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By: Siun Sunday March 18, 2007 6:03 pm |
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U.S. soldier kicking open a cupboard in a building to search for suspicious items while on a joint patrol with Iraqi National police in a suburb of Baghdad March 7, 2007. (Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters)
For my "quote of the day" over at Today in Iraq this week, I used the words of none other than George W Bush from his September 2004 speech to the UN:
The desire for freedom resides in every human heart. And that desire cannot be contained forever by prison walls, or martial laws, or secret police. Over time, and across the Earth, freedom will find a way.
It seemed the perfect intro to a story from Basra about 11 detainees who switched clothes with their visiting relatives and walked out of jail – the account from the BBC of this "embarassing incident" ended with the information that these detainess had been held for two years without charge.
After 4 years of Bush's war, escape from "prison walls, martial laws and secret police" are more remote than ever for the people of Iraq. As Tim Lambon of The New Statesman reports from his embed position with the new US surge troops in Baghdad:
It's hard to describe the noise when a whole cabinet of crockery is emptied on to the floor. Even harder not to shout in indignation when the American soldier who intentionally tipped it forward, until the plates and dishes slid smashing to the floor, says without regret, "Whoops!" and crunches over the shards past the distraught owner. "Cordon and search" they call looking for Sunni insurgents and their arms and explosives. But at what cost to the battle for "hearts and minds"?
(snip)
By the time we rolled into the middle section of the Baghdad neighbourhood of Ghazaliya, there wasn't a single shot being fired in our direction. Any insurgents were long gone. But the hapless residents were not. They watched, almost impassively, the random violence of the searching troops, too frightened to object. Some of the houses, whose Christian or Shia owners had fled, were empty.
Occupied or not, if no one quickly answered the demands to open up, gates, doors and windows were smashed down or blown open with shotguns. Inside, damage was done to anything breakable. Living-rooms became a jumble of furniture. Beds were overturned, cabinets thrown down, shelves emptied on to floors and beds: an orgy of destruction and arbitrary searching.
And while troops are kicking in the doors, they are also taking prisoners – in fact, perhaps the biggest surge in Iraq right now is the surge in the number of detainees being held. As Marsi Abugtaug of Azzaman reported yesterday :
The population of prisons in Iraq has soared in recent months with tens of thousands of Iraqis currently in U.S. custody without trial. U.S. troops and Iraqi government are investing heavily in the construction of prisons in the country with more than 100,000 Iraqis currently behind bars. A parliamentary investigation commission has found that U.S. troops alone now detain more than 61,000 Iraqis and the figure is expected to swell as the Americans press ahead with their military operations.
More than 50,000 Iraqis were reported to have been arrested in the past four weeks as part of the joint U.S.-Iraqi military campaign to subdue Baghdad. U.S. troops detain Iraqis merely on suspicion. Once detained, Iraqis may stay indefinitely as they are denied access to lawyers and Iraqi courts and government have no right to question U.S. troops' actions. Even Iraqi troops operations and activities now fall beyond the Iraqi judicial system as the country has been placed under emergency rule under which the courts have no power to question what the security forces do.
Many of the detainees are subjected to torture by military interrogators who use all means to extract confessions. The detainees are denied visits by family members or relatives and they usually have no means to get in touch with them until they are released. Many Iraqi families continue a hopeless search for relatives detained by U.S. troops. The search starts with hospital morgues and government-run prisons. U.S. prisons are off bounds. U.S. troops do not inform relatives of the Iraqis they capture.
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If were an Iraqi, born and raised, I would be branded a terrorist. If I were a Palestinian, the same.
what else is there to say?
Oh, its SO sickening what we’re doing. Let’s get everyone out so we don’t do anymore damage.
Did anyone see the 60 Minutes interview with the Haditha marine?
My first thought about the detainees escaping was that the people watching them must have the attitude of, “They all look alike.”
I mean, really, how stupid can you be to let people you’ve held for a couple of years walk out of a prison simply because they changed clothes?
That, to me, is a most chilling portrayal of the mentality over there.
It was also in Basra … two weeks ago I believe – where UK troops found and released 140 detainees who were being abused and tortured. The response from Maliki’s government was to investigate who snitched to the UK forces – not who was doing the torturing.
If some foreign power were occupying my country, killing, maiming and assaulting my women and children, the old and the sick, and stealing my resources, then I would retaliate with everything at my disposal.
And while our MSM is reporting that the surge troops are being “welcomed” … thousands of Iraqis turned out on Friday to insist that the troops stay out of Sadr City – but we didn’t see that on TV.
Ah the sweet smell of freedom.
Smells like a politcal cadaver.
Karma boomerang heading out way.
-GSD
Siun @ 4
Yes I did, and did anyone notice who his attorney is? Our buddy Mr. Zaid from the Plame hearings on Friday
If ever a war needed micromanagement, it seems like this one’s it.
TROOPS
HOME
NOW
Helen – I did not notice that … very interesting indeed.
Helen, did you notice the size of his pupils? The pupils were quite large. I thought about how brightly lit a TV studio is, and it made me wonder.
Great work, Siun!
Siun @
6
Emphasis mine.
A page from the Bush/Rove play book about leaks concerning their illegal activities.
I want the Democrats to cut the funding for the war in Iraq. I want my party to prevent Bush from starting anymore unprovoked wars. I want a just settlement to the Palestinian-Israeli war. And I want these things now.
Thanks Kirk … the horrifying thing is how much dreadful news there is each day from Iraq. Just covering one day – colleagues do the other six and we are always looking for volunteers to take a day – but one day each week provides such a view into all we do not hear.
If I hear one more right-wing tool say “Making a plan for withdrawal is encouraging and emboldening ‘the enemy’” I think I will scream. So what they are basically saying is “We can never leave”!
They act as if there were a finite number of ‘terrorists’ with a central leader and once we kill or subdue them all, ‘victory’ will be achieved. As if we’re not creating 4 for every one we kill.
