I hear tell there are massive protest’s outside the US Embassy in Rome, but of course the Media-military Industrial complex will not show it here on turtle island (i.e.Murika).

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Mar 5 2005 21:53 utc | 3

That would be a “rogue patrol“, not a “rogue battalion”.

Posted by: alabama | Mar 5 2005 22:19 utc | 5

According to Bloomberg, Berlusconi will give an account of the incident to the Italian Senate on Wednesday (and Fini will address the lower chamber on Tuesday). This puts the American military on the spot; since there’s nothing complicated about the incident, they will have to provide a full and straightforward account of the thing by Monday (48 hours hence). If they don’t, Fini and Berlusconi will have to explain why they’re being stonewalled by the Americans (and I have no doubt that they’ll be stonewalled). I think the survival of the eyewitnesses–and hence of their testimony–has to become more and more interesting to the Italian public (Bloomberg reports as well that the Italian prosecutors have already interviewed Sgrena and the other surviving Italian who flew home with her). The Americans don’t own the clock on this one.

Posted by: alabama | Mar 5 2005 22:54 utc | 7

More interesting stuff, Pedro. According to Le Monde, the American military confiscated telephones belonging to the Italians in the car–the very telephones with which they’d been talking continually to the authorities in Baghdad and Rome. It goes without saying that the Italian investigators will insist on inspecting those telephones, and if they find that the phones have been tampered with….

Posted by: alabama | Mar 5 2005 23:25 utc | 9

Leading us to an obvious conclusion: failed assassination attempts are sheer hell on the would-be assassins.

Posted by: alabama | Mar 5 2005 23:51 utc | 11

for those of you who are teachers here i would be especially interested in what your students are thinking – are they the kind of people that post on those blogs – i have a friend at a chicago university who is a little embittered with her students & their current leanings – they are not a generic mass obviouslly but i am intrigued whether there is any possibility at all of a reawakening
bill ayers – ex weatherman – has sd he thought his students were more politically mature – is that so – or a very optimistic rendering of reality

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Mar 6 2005 0:12 utc | 13

then Sgrena must have of some very exact information about American war-crimes in Fallujah
Or at least the american forces think she has.

Posted by: A swedish kind of death | Mar 6 2005 0:29 utc | 15

I think we are all very curious of Mrs Sgrena’s statements in the coming weeks – let’s hope that she recovers quickly, esp. that the surgery on her collar-bone goes well – no unforeseen complications, I mean.

Posted by: teuton | Mar 6 2005 0:30 utc | 17

When is a checkpoint not a checkpoint? When it’s a U.S. military checkpoint and not what you’d understand as a checkpoint at all
Sgrena, however, told Italian prosecutors on Saturday that there was no checkpoint, the Italian news agency ANSA reported.
“It was not a checkpoint, but a patrol that fired after having shone a floodlight at us,” she told ANSA.
Sgrena also disputed that the car was speeding.
The U.S. military did not describe the nature of what it called a checkpoint, such as whether it was marked or well lighted. An American spokesman in Baghdad said he had no further information.
When stopping a car or investigating a possible bomb, U.S. patrols often set up makeshift checkpoints by parking Humvees in the middle of a darkened highway and treating any vehicle approaching as hostile. Iraqi drivers sometimes don’t realize they are upon an American position until it is too late. Dozens and perhaps hundreds of Iraqi civilians have been killed in the last two years after failing to stop while approaching military convoys or checkpoints, including at least nine in the last two months, according to news reports and U.S. military statements.

Posted by: Anonymous | Mar 6 2005 0:53 utc | 19

BTW here is one resurfacing story that might explain “what Sgrena saw”.
reports that the US used napalm or other forbidden weapons on Falluja surfaced a while back, and were fairly swiftly buried — the Yanks explained it all away, iirc, as phosphorous tracer rounds. if Sgrena was an eyewitness to the use of napalm or chem/gas weapons on Falluja I suppose that would be a good reason for the Yanks to want her silenced ASAP.
although, one wonders… would this regime even care? they’ve already stated that international law means nothing, that the ICC is beneath their notice, the UN is irrelevant, the US is simply above and beyond the law — the King of Beasts.
and their control over the media bubble inside the US appears to strengthen rather than weaken over time. nothing much to fear from public opinion at home, when some staggering number of people still [want to] believe that Saddam personally planned 9/11. so why bother about a few pesky conventions on the abolition of inhumane weaponry? after all this is the country that’s spending my tax dollars [howling noises] to do research into the infliction of maximum pain. surely the Rovester and his merry men can laugh off the reports of some “commie Eye-talian b*tch”, as they’ve managed to laugh off one crime and scandal after another.
I thought Tony was Teflon, but the Bush regime is pure PTFE through and through. nothing sticks to these guys except money.

