my stomach.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Friday, April 6, 2007
Our Only Real Diplomat?
Nagging questions of political decorum aside (and since when did decorum, I dunno, prevent a chlorine bombing?)..., who the fuck gives somebody flak for trying to reconcile hostile powers in the Middle East?
The fact that Pelosi is not a member of the Executive branch merely underscores that branch's failures.
If Bush cannot reach out to "Axis Of Evil" leaders, he cannot hope to entice them to change their policies towards Israel, sectarian rivalry, or falafels, which, as stated earlier, must be safe to eat if the Middle East is ever to recover from its long slide back into Medieval violence and state-choking autocracy.
Anyway, here's a little blurb about our Madam Speaker's controversial trip:
From the NYTimes, April 6, 2007, "Pelosi Nudges Saudi Arabia to Give Women a Role in Politics," ASSOCIATED PRESS:
Of course Bush should value diplomacy, too.
But if he doesn't, I vote we send in Pelosi, Jimmy Carter, the A Team, and Sam Jackson, who, as we all know from Snakes On A Plane, is a master of both conflict resolution and off-the-cuff toxicology.
Also, this is something that should get more attention/political pressure: Many Iraqi refugees in Syria (and probably in Jordan, Iran, Saudia Arabia, Yemen, etc.) are being forced in quasi-slave positions as "cabaret dancers" or domestic servants... So besides the number of deaths/serious injuries in Iraq, one must, when one appraises America's intervention there, consider the number of less enumerable vilenesses that have come to pass since April, 2003.
From the (rather dark, X-Files-chic) CIA website:
We should engage Syria diplomatically if for no other reason than to pressure them to reform/transform/abolish their domestic servant/sex trade.
The fact that Pelosi is not a member of the Executive branch merely underscores that branch's failures.
If Bush cannot reach out to "Axis Of Evil" leaders, he cannot hope to entice them to change their policies towards Israel, sectarian rivalry, or falafels, which, as stated earlier, must be safe to eat if the Middle East is ever to recover from its long slide back into Medieval violence and state-choking autocracy.
Anyway, here's a little blurb about our Madam Speaker's controversial trip:
From the NYTimes, April 6, 2007, "Pelosi Nudges Saudi Arabia to Give Women a Role in Politics," ASSOCIATED PRESS:
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, April 5 (AP) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday visited Saudi Arabia’s unelected advisory council, the closest thing in the kingdom to a legislature, where she tried out her counterpart’s chair — a privilege not available to Saudi women because they cannot become legislators.
...
Ms. Pelosi and King Abdullah discussed at length the Arab peace initiative, which offers Israel peace with Arab states if it withdraws from lands seized in 1967 and allows the creation of a Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem. Israel has said it will accept the proposal only if some changes are made.
“I explained to him that this can be a very important and historic proposal if he is prepared for a discussion and a dialogue and not a presentation on a take-it-or-leave-it basis,” said Representative Tom Lantos, a California Democrat and the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who is also part of the American delegation. “His reaction was very positive.”
Of course Bush should value diplomacy, too.
But if he doesn't, I vote we send in Pelosi, Jimmy Carter, the A Team, and Sam Jackson, who, as we all know from Snakes On A Plane, is a master of both conflict resolution and off-the-cuff toxicology.
Also, this is something that should get more attention/political pressure: Many Iraqi refugees in Syria (and probably in Jordan, Iran, Saudia Arabia, Yemen, etc.) are being forced in quasi-slave positions as "cabaret dancers" or domestic servants... So besides the number of deaths/serious injuries in Iraq, one must, when one appraises America's intervention there, consider the number of less enumerable vilenesses that have come to pass since April, 2003.
From the (rather dark, X-Files-chic) CIA website:
current situation: Syria is a destination country for women from South and Southeast Asia and Africa for domestic servitude and from Eastern Europe and Iraq for sexual exploitation; women are recruited for work in Syria as domestic servants, but some face conditions of exploitation and involuntary servitude including long hours, non-payment of wages, withholding of passports and other restrictions on movement, and physical and sexual abuse; Eastern European women recruited for work in Syria as cabaret dancers are not permitted to leave their work premises without permission and have their passports withheld; some displaced Iraqi women and children are reportedly forced into sexual exploitation
tier rating: Tier 3 - Syria does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking and is not making significant efforts to do so
We should engage Syria diplomatically if for no other reason than to pressure them to reform/transform/abolish their domestic servant/sex trade.