Bush could not have done this any worse if Osama himself had had a receiver implanted in his brain.
Siun @
17
And then there is this Raw Story developing headline:
Times: AIDS pandemic arrives in Afghanistan… Developing
Phoenix Woman @ 19
PW, we’re fulfilling Osama’s plans every day. He’s probably just happy as sh** with Bush’s falling right in with his fondest wishes – to make America despised around the world, and to drain our resources trying to assert our ’superiority’.
Siun, yesterday on line I saw the piece you quoted, and just wnated to cry. For the Iraqis – helpless as their home is destroyed, prized family reminders crushed and ruined. For all the civilians hurt, mamed, displaced, killed in this hideous war.
Thanks for doing the work you do.
Where are you looking for volunteers?
Stephen Parrish, CPA @ 20
Silently, AIDS Comes to Afghanistan
This is among the most depressing and horrifying of all stories about what we are doing in Iraq.
Several years ago, during the 60th Anniversary of the end of WWII in Europe, I had the occasion to visit the resistance museums in Amsterdam and Oslo. The museum in Oslo is beyond compare.
We are the Nazis, now perhaps a million Iraqis are dead from this mess, we are incarcerating, torturing and killing prisoners. We invade their homes, rape and kill while destroying every element of their “castle.” Aside the death camps, what is the difference?
What’s happening in Iraq is unspeakable … it’s happening in the US on a larger scale than most realize.
1 of every 142 Americans is in prison; and 1 of every 32 is either in prison or on parole from prison, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. This means 6.7 million adult men and women (about 3.1 percent of the population) are incarcerated in the “correctional community” … a rate nearly 10 times that of other democracies.
By the end of 2002, an all-time record of adult men and women were either on parole or probation–4,748,306.
Bush promised new jobs–and his new gloabl industry is the prison industry. Here is a good film that explains the psychology behind incarceration–http://www.dasexperiment.de/intro
Siun,
I’m glad you’re bringing this home to us regularly now. More:
17 Mar 2007
Vatican City – Caritas Internationalis and Caritas Iraq say that malnutrition rates have risen in Iraq from 19 percent before the US-led invasion to a national average of 28 percent four years later.
Caritas says that rising hunger has been caused by high levels of insecurity, collapsed healthcare and other infrastructure, increased polarisation between different sects and tribes, and rising poverty.
Over 11 percent of newborn babies are born underweight in Iraq today, compared with a figure of 4 percent in 2003. Before March 2003, Iraq already had significant infant mortality due to malnutrition because of the international sanctions regime.
from here. And, more (!!!):
Four years after the invasion the post-invasion excess deaths (avoidable deaths, deaths that did not have to happen) in Occupied Iraq now total 1 MILLION.
It sounds like they aren’t going to letg the Iraqis have any more ‘fourth amendment’ than they’ll give us: none.
I am so mad at this adminstration that the end of it can’t come soon enough. I have friends who keep saying ‘impeachment will take too long’. My answer is why? What do they have to investigate? Everything needed is already public information.
And for the love of Whomever, bring the troops home now. Or we the base of the Democratic Party will find a party that actually hears us, and it won’t be the one with Hillary and Schumer.
Kirk … that article is quite something – and folks should click the New Statesman link to read the whole piece. Lambon is part of the UK Channel 4 team and they have done astonishing reporting from Iraq. They have a series of documentaries that really need to be seen – the new CNN piece on Death Squads is a heavily edited version of one.
on volunteers – the site Today in Iraq is being relaunched with a new site and an easier way to blog. We have three of us right now covering seven days a week (I only do one of those) and we’re definitely looking for folks who would like to help – we have access to the Iraqi news sources and each editor has free rein on their day – but it is a committment. Still, it seems very important to provide a place where people can read the real news of this war. If anyone is interested, they can email me at media dot firedoglake at gmail dot com.
Let’s not forget that US police agencies have begun large, mass arrests of allegedly illegal aliens. Swept up by the hundreds in some cases
The federal government is also gearing to execute a large number of federal death row inmates too.
The apparatus of oppression is fully in place.
Slipping into darkness.
-GSD
How can soldiers with a conscience do these things? Just following orders?
This story needs to be on the front page of every newspaper and on the 6 PM evening news.
It won’t… not in this America.
How much heartbreak can we suffer? And how much horror must those people suffer?
With any luck, the Justice Dept. “thing” will finally be the “tipping point” that brings down the Republican Criminal Enterprise. With the Iraq war, A*PAC is still calling the shots and it is going to grind on and on. The battle line needs to be drawn at the Iran War and it doesn’t look like the Dems have the spine to do that.
I can’t imagine how much I would hate someone who shot their way into my house and started breaking everything. I would never get over the feeling.
DefJef @ 31
The Bush 30% have been screaming for the US to “take the gloves off” in Iraq and stop “handcuffing” the military by succumbing to “politically correct” calls of restraint.
Some of that 30% have called for dropping nuclear weapons in Sunni areas.
This is just what they want.
-GSD
Viewing the photo at the top reinforces my radical thinking. How would I like it if that was my kids’ bedroom. And if it were, I might begin to think violent thoughts.
As a 51 year old father of four, I sometimes have a hard time looking at my children and not be overwhelmed by the death and destruction we are bringing down on innocent Iraqi families.
WE ARE A NATION OF WAR CRIMINALS
Terry … precisely. Seems to me the “insurgency” grows with each door broken down.
I fear our friends/dealers/financiers the Saudis would not stand for nuking the Sunni areas; the incomprehension by “the base” of geopolitical reality is absolutely staggering.
OK Kiddo – it’s interesting that the descriptions on the search photos all say “searching a building” yet the photos clearly show just a regular home … you see people’s kitchens, bedrooms … all smashed. There’s also a set of pics from a “search” of a mosque … with all the holy books ripped and scattered around the floor.
TeddySanFran @ 38
Sunni vs Shia is way beyond these people.
