Billmon has a new post on the topic that already been mentioned in the threads: death squads.
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January 10, 2005
Billmon: The Salvadoran Option
Comments
billmon is citing what many people have been saying here & the whisky bar for the last year; outraged was the first to say it in black & white, sic gloria transit, anna missed, deanander, cloned poster, many others – who have no illussions about the profound immorality of imperial power
for my part, the wholesale slaughter of iraq’s intelligentsia is the work of the ‘salvador option’ already in place – it is another form of the phoenix programme or to go back to the nazis – einsatzgruuppen – or the killing actions
there can be no doubt that we are speaking of thieves & murderers. common thieves. common murderers
what is surprising is that it appears in newsweek & on the wire – that they can publically speak of an option that they are essentially carrying out is disturbing in the extreme
& as the german army is proved to have been a participant in the killing actions of the einsatzgruppen who killed far more people than death camps ever did – so here the armed forces of america & conscious & deliberate allies & perpetrators of such a programme. they are not innocent & they will pay the price for the absence of innocence & i will not mourn even if i know that army is made up of ‘innocent’s’ – in the context of iraq – they are guilty – guilty as hell
is there no level of degradation & criminality that this administration will not go – is there no darkeness it will not explore to diminish the hopes of the iraqui & arab people
with all my heart – i wish for a victory of the resistance – knowing absolutely that elements of that resistance are as opposed to my worldview as it is possible to be – & i wish for that victory to be so bloody – so terrifying that no imperial power will ever again steal the sovereign soul of a country
still steel
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 10 2005 19:42 utc | 1
remembereringgiap – is there no level of degradation & criminality that this administration will not go?
No. I kept thinking that there was some sort of moral floor below which Bush and Co. would not fall, but every time they have crashed right through it. I have finally admitted that I simply do not understand these people at all. The Salvador option is evil pure and simple. It is not and never has been a legitimate weapon in war, and this war is the very opposite of legitimate. I don’t know what is more depressing — that Bush would consider doing this or that, having been exposed, they don’t even seem to be bothering to deny it.
One thing this confirms is the utter hopelessness of the American endeavor in Iraq. No one, except Bush himself, is even pretending that the US can “win,” whatever that means, using its existing forces. The New York Times claims that the big topic in Washington now is disengagement. Yet nothing this Administration has done suggests that they would ever do the logical, much less the moral, thing. It seems much more likely that, like Samson, we will seek to bring Iraq down on top of us, out of spite if nothing else.
If we’re lucky, the Arabs will hate the United States only for fifty years.
Posted by: Aigin | Jan 10 2005 19:56 utc | 3
It’s becoming clear that the only way of predicting what these fools will do next is to figure out which of their predecessors’ (and their own) errors they haven’t recreated yet. So what idiotic ideas from history are available to them?
r’giap: “i wish for that victory to be so bloody – so terrifying…”
This logic has never worked, and it never will. It is the same logic Bushco are evidently considering.
Posted by: teuton | Jan 10 2005 20:28 utc | 5
Billmon, great to see he is alive and kicking.
He predicted this time and time again and I am sure that when he disappeared after his Jordan visit, he learnt a lot about the evil that is being unleashed in Iraq, and hence his despression and possible feeling of his views (and ours) being futile in the wake of the USA war machine.
I think Iraq is a lot different to El Salvador. There was a right wing government in place with a willing army and lotsa dollars to pay the psycopaths.
Would the Kurds and Shi’ite partake in such an extermination policy of the Sunni?
This puts the Election on January 29 as a pivotal point as to where this mess goes.
Question: Has Sistani done a deal with the Brits?
and, disable pop-ups before clicking.
Iraq
El Salvador
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Jan 10 2005 20:31 utc | 6
Forgot to add this to my post.
No internet bloggers during El Salvador.
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Jan 10 2005 20:37 utc | 7
teuton
stalingrad/kursk/berlin taught the germans the meaning of anhilation
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 10 2005 20:38 utc | 8
Digby was quoting from the book of Billmon earlier, too.
