3800 dead
Keep the number in your head
36,943 maimed
They will never be the same
1.06 million Iraqis 'liberated' from their lives
It was all based on lies
It was all based on lies.
Maggie's on the road with us this week. She had a vacation scheduled and C.I. wondered if she might enjoy coming along. She really has enjoyed it. She said to put this in, "I can't believe how hectic it is. But it a lot of fun and tonight, as soon as my head hits the pillow, I'm going to fall out." She probably will. She did a great job today. She was nervous yesterday because it was the first time she'd spoken about Iraq other than to friends. But she was really great today. This will probably be very brief because I'm going to take her to see some sights so she'll have something other than college campuses to remember when we get back.
Maggie is a very dear friend of mine. I make fun of her ridiculously large purses, her really bad memory, her tendency to get drunk off one glass of wine and her belief that using two envelopes of onion soup mix with a container of sour cream instead of one qualifies as a 'secret recipe' but I love her loads. Maggie and I have been friends since high school and know each other before that. But we didn't like each other before high school. We bonded over an obscure British band (obscure then and more so now) years ago in freshman English.
The thing at the top. C.I., Jess and I were really tired this morning. We grabbed a late night speaking thing yesterday. Ava said she'd take Maggie out to dinner because I really wanted to grab this and Maggie was a bit overwhelmed by her first day of campuses. We all were singing from campus to campus. And without the radio. Just tossing out favorite songs and having everyone joining along. At one point, during a quiet moment, C.I. was humming and I asked what song that was? C.I. was, "Huh?" It was a melody C.I. came up with.
Jess put "3800 dead" to it and the three of us ended up coming up with lyrics. Just as we were headed to next the campus. There were several stanzas. Maggie loved it and said we should sing it at the next campus so we did. Anything to shake things up. Ava and Maggie did "3800 dead" with us at the beginning and then just repeated that throughout.
Without the melody, it misses a lot, I know. But it really went over well. We ended up using it at two more campuses. And it set the tone for the discussion that followed.
Mike saw it in the snapshot and must have called immediately. He guesses, since there was no credit, this was something that had been thought up on the road. We sang the full thing to him over the phone. On campus, we just sang the part at the top. And at the last two, we sang it at the start and at the end because we were asked to. And at the end, students were singing along with the obvious lines. "It was all based on lies." It was kind of funny because the number of wounded always threw everyone and you'd hear "Hmmmms . . . maimed!"
But usually, C.I. opens with a few things and C.I. can do that. I couldn't. I couldn't open cold. C.I. sets the mood then the rest of us along talk about something and we go around so everyone (students -- or women if it's a women's group) can speak.
So this just really got a focus from the start and a charge. The discussions were these huge rushes of words, these explosions. Usually, you have a few people who are comfortable speaking right off the bat and others need a bit more time or will speak haltingly. This really charged everyone up and it was non-stop, speed talking.
3800 dead in the 'cakewalk' is a huge big deal. And I think sometimes we can get so used to it that we need to find new ways of getting the point across. Singing it did that today.
Closing with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Tuesday, September 25, 2007. Chaos and violence continues, the 3800 mark has been reached for US service members who have died in the illegal war, cholera -- forgotten by the press but stil raging in Iraq, Jame Burmeister was talking about the "kill teams" in June but where were All Things Media Big and Small, and more.
Starting with war resistance and starting with James Burmeister who shared his story with Maria Hinojosa PBS' NOW with David Brancaccio (first broadcast August 24th in most PBS markets -- click here for transcript and here for a/v). 23-year-old Burmeister explained why he signed up: "I always wanted to do something that would be a big help and it seemed like the perfect thing." The segment focused on Burmeister and Agustin Aguayo and though Aguayo explained how his opinion changed while serving Iraq. Burmeister? Tape exists of why he changed his mind. It didn't make the final cut. NOW with David Brancaccio could air that footage or post it online and be seen as 'up to the minute' because one of the reasons Burmeister . Instead, we skip over reasons for his opposition and are taken to "James saw only two options either go back to Iraq or go AWOL" with Burmeister going to Canada May 4th. [At this site, screen cap is included and community member Eddie provided it. It's used in Ava and my TV commentary from August 26, 2007.]
What's missing from the story? It's a story told on Canada's CBC if not PBS. Click here for summary (which includes audio link as well) of the June 29th interview.
James Burmeister: Myself, I was a Calvary scout. We do a lot of reconnaissance, mapping out, a lot of raids. Our platoon in particular would set up small groups called "Platoon Kill Teams" -- maybe a group of four, five people, some snipers and we would set up fake cameras, we would put "Property of US government" in English and Arabic and we would wait for an Iraqi to come up and touch it because that gives the US the right to kill them -- so they say. That would be the typical thing we would do.
Rob Benzie: You called this baiting. Is that right?
James Burmeister: Definitely.
"Baiting." In the news this week. The Washington Post yesterday, the New York Times today and it could have been PBS in August -- if they'd aired the video. They didn't. And they couldn't tell you why Burmeister turned against the illegal war without airing the video of that section of the interview. Back to the CBC interview.
James Burmeister: It had a lot to do with the small kill teams which really bothered me. I didn't see how that was helping at all. We would roll around in the streets of Baghdad looking for a fight, and go into the danger areas and wait for somebody to shoot just so we could shoot somebody else. When I was back in Germany, after my six months there, I had threats to lie about my medical situation. At that point . . .
Rob Benzie: What took you to Germany after Iraq?
James Burmeister: I was actually injured in a bomb blast. I was a gunner on top of a Humvee and we were going up and down the same route several times something that you never should do in a combat situation. Bomb just blew up to the left side of the truck, knocked me out, I lost the hearing in my right ear, some shrapnel in my face and they decided to send me back on two weeks of leave instead of actually sending me to a hospital and so I had to go back and on my two weeks of leave had to do all my own hospital work on my own time. Eventually, I got my leave extended but after, after awhile they started to threaten me to lie about my medical situation or else they were just going to destroy my life. You know, they really wanted to get me back.
Rob Benzie: So you decided to leave?
James Burmeister: Definitely. I kind of had the idea in my mind a little bit but it wasn't a certain thing, Definitely after the threats and I had all these doubts about the war. That was it for me.
Kill squads. Platoon Kill Teams. Due to the fact that cases are going on right now, court-martials, the mainstream press is semi-talking about Kill Teams. They're zooming in on 'materials' of interest to 'insurgents' being left out. That is not reality.
Now if war resisters were covered, this would have been a news topic some time ago. But war resistance isn't covered and in terms of any coverage at all, it's done better by big media than small if you're looking volume. PBS remains the only American national outlet to interveiw Burmeister. Some papers in his the area he grew up in interviewed as well. But All Things Media Big and Small took a pass. For most of them, it was the same pass they've taken since the start of the illegal war.
In this morning's New York Times, Paul von Zielbauer reports on the "testimony presented in a military court" which some might argue is also known as "transcription." PvZ notes "soldiers testifying for the defense have said the sniper team was employing a 'baiting program' developed at the Pentagon by the Asymmetrical Warfare Group, which met with Ranger sniper teams in Iraq in January and gave equipment to them." Human Rights Watch weighs in their general useless manner (and demonstrates their ignorance with regards to war resisters -- no surprise). Jorge G. Sandoval Jr., Michael A. Hensley and Evan Vela are the three US service members facing punishment -- and if more were public about the program, many higher ups would probably also be facing charges. Across the Atlantic, the BBC demonstrates the stupidity (willfrul or just a natural state) isn't confined to the US as they note that the US military will not confirm or deny the program's existance and cite military flack Paul Boyce as delcaring that using "drop weapons" would not "appear legally justified, as the three snipers are accused of doing." For those who paid attention, the wording is that way because the military is saying, "OH NO! We didn't okay that! But we're not going to go into what we did say and thank goodness no one uses Canada's CBC as a trusted news source so no one will ever raise the important issue!"
On the subject of war resistance, The Fayetteville Observer interviewed Chuck Fager last weekend. Fager is the director of the area's Quaker House and he reported that in 2002 there were 3,000 phone calls asking for assistance while in 2006 the number of calls had trippled to 9,000 "[a]nd most of the months this year have set records for each month. As of the end of May, we have received 4,320 calls". Fager explained that they were "getting more and more calls about (AWOL) . . . sometimes from people who are thinking about it and sometimes from people who already are."
There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes Derek Hess, Brad McCall, Justin Cliburn, Timothy Richard, Robert Weiss, Phil McDowell, Steve Yoczik, Ross Spears, Zamesha Dominique, Jared Hood, James Burmeister, Eli Israel, Joshua Key, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Carla Gomez, Luke Kamunen, Leif Kamunen, Leo Kamunen, Camilo Mejia, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Agustin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Abdullah Webster, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder, Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko,Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Dale Bartell, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Chris Capps, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake, Christopher Mogwai, Christian Kjar, Kyle Huwer, Vincent La Volpa, DeShawn Reed and Kevin Benderman. In total, forty-one US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.
Information on war resistance within the military can be found at The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline [(877) 447-4487], Iraq Veterans Against the War and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters. Tom Joad maintains a list of known war resisters.
The 3800 marker has been reached. Today the US military announced, "A Task Force Lightning Soldier was killed in Diyala Province, Tuesday, when an explosion occured near his vehicle." 3800 US service members have been announced killed in the illegal war. As noted Sunday in "Editorial: Buying the illegal war" (The Third Estate Sunday Review): "In the November 2006 elections, Democrats were put back in charge of both houses of Congress with a mandate to end the illegal war. The session of the 110th Congress started on January 3rd. On January 4th, the first announced death to take place after Dems were sworn in was made ("A Multi-National Division - Baghdad patrol was attacked by small arms fire, killing one Soldier in the western part of the Iraqi capital today.") and that took the number of US service members to die in the illegal war to 3006. His name was Charles D. Allen." 3005 before Dems were sworn in, put in control of both houses. 3800 today. 795 deaths while they have been in power and they continue to fund the illegal war, they refuse to use the filibuster to end the funding, they've done nothing but pass 'symbolic' measures -- such as when they 'symbolically' agreed they weren't in favor of the escalation (aka "the surge").
3800 dead
Keep the number in your head
36,943 maimed
They will never be the same
1.06 million Iraqis 'liberated' from their lives
It was all based on lies
It was all based on lies.
Turning to the land of 'progress,' 'democracy' and 'liberation' -- Iraq. A McClatchy Newspapers' Iraqi correspondent observes (at Inside Iraq) the realities for Iraqi women since the start of the illegal war, the loss of rights, and wonders, "Why?? Why have we lost our rights? For what have we been pushed back into the dark ages? How can this be liberation if my daughter has fewer rights than I did at her age? If she has less control over her life than I did? Fewer choices than even her grandmother had?" Fewer choices. Jay Price (McClatchy Newspapers) writes of the rash of burn victims (female) showing up in Kurdistan with many assumed to be suicide attempts (most of which are successful -- and many confess they were suicide attempts). Why set yourself on fire with kerosene? Don't you remember? Newsweek said it was a trend! And fashionable! And just something little romantic teenager 'girls' do. They do love their (false) trend stories at Newsweek. Price writes, "The common factor, though, was usually the traditional, patriarchal culture, which often leaves women feeling powerless in dealings with husbands, fathers or even brothers. That powerlessness is magnified when a girl marries young and comes under a husband's domination before she has a chance to learn much about life, Monsour said." Meanwhile, AKI reports that a "newly formed women's caucus" in the parliament is attempting to apply prssure on the issue of assisting "victims of the war in Iraq, including widows and orphans, war victims' families and Iraqi refugee".
.
Let's drop back to yesterday's snapshot:
In news of other attacks, Reuters reports a the targeting of various officials such as Sunday's Kut attack aimed at the police chief of the Wasit province (two bodyguards were injured) that continue today with a bombing targeting the police chief of Kirkuk (two bodyguards wounded) and an attack on the mayor of Kirkuk (1 bodyguard killed, seven wounded). Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reveals there were more officials targeted "General Secretary of the National Accordance Group, Najaf Branch, Adel Waheed Abood was targeted by gunmen and sustained two bullets this morning; one in the neck and another in the shoulder. The Health Department in Najaf says his condition is critical. He was a nominee for the position of Governor in Najaf governorate."
