“equivocation, hair splitting, and desperate recourse to jesuitical semantics are one behaviour that we all tend to resort to when our backs are against the wall”
Using language with some precision is the sign of a serious mind, DeAnander. Wanton and persistent disregard for meaning is not. If we seek clarity here, if we seek understanding of events, then how in the hell are we to find it when terms and terminology are regularly employed in a manner that is, at best, extremely careless and, at worst, patently dishonest.
Your penchant, by the way, for cheap psychologizing is annoying.

Posted by: Pat | Nov 17 2004 19:14 utc | 104

A Victory, But Little Is Gained NYT OpEd by two Dartmouth professors

As long as the insurgency rages, it is unlikely that America will achieve the political goals it set for itself – a unified, democratic Iraq as the first building block in the broader democratization of the Middle East. In fact, we must now worry about the emergence of an Iraqi government dominated by anti-Western jihadist groups, or a perpetual civil war among the Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish communities that will kill millions and create fertile ground for terrorist groups like Al Qaeda to recruit, train and plan.
Given these horrific possibilities, perhaps we should set our goals more realistically, and focus on the achievable. Some have suggested that we let Iraq divide itself into independent Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish countries. This might avert a prolonged, violent struggle for control of the central government after the United States withdraws. Still, history – most recently that of Yugoslavia – suggests that partition is a risky, bloody business. Millions of people would be forced from their homes, and many would not leave without a fight. Furthermore, the mini-countries carved out of Iraq may be swallowed by their larger neighbors; the Shiite area would be very attractive to Iran.
A second distasteful alternative is to support the consolidation of power in the hands of a new secular strongman. This may bring peace of a sort, but it would be a bitter result for the Iraqi people after their brief taste of freedom. Saddam Hussein was able to keep his politically, ethnically and religiously divided state together only through nearly constant repression; it seems unlikely that any successor could rule with a velvet glove.
These are depressing prospects. The fact that we must consider them underscores the caution that should be employed before deciding to go to war. Still, given where we stand today, if the United States can find a way to withdraw most of its troops over the next several years and leave behind an Iraq that is not in a civil war, that is not a haven for Al Qaeda and is not an immediate threat to its neighbors, history may well record it as an odds-defying success.

Big IF that one.

Posted by: b | Nov 17 2004 19:39 utc | 106

Arggggggh!!! Can you play nice together?

Posted by: beq | Nov 17 2004 19:46 utc | 108

Using language with some precision is the sign of a serious mind, DeAnander. Wanton and persistent disregard for meaning is not. If we seek clarity here, if we seek understanding of events, then how in the hell are we to find it when terms and terminology are regularly employed in a manner that is, at best, extremely careless and, at worst, patently dishonest.
Your penchant, by the way, for cheap psychologizing is annoying
pat
personnally, i’ve had enough. you do not search meaning. all i’ve ever witnessed from you, pat – is an escape from meaning – whether its empirical or metaphysic.
you do not care at all at the murder, the common murder carried out by american armed forces in iraq. you want to argue it out whether it is a genocide, a mass murder, a slaughter, assasinations, killing, collateral damage, problems, errors or whatever word would suffice to hide the terrible knowledge that we all posess
you berate deanander for being inexact – but you are repeatedly inexact, elusive or as some would call it – elliptic. i sense that you do not want to take responsibility for your real opinions so it becomes a part of your standard operating procedure to be sofly malicious in your condemnation of others. i prefer to call a spade a spade
i sued to think that – like others – you were conducting a real research when i first encountered you at billmons but i do not think that now. i’ve read your posts very carefully – a close reading – that alabama feels i am incapable of enacting – after all i’m such a simple savage – but whether it was your critique of kerry or this semantic sordidness about what is happening on the ground in iraq – what your are doing is provoking – you do not want a real answer
& because you are good at what you do & perhaps if i had been on the other side of the table in your interrogations – i would spill everything – i have been provoked. i have in relation to the absence of sincerity in your post made a fool of myself
& i feel a little ridiculous for ever having taken you or your ‘debates’ seriouslly
i know you will never listen to me & in the end that is of no account but i would venture to suggest that you really listen to the posts of deanander, of anna missed of sic transit gloria because if you have better voices i cannot hear them
still steel

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Nov 17 2004 19:56 utc | 110

it was just 100 years ago that Gen. Jacob “Hellraiser” Smith reportedly ordered Major Littleton Waller to kill everyone in Samar over the age of ten – I want no prisoners. I wish you to kill and burn; the more you kill and burn the better you will please me. I want all persons killed who are capable of bearing arms in hostilities against the United States. Waller asked Smith what age cutoff would be considered “enemy combatants,” to which Smith replied “ten years.”
how’s that for precision?
and to cite another quote from the philippine-american war, here’s one that is very straight-forward, from an officer – We exterminated the American Indians, and I guess most of us are proud of it, or, at least, believe the end justified the means; and we must have no scruples about exterminating this other race standing in the way of progress and enlightenment, if it’s necessary.
so which quotes from the “heroes” in Fallujah will make it to the historical record? Here’s one contender: “I would have shot the insurgent too. Two shots to the head,” said Sergeant Nicholas Graham, 24, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. “You can’t trust these people. He should not be investigated. He did nothing wrong.”

Posted by: b real | Nov 17 2004 20:19 utc | 112

I have been eagerly following your discussions from the beginning. It is evident that Pat has become somewhat of a provocateur and seems to be playing some sort of game. Intriguing to try to determine what it is, but it seems to be getting destructive to the site. Hopefully that is not the intent, or that I am totally mis-reading it. I have learned a great deal here and enjoy it very much.

Posted by: anonymous | Nov 17 2004 20:24 utc | 114

I should have added that closing off interpretation complements rightwing politics by radically narrowing the contest for morality. I can only guess that pat seeks to do the same.
Therefore, pat is rightwing.
Damn, I just created a syllogism!
Sorry, pat, couldn’t resist.