Thursday, April 5, 2007
Tom Paine/Obama In 08
Snippets:
1. Iran sends home their 15 pet sailing-Brits, one plus a hijab. Here's a great fish-eyed picture of the vicious Anglo-trespassers in their second-hand Persian suits. (I want one!)
From today's NYTimes:
So... Britain wouldn't negotiate or confront? Meaning the only option left to explore was... to ignore the situation and hope cooler heads prevailed in Tehran. Gotcha. Isn't that basically "chance-based engagement" (a term I just made up that I will continue to apply to this hope-it-goes-away brand of diplomacy, such as Bush's/America's re: Hamas, DPRNK, Castro, &c.).
I don't know which was lamer, the Brit's faith/head-in-sand-based conflict resolution or the Iranian's lame video/pictorial propaganda about how "sorry" the sailors were (really, for real, guys), which featured a much be-Sharpied map of the Iran/Iraq aqua-divide and a dour-looking Revolutionary Guardsman pointing to the obviously offensive Brit-boat coordinate.
(In other news, Russia plans to build a GPS system to rival our own... Competition is a good thing.)
2. Again we favour Israel bearing arms rather than brown people bearing them. Also from today's Times:
This is the other backbone of American policy: Fucking things up. To prevent dictatorships, Communism, religious radicalism, and anti-selling-us-oil governments in general, we prop up crazy dictators. To prevent war, we sell arms to side X, which makes side Y want to go to war, meaning we have to give more arms to side Z to create an "equilibrium," though it's easy to misinterpret how to do that, and with whom...
3. John Edwards is "roaring" with Christ's power.
Actually, I'm not going to make fun of him, even though I'm all about some Age Of Reason non-theistic (i.e., non-carrot-&-stick-based) morality. Check out this:
That sounds about right. Except that talking about morality should be a part of politics, as it once was (see below; buy the book).
Possibly even better is:
Correct/bravo. Can you imagine Pres. John Edwards (and I am an electorally-monogamous Obama man mydamnself) talking to Middle Eastern leaders? I can--more than I can imagine Bush, another serious Christian, doing so. Because, unlike Bush, Edwards seems to have a grasp on the idea of many faiths/one nation, or of the continually self-revising nature of history... Which leads me to:
4. Paul Collins is THE MAN, as is Tom Paine. Best recognize.
You should buy this book by the former/about the latter. Right now.
1. Iran sends home their 15 pet sailing-Brits, one plus a hijab. Here's a great fish-eyed picture of the vicious Anglo-trespassers in their second-hand Persian suits. (I want one!)
From today's NYTimes:
“Throughout, we have taken a measured approach, firm but calm, not negotiating but not confronting either,” Mr. Blair said. Britain bore no ill will toward the Iranian people, he told reporters, and respected Iran’s “proud and dignified history.”
So... Britain wouldn't negotiate or confront? Meaning the only option left to explore was... to ignore the situation and hope cooler heads prevailed in Tehran. Gotcha. Isn't that basically "chance-based engagement" (a term I just made up that I will continue to apply to this hope-it-goes-away brand of diplomacy, such as Bush's/America's re: Hamas, DPRNK, Castro, &c.).
I don't know which was lamer, the Brit's faith/head-in-sand-based conflict resolution or the Iranian's lame video/pictorial propaganda about how "sorry" the sailors were (really, for real, guys), which featured a much be-Sharpied map of the Iran/Iraq aqua-divide and a dour-looking Revolutionary Guardsman pointing to the obviously offensive Brit-boat coordinate.
(In other news, Russia plans to build a GPS system to rival our own... Competition is a good thing.)
2. Again we favour Israel bearing arms rather than brown people bearing them. Also from today's Times:
WASHINGTON, April 4 — A major arms-sale package that the Bush administration is planning to offer Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf allies to deter Iran has been delayed because of objections from Israel, which says that the advanced weaponry would erode its military advantage over its regional rivals, according to senior United States officials.
This is the other backbone of American policy: Fucking things up. To prevent dictatorships, Communism, religious radicalism, and anti-selling-us-oil governments in general, we prop up crazy dictators. To prevent war, we sell arms to side X, which makes side Y want to go to war, meaning we have to give more arms to side Z to create an "equilibrium," though it's easy to misinterpret how to do that, and with whom...