That would be a trend. A continuing trend and one that alert reporters should pick up on and immediately flashback to the months of June and July 2003 when resistance seemed unthinkable to so many enlisted in Operation Happy Talk. Edward E. Kramer (New York Times) sees a trend in an attack on a 'reconciliation banquet'. The trend to watch is the escalating attacks outside the capital directed at those in charge of protecting and governing provinces. Such as AP's report this morning on the bombing attack of "police headquarters . . . in Basra" that claimed the lives of at least 3 Iraqi police officers. Or how about this? Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports, "The head of the local council of Hawija town Hussein Ali Salih was injured with one of his guards and a third civilian when a suicide car bomb targeted the convoy of Salih near Al Mahmoudiyah fuel station in Hawija town west of Kirkuk today afternoon." and "An IED exploded near the house of one of the officers of the 1st battalion, the 2nd Iraqi army brigade in Hawiha town yesterday night." and (this is all Hammoudi), "A gunman killed one of the military commandeers of the PUK Party today afternoon. The police said that Col. Ali Simeen, the commander of the emergency battalion of Bashmarga (Kurdish military troops) in Tuz Khurmatu town was killed in front of his house inside Kifri district south of Kirkuk city." And Reuters reports a "bomber wearing an explosives belt blew himself up near a police colonel, wounding the officer and nine others in Mosul." On the Basra attack, Deborah Haynes (Times of London) notes, "The suicide bomber approached al-Ashar police station as trainees were taking part in a morning demonstration outside the front, police said. A guard saw him and opened fire but failed to stop the car from detonating. Police said that three trainees were killed and seventeen wounded. Major Shearer said that only one member of the Iraqi security forces had been killed, along with two civilians, while a number of others were injured."
On the bombing Monday that Kramer was recounting, Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) observered today, "In news from Iraq, up to 25 people died on Monday when a suicide bomber blew himself up inside a mosque during a reconciliation meeting between a Shiite and Sunni militia. The suicide bomber struck in the mixed village of Shifta, outside Baquba. Baquba's police chief died in the attack. Meanwhile in Baghdad, residents of the Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City say US forces have raided a number of houses. One civilian died in the raids. Iraq Resident: 'We are poor people. We do not have oil! We do not have anything! They took everything from us and in addition to all these things, they attacked us (repeatedly). Why did they do this to us? What did those innocent people do? They burnt out this generator (points), which supply us with electricity'."
Returning to today's violence . . .
Bombings?
Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports three police officers were wonded in a downtown Baghdad bombing,and two Baghdad car bombings claimed 2 lives and left twelve wounded. Reuters reports a Khaldiya bombing killed a police office and a Falluja roadside bombing claimed the life of 1 police officer and left a second injured.
Kidnappings?
Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports an Iraqi contractor was kidnapped in Kirkuk.
Corpses?
Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 8 corpses were discovered in Baghdad.
Reuters notes one corpses discovered in Kirkuk.
Meanwhile the World Health Organization remembers the cholera breakout that the press has forgotten. WHO announced today that "more than 30,000 people have fallen ill with acute watery diarrhoea, among which 2,116 were identified as positive for Vibrio cholerae. The case fatality rate is 0.52% and has remained low throughout the outbreak, although it continues to spread across Iraq and dissemination to as yet unaffected areas remains highly possible. The oubreak was first detected in Kirkuk province, where 68% of laboratory-confirmed cholera cases have so far been reported, and then spread to Sulaymaniah and Erbil provinces. Additional isolated cases of cholera have also been identified in other parts of the country, including Tikrit (6 cases confirmed), Mosul (2 cases confirmed), Basra (1 case confirmed), Baghdad (2 cases confirmed) and Dahuk (1 case confirmed)."
Meanwhile, over the weekend came news that's gotten very little attention in the US press. KUNA reported another threat of withdrawal from the US installed government in Iraq and one that might make more waves than usual since it was from the Accord Front and the threat of withdrawal came from Iraq's president Tareq al-Hashemi who declared the intentions of his bloc and himself to withdraw stating they would not "be marginalized" and that, "Now we have withdrawn from the Iraqi government, but we will quite the presidency and the parliament in case our talks with the government reached a dead end". Among the issues include Aghai Farhadi, the Iranian delegate arrested by US forces on Thursday. CBS and AP report that Talabni is still raising the issue of the Iranian delegate: "President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd who has been one of America's staunchest allies in Iraq, called it 'illegal' and said he met with American leaders to demand the Iranian's release. He said the Americans did not have the right to arrest somebody inside the autonomous Kurdish area in northern Iraq because the U.S. had handed over security responsibilities to the Kurds. 'Arresting a person inside the Kurdish region is illegal because the security file was handed over to the Kurdish government months ago,' he said."
In other legal news, the issue of Blackwater has seen the puppet Nouri al-Maliki -- following pressure from the US government -- to back down. No surprise. He is now willing to disown the report his own government produced and hop in bed with the White House for the white wash. However, that's not all of the story just yet. Alexandra Zavis (Los Angeles Times) reports that a law which "would strip local and foreign security companies of their immunity" -- given to them by Paul Bremer -- "has been submitted to a state committee for legal vetting". BBC notes: "The new code would require contractors to be subject to Iraqi law and to be monitored by the Iraqi government. The draft is being considered by the consultative State Shura Council before being passed to parliament for debate."
iraq
james burmeister
democracy nowamy goodman
karen deyoungthe washington postjoshua partlowjosh white
mcclatchy newspapersthe new york times
andrew e. kramer
now with david branccaciopbs
the los angeles timesalexandra zavis
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Monday, September 24, 2007
Disappointments
Where is the review? I made the mistake of checking the members e-mails account.
That's a two-part story. I wrote a very, very long review of Ben Harper's new CD (which I love). It wasn't working. It needed editing. I told C.I. and asked for help.
C.I. looked at it during breaks in The Third Estate Sunday Review and said, "The sixth paragraph is the opening." I looked at it and that's true. So I was prepared for the rewrite but there wasn't time. The plan was I would go over to C.I.'s Sunday night and work on it while C.I. did "And the war drags on." Which I did.
Here's the second part. We're getting ready to work on and cutting up each paragraph. Seriously. That's how we were doing it. Each paragraph was cut out and pasted on a piece of typing paper so I could make notes below it after we'd rearranged each paragraph's order. (Or each one I thought was worth including.)
Mike called and C.I. put him on speaker.
At that point, I said screw the review. I felt bad because the plan was it would go up Monday morning and if C.I. was tired, that could be one of the morning entries.
But Mike was upset. He got an e-mail from someone he's praised forever and it was the meanest e-mail you could imagine. Mike was hoping it was a put on. It wasn't. It was for real.
Elaine's "Not in the mood tonight" is already up. I read it and called her. Mike's still working on his post. I'm sure it will be wonderful (and I'll link to it tomorrow night if it's not up before I get done with this post). I can't believe that Dave Zirin is such a suck ass personality.
What a rude ass he is. And a stupid one too because I don't think I've ever met anyone who loved his work as much as Mike. When he's been on KPFA out here, there are usually jokes from people listening. It's a given. If he comes up someone's making fun of him. (He's always too on. Like a child star.)
But Mike thought the world of him. And when he was telling C.I. and I about the e-mail last night, he kept hoping it was a joke. It wasn't a joke.
I once slept with Corey Hart. I've slept with many big names. But in the 80s I slept with Corey Hart. Once. This was out of the US and at a casino. (He wasn't playing cards. Maybe roulette. It was a long, long time ago.) He was a hot number in the 80s. He probably still is. But he had a kind of poppy image. He was probably drunk, I was wasted. And I was flattered. (He was gorgeous. He probably still is.) I wasn't expecting much because I've slept with 'rock gods' and many -- though not all -- were disappointments. Corey Hart is actually a very good lover. If I'd been lucky, it would have been more than a one night stand. (That's not "We could have married!" But another roll in the sack would've been nice.)
But the point here, the point in sharing the story, is that some people surprise you pleasantly (like Corey Hart -- seriously, he's gifted) and other people surprise you unpleasantly (too many to list).
Corey Hart deserves credit for being an exceptional surprise. But most of the time, you end up let down, hugely let down.
You find out that someone's great on stage but no big shakes in the bed. And maybe they rush right through it. Or they're through in one thrust. (I'm thinking of one rock name.) (I wasn't a groupie. But if a guy -- rock star or store clerk -- is hot and he's interested in me, I have no problem doing the deed. In my first review at The Common Ills, I noted I was a sexual being.)
When I was doing my brief period as a rock journalist (or 'journalist'), it wasn't like Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous. The highs were higher and the lows were much, much lower. (I really enjoy Almost Famous, by the way. It's one of my favorite American films of this decade.)
So I know about the let down. And I know who Elaine's writing about that stinks. He does still stink, she's right. It's not drugs. If it was drugs, he'd have died years and years ago. (And for the record, when I got to cover the Stones, Keith Richards didn't stink. And I doubt anyone did more drugs than Keith Richards.)
I thought a lot about what happened last night. For me, the closest would be Ann Wilson of Heart. She's immensely gifted with one of the best voices in rock. And she really seems grounded and like a real person. It would be like, for me, hearing from Ann Wilson with her screaming at me, "You just wrote that I was immensely gifted! I'm tremendously and immensely gifted! How dare you! I demand a retraction!"
And I thought a lot about how furious C.I. is. Rebecca's right, you don't go after Mike or Wally. C.I. is hugely protective of them. And it's because they're so young. C.I. would be upset if that happened to any of us, but the fact that it's Mike and that the asshole is someone Mike not only liked but praised like crazy . . . And it's 'bad manners.' When C.I. says something is 'bad manners,' you know C.I.'s pissed. But it is bad manners. And if someone really likes your work, really champions it, you really shouldn't behave the way Dave Zirin did. He reminds me of a rock star who humiliated a room full of groupies (I was never a groupie, I was in the hotel room for a story). It was just an abuse of the admiration they had for him. I feel Zirin did the same thing.
I think he's disgusting.
Okay, I'm lazy. Here's who I've mentioned:
Mike of Mikey Likes It!,
Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz,
Wally of The Daily Jot,
Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude,
and C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review
I'm not working on the review tonight. Sorry. I really am bothered about the way Mike was treated. It and Joni Mitchell will be up this weekend and, yes, that is a promise. Short of being taken to the emergency room, both will be up this weekend. And Joni's out tomorrow. You've got to get her CD. I can't stop listening. Closing with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Monday, September 24, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, is anyone paying attention to the attacking of province officials, the US military announces another death, the 3800 mark looms, the US military is ordered to escort families out of a neighborhood thereby assisting armed thugs, and more.
Starting with war resistance. The new chair of IVAW Camilo Mejia told his story in Road from Ar Ramadi: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Mejia, tracing his awakening to the illegal war as he served in it. Elizabeth Wrigley-Field reviews it in the September-October issue of ISR (the review is not currently available online, pages 73-74) noting, "Most of the book recounts Mejia's five months as a staff sergeant and leader of a nine-person squad in Iraq. This account is invaluable not only because it presents a picture of the reality of the occupation -- infused, from the very beginning, with racism, brutality, and incompetence -- but also because it helps us understand the process through which soldiers can become resisters." In Road from Ar Ramadi: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Mejia, Mejia concludes his story with the kangaroo court-martial and notes what he told the court:
We're all on trial. Not just me, sitting here, but everybody here in uniform, everybody in this country. . . . War crimes? Abuse of prisoners? The U.S. Army? No. A few privates, perhaps, one sergeant; they did that. They did that because they didn't have the courage to do what I did, because they were lost in a situation where it's hard to tell the difference between right and wrong. Perhaps they were afraid not to do what they were told by people who are higher ranking. Perhaps they decided that it was easier to do what everybody else was doing. So now it's easier to judge these people and put them on trial and blame it on them. . . . I'm not saying they're not responsible. They have some responsibility, just like I have some responsibility for the things I did in Iraq. Of course I do. But if we really want to look at ourselves as military and we really want to keep our pride and honor as a military, then we have to start from the top.