Sunni *and* Shia *and* Christians *and* so many more are all against the occupation.
Last week I asked each of my high school math classes for a show of hands as to who planned to join the military upon graduation this June. We’re talking 25 kids each, per six periods. None. I mean none, raised their hands.
I fear our work in Iraq is done, to America’s eternal shame.
Yesterday we also had word of this case:
Fort Campbell, KY (BBC) — A US soldier has been found guilty on three charges of negligent homicide in the deaths of three Iraqi detainees. Sgt Raymond Girouard was the last of four soldiers to be tried over the killings during a raid on a suspected insurgent camp near Samarra in 2006.
Sgt Girouard, 24, denied ordering his soldiers to shoot the Iraqi prisoners but admitted covering up the deaths. Two soldiers pleaded guilty to murder and were jailed for 18 years. Another was sentenced to nine months. A court martial jury in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, also found Sgt Girouard guilty of obstruction of justice and of conspiracy for trying to hide the crime. Negligent homicide carries a maximum of three years in jail whereas premeditated murder carries a maximum of life without parole.
‘Cover-up’
Specialist William Hunsaker and Private First Class Corey Clagett – who admitted to releasing and then shooting the men – received 18-year sentences in a deal with military prosecutors. Specialist Juston Graber – who said he killed an injured prisoner in what he called a mercy killing – admitted aggravated assault and was jailed for nine months. Hunsaker testified on Tuesday that Sgt Girouard gave him orders to free the three Iraqi detainees, and then shoot them as they fled.
Hunsaker said that after the squad took the detainees into custody, Sgt Girouard told the soldiers the group’s first sergeant was angry the three men were still alive. Hunsaker said he and Corey Clagett took the detainees outside and told them to run. “I shot him [the first detainee] where his heart should be. I moved from right to left. I took aim in the same manner and aimed for the heart and the head,” Hunsaker told the court. He said that after the detainees were shot, Sgt Girouard cut him with a pocket knife to make it appear there had been a struggle.
…………………
Many reports say that the troops were told to kill any military age Iraqi men … no questions asked. This conviction on lesser charges certainly does not lead to a lot of faith in the military justice system.
And why are these soldiers not tried by Iraqi courts?
Anybody going to a peace march tomorrow? 4th anniversary and all…
Here’s the link for that story:
http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpap…..461215.stm
Oklahoma.. but my wife has two nephews here from nyc who signed up for the navy and are assigend to carriers now off to the Gulf. And she had a hard time talking her son out of doing the same.
It’s macho stuff for some of these kids… They believe every lie they are told by the military and never have read a newspaper or listened to the news.. but know every rap song or hip hop song or whatever these kids listen to.
Kids are doing these horrors!
Chicago’s march is on Tuesday … and I plan to be there.
No wonder our soldiers are coming home so screwed up. This goes against everything they have brought up with as to how to behave. I really want to know who is giving the orders for them to do this. Patreas? (SP)
Petraus has some interesting skeletons …
check this story:
Petraues
DefJef @ 47
I understand what you are telling me. I don’t know what to say.
There were accounts a while back in Rolling Stone – and I’ve never been able to find them again online – about the training given soldiers now. Apparently through Vietnam, they found that the kill rate for soldiers was too low … soldiers did not kill as often or as frequently as desired. So they reworked the training … it’s chilling but apparently has worked well to turn kids into killers.
DefJef @ 47..The Navy won’t keep you out of Iraq..My nephew is a Navy pilot..they put him in a Marine uniform and ship his ass to Iraq. Got back a few months ago.
Shared Humanity @ 36
I am a mom of a similar age with two of my own whom I protect like a shebear. I would want to murder anyone who did anything to our home or my children’s future.
The picture is terribly disturbing, Siun. The stories behind it and the hundreds of similar events daily are the biggest tragedy the world has faced since the Pol Pot regime.
Think of what 150,000 troops, four years and a trillion dollars could have done for the planet, for the US, for the future. It’s not just the horror: it’s the lost opportunities for justice and peace and progress and really painting schools.
Siun @ 52
I know the story, the military surveyed combat veterans and determined that many did not fire their weapons, even during firefights. As a result, the military initiated training that would help people overcome their natural hesitation to kill another human being. Kill rates and active participation during firefights has gone up dramatically as a result. It still does not protect the soldier from the almost inevitable devastation they will feel when they are able to finally admit what they have done. I feel sorry for these men and women.
Siun @ 50
What a sad story, Siun. So heartbreaking. I hope that we get all of Halliburton’s paperwork and back taxes and fines, and NEVER hear from them again. No USA work ever again.
I saw this film today the ground truth . It tells the stories of returning soldiers and the deep wounds – some physical, all psychological – that our troops face when they return “home”. These guys will never be the same. They are haunted by the knowledge that they killed innocent people. The faces of the innocent are seared in their consciousness. It’s brutal.
But one of the most horrifying aspects of the film are the sounds and images of Iraqi families being terrorized in their own homes. It was unbearably painful.
However do we get beyond this?
Siun @ 52..The last thing I saw on Army training was a new program designed to avoid washing anyone out. Too fat..not to worry you don’t have to diet,to tired to run not a problem, the DI’s are now your friends.
They only care now about turning out numbers; who cares if they are physically fit, well trained or have body armor. This is a revival of the “100,000″ program from the Vietnam era.
Alison @ 54
This is so on the money, Allison. We could be so well-respected internationally…Now, I don’t even want to show my passport.
Peace is preferable to war. Diplomacy is desired over violence and force. Once we had politicians who would stand for these universals. Where are they now?
Siun @ 52
Siun, they talked about this in The Ground Truth. They also touched on the idea that through the Vietnam War the rewiring of the soldier’s mind to get to the point of ease with killing required more time. It takes far less time now. The speculation is that a generation raised on kill video has primed the mind for killing.