Posted by: DeAnander | Mar 6 2005 3:23 utc | 21

oops my bad, that last one shoulda been on an open thread.

Posted by: DeAnander | Mar 6 2005 3:38 utc | 23

New stuff supposedly from La Repubblica.it:
“The US soldiers prevented first aid for several minutes and prevented anyone from coming near the car”, said Pier Scolari as he entered Celio (military) hospital. “Giuliana had had information that the USA wouldn’t let her return home alive. The Government must cast light on what happened and the USA must have the courage to say that in Iraq we are in the hands of teenagers”, he added.” Here’s the American Link. Maybe someone can check the Italian – both Italian & Eng. in linked article.

Posted by: jj | Mar 6 2005 7:26 utc | 25

Why does this whole enterprise remind me of Werner Herzogs Fitzcarraldo?

Posted by: anna missed | Mar 6 2005 9:21 utc | 27

Lupin beat me to it, I thought the same scenario. I remember some time back we had a discussion about how the Army was blasting whoever got too close to them while driving on the roads. One story that could have got some traction if anyone at all could give a shit was the story of the guy who was rushing his wife to hospital and got himself turned into pink mist when he attempted to pass a convoy.
It is odd that the fire seemed to be concentrated on Ms Sgrena but that would have required some serious prior coordination and doesn’t really fit. They could have killed her earlier had that been their intentions. This is the story the Italian Secret Service is sticking to. SISMI is also quite aghast at the thought that US military would target them.
Most of the Italian press is reporting this as an example of trigger happy US GIs, those on the left see sinister motives and believe that Sgrena saw somethings she was not supposed to see in Fallujah.
In an interview last night with one of the “Simona”s who had also been kidnapped and released by the same SISMI officer who sprung Ms Sgrena, Simona was quite coy about her captors. She obviously knew more than she could say and attempted to convey that without actually saying anything that could get her into trouble. One point she made was that Iraqis now see themselves as Sunni, Shia, Kurd, or some other group. She said that before the invasion Iraqis saw themselves as Iraqis and then further classified themselves based on religious following. I am sure that this is not accidental.

Posted by: dan of steele | Mar 6 2005 12:13 utc | 29

Italy will have a State Funeral for the assasinated agent – assuming the Pope doesn’t go & die at an inconvenient time.
Now they will have to kill the pope to cover it up…

Posted by: A swedish kind of death | Mar 6 2005 13:20 utc | 31

To judge from today’s Le Monde, the Berlusconi government is at the point of describing the attack as a deliberated ambush. If the government has solid information supporting this point, then it will surely have to take that information to the public (because the eye-witness reports are so precise, and because Berlusconi can’t risk the charge of a cover-up). If this happens, then the US may have to admit that it ambushed the car, leaving it with the sole alibi that it thought the car was full of Iraqi ransom-negotiators, and didn’t know that the Italians had already effected the transfer (claiming that they thought the transfer had yet to occur). Telephone recordings should clear up this point very quickly–recordings made in Rome of the phone conversations with the Italians in the car. If the Americans can manage to make this point, then they may be able to keep Berlusconi on board.

Posted by: alabama | Mar 6 2005 15:45 utc | 33

To refine on that alibi: perhaps the Americans might argue that the Iraqi kidnappers provided the car–driving Sgrena to a rendez-vous, then turning the car over to the Italians, who would have been waiting, as it were, on a street-corner somewhere to drive Sgrena to the airport. The Americans might then go on to say that they’d previously identified the car as belonging to Iraqi insurgents, that they’d been tracking it by sattelite, and that they were merely awaiting the first opportunity to blow it to kingdom-come. To make this point plausible, of course, they’d have to blame the Italians for not keeping them apprised of their movements–a point that the Italians have answered rather exactly…

Posted by: alabama | Mar 6 2005 16:37 utc | 35

Alabama,
Do you really think anybody gives a crap about this? It will be gone by tomorrow. Do you remember when our troops blasted an Italian reporter? People watched him die here in Italy. Only those who were against the war in the first place made in noise about it. The warmongers shrugged it off.
I really wish you were prophetic about this, especially the part about Berlusca breaking fingers…it just aint gonna happen.