At which point the 'judge' interrupts. The same 'judge' that refused to let arguments of the legalities of the illegal war be raised and felt that -- pay attention -- the judiciary had no oversight over the military -- that was something to be left to the Executive and Legislative branches. That's real cute and I'm sure there are other matters that the two branches wish the judiciary would sit out. Wrigley-Field concludes of the book, "Mejia was the first. But he wasn't the last and there are many more to come. We have much to learn from his story."
A Matter Of Conscience is a new documentary about the illegal war and Kevin and Monica Benderman's strength when Kevin realized he was a conscientious objector. Like Mejia, Kevin Benderman is among the early war resisters. A preview of the documentary is available at YouTube. More information on the film can be found at Kevin Benderman's website. A Matter of Conscience: GI Resistance During the Vietnam War is a project by William Short and Willa Seidenberg (an incredible project) and, to be clear, that's not this documentary. (There are other items with that title, I believe Kevin Benderman also wrote a column with that title.) If you're interested in purchasing a copy of the documentary, e-mail Earl Brackett (Minehead Productions) at minehead@triad.rr.com
War resister and Iraq veteran James Burmeister, his wife Angelique and their son Cornell went to Canada. Burmeister has repeatedly spoken about his job in Iraq, the US military assigned him the duty of setting "traps" -- equipment left laying out so that any Iraqi who touched it could be shot for touching US property. Burmeister is far from the only veteran of the illegal worker to speak of this. Today the topic makes the mainstream. Josh White and Joshua Partlow (Washington Post) report that "military court documents" reveal this was being done to provide Iraq targets for "U.S. military snipers" and they note: "'Baiting is putting an object out there that we know they will use, with the intention of destroying the enemy,' Capt. Matthew P. Didier, the leader of an elite sniper scout platoon attached to the 1st Battalion of the 501st Infantry Regiment, said in a sworn statement. 'Basically, we would put an item out there and watch it. If someone found the item, picked it up and attempted to leave with the item, we would engage the individual as I saw this as a sign they would use the item against U.S. Forces.' In documents obtained by The Washington Post from family members of the accused soldiers, Didier said members of the U.S. military's Asymmetric Warfare Group visited his unit in January and later passed along ammunition boxes filled with the 'drop items' to be used 'to disrupt the AIF [Anti-Iraq Forces] attempts at harming Coalition Forces and give us the upper hand in a fight'."
There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes Derek Hess, Brad McCall, Justin Cliburn, Timothy Richard, Robert Weiss, Phil McDowell, Steve Yoczik, Ross Spears, Zamesha Dominique, Jared Hood, James Burmeister, Eli Israel, Joshua Key, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Carla Gomez, Luke Kamunen, Leif Kamunen, Leo Kamunen, Camilo Mejia, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Agustin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Abdullah Webster, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder, Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko,Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Dale Bartell, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Chris Capps, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake, Christopher Mogwai, Christian Kjar, Kyle Huwer, Vincent La Volpa, DeShawn Reed and Kevin Benderman. In total, forty-one US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.
Information on war resistance within the military can be found at The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline [(877) 447-4487], Iraq Veterans Against the War and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters. Tom Joad maintains a list of known war resisters.
Catching up from the weekend. The mercenaries of Blackwater went back to work in Iraq. Andrew E. Kramer (New York Times) wrote about that and the headline writer billed it with that but Kramer's real news was buried deep in the article. Background. Friday, Leila Fadel (McClatchy Newspapers) blogged at Baghdad Observer about the death of Hammoundi Naji "his cousin and another man" shot dead while enroute home in the Washash section of Baghdad. Fadel calls Naji "a top Mahdi Army leader" and the deaths resulted in a home invasion -- conducted by the Mahdia Army (think thugs) -- in which four women were slaughtered. Now we're up to Kramer's report in Saturday's New York Times where he reports that as retaliation against the killing of Naji, the Mahdi Army began clearing out the Washash section of Baghdad forcing "[b]etween 50 and 100 Sunni families" (families -- not individuals) to abandon their homes and flee as the thugs went through the neighborhoods with "loudspeakers, telling people to leave" and not just in full view of the US military, with the assistance of the US military. One of the newly created refugees, Sheik Abu Hasan, declares, "What shocked us a lot was that as soon as we reached the main streets, we saw Iraqi and American forces who were showing and directing us to the highway." The US military was used to assist with forced evictions (non-legal ones) and not to protect the people. The myth that the US is preserving anything should have long ago shattered. The US armed and trained the Shi'ites while banishing the Sunnis, they created the division that exists by making their first question to Iraqis: "Are you Sunni or Shia?", and the continued presence breeds the hostility and violence. Ned Parker (Los Angeles Times) reported that "small gangs from the Mahdi Army hunted down Sunnis across the district. Anywhere from five to 20 people were killed, and byFriday afternoon, at least 30 Sunni families had fled Washash. Violence continued Saturday as a Sunni man was pulled out of a car and shot to death. Naji, a man viewed by many as a criminal, had ignited another chapter in Iraq's civil war."
Turning to the topic of Blackwater. Sabrina Tavernise and James Glanz (New York Times) continued their writing in service of the US State Dept on Sunday declaring that the real tragedy of Blackwater's slaughtering Iraqis the Sunday before last was that US embassy staff couldn't travel freely outside the Green Zone. Oooh. That was the really tragedy. Not at least 11 innocent Iraqis (including an infant) killed by US mercenaries. It's the US embassy being on Green Zone confinement. Now the US State Dept employees are not normally doing the congo through Ramadi. So what's really going on? US service members are interviewing eye witnesses about the slaughter Blackwater conducted, US service members who have no love for mercenaries and aren't prone to lie for them the way the US State Dept would. A real problem after the US government managed to push around the puppet government on the Blackwater issue (we'll get to it). Tavernise and Glanz's punch line is "American officials have privately cautioned against drawing early conclusions." Many conclusions can already be drawn. Tony Allen-Mills (Times of London) quotes Jeremy Scahill making one clear conclusion: "There have been 64 US soldiers court martialled on murder-related charges in Iraq. There hasn't been a single prosecution of an armed contractor under civilians or military law." Al Jazeera reported yesterday that despite puppet Nouri al-Maliki's strong words last week, the strings have been pulled, the puppet directed back in line: "The Iraqi government has made a U-turn on threats to kick out US security firm Blackwater. Instead, the US and Iraqi governments have started a joint investigation of security contractors following Blackwater's alleged involvement in the killing of 11 Iraqi civilians and the wounding of 12." Despite the strings being visible (and then some), al-Maliki's trying to put up a front. Alissa J. Rubin and Andrew E. Kramer (New York Times) report that al-Maliki is calling the slaughter (still) "a challenge to the nation's sovereignty".
Scahill, author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, appeared on Democracy Now! this morning. Amy Goodman summarized the latest events by noting that today "the Iraqi government said it will await the outcome of an investigation into last Sunday's killing of at least eleven people by Blackwater USA before taking any action against the company." Jeremy Scahill observed, "I mean, I think that the fact that Blackwater mercenaries are heavily armed and on the streets of Iraq is perhaps the greatest indicator of how the Bush administration defines Iraqi sovereignty. And it was initially left up to Iraqi spokespeople to explain that Blackwater would be back on the street. And the reason that they gave -- and it clearly had come from Condoleezza Rice -- is that it would create a security vacuum. I have never heard a more ridiculous statement. It's Blackwater that's created the security vacuum for Iraqi civilians, as many as twenty-eight of whom were gunned down last Sunday in Al-Nisoor Square in the Mansour section of Baghdad. And what we're seeing is that, at the highest levels of government, Maliki has now stuck his neck out. And how it plays in Washington is one thing, but how it plays in Iraq is a very different one . You have the entire Iraqi cabinet and Muqtada al-Sadr demanding that Blackwater be expelled from the country. In fact, many Iraqi politicians are calling for all of these mercenary forces to be expelled from Iraq. This is perhaps one of the greatest crises of the occupation to date. And right now, Condoleezza Rice is clearly acting as though she's the president of Iraq. The idea that you can have twenty-eight people gunned down including -- and we understand the shooting began when Blackwater operatives fired on an Iraqi vehicle, killing the driver. Then they launched, according to witnesses, some kind of a flamed grenade at the car and engulfed it in flames. And inside was a mother with her infant child. And that's when the shooting began. And Iraqi witnesses, survivors, say that it was a melee, where Blackwater guys were just indiscriminately firing in the streets."
Blackwater's big business. They are hardly the only one raking in the big bucks in Iraq. Ginger Thompson and Eric Schmitt (New York Times) report, "Pentagon officials are investigating some $6 billion in military contracts, most covering supplies as varied as bottled water, tents and latrines for troops in Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan. The inquiries have resulted in charges against at least 29 civilians and soldiers, more than 75 other criminal investigations and the suicides of at least two officers. They have prompted the Pentagon, the largest purchasing agency in the world, to overhaul its war-zone procurement system." Big business? Alan Greenspan -- providing excuses since the beginning of creation. Today Greenspan appeared on Democracy Now! along with Naomi Klein whose The Shock Doctrine: The Rise Of Disaster Capitalism was released in the US last Tuesday.
From the forum conducted by DN! anchor Amy Goodman:
AMY GOODMAN: We're also joined in studio by Naomi Klein, author of the book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Your response to that, Naomi Klein?
NAOMI KLEIN: Well, I'm just wondering if it troubles Mr. Greenspan at all that wars over resources in other countries are actually illegal. Mr. Greenspan has praised the rule of law, the importance of the rule of law, in his book. But in his statements about the reasons why this has not been publicly discussed, he has said that it's not politically expedient at this moment. But it's not just that it's not politically expedient, Mr. Greenspan. Are you aware that, according to the Hague Regulations and the Geneva Conventions, it is illegal for one country to invade another over its natural resources?
ALAN GREENSPAN: No. What I was saying is that the issue which, as you know, most people who were pressing for the war were concerned with were weapons of mass destruction. I personally believed that Saddam was behaving in a way that he probably very well had, almost certainly had, weapons of mass destruction. I was surprised, as most, that he didn't. But what I was saying is that my reason for being pleased to see Saddam out of office had nothing to do with the weapons of mass destruction. It had to do with the potential threat that he could create to the rest of the world.
NAOMI KLEIN: Yes, I realize that, but he was not simply deposed. The US invaded Iraq, occupied it and took control over its resources. And under international law, that it is illegal to wage wars to gain access to other countries', sovereign countries', natural resources.
In news of other attacks, Reuters reports a the targeting of various officials such as Sunday's Kut attack aimed at the police chief of the Wasit province (two bodyguards were injured) that continue today with a bombing targeting the police chief of Kirkuk (two bodyguards wounded) and an attack on the mayor of Kirkuk (1 bodyguard killed, seven wounded). Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reveals there were more officials targeted "General Secretary of the National Accordance Group, Najaf Branch, Adel Waheed Abood was targeted by gunmen and sustained two bullets this morning; one in the neck and another in the shoulder. The Health Department in Najaf says his condition is critical. He was a nominee for the position of Governor in Najaf governorate."
In news of other violence . . .
Bombings?
Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports Baghdad mortar attacks with one claiming the lives of 2 children while wounding their parents and a Kirkuk car bombing that left two people wounded. AFP reports a Baquba bombing in "a mosque during a reconciliation meeting between two feared militias . . . killing at least 18 people." And -- remember the targeting of officials? -- BBC reports that among the dead in Baquba was the police chief Brig. Gen. Ali Dalyan.
Shootings?
Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a woman on a bus returning home with other employees of the Rafidain Bank was shot dead.
Corpses?
Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 12 corpses were discovered in Baghdad.
Today the US military announced (PDF format warning): "A Task Force Lightning Soldier died of wounds sustained from enemy gunfire in Salah ad Din Province, Monday." The press release brought to 3799 announced deaths in the illegal war since it began in March 2003. One away from the 3800 mark.
Today on WBAI's Law and Disorder, co-hosts Heidi Boghosian and Michael Smith spoke with Matthew Rothschild about his new book You Have No Rights: Stories of America In An Age of Repression. (Co-hosts Michael Ratner and Dalia Hashad were not part of the interview.)
Michael Smith: Matthew Rothschild, what kind of stuff are the Bushies doing to students who are students like you and me and Heidi [were] on campus these days?