Billmon makes the obvious comparison between Rummy and the most recent war criminal sec-def, Robert McNamara, concluding:
The same mindset also spawned McNamara’s preferred metric: the infamous “body count.” In that earlier, more naive, era, it hadn’t yet occurred to management theorists that numeric targets can quickly become bureaucratic substitutes for real objectives, such as winning wars. So McNamara (and the military) had to learn it the hard way, as industrious field officers dispatched soldiers to count graves in Vietnamese civilian cemetaries in order to hit their weekly numbers.
concerning the recent debacle that is and has been the BushCo Iraq invasion for some time now.
Posted by: fauxreal | Jan 10 2005 20:41 utc | 9
What do you think these folks are doing in Iraq? Seymour Hersh: Israeli Agents Operating in Iraq, Iran and Syria
What happened is some of the intelligence people and some of the military people, obviously don’t go into Kurdistan and run operations in Iran with Israeli passports or anything connected to Israel. So, they wash them. We use the word sheep dip for taking in a military person. In America, when you take in a military officer and redress them as a civilian and send them into a war zone, that’s called sheep dipping. Same thing happened with the Israeli Mossad and their military people. They went in undercover.
Training some squads?
cp
what i allawi if not a psychopath
what is this puppet govt except the sad & diseased remnants of the iraqui diaspora coming home to roost
what is negrponte except an eichmann of the ‘salvador option’ – the errand boy of the ccondor programme in latin america
an army full of morons, imbeciles, perverts, sociopaths & gulity conscences pissing the blood of the people of iraq
they have already murdered many thousands of intellectuals & activists within iraq – when is it time for us to say no to this war & to use the means to articulate that opposition more concretely
as colman suggests – these fools seem to be going through the whole repertoire of their genocidal politics. mix & match of murder
days like this – i want the army of the empire put to its knees as the nazis were on the wintry fields of russia. i want that lesson to be so startling – will will hold our breaths
as pilger so pertinently points out – the false tears over tidal waves & the jingoistic selfsatisfaction that lies at the heart of an aquiescent & compliant public – will not wash away the sins of these murders
for that is what they are. murder. pure & simple. this is not a war. it is by any definition, genocide. it is the murdering almost one by one of the people who matter in iraq & for me the iraqui people matter
they are the cradle of my civilisation or what is left of it. they taught me thre tounge & the alphabet we use. they gave us medecine & science. they gave us a deeper meaning of culture than any of the apes in the us administration could comprehend
now this movement against the war must take the form of the anti vietnam movement as it already has. honourable men & women must run to canada or begin to form groups of opposition in the belly of the beast
in the belly of the beast – the people must – day after day – come to understand that the price to pay for this horror is too high & you can be certain if we permit them to do this to iraq – it is onloy the first step in a conception of the world that is too horrible to think or dream about
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 10 2005 20:54 utc | 11
Just slightly off topic: “No really bad news in Iraq”
7 Ukrainians, Kazakh killed in Iraq
The eight troops serving with allied contingents in Iraq were killed when one of the aerial bombs that Kazakh sapper unit servicemen were transferring from a truck to a depot exploded, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s press service told Interfax-Ukraine.
The incident occurred in the Iraqi province of Wasit, the press service said. The explosion injured another seven Ukrainian and four Kazakh peacekeepers.
The casualties are:
Lieutenant Colonel Matizhev, Oleg – Ukrainian Army
Captain Brazhevskyi, Valeriy – Ukrainian Army
Captain Andrushchienko, Sergyi – Ukrainian Army
Captain Zagray, Yuriy – Ukrainian Army
Captain Kudabayev, Kayrat – Kazakh Army
Chief Warrant Officer Sedoy, Volodimir – Ukrainian Army
Warrant Officer Katsarskyi, Oleksandr – Ukrainian Army
Senior Sergeant Pietrik, Vira – Ukrainian Army
Senior Sergeant Sitnikov, Andriy – Ukrainian Army
1 Lt.Col, 4 Captains, 2 Warrent Officers and 2 Senior Sergeant die when servicemen are transferring ammunition from a truck to a depot??? Hmmmm – bad thing these ammunition transports – but where are the “servicemen” (privats etc)?