Posted by: slothrop | Nov 17 2004 20:48 utc | 116

Eageration and hyperboly and rigid definition and legalistic parsing are oposite extremes of the same spectrum. Both should be avoided.
No, genocide is not yet taking place in Iraq, but mass murder and war crimes are. In my book, genocide is not an order of magnitude worse than what is currently go on, it is all horrible and criminal and must stop. Horror is horror is horror. And the US perpetrating it. We must stop.

Posted by: stoy | Nov 17 2004 20:55 utc | 118

The sovereignty and liberty of a people are not to be discussed, but rather defended with weapons in hand.

Posted by: Augusto C. Sandino | Nov 17 2004 21:02 utc | 120

Pat, excellent news!
My 1971 OED seems to think genocide is not a significant word – it just skips from genoblast to Genoese.
Guess we can all just move on.

Posted by: Citizen | Nov 17 2004 21:17 utc | 122

“He’s dead now!”

Posted by: Sic transit gloria USA | Nov 17 2004 21:24 utc | 124

Seriously, I don’t really trust dictionaries written after the nineteen teens, they go all mushy and useless (OED not exempt).
If we are arguing merely about law, I care what the dictionary says. But I’m more interested in slothrop and Adorno’s project of seeking not to screen but to comprehend what’s going on.
Pat, let me address your argument seriously here – do you really think the law matters more on this site than does our comprehension? That the law will come to our rescue, to the Iraqis? The law generally defends those who possess the understanding and the power to demand it. First things first.

Posted by: Citizen | Nov 17 2004 21:34 utc | 126

@rapt
“Fairly soon we will come to grips with the fact that our enemy has no ethics, no respect for the law other than seeking ways to circumvent it. It is hard to identify all these people but there are a lot of them it seems. As a group, they have drawn themselves up into power positions now, finally.”
“I want to remind you that this is a fight to the death; the enemy has NO scruples. Human? I doubt it.”
Excuse me? Have we lost sight of something fundamental here? We invaded a country without any justification or legal basis. All of our actions have broadcast to the people of that country that we intend to seize their resources and set those resources to work for our own purposes and benefit. We have set up a puppet government to do our bidding and despite a huge amount of empty rhetoric to the contrary, have offered no participation in the decision making process to the larger public.
In Falluja, we are literally destroying people’s homes. So what type of response do you expect from “the enemy” — whom, in Iraq, is entirely of our own making? Are they not entitled to defend their homes and their homeland from invasion and occupation?

Posted by: Bea | Nov 17 2004 21:47 utc | 128

Bea, I refer to the enemy headquartered in the White House. Sorry for the imprecision there.
As for Iraqis, I never could figure how they were made out to be an enemy.

Posted by: rapt | Nov 17 2004 21:57 utc | 130

Words from Under the Same Sun (blog) that ring so true:
“I can visualize remembering this moment two or three years down the line, when people are arguing whether it was the first or second assault on Fallujah that was the turning point towards whatever disastrous consequences we will be experiencing then. Remembering that everything was done while many, many people trying to shout how wrong it all was, not just morally and legally, but pragmatically.”
It does feel like a momentous turning point–as in, the point where the boat rushing down the rapids begins to tip over the edge in free-fall.

Posted by: Bea | Nov 17 2004 22:06 utc | 132

robert fisk common dreams
Published on Wednesday, November 17, 2004 by The Star (South Africa)
Margaret Hassan’s Suspected Execution Will Be Seen As ‘Proof’ of Evil
by Robert Frisk
 
After the grief, the astonishment, heartbreak, anger and fury over the apparent murder of such a good and saintly woman, that is the question her friends – and, quite possibly, the Iraqi insurgents – will be asking.
This Anglo-Irish woman held an Iraqi passport. She had lived in Iraq for 30 years, she had dedicated her life to the welfare of Iraqis in need.
She hated the United Nations sanctions and opposed the Anglo-American invasion.
So who killed Margaret Hassan?
Of course, those of us who knew her will reflect on the appalling implications of the videotape (sent to Al Jazeera yesterday and apparently showing her execution).
Her husband believes it is evidence of her death.
If Margaret Hassan can be kidnapped and murdered, how much further can we fall into the Iraqi pit?
There are no barriers, no frontiers of immorality left. What price is innocence now worth in the anarchy that we have brought to Iraq? The answer is simple: nothing.
I remember Margaret arguing with doctors and truck drivers over a lorry-load of medicines for Iraq’s children’s cancer wards in 1998. She smiled, cajoled and pleaded to get these leukaemia drugs to Basra and Mosul.
She would not have wished to be called an angel – Margaret didn’t like clichés. Even now I want to write “doesn’t like clichés”. Are we really permitted to say that she is dead?
For the bureaucrats and the Western leaders who today will express their outrage and sorrow at her reported death, she had nothing but scorn.
Yes, she knew the risks. Margaret Hassan was well aware that many Iraqi women had been kidnapped, raped, ransomed or murdered by the Baghdad mafia.
Because she is a Western woman – the first to be abducted and apparently murdered – we forget how many Iraqi women have already suffered this terrible fate; largely unreported in a world which counts dead American soldiers but ignores the fatalities among those with darker skins and browner eyes and a different religion, whom we claimed to have liberated.
And now let’s remember the other, earlier videos. Margaret Hassan crying. Margaret Hassan fainting, Margaret Hassan having water thrown over her face to revive her, Margaret Hassan crying again, pleading for the withdrawal of the Black Watch regiment from the Euphrates River.
In the background of these appalling pictures, there were none of the usual Islamic banners. There were none of the usual armed and hooded men. There were no Qur’anic recitations.
And when it percolated through to Fallujah and Ramadi that the mere act of kidnapping Hassan was close to heresy, the combined resistance groups of Fallujah – and the message genuinely came from them – demanded her release.
So, incredibly, did Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaeda man whom the Americans falsely claimed was leading the Iraqi insurrection, but who has definitely been involved in the kidnappings and beheadings.
Other abducted women were freed when their captors recognised their innocence.
But not Margaret Hassan, even though she spoke fluent Arabic and could explain her work to her captors in their own language.
If anyone doubted the murderous nature of the insurgents, what better way to prove their viciousness than to produce evidence of Margaret Hassan’s murder?
What more ruthless way could there be of demonstrating to the world that the US and Interim Prime Minister Iyad Alawi’s tinpot army were fighting “evil” in Fallujah and the other Iraqi cities?
Even in the topsy-turvy world of Iraq, nobody is suggesting that people associated with the government of Mr Allawi had a hand in Margaret Hassan’s death. Iraq, after all, is awash with up to 20 insurgent groups but also with rival gangs of criminals seeking to extort money from hostage-taking.
But still the question has to be answered: who killed Margaret Hassan?