Matthew Rothschild: Well that's the other thing. We're going back to the days of COINTELPRO. We're going back to where the police and the feds have undercover people at our rallies. I mean, this shouldn't be happening but it is. I mean at Drake University, for instance, in Des Moines, Iowa -- and I was out in Des Moines recently -- there was, as far back as 2003, November of 2003, which gives you a sense as to how long we've been doing this peace activism -- there was a peace conference there on campus sponsored by the National Lawyers Guild local chapter and they were saying "Bring Our Troops Home! Bring Our National Guard Home!" Well that rally was infilitrated by sherrif's deputies who were there undercover and at that rally evidently the prosecutors weren't happy that peace activists were doing their thing including people from Catholic Peaceministries and Quakers. So the local DA started to issue subpoenas to everybody under the sun including the National Lawyers Guild, including to Drake with gag orders attached to the subpeonas and fortunately the protestors there were able to make enough noise about this prosecutorial excess that the prosecutor withdrew subpeonas.
Heidi Boghosian: And then, Matthew, they wanted to, they asked for our membership lists, they wanted our membership lists.
That's a portion of the interview. Many other topics are covered. Boghosian is the executive director of the National Lawyers Guild (Michael Smith is a member of that and many other attorney organizations fighting for the rights of people) and she is also the author of Punishing Protest (available online in PDF format for free and avaible in book format for $3 at the National Lawyers Guild website) which came out a few weeks ago. Smith, Boghosian and Dalia Hashad are members of the Center for Constitutional Rights and Michael Ratner is the president. CCR is receiving an award this Friday from the War Resisters League, a peace award. Boghosian noted today that Michael Ratner will be accepting the award. The event will be held at the New York Society for Ethical Culture at 2 West 64th, NYC and will
begin at 7:30 with a panel -- tickets are ten dollars [there are events scheduled before and after the panel, for more information call (212) 228-0450)]. Dan Berrigan, Sister Diana Ortiz, Deepa Fernades (Wakeupcall Radio; Fernandez will host the event) and many others will be present.
Quickly, politics. As Trina noted this weekend, "Monday night, Dennis Kucinich will be a guest on The Tonight Show on NBC. (If you're a Diana Krall or fan of 'The Rock,' they are also schedule to appear.)" WalkOn ran an ad that wasn't objectional, 'immoral' or anything shocking. They are under attack which is an attack on free speech and a further step along the way towards complete militarization of the United States. Donna Saggia (CounterPunch) gets it exactly right noting that, "Alarm bells should be ringing louder than ever in progressive circles as Congress, not content with forgeiting its powers to the unitary executive, has now decided to let the military plan foreign policy. . . . In some ways the Petraeus hearings were just another scene in the pro-war theater of the absurd". Saggia demolishes the phony slogan we don't use here and writes probably one of the strongest (if not the strongest -- and it has my vote for the strongest) pieces on the entire matter.
Please check out Mike's site tonight. I'd love to weigh in (Mike told me about it Sunday night) but I'll wait until he does. I will note I'm an adult and was always smart enough NOT to read my own press in my offline life. Possibly a big baby need to realize that it's past time they grow up and the fact that Mike praises you repeatedly but won't lie that you pee rainbows doesn't require you to send hysterical e-mails. I support Mike today, tomorrow and always.
iraq
camilo mejia
james burmeister
democracy nowamy goodman
blackwater usa
jeremy scahill
naomi klein
matthew rothschild
law and disordermichael ratnermichael smithdalia hashadheidi boghosian
the new york timesandrew e. kramer
alissa j. rubinsabrina tavernisethe los angeles timesned parker
the washington postjoshua partlowjosh white
trinas kitchen
mikey likes it
That's a two-part story. I wrote a very, very long review of Ben Harper's new CD (which I love). It wasn't working. It needed editing. I told C.I. and asked for help.
C.I. looked at it during breaks in The Third Estate Sunday Review and said, "The sixth paragraph is the opening." I looked at it and that's true. So I was prepared for the rewrite but there wasn't time. The plan was I would go over to C.I.'s Sunday night and work on it while C.I. did "And the war drags on." Which I did.
Here's the second part. We're getting ready to work on and cutting up each paragraph. Seriously. That's how we were doing it. Each paragraph was cut out and pasted on a piece of typing paper so I could make notes below it after we'd rearranged each paragraph's order. (Or each one I thought was worth including.)
Mike called and C.I. put him on speaker.
At that point, I said screw the review. I felt bad because the plan was it would go up Monday morning and if C.I. was tired, that could be one of the morning entries.
But Mike was upset. He got an e-mail from someone he's praised forever and it was the meanest e-mail you could imagine. Mike was hoping it was a put on. It wasn't. It was for real.
Elaine's "Not in the mood tonight" is already up. I read it and called her. Mike's still working on his post. I'm sure it will be wonderful (and I'll link to it tomorrow night if it's not up before I get done with this post). I can't believe that Dave Zirin is such a suck ass personality.
What a rude ass he is. And a stupid one too because I don't think I've ever met anyone who loved his work as much as Mike. When he's been on KPFA out here, there are usually jokes from people listening. It's a given. If he comes up someone's making fun of him. (He's always too on. Like a child star.)
But Mike thought the world of him. And when he was telling C.I. and I about the e-mail last night, he kept hoping it was a joke. It wasn't a joke.
I once slept with Corey Hart. I've slept with many big names. But in the 80s I slept with Corey Hart. Once. This was out of the US and at a casino. (He wasn't playing cards. Maybe roulette. It was a long, long time ago.) He was a hot number in the 80s. He probably still is. But he had a kind of poppy image. He was probably drunk, I was wasted. And I was flattered. (He was gorgeous. He probably still is.) I wasn't expecting much because I've slept with 'rock gods' and many -- though not all -- were disappointments. Corey Hart is actually a very good lover. If I'd been lucky, it would have been more than a one night stand. (That's not "We could have married!" But another roll in the sack would've been nice.)
But the point here, the point in sharing the story, is that some people surprise you pleasantly (like Corey Hart -- seriously, he's gifted) and other people surprise you unpleasantly (too many to list).
Corey Hart deserves credit for being an exceptional surprise. But most of the time, you end up let down, hugely let down.
You find out that someone's great on stage but no big shakes in the bed. And maybe they rush right through it. Or they're through in one thrust. (I'm thinking of one rock name.) (I wasn't a groupie. But if a guy -- rock star or store clerk -- is hot and he's interested in me, I have no problem doing the deed. In my first review at The Common Ills, I noted I was a sexual being.)
When I was doing my brief period as a rock journalist (or 'journalist'), it wasn't like Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous. The highs were higher and the lows were much, much lower. (I really enjoy Almost Famous, by the way. It's one of my favorite American films of this decade.)
So I know about the let down. And I know who Elaine's writing about that stinks. He does still stink, she's right. It's not drugs. If it was drugs, he'd have died years and years ago. (And for the record, when I got to cover the Stones, Keith Richards didn't stink. And I doubt anyone did more drugs than Keith Richards.)
I thought a lot about what happened last night. For me, the closest would be Ann Wilson of Heart. She's immensely gifted with one of the best voices in rock. And she really seems grounded and like a real person. It would be like, for me, hearing from Ann Wilson with her screaming at me, "You just wrote that I was immensely gifted! I'm tremendously and immensely gifted! How dare you! I demand a retraction!"
And I thought a lot about how furious C.I. is. Rebecca's right, you don't go after Mike or Wally. C.I. is hugely protective of them. And it's because they're so young. C.I. would be upset if that happened to any of us, but the fact that it's Mike and that the asshole is someone Mike not only liked but praised like crazy . . . And it's 'bad manners.' When C.I. says something is 'bad manners,' you know C.I.'s pissed. But it is bad manners. And if someone really likes your work, really champions it, you really shouldn't behave the way Dave Zirin did. He reminds me of a rock star who humiliated a room full of groupies (I was never a groupie, I was in the hotel room for a story). It was just an abuse of the admiration they had for him. I feel Zirin did the same thing.
I think he's disgusting.
Okay, I'm lazy. Here's who I've mentioned:
Mike of Mikey Likes It!,
Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz,
Wally of The Daily Jot,
Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude,
and C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review
I'm not working on the review tonight. Sorry. I really am bothered about the way Mike was treated. It and Joni Mitchell will be up this weekend and, yes, that is a promise. Short of being taken to the emergency room, both will be up this weekend. And Joni's out tomorrow. You've got to get her CD. I can't stop listening. Closing with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Monday, September 24, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, is anyone paying attention to the attacking of province officials, the US military announces another death, the 3800 mark looms, the US military is ordered to escort families out of a neighborhood thereby assisting armed thugs, and more.
Starting with war resistance. The new chair of IVAW Camilo Mejia told his story in Road from Ar Ramadi: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Mejia, tracing his awakening to the illegal war as he served in it. Elizabeth Wrigley-Field reviews it in the September-October issue of ISR (the review is not currently available online, pages 73-74) noting, "Most of the book recounts Mejia's five months as a staff sergeant and leader of a nine-person squad in Iraq. This account is invaluable not only because it presents a picture of the reality of the occupation -- infused, from the very beginning, with racism, brutality, and incompetence -- but also because it helps us understand the process through which soldiers can become resisters." In Road from Ar Ramadi: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Mejia, Mejia concludes his story with the kangaroo court-martial and notes what he told the court:
We're all on trial. Not just me, sitting here, but everybody here in uniform, everybody in this country. . . . War crimes? Abuse of prisoners? The U.S. Army? No. A few privates, perhaps, one sergeant; they did that. They did that because they didn't have the courage to do what I did, because they were lost in a situation where it's hard to tell the difference between right and wrong. Perhaps they were afraid not to do what they were told by people who are higher ranking. Perhaps they decided that it was easier to do what everybody else was doing. So now it's easier to judge these people and put them on trial and blame it on them. . . . I'm not saying they're not responsible. They have some responsibility, just like I have some responsibility for the things I did in Iraq. Of course I do. But if we really want to look at ourselves as military and we really want to keep our pride and honor as a military, then we have to start from the top.
At which point the 'judge' interrupts. The same 'judge' that refused to let arguments of the legalities of the illegal war be raised and felt that -- pay attention -- the judiciary had no oversight over the military -- that was something to be left to the Executive and Legislative branches. That's real cute and I'm sure there are other matters that the two branches wish the judiciary would sit out. Wrigley-Field concludes of the book, "Mejia was the first. But he wasn't the last and there are many more to come. We have much to learn from his story."
A Matter Of Conscience is a new documentary about the illegal war and Kevin and Monica Benderman's strength when Kevin realized he was a conscientious objector. Like Mejia, Kevin Benderman is among the early war resisters. A preview of the documentary is available at YouTube. More information on the film can be found at Kevin Benderman's website. A Matter of Conscience: GI Resistance During the Vietnam War is a project by William Short and Willa Seidenberg (an incredible project) and, to be clear, that's not this documentary. (There are other items with that title, I believe Kevin Benderman also wrote a column with that title.) If you're interested in purchasing a copy of the documentary, e-mail Earl Brackett (Minehead Productions) at minehead@triad.rr.com
War resister and Iraq veteran James Burmeister, his wife Angelique and their son Cornell went to Canada. Burmeister has repeatedly spoken about his job in Iraq, the US military assigned him the duty of setting "traps" -- equipment left laying out so that any Iraqi who touched it could be shot for touching US property. Burmeister is far from the only veteran of the illegal worker to speak of this. Today the topic makes the mainstream. Josh White and Joshua Partlow (Washington Post) report that "military court documents" reveal this was being done to provide Iraq targets for "U.S. military snipers" and they note: "'Baiting is putting an object out there that we know they will use, with the intention of destroying the enemy,' Capt. Matthew P. Didier, the leader of an elite sniper scout platoon attached to the 1st Battalion of the 501st Infantry Regiment, said in a sworn statement. 'Basically, we would put an item out there and watch it. If someone found the item, picked it up and attempted to leave with the item, we would engage the individual as I saw this as a sign they would use the item against U.S. Forces.' In documents obtained by The Washington Post from family members of the accused soldiers, Didier said members of the U.S. military's Asymmetric Warfare Group visited his unit in January and later passed along ammunition boxes filled with the 'drop items' to be used 'to disrupt the AIF [Anti-Iraq Forces] attempts at harming Coalition Forces and give us the upper hand in a fight'."