Posted by: dan of steele | Mar 6 2005 17:00 utc | 37

I must make a correction to my post at 12:00. I confused US troops with Israelis who killed an Italian photographer called Raffaele Ciriello in March of 2003.
I really don’t know how I could have confused the two….

Posted by: dan of steele | Mar 6 2005 17:26 utc | 39

Wasn’t CNN’s Eason Jordon basically forced to resign because of comments about US troops targeting reporters? Was that even mentioned here?
This man should be brought back out, he may have insight as to why all of this is happening. Sgrena was surely on the hit list. The MSM in the US knows something, but being the sycophants they are wouldn’t out this admin and it’s war crimes.

Posted by: jdp | Mar 6 2005 18:02 utc | 41

Alabama: Seriously, if it can be close to proven that it was an ambush, they’re toast. Even without that, the whole thing is ridiculous. They were 700m from the airport. The whole road is something like 5 miles long, and it’s basically a highway with close to no entrance all along, so if a car has managed to get through the first 4 miles and chackpoints, it’s clear that the car is safe.
I’m just not sure there was any sniper involved. They put a big armored vehicle (Sgrena seemed to say it was a tank, but I don’t think it necessarily means an Abrams), then shot 300-400 bullets. They just sprayed the car with bullets in the hope of offing everyone inside, and with so many shots it’s already a wonder only one person was killed – but the others in the car were wounder, one pretty badly too.
Beside, it must be noted that it had already been publicised that she had been freed, so if Western media were already reporting it, I’d like to know how people in Iraq would be left in the blue – particularly since it’s obvious that freed hostages are quickly taken out of Iraq, and therefore troops close to the airport are logically warned of the incoming convoy.
I’m also with Bernhard that the troops didn’t know exactly who they were, otherwise they wouldn’t have screwed up so badly. If it was deliberate, they were just set up so that they could shoot a “suspicious car” and wipe it out, without being provided much details. Otherwise I don’t think they would’ve taken off the phone so easily, or stopped shooting before they were sure even a mouse wouldn’t have survived the shooting.
jdp: US media doesn’t care much about this, because as long as they’re American reporters, and follow the party line, they know they’re safe. The goal is just to kill or scare off every foreign and non-embedded journalist.

Posted by: Clueless Joe | Mar 6 2005 18:57 utc | 43

Berlusconi is a gifted operator–cold, cruel, and vain. He was intimately involved in this operation, clearly trusting the Americans to do the right thing. This they failed to do, which has wounded Berlusconi’s vanity as much as his political standing. It calls his political judgment into question. He must therefore insist that Bush take responsibility, and not least of all because he, Bush, is finally and in fact the one responsible, who, if he doesn’t take responsibility, will be seen as dangerously irresponsible–something that would come as news to some people.

Posted by: alabama | Mar 6 2005 19:58 utc | 45

I’m more inclined to believe that it was an accident, perhaps something fishy about it (Lupin’s explanation sounds very plausible), but ultimately an accident. If they had wanted to kill Sgrena, they would have managed to do so. They would probably have made sure that all in the car are dead before they botched the attempt in such an amateurish fashion, with such an obvious spotlight on US troops. It’s just one more incident in Iraq, only this time, in contrast to probably quite a lot of others, it is reported by the media. Which seems to be the real problem.

Posted by: teuton | Mar 6 2005 20:00 utc | 47

perhaps i do not understand the american character at all or understand it too well
Even for me, your reflexive anti-american chauvinism is growing offensive.
I enjoy your poetically gnomic misanthropy, rgiap, but this “innate” “character” “american” bs is a generalization whose target is everyone american, including me, and it kind of sucks.
Personally, I’d like to rejoin you as “comrade” and at least pretend to do battle against forces arrayed against “the people.” I think you’ll agree, the object of our shared contempt is not “the american character,” but a known hegemon called “capital” whose members include cheeseeating, wineguzzling frenchmen.