Now here is the good news: Ukraine orders troops withdrawn from Iraq
KIEV, Ukraine — President Leonid Kuchma on Monday ordered the foreign and defense ministries to develop a plan for withdrawing Ukraine’s troops from Iraq within months, his office said.
Ukraine, whose 1,650 troops are the fourth-largest contingent in the U.S.-led operation in Iraq, previously expressed intentions to withdraw this year, but Kuchma’s order speeds up the apparent timetable.
That order came a day after eight Ukrainian soldiers died in an explosion at an ammunition dump in Iraq, which was reported as an accident.
…
“The situation in Iraq has deteriorated and as a consequence we lost our men,” acting Defense Minister Oleksandr Kuzmuk was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency after meeting with Kuchma.
Kuzmuk added that the withdrawal could begin in March.
So no more sapper unit servicemen from the Officer Corps transferring ammunition from a truck to a depot.
And no more ammunition depots in a batallion headquarter please.
37 Questions for Donald Rumsfeld
Karen J. Greenberg, Director of the Center on Law and Security at NYU School of Law, and attorney Joshua L. Dratel, President-elect of the New York State Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and civil lawyer for Australian Guantanamo detainee David Hicks, have now put together a massive book of…documents (just being published this week), The Torture Papers: The Road to Abu Ghraib.
…The “torture memos,” as they have come to be known, reveal much about the current administration. They point to a level of secrecy matching, or even surpassing, any sought or achieved by the executive branch in prior eras, even during wartime. They point to a lack of concern for accountability that veers far from previously acknowledged limits on unchecked executive power. They deliberately disregard, even nullify, the balance-of-powers doctrine that has defined the United States since its inception. Essentially, much of what has been put in place by the Bush administration in the wake of 9/11 has relied on the fear of terror as a means to establish a new doctrine of state; it is a doctrine that, before the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, had lingered in the outer corridors of power. Much of the Patriot Act, for instance, had already been drafted before 9/11; and the proposal for the Department of Homeland Security was also in draft form at that time. So, too, were plans for a war in Iraq.
Posted by: fauxreal | Jan 10 2005 20:55 utc | 13
r’giap: yes, they did. At least quite a lot of Germans got the message, I think.
But the point here is: I know that you know better. You have written it so many times, and I respect you for that, and although I do not always agree with you, I appreciate your comments. That voice crying out for blood is not yours. Do you take it as an offence if, judging from your other comments, I call you a humanist? If you don’t, I will.
Posted by: teuton | Jan 10 2005 21:06 utc | 15
Billmon’s choice to not post any original comment and to direct us to the most grim and stomach-churning historical analogies tells me he’s still in a pretty dark place. Hope he’s doing OK.
So, everything old is new again. And with the help of people like Alberto Gonzales, Charles Graner and his attorney Guy Womack, they are hoping that we view these attrocities as “standard operating procedure”. A valid tool indeed.
@rgiap: In order to be successful, that bloody victory should not come from the resistance you speak of — the foreign countries, radical Islam, etc., because then it will just continue the cycle of hate… us against them. It should come from within; the U.S. people rising against its own government. Like the French Revolution. At that time, kings were considered to rule by divine right, and it was no small thing to overthrow them, to put a king on a guillotine and then put the his severed head on a stick and poke it through the bars of the queen’s cell, taunting her and telling her she’s next. They will not change until they fear their own people.
Posted by: kat | Jan 10 2005 21:06 utc | 16
@b
This was definitely a bomb dispoal team, hence the high ranks.
What surprised me was the fact that these bombs were transported free of incident by the Iraqi police.
@Giap, thinking I am.