3. John Edwards is "roaring" with Christ's power.
Actually, I'm not going to make fun of him, even though I'm all about some Age Of Reason non-theistic (i.e., non-carrot-&-stick-based) morality. Check out this:
I think he would be happy with the fact that I have focused on people who live in poverty here and people without healthcare. And the suffering of others in other parts of the world, like some of the work that I've done on humanitarian issues in Africa, for example, and going to the slums outside of Delhi and India.
Focusing on problems in a very personal way that exist, and without regard to my own selfish ambitions, talking about things that may not seem so politically powerful, but are important to me, and I think important to God.
That sounds about right. Except that talking about morality should be a part of politics, as it once was (see below; buy the book).
Possibly even better is:
Do you think that America is a Christian nation?
...I never thought of it quite that way. There's a lot of America that's Christian. I would not describe us, though, on the whole, as a Christian nation. I guess the word "Christian" is what bothers me, even though I'm a Christian.
Correct/bravo. Can you imagine Pres. John Edwards (and I am an electorally-monogamous Obama man mydamnself) talking to Middle Eastern leaders? I can--more than I can imagine Bush, another serious Christian, doing so. Because, unlike Bush, Edwards seems to have a grasp on the idea of many faiths/one nation, or of the continually self-revising nature of history... Which leads me to:
4. Paul Collins is THE MAN, as is Tom Paine. Best recognize.
You should buy this book by the former/about the latter. Right now.
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
US Priorities = Fucked
1. Africa
...should be a huge priority. Easy-to-slow down or stop human rights crises abound. See: Yesterday's post about Central African Republic. Or check out today's NYTimes, "Showing Mugabe the Door," by PETER GODWIN:
Long story short: Zimbabwe is the poorest, most messed-up country on the planet. And Democrats and Republicans aren't going to do anything to help the people there.
(Check out Alex Cockburn's perfectly motley, perfectly reasoned discussion of latter-day Radicalism, and why he's not a card-carryin' Dem. Then go out and vote Freak Power Party, when I run for NY Senate...)
2. Iraq
Read George Packard's excellent, excellent discussion of how we treat our own allies--or, rather, how we grossly mistreat our own allies in Iraq.
From the article:
3. America
From the NYTimes' "Relatives of Interned Japanese-Americans Side With Muslims," By NINA BERNSTEIN:
Meaning history repeats, because we turn our eyes from it.
4.
We must at least consider--as a nation, from the highest benches of government on down--that the starving, oppressed peoples of Africa might just be worthy of our help, even if such help does not result in any financial or political gain for us. We must consider that we might really have to help them, just because it is the right thing to do. It is the right thing to do in the MLK II/Faulkner/Mos Def sense--the sense that does not take explaining or theorizing or justifying--just doing.
We must consider the fact that, by treating our Iraqi allies in Baghdad badly and replacing them with Jordanians and Uzbeks, we might be harming both the Iraqi people and the American people. We might be placing ourselves at a continually greater risk of terrorist attack by neglecting to follow the advice of the Iraqis who want to help us fix Iraq.
And finally we must treat each and every American citizen as a citizen; in fact, we must treat as citizens even those proto-citizens who are prevented from joining this Union by right wing xenophobics. We must not treat Muslims like terrorists simply because they are Muslims.
Sure, the Quran and Bible and Torah and other religious/doctrinal texts advocate or don't advocate violence against various groups and for various reasons and via various metaphors and with various room for diplomatic out-bowing... But more important than all that hogwashing is the fact that most US Muslims--must Muslims everywhere--aren't "violent" and shouldn't be treated as dangerous outsiders. They pay taxes, watch the Super Bowl and eat at frickin Chucky Cheese, just like everyone else (except Tax Skippin Jimmy) in New Jersey.