Pretty awful.
inmymind’seye @ 61
And recruiting at the paintball places.
inmymind’seye @ 61
premature launch! Yeah, the video game evolution into the first-person shooter area. Bothered me a lot. More in a bit.
inmymind’seye @ 57
We break the US capacity to wage Imperial war.
We civilians have the mammoth – but possible – task of moving public opinion.
The officer corps have a duty to the Constitution – Lt. Watada has shown them the honorable response to a war of aggression – should they have the courage to follow his lead.
And the megacorps and megabanks and neocons have done more to hollow out our Imperial war machine than legions of activists could dream of doing.
Their manic pursuit of quaterly returns has devastated America’s industrial and economic base, and the corporate looting known as “globalization” has destroyed our treasury and balance of payments. The Iraq war – and resultant dumping of the US dollar as a reserve currency – is the penultimate blow.
We’ll live to see America’s Imperial military paralyzed by transnational megacorps. Can’t field an army when you can’t pay their bills.
Siun @
4
watching it right now… it’s making my blood run cold… I can almost not bear it…
Digby has a post about the wrong-wing fantasies about the movie 300.
Yes, the Americans are the brave and outnumbered Spartans and they are taking on the corrupt and all powerful Persians/Sunnis/Shiites/Al Qaeda/Islamo-fascists.
Lot’s of morally bankrupt fantasies as their world spins down the drain.
-GSD
GSD … folks I know have seen 300 very differently and suggest (as Neal Stephenson did in his review today in the NYT) that it’s inconclusive who are the Spartans …
I hate to say it… but when the market collapses people will maybe wake up to the horror of the military industrial complex… Right now too many of them see it as their retirement investment and portfolios.
Probably 99% of every dollar that passes through the DOD ends up in some corporate coffer.
War is big business… and the Iraqi has been a 500 billion dollar bonanza for the MIC. No one will let a few indescretions stand in the way of that sort of cash.
I will never support any nominee from my party, the Dems, who does not advocate withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq. And that’s that.
Siun, I was repelled by this movie. I haven’t seen a sicker fascist fantasy since Starship Troopers.
-GSD
When the Spartan wife of Leonidas appeals for the senate to send more troops by crying ‘Freedom isn’t free’ I was kinda figuring that it was a shabby piece of propaganda.
Not to mention the Persian hordes are all swarthy, Black, Asian, androgynous, crippled and fat. Unlike the all white and rippled and warrior like Spartans.
I think we try so hard to blame films or video games for the willingness of our troops to kill innocents. Instead, I think we need to look at our imperial culture …
GSD – I haven’t seen it. Both of my kids – who are intensely radical and antiracist (to say the least) saw and enjoyed it. Stephenson suggests that the audience for 300 approaches it from a completely different angle. I’ll wait and see if I get around to it.
Siun @ 71
Really, did I say anything about the film causing the war?
I said it was in my opinion a sick and corrupt piece of artwork.
I hardly laid the blame for the war at the feet of the director of 300.
Despite the fact that I have seen Taxi Driver I have never tried to bed Jodie Foster.
-GSD
Liked the picture.
Any chance we can juxtapose that with one showing a redcoat kicking in a Mass. colonist wardrobe, say, maybe late 1700s?
Siun,
My bi-racial nephew saw it and loved it too.
-GSD
Sorry for being a tad crabby. Gotta get some sleep.
GSD – our comments crossed in the wires and my first was not a response to yours but a response to earlier comments on video games, etc.
Siun, when is the relaunch of Today in Iraq expected. I just tried to find it and the page comes up blank.
I think that professional sports, as presented these days, bears some responsibility for the winning is everthing mentality of our youth and culture in general. Used to be in my time, when I played sports, our coaches and parents taught us about the idea that ‘it’s how you play the game’ that’s important.
The film was a technical masterpiece, visually exciting and wholly watchable, by the way.
-GSD
inmymind’s eye:
Today in Iraq is live now:
http://dailywarnewsblog.com/
The old site will close on this coming Saturday.
We’re just transitioning from site to site and from blogger to wordpress (with some wonderful refinements thanks to MarkfromIreland’s team)
GSD – my daughter, who’s Korean, saw it with friends at Imax … apparently it was quite an experience.
re inmymind’seye @ #61:
In late 1977, some friends of mine and I were alternating between playing PONG and PanzerBlitz at a party. Somebody said “These computer games make board games look pretty slow and silly.”
Somebody agreed, saying that if they could make something as fast as PONG as bloody as PanzerBlitz, it’d sell even better.
Squad Leader came out soon afterward. It was First Person Shooter. It was the biggest hit Avalon Hill had, with many spin-offs. Some of the people from Avalon Hill (maker of PB and SqL) and SSI (Strategic Simulations) moved into computer sims about then. I think they brought the first person shooter idea with, at least as far as being able to convince computer game programmers that the money was in that direct, addictive and hypnotic field.
I usually doubt the move from manipulating imaginary ping pong balls to the picture at the top of Siun’s post was more than one step in the wrong direction at a time.
The picture used for this item is profoundly illustrative of the emptiness of pretextual justifications of the invasions from the beginning where any modicum of civility or civil process has been of little priority with respect to engaging the general population of Iraq. These abuses of process have been ongoing form the very beginning and most actions have been sweeping demonstrations of arbitrary force. The brute totalitarian tatics, though undoubtedly of militaristic value, that have been used door to door in Iraq betray any assertion of a noble purpose in Iraq, a military action of choice not necessity. And the more permissive rules of engagement associated with the surge confirm that the motive of the administration is one of repression and not liberation. The goal is a naked economic hegemony designed to enrich war profiteers and the gloated management of a dying petro-energy industry, if not the vanity of chicken-hawk adminstration cravenly seeking a kind of perverse validation by mere association with military action.