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Nov 17 2004 22:30 utc | 134

I can’t even begin to think about Falluja in any concrete fashion though I looked at some pictures – then I practise a detachment and consider the pictures stereotypical fare of war reporting these days…shock and horror at a bleeding child with a bandaged but obviously missing limb. I have to keep my distance. But wonder. What can pictures like that tell about true suffering? That sounds peculiar I know…
I haven’t read every word of the posts in this thread. So …
Since April Falluja has been in control of wahabite fundamentalists. I read that at the April withdrawal the Americans gave in to every single ‘rebel’ demand, including paying huge compensation for loss of life and home to about 60% of residents.
Did you know that re-building, paid for by the US, was going on just before the last onslaught of bombing? That no ‘rebels’ were given up under the agreement made in April?
The only demand the US would not give in to was the media filming. The US insisted it had to appear a sort of winner, and wanted to film *tanks* entering or messing about in F. The insurgents only let them film that action carried out with Humvees. Check it. Have a look. (I haven’t.) The American figured it would make no difference to US voters, and gave in.
Since April, the penalty for women in the street not completely covered has been – execution. On the spot. The penalty for robbers or false freedom fighters, has been – execution. Sellers of alcohol – execution. And so on. Most bodies were mutilated, and sold back to families – if they could pay – as a sort of occult insurgent tax. No one in F. has gone to work (what work?) since April. Some people there have been hungry since then. Water has also been problematic. Medics, forget it. The jihadists dominated the local police, such as it was. The authorities, Iraqi, and American, I have read, bowed down. (Pending the US election and the planned clean up.) In the street, they stood still when the big bosses appeared…
All this comes from my reading of the newspapers we get here, the internet.
I guess there is news and news .. press and press… My reading is that the descriptions are factual, insofar as these things can ever be considered such – exagerations will be there, specific incidents will be described a representative..
Descriptions were never accompanied by any apologies for US actions, the need for crackdown, etc.
I mention all this only because it seems to be missing from the discussion here…Iraqis in F are victims caught between two factions, and not stalwart freedom fighters. The analogy to local Resistance fighters in say France or Holland in ww 2 is completely inappropriate…
That does not mean that the US has not engineered these confrontations, nor that they are not indiscrimate murderers. Btw, they are also cutting off arms and legs, I have heard. (No source, so don’t take it as fact or bug me about it..but it is hardly surprising..)

Posted by: Blackie | Nov 17 2004 22:50 utc | 136

Perhaps someone has offered up Margaret Hassan’s killing as a way to counterbalance/ justify/contextualize the slaughter of the wounded Iraqi in the mosque by a US soldier? Isn’t the timing too close to be pure coincidence? Actually, I don’t know which came first really. I haven’t been following it that closely – but this suddenly jumped out at me.

Posted by: Bea | Nov 17 2004 23:11 utc | 138

“‘US Marines used chemical weapons against civilians in Falluja’ ”
The British did it first. It just took them longer to decide to use them. I guess the Americans are fast-learners.
Fisk is spot on: it’s very fishy that Hassan has been killed right after the whole mess with the mosque killing. In fact, I’d risk to say that this wasn’t a psy-ops, as Bernhard seems to think, but that Hassan’s murder was the real psyop, designed to freak out people. I’ve already seen people saying killing all Fallujans is no big deal since they’re beasts and monsters that murdered a peaceful woman.
B: If it’s the Mossad, they’ve just become friggin crazy. If words get out and if there’s any leak, if one of these guys is actually arrested or killed, and it all goes out, Israel will be close to doom. Except maybe for the US, where the news could still be muted, the rest of the planet will be so pissed off they’ll have no other solution to try to redeem themselves than total withdrawal from the territories before the end of next year, and complete evacuation of the last settler. Otherwise, the UN sanctions will be terrible, and imho should be on par with those on Iraq; of course, if it comes to that, the US may try a veto, then it’ll go the the General Assembly, with a nice 198-2 vote. So, well, the risks are so high for them that I still tend to think it’s Allawi and his gang; I mean, first reports of the kidnappings of the 2 Italians said the guys looked like Allawi’s troopers and even said they were.
Anonymous 3.24:
You’re kidding, right? Pat was partly responsible for the shitstorm that blew up the Annex (well, she was far from the only one, of course, and not the worst offender), and she has repeatedly been touting the GOP memes since weeks, has openly called to vote Bush and has openly admitted preferences for the GOP. She’s basically saying that flattening Fallujah is just fine, that she has no problem with Iraq war, except it’s badly done by incompetent fools, and is basically taunting us since some time. Of course there is NO intent to disrupt the site here!