There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes Derek Hess, Brad McCall, Justin Cliburn, Timothy Richard, Robert Weiss, Phil McDowell, Steve Yoczik, Ross Spears, Zamesha Dominique, Jared Hood, James Burmeister, Eli Israel, Joshua Key, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Carla Gomez, Luke Kamunen, Leif Kamunen, Leo Kamunen, Camilo Mejia, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Agustin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Abdullah Webster, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder, Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko,Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Dale Bartell, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Chris Capps, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake, Christopher Mogwai, Christian Kjar, Kyle Huwer, Vincent La Volpa, DeShawn Reed and Kevin Benderman. In total, forty-one US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.
Information on war resistance within the military can be found at The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline [(877) 447-4487], Iraq Veterans Against the War and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters. Tom Joad maintains a list of known war resisters.
Catching up from the weekend. The mercenaries of Blackwater went back to work in Iraq. Andrew E. Kramer (New York Times) wrote about that and the headline writer billed it with that but Kramer's real news was buried deep in the article. Background. Friday, Leila Fadel (McClatchy Newspapers) blogged at Baghdad Observer about the death of Hammoundi Naji "his cousin and another man" shot dead while enroute home in the Washash section of Baghdad. Fadel calls Naji "a top Mahdi Army leader" and the deaths resulted in a home invasion -- conducted by the Mahdia Army (think thugs) -- in which four women were slaughtered. Now we're up to Kramer's report in Saturday's New York Times where he reports that as retaliation against the killing of Naji, the Mahdi Army began clearing out the Washash section of Baghdad forcing "[b]etween 50 and 100 Sunni families" (families -- not individuals) to abandon their homes and flee as the thugs went through the neighborhoods with "loudspeakers, telling people to leave" and not just in full view of the US military, with the assistance of the US military. One of the newly created refugees, Sheik Abu Hasan, declares, "What shocked us a lot was that as soon as we reached the main streets, we saw Iraqi and American forces who were showing and directing us to the highway." The US military was used to assist with forced evictions (non-legal ones) and not to protect the people. The myth that the US is preserving anything should have long ago shattered. The US armed and trained the Shi'ites while banishing the Sunnis, they created the division that exists by making their first question to Iraqis: "Are you Sunni or Shia?", and the continued presence breeds the hostility and violence. Ned Parker (Los Angeles Times) reported that "small gangs from the Mahdi Army hunted down Sunnis across the district. Anywhere from five to 20 people were killed, and byFriday afternoon, at least 30 Sunni families had fled Washash. Violence continued Saturday as a Sunni man was pulled out of a car and shot to death. Naji, a man viewed by many as a criminal, had ignited another chapter in Iraq's civil war."
Turning to the topic of Blackwater. Sabrina Tavernise and James Glanz (New York Times) continued their writing in service of the US State Dept on Sunday declaring that the real tragedy of Blackwater's slaughtering Iraqis the Sunday before last was that US embassy staff couldn't travel freely outside the Green Zone. Oooh. That was the really tragedy. Not at least 11 innocent Iraqis (including an infant) killed by US mercenaries. It's the US embassy being on Green Zone confinement. Now the US State Dept employees are not normally doing the congo through Ramadi. So what's really going on? US service members are interviewing eye witnesses about the slaughter Blackwater conducted, US service members who have no love for mercenaries and aren't prone to lie for them the way the US State Dept would. A real problem after the US government managed to push around the puppet government on the Blackwater issue (we'll get to it). Tavernise and Glanz's punch line is "American officials have privately cautioned against drawing early conclusions." Many conclusions can already be drawn. Tony Allen-Mills (Times of London) quotes Jeremy Scahill making one clear conclusion: "There have been 64 US soldiers court martialled on murder-related charges in Iraq. There hasn't been a single prosecution of an armed contractor under civilians or military law." Al Jazeera reported yesterday that despite puppet Nouri al-Maliki's strong words last week, the strings have been pulled, the puppet directed back in line: "The Iraqi government has made a U-turn on threats to kick out US security firm Blackwater. Instead, the US and Iraqi governments have started a joint investigation of security contractors following Blackwater's alleged involvement in the killing of 11 Iraqi civilians and the wounding of 12." Despite the strings being visible (and then some), al-Maliki's trying to put up a front. Alissa J. Rubin and Andrew E. Kramer (New York Times) report that al-Maliki is calling the slaughter (still) "a challenge to the nation's sovereignty".
Scahill, author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, appeared on Democracy Now! this morning. Amy Goodman summarized the latest events by noting that today "the Iraqi government said it will await the outcome of an investigation into last Sunday's killing of at least eleven people by Blackwater USA before taking any action against the company." Jeremy Scahill observed, "I mean, I think that the fact that Blackwater mercenaries are heavily armed and on the streets of Iraq is perhaps the greatest indicator of how the Bush administration defines Iraqi sovereignty. And it was initially left up to Iraqi spokespeople to explain that Blackwater would be back on the street. And the reason that they gave -- and it clearly had come from Condoleezza Rice -- is that it would create a security vacuum. I have never heard a more ridiculous statement. It's Blackwater that's created the security vacuum for Iraqi civilians, as many as twenty-eight of whom were gunned down last Sunday in Al-Nisoor Square in the Mansour section of Baghdad. And what we're seeing is that, at the highest levels of government, Maliki has now stuck his neck out. And how it plays in Washington is one thing, but how it plays in Iraq is a very different one . You have the entire Iraqi cabinet and Muqtada al-Sadr demanding that Blackwater be expelled from the country. In fact, many Iraqi politicians are calling for all of these mercenary forces to be expelled from Iraq. This is perhaps one of the greatest crises of the occupation to date. And right now, Condoleezza Rice is clearly acting as though she's the president of Iraq. The idea that you can have twenty-eight people gunned down including -- and we understand the shooting began when Blackwater operatives fired on an Iraqi vehicle, killing the driver. Then they launched, according to witnesses, some kind of a flamed grenade at the car and engulfed it in flames. And inside was a mother with her infant child. And that's when the shooting began. And Iraqi witnesses, survivors, say that it was a melee, where Blackwater guys were just indiscriminately firing in the streets."
Blackwater's big business. They are hardly the only one raking in the big bucks in Iraq. Ginger Thompson and Eric Schmitt (New York Times) report, "Pentagon officials are investigating some $6 billion in military contracts, most covering supplies as varied as bottled water, tents and latrines for troops in Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan. The inquiries have resulted in charges against at least 29 civilians and soldiers, more than 75 other criminal investigations and the suicides of at least two officers. They have prompted the Pentagon, the largest purchasing agency in the world, to overhaul its war-zone procurement system." Big business? Alan Greenspan -- providing excuses since the beginning of creation. Today Greenspan appeared on Democracy Now! along with Naomi Klein whose The Shock Doctrine: The Rise Of Disaster Capitalism was released in the US last Tuesday.
From the forum conducted by DN! anchor Amy Goodman:
AMY GOODMAN: We're also joined in studio by Naomi Klein, author of the book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Your response to that, Naomi Klein?
NAOMI KLEIN: Well, I'm just wondering if it troubles Mr. Greenspan at all that wars over resources in other countries are actually illegal. Mr. Greenspan has praised the rule of law, the importance of the rule of law, in his book. But in his statements about the reasons why this has not been publicly discussed, he has said that it's not politically expedient at this moment. But it's not just that it's not politically expedient, Mr. Greenspan. Are you aware that, according to the Hague Regulations and the Geneva Conventions, it is illegal for one country to invade another over its natural resources?
ALAN GREENSPAN: No. What I was saying is that the issue which, as you know, most people who were pressing for the war were concerned with were weapons of mass destruction. I personally believed that Saddam was behaving in a way that he probably very well had, almost certainly had, weapons of mass destruction. I was surprised, as most, that he didn't. But what I was saying is that my reason for being pleased to see Saddam out of office had nothing to do with the weapons of mass destruction. It had to do with the potential threat that he could create to the rest of the world.
NAOMI KLEIN: Yes, I realize that, but he was not simply deposed. The US invaded Iraq, occupied it and took control over its resources. And under international law, that it is illegal to wage wars to gain access to other countries', sovereign countries', natural resources.
In news of other attacks, Reuters reports a the targeting of various officials such as Sunday's Kut attack aimed at the police chief of the Wasit province (two bodyguards were injured) that continue today with a bombing targeting the police chief of Kirkuk (two bodyguards wounded) and an attack on the mayor of Kirkuk (1 bodyguard killed, seven wounded). Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reveals there were more officials targeted "General Secretary of the National Accordance Group, Najaf Branch, Adel Waheed Abood was targeted by gunmen and sustained two bullets this morning; one in the neck and another in the shoulder. The Health Department in Najaf says his condition is critical. He was a nominee for the position of Governor in Najaf governorate."
In news of other violence . . .
Bombings?
Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports Baghdad mortar attacks with one claiming the lives of 2 children while wounding their parents and a Kirkuk car bombing that left two people wounded. AFP reports a Baquba bombing in "a mosque during a reconciliation meeting between two feared militias . . . killing at least 18 people." And -- remember the targeting of officials? -- BBC reports that among the dead in Baquba was the police chief Brig. Gen. Ali Dalyan.
Shootings?
Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a woman on a bus returning home with other employees of the Rafidain Bank was shot dead.
Corpses?
Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 12 corpses were discovered in Baghdad.
Today the US military announced (PDF format warning): "A Task Force Lightning Soldier died of wounds sustained from enemy gunfire in Salah ad Din Province, Monday." The press release brought to 3799 announced deaths in the illegal war since it began in March 2003. One away from the 3800 mark.
Today on WBAI's Law and Disorder, co-hosts Heidi Boghosian and Michael Smith spoke with Matthew Rothschild about his new book You Have No Rights: Stories of America In An Age of Repression. (Co-hosts Michael Ratner and Dalia Hashad were not part of the interview.)
Michael Smith: Matthew Rothschild, what kind of stuff are the Bushies doing to students who are students like you and me and Heidi [were] on campus these days?
Matthew Rothschild: Well that's the other thing. We're going back to the days of COINTELPRO. We're going back to where the police and the feds have undercover people at our rallies. I mean, this shouldn't be happening but it is. I mean at Drake University, for instance, in Des Moines, Iowa -- and I was out in Des Moines recently -- there was, as far back as 2003, November of 2003, which gives you a sense as to how long we've been doing this peace activism -- there was a peace conference there on campus sponsored by the National Lawyers Guild local chapter and they were saying "Bring Our Troops Home! Bring Our National Guard Home!" Well that rally was infilitrated by sherrif's deputies who were there undercover and at that rally evidently the prosecutors weren't happy that peace activists were doing their thing including people from Catholic Peaceministries and Quakers. So the local DA started to issue subpoenas to everybody under the sun including the National Lawyers Guild, including to Drake with gag orders attached to the subpeonas and fortunately the protestors there were able to make enough noise about this prosecutorial excess that the prosecutor withdrew subpeonas.
Heidi Boghosian: And then, Matthew, they wanted to, they asked for our membership lists, they wanted our membership lists.
That's a portion of the interview. Many other topics are covered. Boghosian is the executive director of the National Lawyers Guild (Michael Smith is a member of that and many other attorney organizations fighting for the rights of people) and she is also the author of Punishing Protest (available online in PDF format for free and avaible in book format for $3 at the National Lawyers Guild website) which came out a few weeks ago. Smith, Boghosian and Dalia Hashad are members of the Center for Constitutional Rights and Michael Ratner is the president. CCR is receiving an award this Friday from the War Resisters League, a peace award. Boghosian noted today that Michael Ratner will be accepting the award. The event will be held at the New York Society for Ethical Culture at 2 West 64th, NYC and will
begin at 7:30 with a panel -- tickets are ten dollars [there are events scheduled before and after the panel, for more information call (212) 228-0450)]. Dan Berrigan, Sister Diana Ortiz, Deepa Fernades (Wakeupcall Radio; Fernandez will host the event) and many others will be present.