Which all leads me to one more short mosaic-piece of information for you to ponder over. O ye who saw Guantánamo: Honorbound to Defend Freedom here at CP, weep! Then stop weeping. Then write your senator, your rep, your local judges, your PTA people, and your President. Just copy the paragraph below and X it out with chicken's blood. (That's called "Bad Bird" houdou.) Anyway, here it is:
5. Sad, Sad Tidings
From the NYTimes' "Supreme Court Denies Guantánamo Appeal," By LINDA GREENHOUSE:
...should be a huge priority. Easy-to-slow down or stop human rights crises abound. See: Yesterday's post about Central African Republic. Or check out today's NYTimes, "Showing Mugabe the Door," by PETER GODWIN:
Zimbabwe lacks the two exports necessary to interest the United States in direct intervention: oil and terrorism. International sanctions on Zimbabwe are now minuscule. We could ramp up “smart sanctions” against Mr. Mugabe and his coterie, for example by freezing their ill-gotten external assets, but any wider sanctions would probably only hurt those at the bottom of the food chain, not the elite kleptocracy. Megaphone diplomacy tends to feed Mr. Mugabe’s portrayal of Western powers as shrill, hectoring, imperialist bullies.
Long story short: Zimbabwe is the poorest, most messed-up country on the planet. And Democrats and Republicans aren't going to do anything to help the people there.
(Check out Alex Cockburn's perfectly motley, perfectly reasoned discussion of latter-day Radicalism, and why he's not a card-carryin' Dem. Then go out and vote Freak Power Party, when I run for NY Senate...)
2. Iraq
Read George Packard's excellent, excellent discussion of how we treat our own allies--or, rather, how we grossly mistreat our own allies in Iraq.
From the article:
From the hotel window, Othman could see the palace domes of the Green Zone directly across the Tigris River. “It’s sad,” he told me. “With all the hopes that we had, and all the dreams, I was totally against the word ‘invasion.’ Wherever I go, I was defending the Americans and strongly saying, ‘America was here to make a change.’ Now I have my doubts.”
Laith was more blunt: “Sometimes, I feel like we’re standing in line for a ticket, waiting to die.”
3. America
From the NYTimes' "Relatives of Interned Japanese-Americans Side With Muslims," By NINA BERNSTEIN:
In recent years, many scholars have drawn parallels and contrasts between the internment of Japanese-Americans after the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the treatment of hundreds of Muslim noncitizens who were swept up in the weeks after the 2001 terror attacks, then held for months before they were cleared of links to terrorism and deported.
But the brief being filed today is a rare case of members of a third generation stepping up to defend legal protections that were lost to their grandparents, and that their parents devoted their lives to reclaiming.
“I feel that racial profiling is absolutely wrong and unjustifiable,” Ms. Yasui, 53, wrote in an e-mail message from San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, where she works as a writer and graphic designer. “That my grandmother was treated by the U.S. government as a ‘dangerous enemy alien’ was a travesty. And it killed my grandfather.”
Meaning history repeats, because we turn our eyes from it.
4.
We must at least consider--as a nation, from the highest benches of government on down--that the starving, oppressed peoples of Africa might just be worthy of our help, even if such help does not result in any financial or political gain for us. We must consider that we might really have to help them, just because it is the right thing to do. It is the right thing to do in the MLK II/Faulkner/Mos Def sense--the sense that does not take explaining or theorizing or justifying--just doing.
We must consider the fact that, by treating our Iraqi allies in Baghdad badly and replacing them with Jordanians and Uzbeks, we might be harming both the Iraqi people and the American people. We might be placing ourselves at a continually greater risk of terrorist attack by neglecting to follow the advice of the Iraqis who want to help us fix Iraq.
And finally we must treat each and every American citizen as a citizen; in fact, we must treat as citizens even those proto-citizens who are prevented from joining this Union by right wing xenophobics. We must not treat Muslims like terrorists simply because they are Muslims.
Sure, the Quran and Bible and Torah and other religious/doctrinal texts advocate or don't advocate violence against various groups and for various reasons and via various metaphors and with various room for diplomatic out-bowing... But more important than all that hogwashing is the fact that most US Muslims--must Muslims everywhere--aren't "violent" and shouldn't be treated as dangerous outsiders. They pay taxes, watch the Super Bowl and eat at frickin Chucky Cheese, just like everyone else (except Tax Skippin Jimmy) in New Jersey.
Which all leads me to one more short mosaic-piece of information for you to ponder over. O ye who saw Guantánamo: Honorbound to Defend Freedom here at CP, weep! Then stop weeping. Then write your senator, your rep, your local judges, your PTA people, and your President. Just copy the paragraph below and X it out with chicken's blood. (That's called "Bad Bird" houdou.) Anyway, here it is:
5. Sad, Sad Tidings
From the NYTimes' "Supreme Court Denies Guantánamo Appeal," By LINDA GREENHOUSE:
WASHINGTON, April 2 — The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear urgent appeals from two groups of detainees at Guantánamo Bay. The 45 men sought to challenge the constitutionality of a new law stripping federal judges of the authority to hear challenges to the open-ended confinement of foreign citizens held at the American naval base in Cuba and designated as enemy combatants.