Posted by: Clueless Joe | Nov 17 2004 23:25 utc | 140

Blackie,
Your reasoning is perhaps well-intended but it is incorrect. The daily bombing of Falluja since April, the frequent shootings dead of Falluja families entering and leaving the city, the sniping by US sharpshooters of innocents as they attempted to go about their lives in the streets, gardens and doorways of their own city and homes, snipings that have been an ever-present feature since April, the unceasing planting of stories in the media about ‘Wahhabists’ ‘Salafis’ and ‘al-Zarqawi networks’, the denials by US military press spokesmen, even in the face of Reuters film footage of children and parents being pulled dead from the rubble of their homes, that such deaths had not occurred or that reportage of same was the work of al-Zarqawi propagandists, the bombing of the sports-field-turned cemetery and the incessant pumping of threatening ‘Burn Motherfucker, Burn’ type music from the loudspeakers of US psy-ops vans encircling the city are all things that may have escaped your attention and analysis – and daily endurance.
As for ‘demands’ – the citizens of Falluja, who had, and have even less now, little trust in the forces who had been daily murdering them, the key and understandable desire of the people of Falluja was that Iraqi forces only should enter their city.
The ‘talks’ – a fake process of negotiation, presumably intended more for your consumption than for anyone living in Falluja – constantly foundered on the demand that al-Zarqawi be given up by the citizen of Falluja. Like the WMD of Iraq, he was not there. Senior US military and intelligence analysts are on record many times as stating that they do not know if he is alive, dead, in Iraq or out of it. Certainly they did not believe he was in Falluja.
As for the Taliban-style regime you infer existed in Falluja, this is incorrect. While it is true that some fundamentalists imposed rigid authority upon their immediate followers the reality of community leadership, kinship and the demarcation of neighborhoods in Falluja meant that such ‘fundamentalist fiefdoms’ were extremely limited in the application of their geographic and social control.
As for ‘filming’ – this may or may not be the exact same type of ‘demand’ that witnessed a solitary US Marines convoy hurtling one time only under Iraqi escort through a small part of Falluja last April in order that the mighty and powerful ones could claim with limited precision that had they ‘patrolled’ the city.
As for mutilations and beheadings, I will not go into detail about the precise nature of injury that Falluja citizens suffer under US bombing and tank and artillery fire. Suffice to say that some of the bloody, shredded chunks gathered into black plastic bags would not draw the attention of a starving man at a meat market. It would appear that your aversion to the horrors of ‘up close and personal’ killings blinds you somewhat to the disintegration of the human body that results from the ‘40,000 feet up’ or ‘2000 meters’ killings of Americans.
Whatever impression your reading has left you with, and acknowledging that certain voices from Falluja were afraid of, looked down upon or saw a source of danger to themselves because of the existence of, Iraqi resistance fighters, it is a fact that the vast, vast majority of Falluja citizens as well as millions of others throughout Iraq DO see the fighters as being as legitimate as and heroic as the Maquis or any other group that you care to mention.
The US is not a benign presence in Iraq. Its soldiers are not white knights. Most, not all, but certainly most, are savage, racist scum. Filthy, ignorant, savage racist scum. Large numbers of them are the dirt from America’s prisons and doubtless large numbers of them will return there when their psychotic natures lead them to transgress against their fellow-Americans when they are demobilized.
There are no matters of degree in this, there is no ‘nice American domination’ to sell to Iraqis. And as someone who has struggled hard all my life for peace with justice it is disturbing to me to begin to feel that the killing of American troops is no longer a thing of painful necessity, a view arrived at after wrestling with the political, patriotic and moral concerns of an Iraqi, but that after glimpsing the inner workings of certain American minds it is a pleasure.

Posted by: Sic transit gloria USA | Nov 17 2004 23:39 utc | 142

Maybe we should all state something we do NOT know, it would clear things up…
@Jerome:
That’s a very good topic for a thread.
I’d like to learn about Hegel.
If someone has an abbreviated cite about his dialectic.
I’m attempting some interior 220 v wiring tomorrow, and don’t know crap about that either.
If I put the wires together wrong and get blown clear to Paris, please do not mistake me for Lucifer or Michael when I come down.

Posted by: FlashHarry | Nov 18 2004 0:18 utc | 144

flasharry
when you fall from the heavens bringing
electricity & light on yr way to paris
i will be a little to the left opening
a page of od geore wilhelm friederich
to pass an hour ot two over the hegelian
dialectic
still steel
i also do elementary classes in comportement, philologie & typing
so do drop – & i mean drop – by

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Nov 18 2004 0:38 utc | 146

@ remembereringgiap: “a little to the left”? 😉

Posted by: beq | Nov 18 2004 0:50 utc | 148

Sic transit gloria USA
Much obliged for the above, two questions:
The M. Hassan execution remindes me of the N. Byrd execution, coming as it did during the Abu-Graib revelations, if this one was done by Zarqawi, why would’nt he claim credit?
What proof does the administration have that it is Zarqawi himself (hooded) doing the beheading? Is he saying ,on the tapes that it is himself?
One more, Do you give any validity to reports that show that the Zarqawi car-bomb attacks are directed primarialy at Shiite policeman, Shiite govt employees, Shiite guardsmen, etc That he always targets Shiites?

Posted by: anna missed | Nov 18 2004 2:21 utc | 150

…..A top Red Cross official in Baghdad now estimates that at least 800 civilians have been killed so far – and this is a “low” figure, based on accounts by Red Crescent aid workers barred by the Americans from entering the city, residents still inside Fallujah, and refugees now huddling in camps in the desert near Fallujah. The refugees tell horror stories – including confirmation, already reported by Asia Times Online, of the Americans using cluster bombs and spraying white phosphorus, a banned chemical weapon…
…Crucially, Dr al-Muhannadi also confirmed that American snipers killed more than 17 Iraqi doctors who had mobilized to answer an appeal from Fallujah’s doctors broadcast on al-Jazeera: information on the massacre has been circulating in Baghdad for days. Amnesty International, based on the account of a doctor at the scene, says that 20 Fallujah medical staff and dozens of civilians were killed when an American missile destroyed a clinic on November 9…
Counterinsurgency run amok

Posted by: Sic transit gloria USA | Nov 18 2004 5:01 utc | 152

Pat: Using language with some precision is the sign of a serious mind, DeAnander.
Balogna. Baloney! It can also be the the sign of an obsessive-compulsive and rigid mind. Quit kidding us all Pat. If your expertise is in linguistics… stick to it. Use it. Don’t delve into psychology and neurology. You seem way out of your league.