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Jan 10 2005 21:10 utc | 17
teuton
i know that we in france & europeans generally have a very real responsibility to articulate their opposition to this illegal war more fully
it is clear we must accelerate at every level possible our opposition in words & deeds
i know from concrete experience that in the heroic struggle of the vietnamese people against french & american imperialism – that the voices & actions of those inside the belly of the beast – mattered to them very dearly.
personally i think we honoured our humanity by the acts & words we used to oppose that war
now it is even more true of iraq that our deeds must be exemplary
kat
i’ve been translating some of the confessional poets from americ bishop et al & i have been working on the poems of hart crane & lowell & it is simply incoceivable that these people come from the same country that is tearing iraq apart
the germans did not begin to oppose the nazis until they were losing – the people – even ex communists were glad of the german victories over the poles the czechs, the french, the belgians & their utter humiliation of the british at dunkirk. the german people celebrated these victories. they knew also of the liquidation of the people in the ‘east’. they knew it. everybody knew. it did not offend them until they started to lose & to lose catastrophically. even the brave stauffenberg was not opposed to project of fascism – he was offended by them losing
the british were humiliated in singapore. they could not maintain their hold over south east asia after that terrible defeat. the french were humiliated at diem ben phu & they left south east asia, the americans were humiliated at khe sahn & they left dropping helicopters into the gulf of tonkin chasing their amabassador & his dog into escape vehicles
imperialsm, by its very nature understands only force. & only force will make them leave & this force must be spectacular & sadly it will be sordid
you are right to use the imagery you do – but the kings of america are emptied by rupert murdoch & the american people bathe in their stupidity – they are mocked, they are terrified, they are ridiculised by the powerful & they will not fight back
the opposition to the vietnam war by the americans themselves had a very real impact whether it was the moratorium movement or even the weathermen/weatherpeople/weatherunderground & that is what it will take. it will take for the sons & daughters of americ to show the world that they cannot live with the horror that is daily being constructed by their leaders – that they will risk everything to oppose it
only in that way – will there be any sort of accord with the arab people as a whole. only in that way can the sins of this criminal administration be reconciled
still steel
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 10 2005 22:02 utc | 18
RGiap.
The players at play in Iraq are the WWW.
WWW = World wide World.
Russia = Iran
Israel = Kurds
Turkey = Not Kurds
USA = Iran, by default.
Iran = Sistani
UK = Sistani, by clever shit that gets them nowhere.
Israel = Just fuck-up what we can.
Syria + Iran = We kicked the Israelis out of Lebanon, where next?
Iran = Russian Nukes.
pandora, where are you?
Goodnight.
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Jan 10 2005 22:08 utc | 19
Ahhhhhhh, Billmons on the web again. Quite honestly I had thought he may have been in one of Bushies gulags.
If only the American public would wake up to the carnage that the US government promoted in Central America. All so the workers would stay enslaved to pay back bankers. Now the carnage in Iraq will only get worse. If you can’t talk to them, wipe them out.
Some news today. John Bolton is leaving the state department. By, by.
Posted by: jdp | Jan 10 2005 22:31 utc | 21
Rumsfeld, Bush, Gonzales and co can dream all they want about an El Salvador solution but their chances of realising this option in Iraq are slim to none. El salvador drew the members of it’s death squads from highly indoctrinated lower middle class families and could reward them with immediate material gratification. Similarly the ‘advisors’ were hand-picked tried and tested professional soldiers. There is a distinct dearth of either of those groups in iraq.
So the best they will be able to work with will be Kurds trained by ‘independant’ contractors neither of which are likely to have the skills and committment required to pull off death squad activities in the methodical manner that creating a climate of overwhelming fear neccesitates. They may succeed in building an infiltrated, rickety machine that will leak to the media and the opposition.
No the death squads operating in iraq are those of the insurgents and who can blame them. They systematically target Iraqi sympathisers of the invasion and their families, yet the fact that there seems to be little indigenous oposition to their activities indicates that they have created the climate of fear and are being sufficiently discriminate with their targets not to alienate the general population.
If the US invaders could get the Shi’ite on board they may be able to resist but for all the talk in the media of sunni/shi’ite antipathy the average Iraqi of either sect doesn’t seem to demonstrate this and in fact the invasion appears to have united them. I’m sure that post elections the new puppet regime will try to crank up the division (within limits because no sensible Iraqi wants to go back to the pre Hussein chaos) but unless one side or the other commits some unbearable atrocity it won’t happen.