The total commitment of Bush and all to a kind of Orwellian double speak in all matters is itself a gesture wrought in terror. This cabal has again and again appropriated noble words and concepts for purpose of nefarious deceptions. What is truly regrettable is that our society has evolved to a place where it produces these kinds of politicians who have such heightened faculties with dishonesty. We are judged by our actions and not our intentions and the utter necessity for an honorable defensive military does not escape me. But the arbitrary abuse of authority like the kind used to quell the civilian population in Iraq compounded by the terrbile tragedy of civilian deaths so easily rationalized as “collateral” in this action are a deeply unsettling and terrific shame.
Siun @
81
Probably sat near my nephew, he also saw it at the I-max at Jordan’s.
Small world.
Gotta get a nights sleep.
See it for yourself and we can have at it then.
: )
-GSD
I see 300 and i see something highly stylized but without much in the way of content, the way most of Frank Miller’s stuff is. I have a feeling his most substatial stuff was made during V for Vendetta, and even then the message got twisted a bit by scriptwriters. I expect an even more brazen bit of work in 300. Granted, i do intend to see the film.
I’ll judge it when i see it. I just dont’ expect most in the ways of content. More i’m there for the visuals, since it was taken from a Graphic novel first and foremost. I happen to be multiracial myself and i’ve seen the trailers. I can see the outright bias, but trailers never show the bulk of a film. Just the bits and pieces they’ll think the general audience will jump at. So we’ll see how it affects me, aside from my drooling at the money shots. Content’s always another aspect i file away when movie watching.
I just saw Pan’s Labryinth and LOVED it. But i doubt most of the american audience would. It’s bleak and unusual a tale. But it’s striking nonetheless.
aliasofwestgate – Pan’s Labyrinth made my son’s top ten list as well.
J Thomason – thank you for the thoughtful comment.
I must say – I think the rhetoric of our country, the way troops have been drilled to believe that somehow the Iraqis they kill are responsible for 9/11, the dehumanizing of muslims, of brown people, and the constant use by W of “bad guy” talk lead inevitably to the war crimes we now see everyday.
Meanwhile the Republicans make appeals to the public to think about the poor Iraquis and how they need the help of Americans. It’s way worse than anything a normal person could even imagine the government capable of doing. Someone asked in an earlier thread why our troops would engage in this behavior. The answer probably lies in the number of deployments they have served. Imagine the rage, the suspension of all that is normal. Even “lifers” probably never expect to spend so much time in war and battles. There is no doubt many of our boys have been brutalized and corrupted by what they have been through. I guess when you walk around with a target on your back it’s easy to learn to hate. Then too, we’ve been told about the military lowering standards for enlistment. Regardless of any of that, we all know it comes from the top down. That is where the real accountability should be. I wish they might experience an epiphany such as Scrooge, to confront the result of their actions and be able to feel shame and mercy, but I fear their souls are lost, and thus they are incapable of compassion. For shame, that it has come to this. For shame that they are turning our children into monsterous zombies, for shame that they, in our name, are destroying the lives of the Iraqui people.
Siun @ 80
So I gather you are working with Iraqi photographers and bloggers? I just skimmed it quickly, and want to go back and read it.
how about we organize a BOYCOTT of “Meet the Press” advertisers until Delay disappears…
It’s on for the rerun, the Perle/Delay show.
Lies. lies and more lies…
I suspect it will be a long time before most Americans wonder how the 1930s German people let what happen happen without doing anything now that they have been caught in the same trap they were, although thankfully the waking period here with America appears to be before the entire planet has been dragged through a multiyear conventional war unlike 1930s Germany. Then again, Germany had a very hard economic period preceding it along with political paralysis post WWI whereas America came into the era of the Cheney Presidency brought to you by George W Bush off a period of great economic expansion and wellbeing. The Cold War had ended and followed a path towards a fairly stable transition to a fairly peaceful (for humans anyways given our history) international operating standard of the rule of law and the use of raw/military power as the least preferred (but never flinched from if truly necessary) action with America having done a fair bit to pave that road between ironically GHWB and Clinton. How much farther it feels America fell to reach this point than the Germans did to theirs is a disturbing sensation, even when it is due to the difference in initial starting points than in conclusions (althogh alas that is not as far apart as once it was and closer than most would ever have beleived possible for America).
I am truly glad the mid terms were the repudiation of the GOP as they were, it made the first real dent into what was looking like a true totalitarian state forming on my doorstep and it was scaring the lights out of me and many of my fellow citizens. What you have done to yourselves along with Iraq and the farce that is Afghanistan (After all it was well acknowledged going into Afghanistan that while NATO could contribute a fair amount of the overall necessary resources, both military and other it was America that would be the largest by far. That without real American commitment in the end NATO’s alone would not be enough as has now been shown to be the case alas. Of course leaving those NATO countries trying desperately to halt the slow slide back into chaos holding the bag doesn’t help American credibility in the future let alone present and their citizens are not exactly pleased with America for this either.) looks like some twisted parody of the America if the commies/Nazis had won kind of movie if the history of the last five years was written as a screenplay in vogue in the 1950s shlock what if flicks
It is also breeding a hatred for America and Americans in that region that will last for generations, as well as validating everything bin Laden was saying America was truly about back in the mid to late 1990s. Many times over the years at Political Animal I have noted that Bush has done at least as much damage as any foreign asset in his position could hope to ever do to weaken American power across the board from military to economic to moral. The stain to America’s honour and the honour of Americans themselves has been serious and deep by these actions and inactions to prevent/stop them. This sort of thing only underscores that stain, which is why I also have maintained since the 2004 elections that impeachment of Bushco is a necessary act for America to have any hope of removing any significant amount of that stain within this generation for what has been done in the name of the American citizen/voter by those they have accepted as elected by the majority of American voters. That is a responsibility that cannot be washed away like blood can be with hot water no matter how many might think/prefer/wish it so.