Posted by: Kate_Storm | Nov 18 2004 6:05 utc | 154

Iraq assessments – Insurgents not giving up

Posted by: Sic transit gloria USA | Nov 18 2004 7:57 utc | 156

Sic: So let me keep see; in Fallujah, we had bad reenactments of: Srebrenica (all adult males are enemy combatants that can’t leave but should die), Dresden (white phosphorus bombing), Saddam’s Kuwait invasion (granted, the babies thrown out of incubators was a myth, but arresting a doctor right when a woman gives birth comes pretty close to that kind of shit). What’s next? Rape of Nanking? Red Army in Berlin?

Posted by: Clueless Joe | Nov 18 2004 10:51 utc | 158

DeAnder:
I think your idea of using the stages of cancer as a metaphor for describing the evolution of societal prejudice as it turns more darkly into genocidal impulse is brilliant. There is a lot of room for thought and debate over just what those stages are, and how one identifies “crossing points” from one stage to the next. Does anyone know if there are theories already in existence on this in the literature somewhere? If not, there should be.
As for eliminating the use of the word “cancer” to describe the growth in population of human beings, thank you, thank you, thank you. I could not agree more. This is terminology that I have personally found horridly repugnant for a long time. Your posts on this thread in general are powerful and thought-provoking.
I agree we are not yet at genocide, indeed far from it, since there is no systematic effort or plan afoot to eliminate an entire race or nation. However, it’s undeniable that something about the situation has become very, very dangerous — in the sense that the potential for genocidal-like incidents (shall we say, “local massacres?”) has exponentially increased. As I see it, that is the simple fact that the US troops on the ground now appear to be seeing every Iraqi as a target to be completely distrusted and potentially life-threatening. There are no more civilians, only targets.
Sic transit gloria:
Thank you for the amazing wealth of source material you are providing us. The piece from the Asia Times (Counterinsurgency Run Amok) was particularly packed with the sorts of vivid details that have been so rare in the coverage of this war.

Posted by: Bea | Nov 18 2004 11:20 utc | 160

Rapt: That’s the easy explanation. Like saying Nazis were just monsters, not real human beings. It’s the demonization of Jews in reverse mode, basically. I suppose the human mind has difficulty to admit that humans can do such miserable and criminal acts, because everyone considers himself to be a decent, normal and functional being; so, acknowledging other humans could be fully dysfunctional and just mindless killers is unsettling, because it opens the possibility that oneself could become so. This may just be as hard to face for a human brain than the realisation of its own mortality.
Beside, what would these guys be, is this a disguise, like in V? Bottome line is still that if you encounter an intelligent humanoid species, there is something like zero chance it is “alien”, but it’s necessarily related to humans and apes in a way or another. Of course one can’t entirely rule out that in ages passed long ago some branch of “Homo” evolved in an unknown direction and would have remained hidden until now, but that’s basically the only explanation which makes real sense that you could find for the weird grey aliens of X-Files and the like – definitely not guys that come from Andromeda galaxy. Beside, it may well be a crucial mistake to assume that only carbon-based lifeform can evolve.

Posted by: Clueless Joe | Nov 18 2004 15:18 utc | 162

For the moment I’m struck by the opening phrase of Hawthorne’s passage–not, “behind their victims came the victors,” or, “behind their victims came the wicked,” but “behind their victims came the afflicted”…. Hawthorne lets no one off the hook here; he’s simply signalling the long-term cost of such blood-lust for the “afflicted” and their offspring: they all pay an incalculable long-term price with respect to their sanity, their honor and their self-respect. It’s their best hope that some of their descendants might learn from their example (“our fathers set up their shame to the mournful gaze of generations far remote”)…. Caught, then, as we now are, in this very place at this very moment, we certainly have to protest the crimes with all our might, but should never suppose that such protest can separate us from “the guilty who grow old in long remorse”: denying our place in this community would distract us from the task at hand–which is the very task that Hawthorne undertakes in the telling of his story (namely, to consider what’s been happening on our watch).

Posted by: alabama | Nov 18 2004 15:41 utc | 164

Bea & others – the notion that genocide has to result in the extermination of “an entire race or nation” is simply wrong. the definition is:
any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

more detail & definition @ the link I mentioned above:

The phrase “in whole or in part” is important. Perpetrators need not intend to destroy the entire group. Destruction of only part of a group (such as its educated members, or members living in one region) is also genocide. Most authorities require intent to destroy a substantial number of group members – mass murder. But an individual criminal may be guilty of genocide even if he kills only one person, so long as he knew he was participating in a larger plan to destroy the group.
…
Deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to destroy a group includes the deliberate deprivation of resources needed for the group’s physical survival, such as clean water, food, clothing, shelter or medical services. Deprivation of the means to sustain life can be imposed through confiscation of harvests, blockade of foodstuffs, detention in camps, forcible relocation or expulsion into deserts.
…
Genocidal acts need not kill or cause the death of members of a group. Causing serious bodily or mental harm, prevention of births and transfer of children are acts of genocide when committed as part of a policy to destroy a group’s existence.

perhaps we can now move past quibbles about definitions..?