Quickly, politics. As Trina noted this weekend, "Monday night, Dennis Kucinich will be a guest on The Tonight Show on NBC. (If you're a Diana Krall or fan of 'The Rock,' they are also schedule to appear.)" WalkOn ran an ad that wasn't objectional, 'immoral' or anything shocking. They are under attack which is an attack on free speech and a further step along the way towards complete militarization of the United States. Donna Saggia (CounterPunch) gets it exactly right noting that, "Alarm bells should be ringing louder than ever in progressive circles as Congress, not content with forgeiting its powers to the unitary executive, has now decided to let the military plan foreign policy. . . . In some ways the Petraeus hearings were just another scene in the pro-war theater of the absurd". Saggia demolishes the phony slogan we don't use here and writes probably one of the strongest (if not the strongest -- and it has my vote for the strongest) pieces on the entire matter.
Please check out Mike's site tonight. I'd love to weigh in (Mike told me about it Sunday night) but I'll wait until he does. I will note I'm an adult and was always smart enough NOT to read my own press in my offline life. Possibly a big baby need to realize that it's past time they grow up and the fact that Mike praises you repeatedly but won't lie that you pee rainbows doesn't require you to send hysterical e-mails. I support Mike today, tomorrow and always.
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james burmeister
democracy nowamy goodman
blackwater usa
jeremy scahill
naomi klein
matthew rothschild
law and disordermichael ratnermichael smithdalia hashadheidi boghosian
the new york timesandrew e. kramer
alissa j. rubinsabrina tavernisethe los angeles timesned parker
the washington postjoshua partlowjosh white
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Friday, September 21, 2007
Casual Friday
Okay, I hope to have Ben Harper's CD review up this weekend. (Sunday morning.) However . . . Yes, I am the supreme procrastinator. But remember Maggie was upset earlier in the week? We're both over at C.I.'s and Jim's tearing into boxes (C.I. gets more parcels than anyone I know). A friend had sent C.I. some DVDs and they're classic films. (I think they're all out but they may not be.) Maggie saw a collection of one actress she loves, Mae West. C.I. told her, "Take it." But she won't. If it's out (C.I. says it is), then we'll grab it tomorrow when we go looking for it. But what's going to happen tonight is a huge bucket of popcorn, Maggie's French Onion dip (remember the 'secret' is two envelopes of onion soup mix) and who knows what else. C.I. and Ava are unpacking (they only just got back from the road) and when they're done, we're going to watch at least two of Mae's movies. Jim, believe it or not, has never seen a Mae West film, so he's very excited. Dona's seen She Done Him Wrong so we're not going to watch that. (She likes the comedy, but we thought since we're only watching two, it would be better to go with something that everyone hasn't seen. Ava, Jess, C.I., Ty, Maggie and myself have seen all of Mae's black & white films. I may be the only one who's seen Myra Breckenridge as well!)
By the way, Maggie was right about writing about her depression. I had two e-mails from people saying they were going through the exact same thing. One is a community member and the other was a visitor.
Oh, let me add something here. C.I. will be pulling the link that everyone's written about. C.I. had heard about the e-mails from members (Martha and Shirley tallied up everyone saying "Pull it") and I explained in greater detail what was going on. They're furious that ___ is attacking CODEPINK and calling Dennis Kucinich a 'tinkerbell'. There were e-mails that started, "Look, I'm not going to vote for Kucinich, but I am offended by this bulls**t." It had nothing to do with Kucinich supporters only. C.I. hasn't even read the site. (But noted, "He trashed my friend as well. That's the last time I ever read him." He trashed Molly Ivins a few weeks before she died. Then when she died, he offered this "I loved Molly!" nonsense apparently expecting everyone to forget that he'd said things about her like she's really just trying to get Republicans elected and she never had a kind word for Bill Clinton when he was in office and all the slurs he used to write about her.) So it's gone.
C.I. did ask, "Do people even go to that site?" No. Not normally. What happened was what usually happens, one member saw it, copy and pasted it and sent it around to some members he or she was close to and then it ended up going community wide. We're watching movies tonight. C.I. will remove the link by Sunday night when doing "And the war drags on."
So don't e-mail about it. Martha and Shirley told me they hadn't seen so many e-mails on one topic in a week or two. They were exhausted just from reading them. It's gone by Sunday night. Forget about it, it's over.
Back to the parcels. C.I. never opens them. They just stack up. That's why C.I. always tells Jim, "You can open them." And Jim will but always waits for C.I. to be here. (C.I. tells Jim, "I don't have to be here.") So one thing in the packages was Ani DiFranco's new CD. I didn't even know she had a new one. It's actually a collection. I haven't listened yet but I'll give it a listen and either write something here or a brief thing at The Common Ills (if the latter, probably next month -- I want to do Ben Harper this Sunday and Joni Mitchell the following). There were so many CDs but Jim tossed that one to me. I caught it, saw it was Ani and was so shocked I dropped it. It's a double disc and that's all I know right now.
I'm lazy (as always) so swiping from Third, I've mentioned The Third Estate Sunday Review's Dona, Jess, Ty, Ava and Jim and C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review,
Closing with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Friday, September 21, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, the US military announces more deaths, 'progress' is no where to be found in Iraq, the US loses weapons and the Iraqi resistance reportedly now has them, and more.
Starting with war resistance. Alaam News reports that a US family of five (three children) is seeking asylum in Finland "with local media speculating that it is opposition to the Iraq war" that has led the family to leave the United States and start over in Helenski this week. If true, it would be only the second time this decade that an "American citizen . . . [has] filed an asylum application in Finland during the current decade." Meanwhile IVAW's Michael Prysner (PSL) reports, "The number of deserters is also steadily climbing, with official numbers now reaching over 10,000 since the war began. Many believe these numbers may actually be much higher. The G.I. Rights Hotline reports an average of 3,000 calls a month by new recruits and active duty soldiers who have decided they want to abandon the military. . . . Soldiers against the war have begun organizing within the military. Active duty soldiers started the Appeal for Redress, a petition calling for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. It was formulated less than a year ago, and has collected over 2,000 signatures of soldiers currently serving in the military. Membership in Iraq Veterans Against the War is nearing 600. . . . Soldiers like Lt. Ehren Watada and Camilo Mejia have set the example, publicly refusing deployment and condemning the war for its illegal and immoral nature."
There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes Derek Hess, Brad McCall, Justin Cliburn, Timothy Richard, Robert Weiss, Phil McDowell, Steve Yoczik, Ross Spears, Zamesha Dominique, Jared Hood, James Burmeister, Eli Israel, Joshua Key, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Carla Gomez, Luke Kamunen, Leif Kamunen, Leo Kamunen, Camilo Mejia, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Agustin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Abdullah Webster, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder, Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko,Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Dale Bartell, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Chris Capps, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake, Christopher Mogwai, Christian Kjar, Kyle Huwer, Vincent La Volpa, DeShawn Reed and Kevin Benderman. In total, forty-one US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.
Information on war resistance within the military can be found at The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline [(877) 447-4487], Iraq Veterans Against the War and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters. Tom Joad maintains a list of known war resisters.
Peter Hart spoke with Anthony Arnove (IRAQ: The Logic of Withdrawal) on this week's CounterSpin (airing on most radio stations today) about the issue of contractors.
Anthony Arnove: There is effectively a doubling of the US occupation in Iraq right now through the employment of private contractors of whom as many as 50,000 are armed -- effectively private mercenaries working in the employee of the US occupation. Blackwater is operating under the employment of the State Department. What's interesting is that very early on in the US occupation, Paul Bremer -- who was acting as the colonial viceroy -- in his capacity of head of the Coalition Provision Authority deliberately exempted these mercenaries and other US contractors from Iraqi law. And they've created basically a legal black hole in which these mercenaries can operate without any accountability. And the few times there have been incidents in which Iraqis tried to pursue contractors for violations they've been skirted out of the country so as not to have to face any prosecution. They do technically fall under rules of engagement set down for US contractors -- whether that's Pentagon rules or State Department rules. But like we've seen with active duty troops who've engaged in abuses of human rights in Iraq, there's really been no accountability certainly not up the chain of command.
No accountability. And Bremer and the CPA were nothing but a shell game. Bremer stripped Iraqis of oversight and, in fact, the US may not have any legal right to oversight as well. As Naomi Klein explains in her new book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise Of Disaster Capitalism:
Bremer's CPA would not try to stop the various scams, side deals and shell games because the CPA was itself a shell game. Though it was billed as the U.S. occupation authority, it's unclear that it held that distinction in anything other than name. This point was forcefully made by a judge in the infamous Custer Battles corruption case.
Two former employees of the security firm launched a whistle-blower lawsuit against the company, accusing it of cheating on reconstruction-related contracts with the CPA and defrauding the U.S. governments produced by the company that clearly showed it was keeping two sets of numbers -- one for itself, one for invoicing the CPA Retired Brigadier-General Hugh Tant testified that the fraud was "probably the worst I've ever seen in my 30 years in the army." (Among Custer Battles' many alleged violations, it is said to have appropriated Iraqi-owned forklifts from the airport, repainted them and billed the CPA for the cost of leasing the machines.)
In March 2006, a federal jury in Virginia ruled against the company, finding it guilty of fraud, and forced it to pay $10 million in damages. The company then asked the judge to overturn the verdict, with a revealing defense. It claimed that the CPA was not part of the U.S. government, and therefore not subject to its laws, including the False Claims Act. The implications of this defense were enormous: the Bush administration had indemnified U.S. corporations working in Iraq from any liability under Iraqi laws; if the CPA wasn't subject to U.S. law either, it meant that the contractors weren't subjected to any law at all -- U.S. or Iraqi. This time, the judge ruled in the company's favor: he said there was plenty of evidence that Custer Battles had submitted to the CPA "false and fraudulently inflated invoices," but he ruled that the plaintiffs had "failed to prove that the claims were presented to the United States." In other words, the U.S. government presence in Iraq during the first year of its economic experiment had been a mirage -- there had been no government, just a funnel to get U.S. taxpayer and Iraqi oil dollars to foreign corporations, completely outside the law. In this way, Iraq represented the most extreme expression of the anti-state counter-revolution -- a hollow state, where, as the courts finally established, there was no there, there.
Contractors in Iraq -- with the permission of the US government and sometimes on the orders of the US government -- have been allowed to act with impunity. Daniel Howden and Leonard Doyle (Independent of London) provide a look at the rise of outsourcing governmental tasks and note, "A high-ranking US military commander in Iraq said: 'These guys run loose in this country and do stupid stuff. There's no authority over them, so you can't come down on them hard when they escalate force. They shoot people.' In Abu Ghraib, all of the translators and up to half of the interrogators were reportedly private contractors."
Rosa Brooks (Los Angeles Times) also addresses the reality of governmental tasks being sold off to the private section, "What's been happening in Iraq -- and in Afghanistan, Columbia, Somalia and the Pentagon and the State Department -- goes far beyond the 'outsourcing of key military and security jobs.' For years, the administration has been quietly auctioning off U.S. foreign policy to the highest corporate bidder -- and it may be too late for us to buy it back. Think I'm exaggerating? Look at Blackwater. Its $750-million contract with the U.S. State Department employees in Iraq is just one of many lucrative U.S. (and foreign) government contracts it has enjoyed (and it's a safe bet that Sunday's episode will be only a minor PR setback for Blackwater). As for Blackwater's most recent slaughter, Kim Sengupta (Independent of London) reconstructs the events on Sunday via eye witness testimony: " We have found no Iraqi present at the scene who saw or heard sniper fire. Witnesses say the first victims of the shootings were a couple with their child, the mother and infant meeting horrific deaths, their bodies fused together by heat after their car caught fire. The contractors, according to this account, also shot Iraqi soldiers and police and Blackwater then called in an attack helicopter from its private air force which inflicted further casualties." Apparently unable to speak to Iraqis, Sabrina Tavernise and James Glanz (New York Times) rely on a leaked report from the Ministry of the Interior which "has concluded that employees of a private American security firm fired an unprovoked barrage in the shooting last Sunday," "that the dozens of foreign security companies here should be replaced by Iraqi companies, and that a law that has given the companies immunity for years be scrapped" -- and the reporters offer: "The Iraqi version of events may be self-serving in some points." And the US version may be what? Tavernise and Glanz ignore that prospect. Blackwater's apparently ignoring some things as well. Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) notes, "In Iraq, the private security firm Blackwater USA is reportedly back on the streets of Baghdad despite an announced ban on its activities. The Iraqi government said it had revoked Blackwater's license this week after its guards killed up to twenty-eight Iraqis in an unprovoked mass shooting. But a Pentagon spokesperson said today Blackwater is guarding diplomatic convoys following talks with the Iraqi government." So, as Ian Thompson (PSL) judged it, "Even the Iraqi puppet government leadership spoke up -- but its words were hot air. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki wants to gain credibility and appear to be independent of his U.S. colonial masters." The events appear to answer Thursday's question ("For the US government, it's a quandry: Do they use this moment to provide al-Maliki with a chance to alter his image or do they continue to let greed rule?"): Greed again won out.