It brings me to tears to see what my American cousins have allowed to be done in their names, and I am sorry to say it has angered me how long the majority appeared willing to simply go along with it, let alone cheering loudly along the way. While I appreciated just how much the fears 9/11/01 triggered were exploited by Bushco and the GOP to create that sentiment in the populace it does not change the ugly reality that for the next five and a half years after that attack the first five were essentially used to create the American empire free of restraint of the considerations that applied to lesser mortals/countries. We are still seeing the active repercussions with Iraq, Afghanistan, Gitmo, renditioning, the abuses within the American justice system too numerous to list now with the latest confirmed revelations with the USAs, and essentially the revision of the Constitution by Cheney and his fellow unitary executive true believers.
Thankfully I am seeing signs that not all is lost, but it is still going to be a struggle and a battle to beat back the damages the culture war of movement conservativism has wrought upon American political discourse. When you see everything political through a moral lens of good/evil first you inevitably end up with what we have seen with Bushco and the GOP Congress that sanctioned their actions. Iraq may be the most horrific gruesome and largest concentration of the “evils” (Quotes more because of my dislike of using such an absolute word with such emotional weight but really how else can it be described? being done by America and Americans but it is far from the only ones as great as they are. I think by the time all the Bushco/GOP sins of this period of history have been catalogued it will truly sicken any human being with a sense of free thought and a conscience especially those millions of Americans that do meet that criteria.
The one thing though that has always worried me about America is the fact that roughly half of all eligible voters don’t vote, that indifferent non-voting block represents real power even in absence, and its absence allows for fringe mentalities to dominate, as Bushco and the GOP have proven so conclusively. I do hope that the last decade or so has finally started to shake some of them out of their apathy and actually back into the political process, or I fear that in the long run America is not going to really come back from the damage wrought by the GOP, movement conservativism, and especially Bushco/Cheney.
I still lay most of the blame for the behavior of our children squarely at the feet of their parents. Parents don’t like to hear that. But it’s true. Kids that like violence and war were not taught properly about the value of life.
Scotian! great comment. I agree about impeachment, and so much else. Your perspective is a real “reality check”.
Terry Olson:
We use online sources and don’t have direct contact with reporters or photographers in Iraq. But we do have assistance and advice from some very knowledgeable folks who point to independent and reliable Iraqi sources. Each Today in Iraq editor picks based on their own sensibility – I rely pretty heavily on Al Aswat and Azzaman for on the ground views as well as the McClatchey Iraqi bloggers.
The photos are available – though some like the one above seem to vanish quickly – from several sites. Here’s a link to the daily scroll of Iraq photos from Yahoo:
http://news.yahoo.com/photos/sm/1479/p:1
I just watched Richard Perle and Tom DeLay on Press the Meat.
WTF?
Nothing else, just that.
One of the front page posters at Howard-Empowered People was in D.C. for peace rallies this weekend, and has written up a couple posts about the experience.
Just sent Russert an email asking “Why Tom Delay?”
You can too.
From the NYT article tonight on whether or not Rove will testify before Leahy’s committee. Will be interesting to see the Rethug posturing this week, given their whiny-cry-baby “Clinton did it tooooo” chorus last week about the USAs firings.
One wonders if Rove and Co will prove to be the gutless cowards we’ve always suspected they are under their bullying poseur facades. They can dish it out, but they can’t take it. Cue the weepy Cunningham video.
Terry Olson @
45
Am going to the peace march in Monterey where we’re all gathering on the Window on the Bay park, a beautiful large green grass public space by the beach. It should be at or near capacity from what we’ve been hearing from the tireless organizers.
I my time parents taught their kids the value of the vote and that it was their right, and duty to enfranchise themselves. Not so much anymore.
The problems are only going to get worse..urban warfare is a nightmare for both sides and as the rotational intervals shorten and the training is cut short..these kids have to be scared shitless in that environment…at any time, you or your friend can be shot or blown-up. We have only begun to see the effect of the psych. trauma on these kids.
And now a comment from the psychopath’s mom..Babs:
Barbara Bush tells Diane Sawyer on ABC’s “Good Morning America” that she will not watch televised coverage of the war: “Why should we hear about body bags and deaths, and how many, what day it’s going to happen, and how many this or what do you suppose? Or, I mean, it’s, it’s not relevant. So, why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?”
She is surely going to rot in Hell.
J. Thomason @ 83
Huh????? Yeah, what he said.
Scotian … it is a chilling time. My mother, who is 80, has said several times that she sees us as the “good germans” which is particularly strong for a woman of her generation.
Balrog @ 94
That says it all. Perle is … Here he speaks for Chicago Friends of Israel.
Balrog @ 94
My favorite quote from the show was:
FMR. REP. ANDREWS: Tom, with all due respect, I think I’d be much more comfortable taking the military strategy advice of Admiral Sestak than, than Tom DeLay.
Balrog @ 94
See my first impressions in the morning thread. No wonder Matalin knew she could count on Timmeh for pressin’ the war.
Russert’s reduced himself to being a softball tossing pimp for the neocons. Or as Mr. S. noted this morning…he used to be somebody.
OT THis from the other day
* Thank Kucinich for His Remarks Today on Iran and Impeachment
When a Congress Member steps out into a firestorm of opposition from the
corporate media and his own party’s leadership, he has to hear support
from us to keep him going.
Please call Rep. Dennis Kucinich at 202-225-5871 and Email him at
http://kucinich.us/contactThank him for his remarks today:
http://impeachforpeace.org/imp…..log/?p=634
They were made on the floor of the House, in which he stood up for Congress’ war powers and stated impeachment may be the only way to
prevent President Bush from attacking Iran.
Remarks on the floor of the U.S. House, March 15, 2007: “This House cannot avoid its Constitutionally authorized responsibility
to restrain the abuse of Executive power.
“The Administration has been preparing for an aggressive war against Iran. There is no solid, direct evidence that Iran has the intention of attacking the United States or its allies.
“The US is a signatory to the UN Charter, a constituent treaty among the nations of the world. Article II, Section 4 of the UN Charter states, “all members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat
or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of
any state. . .” Even the threat of a war of aggression is illegal.
“Article VI of the US Constitution makes such treaties the Supreme Law of the Land. This Administration, has openly threatened aggression against Iran in violation of the US Constitution and the UN Charter.