Posted by: slothrop | Mar 6 2005 20:13 utc | 49

@slothrop I’m both with you and not, on the whole “American character” trope. yes, it’s a generalisation and all generalisations are inherently false. OTOH, America cannot (even ostensibly) abjure its coloniser status, “give up its colonies”, etc as many Euro nations have done or claim to do — because its own home territory is a colonised territory (and so recently too). I suspect that this has an effect on what r’giap calls an innate American attitude, a kind of national stance or Zeitgeist. I wouldn’t call it innate so much as historic, perhaps inevitable.
I think perhaps what my brother-in-bleakness r’giap is saying is that the trope of Cowboys and Injuns is woven so deeply into American mythology and national identity that “cowboy behaviour” — “kill ’em all and let God sort ’em out” etc — is a specifically American cultural fingerprint. I’d disagree to the extent that I think the same behaviour/mindset, though not necessarily called “cowboy” and without the hat, Western twang, etc. will be found in the White Colonial nations generally: NZ, Oz, Canada, US, Boer S Africa, and (I fear) Israel. in these places the conquest of the Dark Other is recent and not entirely secure (remember the comment made on WC by the businessman in the airport lounge: “I thought we killed all those people, didn’t we?”). I suspect this may lend a flavour and edge to American racism and national stance that is different from, say, anti-immigrant racism in Europe. the brutal attitudes traditional among “wild Colonial boys” whom old Europe used to send overseas to exotic locales to get their ya-yas out, in America are domestic and national attitudes.
I’m speculating out loud here, but … the hatred of “dark people who come and immigrate into my community” seems to me qualitatively different from the hatred of “dark people whose ancestors my ancestors tried to exterminate and didn’t quite succeed, and on whose land I am living” or the hatred of “dark people whose ancestors my ancestors worked to death as slaves and who have never recovered from their position of poverty among us.” one hatred is motivated by resentment, xenophobia, financial/employment anxiety, etc. the other is motivated by all the above plus guilt, plus the reptile desire to eliminate the previous turf-owner for good this time around. maybe. I dunno if this is what r’giap is getting at.
anyway I do think there is a particular historicity to racism and colonialism in American culture/character and mythology — that America cannot “leave behind” its colonialism without a far greater wrench of self-examination than Euroland (and Euroland has by no means come to full terms with its colonial past) — and that this informs the itchy trigger fingers of its troops as well as the swaggering bullyism of various of its presidencies. I’ll disagree that this is all there is to “American Character”, or that such a construct literally, objectively exists 🙂

Posted by: DeAnander | Mar 6 2005 20:59 utc | 51

Wasn’t CNN’s Eason Jordon basically forced to resign because of comments about US troops targeting reporters? Was that even mentioned here?
I posted on it far and wide w/not much reaction…

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Mar 6 2005 21:27 utc | 53

& slothrop i cannot you have not read what the fragile, the deeply vulnerable james baldwin wrote on this question. his vocie is as pure & as knowing as a human being turned into a victim tries to effect a transformation to his humanity
in demanding forgiveness for the offence i might cause you – i prefer to believe what baldwin has to say than your knee jerk reaction to my anti imperialist position

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Mar 6 2005 21:37 utc | 55

Maybe racism, if seen as a subset of hate in general, is an innate “potential” (amongst other potentials) common to all human experience — which would make it innate by definition. And, as DeA points out a” particular historicity” is developed in the exploitation of this “potential” that is then woven into the cultural fabric, and can either lay dormant, or be summoned up as an insturment of political power. There is, of course, a long history in America of just this sort of cultural mobilization, and as the last election would show, it is a monstrosity quite alive. This would thereby put all cultures into a relationship with something like racism, and the culture could then rightfully be characterized (in part) by how it incorporates and utilizes, or seeks to purge, the innate potential from its cultural fabric.

Posted by: anna missed | Mar 6 2005 22:04 utc | 57

Italian minister set to appear as character witness for Tariq Aziz

Posted by: Anonymous | Mar 6 2005 22:23 utc | 59

@uncle – yes the CNN head steped down after some alledged he had said that the U.S. had killed journalists. But he said its by design, not by direct order and he was probably right in that.

Posted by: b | Mar 6 2005 22:34 utc | 61

US racism – certainly exists – as does other nations’ “racism” ..
The US brand is clearly very selective and opportunistic. For ex, Serbs are very white – practically original Aryans! Saudis are pretty dark and ‘towel heads.’ Israelis are Semites, racially / genetically the same as Palestinians. The US Gvmt. itself doesn’t seem to care that it is slowly being swamped with Hispanics, their language and culture.
US colonialism, ditto. Soft power, you know, that empire which isn’t one, is looking for client states, for new, stable, controllable, proper little or big markets – people who will watch TV and scoff hamburgers, get fat, pray for Bush, show they are free by playing baseball, democratic by voting for the incumbent once a year – besides that .. who cares?
In some sense, the US discourse about equality holds – relating US agression and hegemony to racism is somehow old fashioned.
I see the colonial Brit, with a panama hat, waving his walking stick, jawing on about the darkies or natives or whatnot, worrying about his Rover and his second half’s sunburn!
I’m not excusing US crimes.
The right words for them have to be found.
Quibbling because I dont have the answer *yet*.