Posted by: b real | Nov 18 2004 15:48 utc | 166

b real
Thank you for that defintion; by virtue of your supplying it, I learned something new. I don’t think these are quibbles really. I don’t think we should spend all day arguing over minute differences in defintions, but on a term as momentous and pejorative as genocide, it is important to use it accurately. None of that however should detract from the underlying gist of this whole thread, which is that what is happening in Iraq is an outrage.
What troubles me is, besides venting here on this thread, what more can we or should we do? As Alabama has so eloquently stated above, we are all responsible now. I feel the weight of this responsibility heavily on my shoulders and I cannot stop thinking about it now.

Posted by: Bea | Nov 18 2004 15:54 utc | 168

Sic transit gloria USA
thank you for all links you put on the thread
just a little notice for all
at the begin of the year 2003
at UN, cilised nations talked about liberation of arab people summit to dictator like butcher hussein
and now we’re talking about mass murders, war crimes of us army and… genocide ? (no pat doesn’t agree with that)
since the begin of the year 2003, i read american/english newspapers talking about our duty to bring freedom, democraty to arab people
we’re talking about violation of Genève convention, who kill who, the manners to kill
all that in less 2 years
no more doubt, message of democracy by bush is clear for arab people
we are in hell, we’ll pay for that.

Posted by: littlecondorcet | Nov 18 2004 16:29 utc | 170

This could go on forever.
Where did that ‘rather young “human” neo-cortex’ come from? I understand that standard Darwinian evolution can’t account for it because it happened so quickly. And now there are discoveries coming to light of intelligent (human?) life here on Earth hundreds of millions of years ago. Before the dinosaurs. This is from stuff buried in dated rock strata.
Another point to clarify somewhat: There are more than one and probably several alien species here, not related and not working toward the same ends, unless it is the use of our home planet, which is by the way an excellent specimen and so coveted by many. The time frames stretch out to thousands or millions of years, so it is pretty difficult for us short-lived Earthlings to comprehend any plan being imposed on us.
I don’t think this is the easy explanation CJ. It is easier to write it all off to natural human aberration, but given what we have seen recently, that just don’t cut it any more. You can go way back in history to show that humans have always been bad, and I would counter that the aliens have been here pulling the strings for even longer.
It is apparent to me that the yellow-jackets have now left their secret hole in the ground as if they had been smoked out. They are attacking full-force because they have no time left. I don’t claim to know why the rush all of a sudden, but I feel it all around me. Loud buzzing. Perhaps they know that this is their last chance before the scam collapses and they are exposed for all the world to see.
And maybe that exposure can still happen. Go Bev Harris!

Posted by: rapt | Nov 18 2004 16:59 utc | 172

Gazu korosi niy? Nayior pelto klaatu nikto! Tu too hisss ssiszdar, ekto killior banam.

Posted by: Lizard Overlord | Nov 18 2004 17:37 utc | 174

@FlashHarry
Adorno on Hegel’s dialectic
Hegel, in hypostasizing both bourgeois society and its fundamental category, the individual, did not truly carry through the dialectic between the two. Certainly he perceives, with classical economics, that the totality produces and reproduces itself precisely from the interconnection of the antagonistic interests of its members. But the individual as such he for the most part considers, naively, as an irreducible datum – just what in his theory of knowledge he decomposes. Nevertheless, in an individualistic society, the general not only realizes itself through the interplay of particulars, but society is essentially the substance of the individual.
For this reason, social analysis can learn incomparably more from individual experience than Hegel conceded, while conversely the large historical categories, after all that has meanwhile been perpetrated with their help, are no longer above suspicion of fraud.
from Minima Moralia, p. 17.
Hegel tried to show how social action works, and I often imagine that if enough of us could learn to write and think social action (unfortunately not including me yet), we might launch a whole new civilization. But Adorno reminds us of that we will only ever understand the dialectic as individuals, and thorugh individual lenses. To see that the individual is our aperture into ever understanding what is happening socially seems especially relevant to concerns like those rapt has, or the discussion on the treasonous bastard thread.
I would love a Hegel thread marinated, of course, in Adorno.

Posted by: Anonymous | Nov 18 2004 18:18 utc | 176

Another thought on perigenocide. I think one can teeter on the edge of it, wobbling on the brink of the unspeakable, one toe in the water, the impulses firing off in the reptile brain but not quite yet translated into decisive action, trying to do it and yet not quite do it, do it in a deniable way, do it by attrition, do things that are Not Quite Genocide to scratch the old reptilian itch.
In defence of this argument I’d adduce: the deliberate assault on water-processing and sewage plants during Bush War I, which US planners knew (this was the whole point) would foster large-scale disease and death in a population under siege, denied the chemicals and equipment needed to deal with so grave an emergency… Colin Powell’s authorship of a letter to Saddam Hussein threatening to bomb the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates to flood Baghdad, which would also have inflicted mass deaths followed by epidemics, etc…. but first and foremost the US/UK deployment of DU-armoured shells.
The deployment of DU (and military documents indicate that the risks were well understood at the time of deployment, for me has overtones of sowing the fields with salt (poisoning the future). It has overtones of that ultimate crime of the Mediaeval imagination, “poisoning the well.”
The deployment of DU is an assault on the future of an entire region, an assault on the very gene pool of the population. While it may not “succeed” in wiping out an entire population or even a substantial chunk of it with immediate mortality, the effects linger and linger, nibbling at the health and vitality of the culture: inflicting grief and shame (in undereducated communities possibly ostracism and blame) on women who give birth to defective babies, inflicting lifetimes of home care for barely viable children, draining the economy to support a sudden multiplicity of cancer patients, and so on.
There are two ways to look at the deployment of DU. One is that it offered a pragmatic advantage in armour-piercing artillery (not to mention an oh-so-lucrative way of disposing of troublesome nuclear waste), and no one in the planning elite particularly cared about or considered the environmental consequences. The other is that the consequences of aerosolisation and dust distribution were well understood, and considered a bonus. Which is more depressing? Based on the mindset revealed at work in other phases of this war (above) I lean towards Theory Number Two.
If Theory Number Two is correct then there’s spitefulness at work here which goes far beyond “let’s have a war, we win, you lose, pay us tribute, neener neener.” There’s a will to sow destruction and suffering that “go on giving,” to be able to walk away leaving not only corpses and shattered masonry behind, but a whole future of corpses, whole families “contaminated” (cf the 2nd-class-citizen status inflicted on Japanese with visible birth defects post-Hiroshima/Nagasaki). This would be imho, either a cousin of the genocidal itch, or a way to indulge in that genocidal impulse in a sneaky, semi-deniable mode. “We didn’t actually kill them, not as such. We just made them kind of ill. Forever.”
The other side of DU of course is that aerosolised metals do not discriminate between uniform and plain clothes, or light and dark skin colour, or check shoulder patches, before settling into food and drink, lungs and eyes and sinuses. This is a new kind of salt, which not only blights the field in which we sow it, but sows itself in the hand that does the sowing. But our legionaries are drawn from the lower classes, so that’s no biggie.