“This week the House Appropriations committee removed language from the Iraq war funding bill requiring the Administration, under Article 1, Section 8, Clause 11 of the Constitution, to seek permission before it
launched an attack against Iran.*******
“Since war with Iran is an option of this Administration and since such war is patently illegal, then impeachment may well be the only remedy which remains to stop a war of aggression against Iran.”http://www.kucinich.us
_______________
****** so now Pelosi et al have given Bush permission to attack Iran. What insanity is this?
Oklahoma kiddo @91..The nature-nurture debate..it take both..It took both DNA and Babs to create the monster of GWB.
Fresh TRex upstairs
Siun @ 44. The Spec and Priv 1st class pled guilty to murder. If you notice, the Sergeant who planned and ordered it was only found guilty of “negligent homicide” which carries a much lesser sentence. Don’t expect to see him serving the same time as his soldiers. “Technically” he could get 21 years, but that’s like “technically” Libby could get 20 or whatever.
So the guys who carried out the orders and eventually told the truth are, again, the ones the military really punishes. Lie and cover up and be an officer and get rewarded.
If they’d just stuffed their detainees into a sleeping bag and suffocated them while bouncing their butts up and down on the broken ribs, and after first letting CIA interrogators beat them for a few days, they would have only gotten a 60 “green zone” arrest and some cheers at the sentencing.
So I guess the other lesson learned is if you’re going to kill them, keep them around to torture for several days first.
The court martials, like the Combatant Status Review Tribunals at GITMO, have been a shockingly sad revelation into what the military officers truly see as duty and honor.
I believe when George Bush isn’t directly involved, they call activities where families can’t find out who has been taken and to where “disappearing” people. It’s against the Geneva Conventions, but then, the one thing our officer corps has been good at is teaching American Forces that “Geneva Conventions” are just words in a foreign language.
It’s a heartbreaking shame for those who serve honorably and bear such high costs, life, mental health, loss of limbs, destroyed marriages, etc. Bc once the institution allows itself to be degraded, it pulls down all who sacrificed for it as well. No one ever associates the Nazi soldiers who died in WWII with sacrifice and honor, although you know that there were those who were honorable. But their leadership set the tenor for how they will all be remembered.
This new “emergency rule” was announced on February 13th by al Maliki to coincide with the surge. According to Human Rights Watch :
————
Wonder if Gonzales and staff wrote the emergency rule; wonder how much of the “surge” rationale came out of the previously established “principles” that now define the American experience vis a vis DOJ
practices.
Kucinich is right, but the time is NOW for impeachment, not a “may well be” someday objective.
MoveOn dot org sent out an email survey earlier today giving three choices on the current Iraq proposal in the House. Support – Not Sure – Do Not Support. FWIW I voted “Not Sure” but have felt saddened ever since. What a nightmare we have foisted on the Iraqi people and the world and our once proud nation.
Can’t we at least agree to impeach the bastards starting with the true architect Cheney?
We could do much worse than President Nancy Pelosi.
Prairie Sunshine @
105
I loved seeing Perle eat it. But the most fascinating things on all of the talk shows these days are the ties these guys wear. I’m hoping soon to see one knitted of bubble gum pink angora. Or lavendar silk with stripes made of olive green rhinestones. What’s that accordian fabric that shrinks down to baby doll size and then stretches to fit a sixteen year old? Multi-colored miniature marshmallows maybe?
Mary4 – good points as always. That case has some more odd turns. Apparently the day before the killings, the troops heard a speech by their general and at least one of the attorney’s tried to bring that speech into consideration but was blocked. And of course, the lower ranks pay the price …
And for the love of Whomever, bring the troops home now. Or we the base of the Democratic Party will find a party that actually hears us, and it won’t be the one with Hillary and Schumer.
____________________________
Rosie O’Donnell (SP?) asked Schumer this last week if impeachment of Bush and Cheney weren’t the only answer. He calmly said that wasn’t an option because impeachment requires proof of crime and there was no proof of crime. (!!!!) I thought I’d scream in shock and disgust for his stupidity and total lack of courage.
VS Kucinich, see above.
Siun, thanks so much for what you’re doing for pressing the case home upon us. Bless you.
Shared Humanity, I appreciate your “huh???” Sometimes my thoughts just don’t get fully unpacked in my effort to see the big picture.
A few more articles and a detachment from my love of prepositions would do me good. Alas I keep trudging.
Siun @ 102
Yes, it is, and yes I agree with your mother. I was raised by those that did fight the forces of darkness in the middle third of the 20th century and the similarities I have been seeing from those periods truly terrifies me. The last of those relatives passed away a few short months prior to 9/11/01, but I am certain that were they with me today they would be saying the same thing as your mother. I always feared the one way Americans might get blindsided was via a religious messiah and for the first part of his mandate Bush43 managed to present himself in those terms.
Ironically enough I am grateful for his gross incompetence because if he was a competent messiah type power abuser he could well have done even worse damage than he has with far less outcry. He overplayed his hand a few too many times and it finally caught up with him. Combine that with the power of hearings and subpoenas by a political opposition that he has battered and bludgeoned as traitors and unpatriotic for those same five years and I think the house of cards is finally going to start crashing down around him while still in office. My worst fear was that he would exit office without there being any formal repudiation of his actions like these hearings and especially impeachment. Even without impeachment though with sufficiently hard investigations and enough put on the public record to leave no doubt at to what Bushco and their GOP lackey Congress truly was all about allows for some degree of formal repudiation while still in office of the policies which have so stained America’s name and honour.
Valley Girl:
Thanks for the kind words again, but you are so effusive with your words that I sometimes wonder who you are talking to. I am more than a little on the long winded side and not the best at concise writing (although I can appreciate it when I see it I cannot duplicate it so easily alas) but you and others seem to like it. Well, as I told you a few weeks ago I am here to stay, if not the most frequent of commentators here. Usually when I stop lurking at a blog it is for the long term, at least if the delurk is over an extended several day period which this one certainly has been.