Self-serving? Sabrina Tavernise and James Glanz apply that to the report from Iraq's Interior Ministry and it's doubtful they'd ever use the term for the upcoming US report. Along with the issue of equality, there's also the fact that the term is flat out wrong. The Interior Ministry is not self-serving, it's US-serving. Dropping back to the September 6th snapshot:
Turning to retired generals, Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) reported today, "A panel of retired US generals is urging the United States to disband and reorganize the Iraqi police force because of infiltration by sectarian militias. The generals also report Iraq's security forces will be unable to fulfill their essential security responsibilities independently for at least another twelve to 18 months." Karen DeYoung (Washington Post) explains that the national police force as well as the Iraq Interior Ministry are "riddled with sectarianism and corruption" by the Independent Commission on the Security Forces of Iraq headed by James Jones (Marine general) in there 150-plus page report which also finds the Iraqi army at least a year to 18 months away from being able to handle "internal security". Tim Reid (Times of London) reports, "The 20 member-panel also said today that the Iraqi Army was incpable of acting independently from US forces for at least another 18 months, and 'cannot yet meaningfully contribute to denying terrorists safe haven'."
The militias of the Interior Ministry are thugs who terrorize. Who trained them? Who introduced the "Salvador option"? The US. Who has refused to disband them? The US. Self-serving? The Interior Ministry wishes it were self-serving. Then it could really go to town slaughtering 'enemies.' It wouldn't have to worry that one of the many torture chambers they are running might result in a US military 'rescue' of their torture victims. If they were independent and self-serving, all of their torture chambers would be signed off on and not just some.
Today on NPR's The Diane Rehm Show, Rehm spoke with the Washington Post's Karen DeYoung, the Wall St. Journal's Neil King Jr. and Newsweek's Michael Hirsh about a number of topics. On the topic of Blackwater, Hirsh declared, "Often all that happens is that the employee is spirited out of the country. That happened last Christmas Eve when a Blackwater employee shot and killed a guard to a senior Iraqi official inside the Green Zone which was obviously a little politically toxic. And he left, the company has since refused to disclose his name and he has not been prosecuted."
Neil King, Jr. (Wall Street Journal): The thing that is extraordinary about it is that we had the Petraeus hearings last weekend or last week, and all the discussion "we want Iraq to be a country, we want it to step up, we want it to meet all these benchmarks" etc. And yet we don't really actually treat it as a country to the extent that we've got thousands of our own nationals driving around with machine guns and opening fire on people and then being totally immune from the law and as is the case of this shooting last week -- sorry, last December -- where a person shot a security guard who was the personal security guard of the vice-president of Iraq and the person's spirited out of the country. Nobody ever knows what his name was and he's gone. There'll never be -- I mean if you reverse the scenario and imagine any remote corrolary to that in the United States which is literally unimaginable.
A point the paper of record misses. Self-serving also wasn't applied by the New York Times to any of Gen. David Petraeus' many laughable reports to Congress. Rather strange considering Patrick Cockburn (Independent of London via CounterPunch) was reporting in the midst of the dog & pony show on how Petraues was explaining how he wanted to be President as early as 2004 but thought 2008 would be too soon to run. As Ann Scott Tyson (Washington Post) reported earlier this week, safety "is deteriorating in southern Iraq as rival Shiite militia vying for power have stepped up their attacks after moving out of Baghdad to avoid U.S.-led military operations, according to the latest quarterly Pentagon report on Iraq". If it all sounds familiar it's because it's the same story that's been playing out over and over across Iraq. But this was hailed last week as 'progress.' Let's stick with 'progress' for a bit. Remember how the meaningless soccer victories didn't change anything but were hailed with waves of Operation Happy Talk? Strangely, that's not been the case for a title Iraq actually won. The title? Kim Sengupta (Independent of London) reported mid-week that "Iraq holds the world record for both the first and second highest amounts taken in the history of bank robberies." Number one! Number one! In fact, the chart accompanies the article reveals that four of the top five Iraq bank robberies have taken place this year for a total of $282 million (US equivalent). And how about the 'progress' in the spreading of cholera? What had been a crisis for nothern Iraq is now reaching into Baghdad with Andrew E. Kramer (New York Times) reporting that there are now two confirmed cases of cholera in Baghdad. And it's not stopping at Baghdad. Katrina Kratovac (AP) reports that "a baby in Basra" is "the farthest south the outbreak has been detected." "Progress"? Robert Burns (AP) reports that Iraqis control approximately 8 percent of Baghdad -- only 8 percent -- which Burns points out is not a large growth even though Maj Gen Joseph Fil claims it is, "Despite the slow pace of progress towards having Iraqi forces maintain control of Baghdad neighborhoods with minimal U.S. troop presence, Fil said he was hopeful that it would accelerate in coming months." He's hopeful -- that's supposed to have us all glowing.
Well maybe there's 'progress' to be found in oil news? Tuesday Press TV reported on the bombing outside Beiji of an oil pipeline "causing huge quanties of crude oil to spill into the Tigris River" which has "caused oil to seep into the Tigris River damaging water stations and triggering their temporary closure in Tikrit". And the Tigris flows. Last night AP reported, "City officials urged Baghdad residents Thursday to conserve water and fill up their tanks in case water treatment stations have to be shut down because of an oil spill in the Tigris River." Progress? Just more violence.
In some of today's reported violence . . .
Bombings?
Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Hawija bombing of the home "of the former chief of Hawija police". Reuters reports 1 Romanian soldier dead from a Tallil bombing that left five more injured, a Kirkuk roadside bombing that claimed the life of 1 Iraqi soldier and 1 Iraqi police officer, an Iskandariya mortar attack that claimed 1 life (three more injured)
Corpses?
Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 8 corpses were discovered in Baghdad and three female corpses in Basra. Reuters notes that three corpses were discovered in Yusufiya and 1 in Bajwan.
Today the US military announced: "A soldier assigned to Task Force Lightning died in a non-combat related incident in Kirkuk province Sept. 20." And they announced: "A Task Force Lightning Soldier was killed in Diyala Province Thursday when an explosion occurred near his vehicle." The deaths bring the total number of US service members killed in the illegal war since it began in March of 2003 to 3794 (ICCC). That's six announced deaths away from the 3800 mark.
Finally, the CBS Evening News' Armen Keteyian looks into the missing weapons "the U.S. military could not account for" (190,000 of them) and discovers a large number of the Glock pistols have ended up in the hands of the Iraqi resistance: "According to an intelligence source, the U.S. contractor in charge of the Glocks somehow lost track of an entire shipment. That mysterious disappeance is now part of a massive military bribery investigation centered around a contracting office run out of a small trailer at a military base in Kuwait. Eighteen federal investigators are digging into the actions of dozens of high-ranking U.S officers and military contractors."
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the diane rehm showdiane rehm
By the way, Maggie was right about writing about her depression. I had two e-mails from people saying they were going through the exact same thing. One is a community member and the other was a visitor.
Oh, let me add something here. C.I. will be pulling the link that everyone's written about. C.I. had heard about the e-mails from members (Martha and Shirley tallied up everyone saying "Pull it") and I explained in greater detail what was going on. They're furious that ___ is attacking CODEPINK and calling Dennis Kucinich a 'tinkerbell'. There were e-mails that started, "Look, I'm not going to vote for Kucinich, but I am offended by this bulls**t." It had nothing to do with Kucinich supporters only. C.I. hasn't even read the site. (But noted, "He trashed my friend as well. That's the last time I ever read him." He trashed Molly Ivins a few weeks before she died. Then when she died, he offered this "I loved Molly!" nonsense apparently expecting everyone to forget that he'd said things about her like she's really just trying to get Republicans elected and she never had a kind word for Bill Clinton when he was in office and all the slurs he used to write about her.) So it's gone.
C.I. did ask, "Do people even go to that site?" No. Not normally. What happened was what usually happens, one member saw it, copy and pasted it and sent it around to some members he or she was close to and then it ended up going community wide. We're watching movies tonight. C.I. will remove the link by Sunday night when doing "And the war drags on."
So don't e-mail about it. Martha and Shirley told me they hadn't seen so many e-mails on one topic in a week or two. They were exhausted just from reading them. It's gone by Sunday night. Forget about it, it's over.
Back to the parcels. C.I. never opens them. They just stack up. That's why C.I. always tells Jim, "You can open them." And Jim will but always waits for C.I. to be here. (C.I. tells Jim, "I don't have to be here.") So one thing in the packages was Ani DiFranco's new CD. I didn't even know she had a new one. It's actually a collection. I haven't listened yet but I'll give it a listen and either write something here or a brief thing at The Common Ills (if the latter, probably next month -- I want to do Ben Harper this Sunday and Joni Mitchell the following). There were so many CDs but Jim tossed that one to me. I caught it, saw it was Ani and was so shocked I dropped it. It's a double disc and that's all I know right now.
I'm lazy (as always) so swiping from Third, I've mentioned The Third Estate Sunday Review's Dona, Jess, Ty, Ava and Jim and C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review,
Closing with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Friday, September 21, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, the US military announces more deaths, 'progress' is no where to be found in Iraq, the US loses weapons and the Iraqi resistance reportedly now has them, and more.
Starting with war resistance. Alaam News reports that a US family of five (three children) is seeking asylum in Finland "with local media speculating that it is opposition to the Iraq war" that has led the family to leave the United States and start over in Helenski this week. If true, it would be only the second time this decade that an "American citizen . . . [has] filed an asylum application in Finland during the current decade." Meanwhile IVAW's Michael Prysner (PSL) reports, "The number of deserters is also steadily climbing, with official numbers now reaching over 10,000 since the war began. Many believe these numbers may actually be much higher. The G.I. Rights Hotline reports an average of 3,000 calls a month by new recruits and active duty soldiers who have decided they want to abandon the military. . . . Soldiers against the war have begun organizing within the military. Active duty soldiers started the Appeal for Redress, a petition calling for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. It was formulated less than a year ago, and has collected over 2,000 signatures of soldiers currently serving in the military. Membership in Iraq Veterans Against the War is nearing 600. . . . Soldiers like Lt. Ehren Watada and Camilo Mejia have set the example, publicly refusing deployment and condemning the war for its illegal and immoral nature."
There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes Derek Hess, Brad McCall, Justin Cliburn, Timothy Richard, Robert Weiss, Phil McDowell, Steve Yoczik, Ross Spears, Zamesha Dominique, Jared Hood, James Burmeister, Eli Israel, Joshua Key, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Carla Gomez, Luke Kamunen, Leif Kamunen, Leo Kamunen, Camilo Mejia, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Agustin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Abdullah Webster, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder, Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko,Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Dale Bartell, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Chris Capps, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake, Christopher Mogwai, Christian Kjar, Kyle Huwer, Vincent La Volpa, DeShawn Reed and Kevin Benderman. In total, forty-one US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.
Information on war resistance within the military can be found at The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline [(877) 447-4487], Iraq Veterans Against the War and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters. Tom Joad maintains a list of known war resisters.
Peter Hart spoke with Anthony Arnove (IRAQ: The Logic of Withdrawal) on this week's CounterSpin (airing on most radio stations today) about the issue of contractors.
Anthony Arnove: There is effectively a doubling of the US occupation in Iraq right now through the employment of private contractors of whom as many as 50,000 are armed -- effectively private mercenaries working in the employee of the US occupation. Blackwater is operating under the employment of the State Department. What's interesting is that very early on in the US occupation, Paul Bremer -- who was acting as the colonial viceroy -- in his capacity of head of the Coalition Provision Authority deliberately exempted these mercenaries and other US contractors from Iraqi law. And they've created basically a legal black hole in which these mercenaries can operate without any accountability. And the few times there have been incidents in which Iraqis tried to pursue contractors for violations they've been skirted out of the country so as not to have to face any prosecution. They do technically fall under rules of engagement set down for US contractors -- whether that's Pentagon rules or State Department rules. But like we've seen with active duty troops who've engaged in abuses of human rights in Iraq, there's really been no accountability certainly not up the chain of command.