Posted by: DeAnander | Nov 18 2004 19:53 utc | 178

b real
thanks for that definition, especially with respect to the word” entire” — as some see it as the prime disqualifier — as in Fallujah, the taking of prisoners, might seem to disqualify any sense of genocide, because they’re not systematically killing every single person, and should not overshadow the apparent overall action. One facit of the overall military action, cutting off water,electricty,medical services,etc are actions that are “planned”,”systematic” actions that effect all people of that particular group. While they may not,for instance, be poisoning the water, the effects are roughly the same. I think it it’s safe to say the “entire” population of Fallujah has suffered a significant planned and systematic diminishment that included s a great number of deaths, that I would see as “genocidal”.
Like, was it” torture” or “abuse” at Abu-Graib, was the election”stolen”or just the result of “expected and normal aberations”the shipping of “terrorist detainees” to host countreies or “undislcosed locations” and other examples, this administration is keenly aware of it’s ability to achieve semantic plausable deniability amongst the American public through redundant media mantra. A place like the MoA, sadly, is one of only a few public forums capable and willing to undertake such examination.

Posted by: anna missed | Nov 18 2004 20:07 utc | 180

b real
thanks for that definition, especially with respect to the word” entire” — as some see it as the prime disqualifier — as in Fallujah, the taking of prisoners, might seem to disqualify any sense of genocide, because they’re not systematically killing every single person, and should not overshadow the apparent overall action. One facit of the overall military action, cutting off water,electricty,medical services,etc are actions that are “planned”,”systematic” actions that effect all people of that particular group. While they may not,for instance, be poisoning the water, the effects are roughly the same. I think it it’s safe to say the “entire” population of Fallujah has suffered a significant planned and systematic diminishment that included s a great number of deaths, that I would see as “genocidal”.
Like, was it” torture” or “abuse” at Abu-Graib, was the election”stolen”or just the result of “expected and normal aberations”the shipping of “terrorist detainees” to host countrys or “undislcosed locations” and other examples, this administration is keenly aware of it’s ability to achieve semantic plausable deniability amongst the American public through redundant media mantra. A place like the MoA, sadly, is one of only a few public forums capable and willing to undertake such examination.

Posted by: anna missed | Nov 18 2004 20:16 utc | 182

Iran is the new Iraq.
Not long ago Bernhard exerpted from and linked to adventuresofchester.blogspot.com, the weblog of an ex-Marine who analyses strategy and tactics. (Bernhard did so because Chester, in one post, insensitively suggested that we ought to have a free hand with all of the guerilla-occupied mosques.) The ex-Marine does a pretty good job with open source material and comments on his posts can be further illuminating. If you want to look in on the other side – how it thinks and what it does and how it does it (and why wouldn’t you want to gather as much information on your opposition as possible? Know your enemy and all that) – then Adventures of Chester is one place to visit.
His latest:
The Future of the Iranian Nuclear Program, Part II
In Part I yesterday, The Adventures of Chester attempted to show, among other things:
-That confrontation with Iran is looming because of Iran’s weapons program.
-That the US must make its decision to act within the next 12-18 months.
Today:
GOALS OF US ACTION
The key to unraveling and predicting the steps which the US will take with regard to Iran lies in deciphering what the American political goals will be. A word on strategic goals, from Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication 1-1, “Strategy”:
“Despite their diversity, political objectives in war can be labeled as either limited or unlimited. The distinction is fundamental. An unlimited political objective amounts to the elimination of the opponent as a political entity. A limited political objective on the other hand, is one in which the enemy’s leadership can survive and remain in power . . .
“An unlimited political objective, then, may embrace anything from merely deposing a particular leader to physically exterminating an entire people or culture. Ideological revolutionaries, would-be world conquerors, and both sides in most ture civil wars tend to seek unlimited political objectives. Occasionally, defensive alliances seeking to eliminate a habitual aggressor will also pursue an unlimited political objective.
“Conversely, a limited political objective includes anything short of eliminating the political opponent. It is envisioned that the enemy leadership will remain in control after the conclusion of hostilities, although some aspects of its power (influence, territory, resources, or internal control) will be reduced or curtailed. Limited political objectives are the characteristic of states seeking better positions in the international balance of power, clans vying for political position within a larger society, mafias or street gangs battling for “turf”, and reformist political movements. ”
Examples of each:
Limited Political Objectives:
(opposing political leadership survives)
-intimidate
-cause change in policy
-reduce enemy miliary capacity
-take slice of territory
Unlimited Political Objectives:
(opposing political leadership is removed)
-change regime
-change form of government/ruling class
-conquer/absorb
-exterminate (genocide)
What will the goals of US action in Iran be, with regard to its weapons program? There are many possibilities, but two are distinct:
1. Limited Political Objective: Remove the Iranian nuclear weapons program.
2. Unlimited Political Objective: Remove the Iranian nuclear weapons program and the Iranian regime that created it.[…]