When a sunni wedding gets bombed by the US and all of the guests murdered the shi’ites can understand and feel the sunni thirst for revenge because those two groups understand each other far better that the colonists will understand either group. Whether or not rememberingiap was being serious in his cries for vengeance, that bloody vengeance will be delivered.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Jan 11 2005 0:21 utc | 22
i was being, i hope, absolutely serious. but it was not vengeance – tho it could be called that – a wrong, a powerful wrong has been committed against a sovereign nation & people. & that wrong must be corrected. history tells us in no uncertain terms that the only thing a n imperialist understands is a humiliating & horrifying defeat
& part of that defeat must come from those in america & from those in europe capable of articulating their opposition to this wrong – in a concrete, an actual sense
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 11 2005 0:38 utc | 23
NYT New Photos and Video Unveiled in Trial of Iraqi Prison Abuse
Prosecutors unveiled a new series of graphic photographs and videos here today showing abuse at Abu Ghraib prison as they tried to portray the alleged ringleader of the prison abuse scandal as a sadistic thug who punched detainees for sport, posed smiling next to the swollen and bloody face of a detainee and bragged about forcing an Iraqi woman to let him photograph her naked.
In opening arguments at the court martial for the soldier, Specialist Charles A. Graner, his lawyers insisted he was simply following orders, and using lessons he had learned in his civilian life as a prison guard to try to maintain discipline in a chaotic war zone.
Using naked and hooded detainees to make a human pyramid was much like what cheerleaders “all over America” do, the lawyer, Guy Womack, argued. Putting naked prisoners on leashes was much like what parents in airports and malls do with their toddlers: “They’re not being abused,” the lawyer told the jury of 10 soldiers, “they’re being kept in control.”
Democracy by deathsquad? Bring Saddam back. He did a much better job of running a society based on terrorizing the populace. Besides he was progressive (professional women!), understood power (WMD or fakes thereof), and was and materialistic (not Islamic Fundamentalist). What went wrong? He’s the devil that America should have cut a deal with to keep mid-east oil flowing.
It’s a good thing historically, victims and the relations thereof of US sponsored terror have not exacted revenge. It’s bad enough having vicarious victims of US terror such as Tim McVeigh and Mohammid Atta waging war on the US regime.
These are the mysteries. As to how far down the Bush administration can spiral, who really would like to find out?
Posted by: YY | Jan 11 2005 2:30 utc | 25
@b seldom have I heard a defence counsel scrape the bottom of such a stinky barrel quite so desperately. what goes on in the mind of a person spinning such ludicrous BS? well, what went on in the mind of Powell as he lied to the UN? absolutely opaque to me…
I guess the death squads are already in Iraq!
Film reveals true destruction to ghost city Falluja
In interviews, insurgents challenge official US accounts of a decisive victory and claim many of the rebels left the city in a pre-planned withdrawal.
“It is completely devastated,” Fadhil writes in the Guardian today. “Falluja used to be a modern city; now there is nothing. We spend that first day going through the rubble that had been the centre of the city; I don’t see a single building that is functioning.”
Most of Falluja’s 300,000 residents fled before the assault and now some have begun to return to find their homes destroyed, the water and electricity still cut and untreated sewage flowing openly. There is little chance elections can be held there with polling day three weeks away.
Some Iraqis openly criticise the fighters, despite the risks. “The mujahideen are responsible and the clerics for the destruction that happened to our city; no one will forgive them for that,” a former major in the much feared Republican Guard tells Fadhil.
In one badly damaged home near a cemetery, he finds the body of a fighter still lying on the floor. “The leg is missing, the hand is missing and the furniture in the house has been destroyed,” he writes. “I can’t breathe with the smell.”