No accountability. And Bremer and the CPA were nothing but a shell game. Bremer stripped Iraqis of oversight and, in fact, the US may not have any legal right to oversight as well. As Naomi Klein explains in her new book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise Of Disaster Capitalism:
Bremer's CPA would not try to stop the various scams, side deals and shell games because the CPA was itself a shell game. Though it was billed as the U.S. occupation authority, it's unclear that it held that distinction in anything other than name. This point was forcefully made by a judge in the infamous Custer Battles corruption case.
Two former employees of the security firm launched a whistle-blower lawsuit against the company, accusing it of cheating on reconstruction-related contracts with the CPA and defrauding the U.S. governments produced by the company that clearly showed it was keeping two sets of numbers -- one for itself, one for invoicing the CPA Retired Brigadier-General Hugh Tant testified that the fraud was "probably the worst I've ever seen in my 30 years in the army." (Among Custer Battles' many alleged violations, it is said to have appropriated Iraqi-owned forklifts from the airport, repainted them and billed the CPA for the cost of leasing the machines.)
In March 2006, a federal jury in Virginia ruled against the company, finding it guilty of fraud, and forced it to pay $10 million in damages. The company then asked the judge to overturn the verdict, with a revealing defense. It claimed that the CPA was not part of the U.S. government, and therefore not subject to its laws, including the False Claims Act. The implications of this defense were enormous: the Bush administration had indemnified U.S. corporations working in Iraq from any liability under Iraqi laws; if the CPA wasn't subject to U.S. law either, it meant that the contractors weren't subjected to any law at all -- U.S. or Iraqi. This time, the judge ruled in the company's favor: he said there was plenty of evidence that Custer Battles had submitted to the CPA "false and fraudulently inflated invoices," but he ruled that the plaintiffs had "failed to prove that the claims were presented to the United States." In other words, the U.S. government presence in Iraq during the first year of its economic experiment had been a mirage -- there had been no government, just a funnel to get U.S. taxpayer and Iraqi oil dollars to foreign corporations, completely outside the law. In this way, Iraq represented the most extreme expression of the anti-state counter-revolution -- a hollow state, where, as the courts finally established, there was no there, there.
Contractors in Iraq -- with the permission of the US government and sometimes on the orders of the US government -- have been allowed to act with impunity. Daniel Howden and Leonard Doyle (Independent of London) provide a look at the rise of outsourcing governmental tasks and note, "A high-ranking US military commander in Iraq said: 'These guys run loose in this country and do stupid stuff. There's no authority over them, so you can't come down on them hard when they escalate force. They shoot people.' In Abu Ghraib, all of the translators and up to half of the interrogators were reportedly private contractors."
Rosa Brooks (Los Angeles Times) also addresses the reality of governmental tasks being sold off to the private section, "What's been happening in Iraq -- and in Afghanistan, Columbia, Somalia and the Pentagon and the State Department -- goes far beyond the 'outsourcing of key military and security jobs.' For years, the administration has been quietly auctioning off U.S. foreign policy to the highest corporate bidder -- and it may be too late for us to buy it back. Think I'm exaggerating? Look at Blackwater. Its $750-million contract with the U.S. State Department employees in Iraq is just one of many lucrative U.S. (and foreign) government contracts it has enjoyed (and it's a safe bet that Sunday's episode will be only a minor PR setback for Blackwater). As for Blackwater's most recent slaughter, Kim Sengupta (Independent of London) reconstructs the events on Sunday via eye witness testimony: " We have found no Iraqi present at the scene who saw or heard sniper fire. Witnesses say the first victims of the shootings were a couple with their child, the mother and infant meeting horrific deaths, their bodies fused together by heat after their car caught fire. The contractors, according to this account, also shot Iraqi soldiers and police and Blackwater then called in an attack helicopter from its private air force which inflicted further casualties." Apparently unable to speak to Iraqis, Sabrina Tavernise and James Glanz (New York Times) rely on a leaked report from the Ministry of the Interior which "has concluded that employees of a private American security firm fired an unprovoked barrage in the shooting last Sunday," "that the dozens of foreign security companies here should be replaced by Iraqi companies, and that a law that has given the companies immunity for years be scrapped" -- and the reporters offer: "The Iraqi version of events may be self-serving in some points." And the US version may be what? Tavernise and Glanz ignore that prospect. Blackwater's apparently ignoring some things as well. Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) notes, "In Iraq, the private security firm Blackwater USA is reportedly back on the streets of Baghdad despite an announced ban on its activities. The Iraqi government said it had revoked Blackwater's license this week after its guards killed up to twenty-eight Iraqis in an unprovoked mass shooting. But a Pentagon spokesperson said today Blackwater is guarding diplomatic convoys following talks with the Iraqi government." So, as Ian Thompson (PSL) judged it, "Even the Iraqi puppet government leadership spoke up -- but its words were hot air. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki wants to gain credibility and appear to be independent of his U.S. colonial masters." The events appear to answer Thursday's question ("For the US government, it's a quandry: Do they use this moment to provide al-Maliki with a chance to alter his image or do they continue to let greed rule?"): Greed again won out.
Self-serving? Sabrina Tavernise and James Glanz apply that to the report from Iraq's Interior Ministry and it's doubtful they'd ever use the term for the upcoming US report. Along with the issue of equality, there's also the fact that the term is flat out wrong. The Interior Ministry is not self-serving, it's US-serving. Dropping back to the September 6th snapshot:
Turning to retired generals, Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) reported today, "A panel of retired US generals is urging the United States to disband and reorganize the Iraqi police force because of infiltration by sectarian militias. The generals also report Iraq's security forces will be unable to fulfill their essential security responsibilities independently for at least another twelve to 18 months." Karen DeYoung (Washington Post) explains that the national police force as well as the Iraq Interior Ministry are "riddled with sectarianism and corruption" by the Independent Commission on the Security Forces of Iraq headed by James Jones (Marine general) in there 150-plus page report which also finds the Iraqi army at least a year to 18 months away from being able to handle "internal security". Tim Reid (Times of London) reports, "The 20 member-panel also said today that the Iraqi Army was incpable of acting independently from US forces for at least another 18 months, and 'cannot yet meaningfully contribute to denying terrorists safe haven'."
The militias of the Interior Ministry are thugs who terrorize. Who trained them? Who introduced the "Salvador option"? The US. Who has refused to disband them? The US. Self-serving? The Interior Ministry wishes it were self-serving. Then it could really go to town slaughtering 'enemies.' It wouldn't have to worry that one of the many torture chambers they are running might result in a US military 'rescue' of their torture victims. If they were independent and self-serving, all of their torture chambers would be signed off on and not just some.
Today on NPR's The Diane Rehm Show, Rehm spoke with the Washington Post's Karen DeYoung, the Wall St. Journal's Neil King Jr. and Newsweek's Michael Hirsh about a number of topics. On the topic of Blackwater, Hirsh declared, "Often all that happens is that the employee is spirited out of the country. That happened last Christmas Eve when a Blackwater employee shot and killed a guard to a senior Iraqi official inside the Green Zone which was obviously a little politically toxic. And he left, the company has since refused to disclose his name and he has not been prosecuted."
Neil King, Jr. (Wall Street Journal): The thing that is extraordinary about it is that we had the Petraeus hearings last weekend or last week, and all the discussion "we want Iraq to be a country, we want it to step up, we want it to meet all these benchmarks" etc. And yet we don't really actually treat it as a country to the extent that we've got thousands of our own nationals driving around with machine guns and opening fire on people and then being totally immune from the law and as is the case of this shooting last week -- sorry, last December -- where a person shot a security guard who was the personal security guard of the vice-president of Iraq and the person's spirited out of the country. Nobody ever knows what his name was and he's gone. There'll never be -- I mean if you reverse the scenario and imagine any remote corrolary to that in the United States which is literally unimaginable.
A point the paper of record misses. Self-serving also wasn't applied by the New York Times to any of Gen. David Petraeus' many laughable reports to Congress. Rather strange considering Patrick Cockburn (Independent of London via CounterPunch) was reporting in the midst of the dog & pony show on how Petraues was explaining how he wanted to be President as early as 2004 but thought 2008 would be too soon to run. As Ann Scott Tyson (Washington Post) reported earlier this week, safety "is deteriorating in southern Iraq as rival Shiite militia vying for power have stepped up their attacks after moving out of Baghdad to avoid U.S.-led military operations, according to the latest quarterly Pentagon report on Iraq". If it all sounds familiar it's because it's the same story that's been playing out over and over across Iraq. But this was hailed last week as 'progress.' Let's stick with 'progress' for a bit. Remember how the meaningless soccer victories didn't change anything but were hailed with waves of Operation Happy Talk? Strangely, that's not been the case for a title Iraq actually won. The title? Kim Sengupta (Independent of London) reported mid-week that "Iraq holds the world record for both the first and second highest amounts taken in the history of bank robberies." Number one! Number one! In fact, the chart accompanies the article reveals that four of the top five Iraq bank robberies have taken place this year for a total of $282 million (US equivalent). And how about the 'progress' in the spreading of cholera? What had been a crisis for nothern Iraq is now reaching into Baghdad with Andrew E. Kramer (New York Times) reporting that there are now two confirmed cases of cholera in Baghdad. And it's not stopping at Baghdad. Katrina Kratovac (AP) reports that "a baby in Basra" is "the farthest south the outbreak has been detected." "Progress"? Robert Burns (AP) reports that Iraqis control approximately 8 percent of Baghdad -- only 8 percent -- which Burns points out is not a large growth even though Maj Gen Joseph Fil claims it is, "Despite the slow pace of progress towards having Iraqi forces maintain control of Baghdad neighborhoods with minimal U.S. troop presence, Fil said he was hopeful that it would accelerate in coming months." He's hopeful -- that's supposed to have us all glowing.
Well maybe there's 'progress' to be found in oil news? Tuesday Press TV reported on the bombing outside Beiji of an oil pipeline "causing huge quanties of crude oil to spill into the Tigris River" which has "caused oil to seep into the Tigris River damaging water stations and triggering their temporary closure in Tikrit". And the Tigris flows. Last night AP reported, "City officials urged Baghdad residents Thursday to conserve water and fill up their tanks in case water treatment stations have to be shut down because of an oil spill in the Tigris River." Progress? Just more violence.
In some of today's reported violence . . .
Bombings?
Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Hawija bombing of the home "of the former chief of Hawija police". Reuters reports 1 Romanian soldier dead from a Tallil bombing that left five more injured, a Kirkuk roadside bombing that claimed the life of 1 Iraqi soldier and 1 Iraqi police officer, an Iskandariya mortar attack that claimed 1 life (three more injured)
Corpses?
Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 8 corpses were discovered in Baghdad and three female corpses in Basra. Reuters notes that three corpses were discovered in Yusufiya and 1 in Bajwan.
Today the US military announced: "A soldier assigned to Task Force Lightning died in a non-combat related incident in Kirkuk province Sept. 20." And they announced: "A Task Force Lightning Soldier was killed in Diyala Province Thursday when an explosion occurred near his vehicle." The deaths bring the total number of US service members killed in the illegal war since it began in March of 2003 to 3794 (ICCC). That's six announced deaths away from the 3800 mark.
Finally, the CBS Evening News' Armen Keteyian looks into the missing weapons "the U.S. military could not account for" (190,000 of them) and discovers a large number of the Glock pistols have ended up in the hands of the Iraqi resistance: "According to an intelligence source, the U.S. contractor in charge of the Glocks somehow lost track of an entire shipment. That mysterious disappeance is now part of a massive military bribery investigation centered around a contracting office run out of a small trailer at a military base in Kuwait. Eighteen federal investigators are digging into the actions of dozens of high-ranking U.S officers and military contractors."
iraq
democracy nowamy goodman
naomi klein
anthony arnove
counterspin
patrick cockburn
margaret kimberley
the new york timessabrina tavernisemegan greenwellthe washington post
karen deyoung
ann scott tyson
the diane rehm showdiane rehm
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