Monday, April 2, 2007
Preventable Tragedies
From the NYTimes' "Wedged Amid African Crises, a Neglected Nation Suffers," by LYDIA POLGREEN:
The crisis in the Central African Republic is now more than two years old, and the fighting has killed thousands of people and caused hundreds of thousands of the country’s four million people to flee their homes.
Their flight has been so desperate that those who can have run across the border into their troubled neighbors’ territory. About 50,000 people from the northwest have fled into southern Chad, and thousands of residents of the northeastern town of Birao, in a perverse twist, have even fled into the Darfur region of Sudan, where a struggle over power, land and identity has raged since 2003.
Toby Lanzer, the United Nations humanitarian chief in the Central African Republic, said that despite the nation’s desperate poverty, saving lives here, with enough resources, would be relatively easy.
Chad and Sudan are vast, arid nations that have complex ethnic problems, and aid workers have been attacked and stymied by government bureaucracy. Sudan and Chad have both refused United Nations peacekeeping troops, but the Central African Republic has said it would cooperate with an international force.
“This is a place where the international community is welcomed,” Mr. Lanzer said. “It is a country of four million people. We should be able to fix this.”
Safer than Phoenix ?
See Saint McCain take a "stroll" through the marketplace in downtown Baghdad.
You may recall that at the beginning of the week, the "maverick" got into a little trouble for saying that some parts of Baghdad are so safe one can take a stroll without any worries for their safety. He went so far as to lie, I mean say, that even General Petraeus often goes out in un-armored humvees. But when CNN told him that, in fact, the General never goes without fully armored humvees, heavily armed, the "straight talk express" went off the tracks. Not to be outdone by a little 'truth' however, St. McCain decided to visit inside the Green Zone, and then he went out shopping in downtown Baghdad - to prove that we silly Americans are just not understanding how much better things are going over there.
Only problem? When Johnny went walking through Baghdad today he was accompanied by 100 armed soldiers, with three blackhawk helicopters and two apache gunships circling above. And in a totally Dukakis-in-the-tank moment, he took his stroll in a bulletproof vest. Wow, it's just like Main Street in Flagstaff.
It's just too bad that those 6 U.S. soldiers who were killed in Baghdad while McCain went shopping didn't have 100 armed soldiers, three blackhawk helicopters and two apache gunships in tow. Maybe if the U.S. Army wasn't so concerned about protecting the maverick's photo op, they would have protected our soldiers instead. Maybe McCain should call their families personally and apologize for his despicable war.
You may recall that at the beginning of the week, the "maverick" got into a little trouble for saying that some parts of Baghdad are so safe one can take a stroll without any worries for their safety. He went so far as to lie, I mean say, that even General Petraeus often goes out in un-armored humvees. But when CNN told him that, in fact, the General never goes without fully armored humvees, heavily armed, the "straight talk express" went off the tracks. Not to be outdone by a little 'truth' however, St. McCain decided to visit inside the Green Zone, and then he went out shopping in downtown Baghdad - to prove that we silly Americans are just not understanding how much better things are going over there.
Only problem? When Johnny went walking through Baghdad today he was accompanied by 100 armed soldiers, with three blackhawk helicopters and two apache gunships circling above. And in a totally Dukakis-in-the-tank moment, he took his stroll in a bulletproof vest. Wow, it's just like Main Street in Flagstaff.
It's just too bad that those 6 U.S. soldiers who were killed in Baghdad while McCain went shopping didn't have 100 armed soldiers, three blackhawk helicopters and two apache gunships in tow. Maybe if the U.S. Army wasn't so concerned about protecting the maverick's photo op, they would have protected our soldiers instead. Maybe McCain should call their families personally and apologize for his despicable war.
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
that old military industrial machine, rattlin' away again
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children."
President Dwight D. Eisenhower, April 16 1953
President Bush has a bust of Eisenhower in the Oval Office.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower, April 16 1953
President Bush has a bust of Eisenhower in the Oval Office.
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