Posted by: Fran | Jan 11 2005 7:04 utc | 27
i agree with Debs is dead: “their chances of realising this option in Iraq are slim to none” . . .”because those two [Iraqi] groups understand each other far better that the [British and American] colonists will understand either group.”
one of the outstanding features of Bush’s Failed War in Iraq is the US’s complete mis-understanding of Islam and the life of Arabic-speaking people in general. Source
attempting to jimmy-rig an anti-insurgent death squad a la El Salvador shows not only the US’s acknowledgement of her abject failure in all things Iraq but a continuation of her failed policies and moral rot far into the foreseeable future.
has anything (other than the rigged elections/ tax cuts/ and deceitful insertation of the US into Iraq) succeeded in this discredited regime?
while there are innumerable parallels with history when looking at the moral turpitude, human debasement and idiocy brought about in this second act of the Cheney administration, the attempt to use anti-insurgent “death-squads” in Iraq, i believe, will fail– horribly.
on a lighter note — i’m still looking forward to billmon opening the whiskey bar someday in the future. (there just is no other blog, that i’ve seen, that fills the virtual niche as did whiskey. (i hope billmon realizes that he is not alone in these dismal days.))
thanks for the head’s up on the whiskey shot MoA!
Posted by: x174 | Jan 11 2005 7:53 utc | 28
@rgaip-
I am not one for collective guilt, either assigning it or taking it on, but what my country — its government, military, media and population — is doing in Iraq and to itself with the bald face erosion of the Constituion and the unchallenged fraud against the democratic system absolutely revolts me. To think about it I can barely stand living in this country, to be associated with such dumb mechinized slaughter and alienation is almost too much for me. It feels like the desire to crawl out of my own skin, but more abstract , but no less uncomfortable. I can’t belive this is where my country is headed. The lessons of the past are lost. I can see where we are headed and I feel powerless and my anguish is only limited by my awareness of my powerlessness. Before the election I believed in staying and fighting, but now, with the Demcrats licking the boots of thugs, what hope do I have when the public, my family even, doesn’t seem to care or notice or realize the danger. As I said over at LeSpeakeasy, my wife was calling employers in New Zealand. Her profession is a desired one. Unfortunatly, the jobs available are unappealing to her and the move would be financially very difficult for us. But both of us are seriously considering leaving our home, our families our country. And maybe in a few years we will. I am ashamed to be American when to be so seems only to equal sadism and the most profound ingnorance acted upon humanity and suffered seemingly without more than the earnest cry of protest made faint by its small and marginalize minority. Why are so few people outraged? I feel like we are the voices crying in the wilderness. I want better for myself, my wife and my girls. I want them to be Canadians or New Zealanders. I pray for a backlash, for an uprising, for the powers that be to implode, for them to tear themselves apart in their own wickedness. I want the ship to right, the tide to turn, the pedulum to slow. Was the bomb the ultimate horror, the line we crossed and can never go back? When will we, the United States of America, realize what we have done and own it? I regret so much what my country has done during my adult life. …Even as an adult I find I have little more control over the course of national events than I did as a young child. I am sorry that I cannot stop this madness.
Posted by: stoy | Jan 11 2005 8:28 utc | 29
Our government is run by thugs, but they are quite stupid. El Salvador will not work in Iraq. The country is bigger, and there is a stronger anti-imperialistic history. Iraq has aleady defeated one imperial power in Britain. There’s a confidence that comes with that.
Posted by: bigbay | Jan 11 2005 9:15 utc | 30
Ogg say, no no no, amazon bad (give big money to repugs) ogg also say Powell’s good, very good, not give money to repugs.
Posted by: ogg | Jan 11 2005 13:24 utc | 31
On top of everything else, Iraq isn’t polarized as neatly into Sunni and Shite as people would like us to believe: clans and political groupings cross religious boundaries quite a lot as far as I can make out. Shiites are involved in the insurgency, and they’re no friends to the US. When the US bombs a Sunni wedding, there’s a pretty good chance that some of the dead and wounded will be Shiite.
Hand-picked teams of commandos? They’ll be turned over to the insurgents by disgusted Shiites and their families will be targeted. They’re more likely to end up grabbing and executing US officers than anything else.