I’m late to the party, but a very good post, Siun.
aliasofwestgate @
85
I saw 300 today, and this seems right to me. Although, I suppose one could make a stretch that Xerxes is Bush: a power-hungry tyrant with a god complex, but that would be a stretch. I don’t know who the Spartans would be in that scenario, though.
Thanks Swopa … much appreciated.
Pan’s Labyrinth is a stunning work. All the buzz today seems to be about this film called 300. Myself? No idea.
The British military in Iraq have been very concerned from the very beginning about how the Americans approached the invasion and occupation of Iraq, clearly. Apart from the notorious numerous cases of friendly fire deaths among their own lot at the hands of American troops, they have been appalled at the way Americans have treated the Iraqi population as a matter of policy. The brutality and cavalierness is beyond their kin. They themselves got on well with Iraqis in their base of operation in Basra. Now, I believe, they’ve been or are being replaced by Americans and Iraqi ad hoc police forces. Things there are declining as a result of these changes. Of course, that area and the rest of country was so much better off before the pre-emptive invasion and occupation, even with the horrible effects of 10 years of blockade, the constant harassing and bombing during the Clinton era and the destruction as a result of the Persian Gulf war launched in similar fashion by GW’s father. And this following upon the Iran-Iraq war. I mean, jeepers! WTF! When will there be enough people here willing to say, enough is enough?
npr watch # 3
on marketplace – 50 min past hour.
“Sen. X (Conrad) was ID’d on our program as a Republican.
We are sure he is a fine Senator, outsanding man, and may even be very handsome.
But he is a Democrat.”
Note the dissociative “but” interposed ‘twixt the list of positive attributes and “Democrat”.
NPR news/marketplace.
Turning tricks for the megacorps.
alank – you might find the following useful:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq…..35,00.html
[snip]
spring is coming….
signs of hope….
the Israel lobby’s grip falters.
A*PAC’s zenith slips away…
behind them….
Before them –
landfall approaches.
Israel lobby – enjoying the ride?
I’m enjoying the show.
Remember the Liberty?
And the 34 American sailors aboard her murdered by Israeli warplanes’ deliberate, repeated attacks just before the 1967 war?
The USS Liberty just happened to be a US spy ship – listening to Israeli signals.
Israeli warplanes repeatedly attacked our warship, and murdered our sailors.
With allies like this, we need…?
American patriots need to break the Israel lobby’s grip on US foreign policy.
American patriots need to break A*PAC’s power to foment war on behalf on a foreign power – Israel.
And break the neo-cons’ war of aggression in Iraq.
A*PAC’s war.
more on Israel’s attack upon the Liberty…..
oh yeah – Israeli planes strafed our lifeboats.
With allies like this….
With this ally – Israel – we have:
the Iraq war.
Goddesses and gods, preserve us from our friends.
And preserve the rest of the planet from us.
[btw - most all the quoted comments below (and above) have active links in the original.]
mm @ 25
Kirk … thank you for the reminder of the Liberty.
Siun, I’m all shy and blushing now.
Thanks for your work for human rights and freedom (and for relieving my fear I’d cluttered up the thread :)
mm – and may – thanks for reminding us of the dark prisons here
at homein the homelandSiun @
80
Thanks Siun
Siun, I am only at comment 25 and must put in my EPU before this closes. Your last post – the words are burning gave me a “Wounded Knee” moment, one that will stay with me to the end of my days. I wish to ammend my comment there and expand it here concerning Iraq.
America’s eternal shame, deal with it
America’s children are war criminals, not heros, live with it.
America is a rouge state, a pariah nation, cope with it.
America the exceptional is no more, accept it.
Fantastic post Siun, All the best…….
J. Thomason @ 115
Never the less, I agreed with everything you said and I did not mean to be rude.
Siun @
122
Yes, but when set against the record of the American occupiers, this episode is miniscule by comparison.
Consider this article as another bleak perspective on the British presence in Basra with the following telling observation (not the first time to be made about the Americans as royal cockup artists and major thugs):
Which, of course, they were, but you see the point being made here.
What the hell’s wrong with simply opening the door? Is it more manly to kick it in or send it all crashing to the floor while you kick it over? If you are looking for something then look for it. Looking doesn’t equal destroying or kicking.
Literally, bulls in china closets.
Siun @
71
I didn’t mean to imply that only video games, tv, media are to blame for the willingness of our soldiers to kill the innocent. Certainly the casual portrayal of violence in the media has a part to play. But it’s actually the physical restructuring of the brain that occurs when these games are played for hours each day for years on end that has made the kill instinct more accessible.
I’d like to hear Pach’s take on this, or someone far more knowledgable and articulate than myself.
Arnie @
129
The Ground Truth, in this film, soldiers discuss these very issues. Over & over again former soldiers, now activists, talk about the irony of the heroe’s welcome – and that if the country truly knew what atrocities they were responsible for committing, they would be vilified.
Siun, thank you so much for these posts. They truly deserve a wider audience. Public opinion could change if only these true stories were available. Are there any msm outlets that would be willing to tell them?
kirk murphy @
22
we’re looking for people to continue the work started by YankeeDoodle a fiercely patriotic US Vet horrified at what his country is doing. He blew his top at the “bring ‘em on” speech.
Leave a comment on my place (wont be published) if you’d like to do something practical to end this war. What’s involved is trawling through news sites for reports on Iraq.
The time involved is an evening a week or fortnight or whatever you can give regularly.
I find it remarkable that we can’t get Americans to give even that little, ask Siun how easy it is. I pay for everything needed out of my own pocket.
mfi—
Good to see you.
This is an old thread, wanna come up to the newest one, Lunch Bunch and chat?
No
Mfi—
Let me be more specific. It’s an old thread. No one will see what you have written here. Would you like to come to the current thread and say exactly the same thing there, so people will have the opportunity to read it.