Posted by: Pat | Nov 18 2004 20:47 utc | 184

Society doesn’t just fall apart for no nothing. Human decency is here and stronger than ever (as I see it.) And no, this is not a message of hope from your loving optimist.
One has to ask, who is doing what and why? Just accepting that humans are greedy and all is going to pot -which often boils down to handwringing at the stupidity and self-interest of others – is both self-serving and ineffectual.
Eeks, sorry DeA, but standard metaphors like cancer attacking social organisation or the moral fibre of people (I realise that is not quite what you said) have been common since the Sumerians. Appreciate the language though!
The Nov. attack in Falluja and the carnage there is not a new phenomenon, not unknown, and perfectly explicable.
The US means to take over ME ressources. Why is this so hard to grasp? Why do Americans continue to blame specific persons like Rove and Cheney, turning them into evil depraved monsters? They are people like you and me. (Well maybe not quite..) Cheney particularly is an ordinary type of person.
To accomplish this (their plans are very long term, not affected by insignificant glitches) they must: demonise the ME, Arabs and Muslims in general, thus an alliance with Israel, supported client state who is allowed to strut about; encourage, as forcibly and sneakily as possible, Islamic fundamentalism, its violence and murderous actions, going so far as to explicitly encourage, or even, according to some, organise them – paying them huge sums of money and arming them (actually such actions are proven – I think of Taci eating dinner in luxury restaurants with Maddy! – M. Allbright); reduce politics to immaterial, disconnected dimensions that will allow a place for, nay, promulgate blind hate towards a nebulous ethnicity or religion; kill off and subjugate the people who actually live near or on the coveted resources (and thus are in a postion to affect their use, if only by sabotage), if slowly and clumsily; the first step is destroying whatever civil society existed, spectacular killing or demonstrations of force are required; while we are up, controlling food and water is a must, and can bring profits along the way; industry must be finished off as well, looted, line one’s pojckets, why not? Other ‘Western’ gvmts. must be roped in, to put the prescribed gloss on the genocide; arm-twisting, threats of military domination or action (not economic ones, not really any longer, well that is another topic..) can be implemented with a soft glove (RIP Kerry..), if not, well there is all the leisure to hint at something even more alarming – such as the complete cutting off of the life blood of industrial societies when military might has done its job. Ask poodly Blair about that one! Crocodile tears for lost empire, isolated on a cold island about to go down the drain. The sun never sets, ha ha ha, long cold perpetual winter comng up …
All the above is framed in a real-politik nationalist frame. BushCo are corporate leaders, nations are almost dissolved; yet, they remain entities for public consumption, as the groups thereby labelled have high psychological relevance – a long history – and grunts (whether hapless soldiers killed by primitve gunpowder devices in the desert or innocent girls working for 10 dollars a day to construct death ray robots ..) will still be needed in the foreseeable future; they can only be coerced through belonging, nationalistic impulses, weird beliefs… Humans are very efficient machines (calories in as compared to actions effected out, due to human intelligence or as Rummy might say, *added value*) and while the tractor replaced the slave, it is beginning to look like the slave is nevertheless important.
I’d better stop…That was on a soap box in the bar. I miss that bar, goddam. Billmon, cheers.

Posted by: Blackie | Nov 18 2004 21:15 utc | 186

“cannot figure out why a nuclear iran is any more of a problem than a nuclear pakistan or israel”
Israel is an ally. Pakistan is a mixed bag and precarious partner that can keep its nukes until the Islamists kill Musharaff and occupy his offices. Iran is not an ally, is governed by Islamists who are sworn enemies of Israel and the US, and we don’t want them to possess a nuclear deterrent. Also, we’d like very much to do away with the regime – or see it toppled by internal forces.
I belive that’s the general picture.

Posted by: Pat | Nov 18 2004 22:03 utc | 188

@rapt As a long-time contributor here, you have, in the current vernacular, accumulated a bit of capital.
However, I am genuinely a little concerned with your health. I think you should turn off your computer now, turn off the TV, go outside, get some fresh air, find yourself a woman or something.
Later, you can reflect on the term cui bono, and try to figure out how lucrative this little X-Files mix in 911 publishing empire might be.

Posted by: DM | Nov 18 2004 22:37 utc | 190

@Pat – the European thinking is that Iran with nukes has much less adverse consequences than a US/Israeli attack on Iran. Shortterm, medium term and long term.
Would a Iran without nukes and ayatollahs be better? Yes, definitly, but no reason to start another war.
What is the concern in the US if Iran decides to have nuclear weapons? Tell them they will be eradicted if they use them or better, promise sincerely to leave them alone if they behave reasonably and the “problem” is solved.
But I’ve been wrong – oh so wrong – before. Zarqawi comes immediately to mind.
Goldstein is unpredictable, isn’t he?

Posted by: b | Nov 18 2004 23:18 utc | 192

In the paper today I see that the US has come up with a new tactic: They promised the people of Falluja food, delivered at a mosque. Those who showed up were first taken and tested for gunpowder (with their knowledge and permission? against their knowledge and permission? unclear). Those who tested positive were immediately arrested. Dozens of men were arrested in this way at a time.
Any thoughts on the morality/legality/overall political shortsightedness (or wisdom) of this tactic?

Posted by: Bea | Nov 18 2004 23:32 utc | 194

bea
very good site
fallujapictures.blogspot.com

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Nov 18 2004 23:46 utc | 196

How incredibly stupid an attack on Iran would be. It just boggles the mind how obviously stupid that would be.
I should run foreign policy. Really, things would be better in the world.

Posted by: slothrop | Nov 18 2004 23:55 utc | 198

I predicted his capture by the time of the US elections, bea.

Posted by: Pat | Nov 19 2004 0:08 utc | 200