The insurgents can carry out missions on the streets of Baghdad and nobody will call the “authorities”. They can wait for their targets. Do you think the locals don’t know? The US has lost politically and militarily. All that remains is to dress it up as pretty as possible before withdrawing. And it’s being dressed up for domestic consumption, not for world-wide consumption, because the world can see that the US can only take, not hold, can only destroy, not create.
Fools.
Kat wrote: @rgiap: In order to be successful, that bloody victory should not come from the resistance you speak of — the foreign countries, radical Islam, etc., because then it will just continue the cycle of hate… us against them. It should come from within; the U.S. people rising against its own government. (…)
RGiap wrote: part of that defeat must come from those in america & from those in europe capable of articulating their opposition to this wrong – in a concrete, an actual sense
I agree. What does the Iraqi resistance think?
Communique Number 6,
The media platoon of the Islamic Jihad Army. 10 December 2004.
Excerpts :
We are simple people who chose principles over fear.
We do not require arms or fighters, for we have plenty.
We ask you to form a world wide front against war and sanctions. A front that is governed by the wise and knowing. A front that will bring reform and order. New institutions that would replace the now corrupt.
Stop using the U.S. dollar, use the Euro or a basket of currencies. Reduce or halt your consumption of British and U.S. products. Put an end to Zionism before it ends the world. Educate those in doubt of the true nature of this conflict and do not believe their media for their casualties are far higher than they admit.
Know that by helping the Iraqi people you are helping yourselves, for tomorrow may bring the same destruction to you.
And to the American soldiers we say, you can also choose to fight tyranny with us. Lay down your weapons, and seek refuge in our mosques, churches and homes. We will protect you. And we will get you out of Iraq , as we have done with a few others before you.
Link
Posted by: Blackie | Jan 11 2005 17:51 utc | 34
the US can only take, not hold, can only destroy, not create. – colman
in essence you have hit it on the head
& stoy i was very moved by your post here
i left a country i knew well over 15 years ago because i could not stomach any more their criminal politics – it was both a terrible thing & a soulagement & it has been the best thing i ever did with my life
it really made me understand that the world is the home
& if i can be impertinent my sister who directs an arts access organisation in new zealand speaks both of its natural beauty & its generous people
still steel
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 11 2005 17:58 utc | 35
Why are so few people outraged? stoy asked.
Everywhere in the ‘western, developed’ world, half-hearted support for the US ‘war on terra’, and thus the ‘war in Iraq’ is maintained. Even France, for ex., while continuing to imply that the invasion of Iraq was a mistake (“friends can ..”), supports the US firmly in its 9/11 myths (to mention just one point), and has subtly and unofficially encouraged the (false) idea that Saudi Arabia is responsible for that horror. (Books published in that line, Brisard working for US attorney firms suing Saudis, etc.) Other countries try to ‘make nice’ – today I was apalled to read that the Swiss cell working on whitewashing of Russian funds has been subsumed in a new “Anti-Terror” departement, and there is only one person (or so) left at the Russia Desk.
Why? All these Gvmts. are frightened. The US has invested its all in military might, put its stakes on hegemony, and all others are afraid, probably rightly, to mention one possiblility amongst others, of a possible ultimate economic melt-down. They are holding their hands close to chest, hoping for the best, bending down a bit and holding their breath. They are temporising, pretending, holding on. Their attitude is adopted by a controlled, subservient or clueless press.
That is on the surface. Underground, I don’t know.
So people go on – as they tend to do if given the opportunity – living in their confortable bubbles, or struggling with their personal problems. In the EU, an erroneously assumed lack of guilt re. Iraq (ignoring sanctions, the UN, etc. !!) does the trick.
In the US, it is, naturally, worse. (As the US is the primary agressor, the spear-head.) I just spent 10 days there and heard, from ‘educated’ people, stuff like:
“Bush only runs foreign policy he can’t do anything in the US so…”
“It was inevitable, Bush is just extending US foreign policy.”
“Clinton was just the same as Bush but more subtle — …”
etc. Not new, for sure.
Posted by: Blackie | Jan 11 2005 18:47 utc | 36
Re: living in their comfortable bubbles
I know I’m throwing a lot of Bageant around lately, but he keeps being strangely pertinent.