Posted by: Blackie | Mar 6 2005 23:07 utc | 63

The killing fields: What Iraq’s checkpoints are like
First Uncle Tom, he wave you through, then Bossman Whitey, him pick up his stick that makes fire an’ the next thing you knows is that you is a suppressed statistic.

Posted by: Anonymous | Mar 6 2005 23:27 utc | 65

conchita: but i agree americans are inherently rascist, narrow-minded, frightened people.
Stupidly racist and frightened is as stupid racist and frightened does. Hey, we’ll have you know that the US government-corporate personage has put a lot of time and money into the cultivation of stupidly racist and frightened people over the decades. How dare you criticize their “noble” efforts. ROFL! 😉

Posted by: Kate_Storm | Mar 7 2005 0:48 utc | 67

beq, yes, indeed – and speaking multiple languages as well.

Posted by: conchita | Mar 7 2005 1:16 utc | 69

i’ve done more posting already in one day than i normally do in months, but have one more thing to add. i too followed r’giap’s suggestion to the pilger article on counterpunch and read the one about the revolution about to happen in mexico city. having been there the night fox won it is enheartening to me to see that develop into strong and confident grassroots support for a leftist presidential candidate. i remember both the celebrations – cars circling the zocalo of the small town i was visiting honking horns all night and many morning after stories of mescal madness – but also i remember friends who were too timid to venture out to celebrate for fear of reprisal. if fox’s victory emboldened the mexican spirit for independence and come the companeros come forward for Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador it will indeed be a historical moment. i will be watching closely to see what happens in d.f. over the coming weeks. john ross’ excellent article can be found at http://counterpunch.org/ross03032005.html (sorry still haven’t worked out the linking thing – thanks to those who have tried to help. i promise to concentrate and figure it out one of these days.)

Posted by: conchita | Mar 7 2005 1:27 utc | 71

thanks, skod, i promise to try next time. saw this in the meantime.
thought i was done for the night but just read the email below and feel it should be shared. there are links at the end and one is to an article in a belgian publication that has photos and an eyewitness account of the criminal state in which the us has left fallujah hospitals. it was written by a woman journalist and gives another related perspective. it’s been said before, but this is clearly a violation of the geneva convention and more. perhaps this is what the us did not want sgrena to tell the world?
Letter from Mark Manning, eye witness in Fallujah.
Dear Friends,
I have been out of touch. I have been in Iraq and would like to share a little of my story with you today.
I got back from Iraq a few weeks ago where I stayed inside the city of Falluja and lived with the refugees of that city for over two weeks. I decided to go there because it seems to be the heart of the trouble in Iraq and the place to see if any sense or peace can be found. I had also heard that the city had 250,000 citizens in it who were told to leave when my government attacked, yet there had been no stories of their situation in our media. As an American, I felt responsible for this and decided to take a look myself.
On February 10th 2005 I flew into Iraq and drove to the city of Falluja. For over two weeks I was a resident and a refugee of Falluja and I am honored and privileged for that experience. They hosted me in their homes, and cared for me because they believed that I was there to listen to them and to honestly bring home their stories to the American people. I came to Falluja without military escort or armed protection in any way. I think because of this they thought I was crazy, but they honored what they thought was courage and they trusted me. Trust means everything there and they look deep into your eyes as they decide who you are. I lived with them and listened to their stories. They told me they do not trust American journalists to accurately tell the story of Iraq. They believe that the American public does not know what is really happening there, and that if they did they would feel differently about the war. They feel that the American people are their brothers and sisters and they are asking them for help. They wanted me to tell you their story.
The horrors of war have been brought to the people of Falluja. The people there say the city had 500,000 people in it, not the 250,000 quoted by our media. The refugees told me that they were given one week notice to leave the city. After three days, they were told they could no longer drive out, they had to walk. No camps were established for them and no refugee location was given. There was no planning by the American government for the people, no food, no shelter and no water. They were just told to leave or be killed. Anyone who stayed in the city after one week would be considered a terrorist and would be killed.
For five months these people have been living in any location they could find, nothing was established for them in the surrounding areas of the Falluja countryside. They are living in tents in the mud, schools, abandoned chicken coups, burned out buildings, cars and other buildings that people were not using or where others have made room for them. The weather is bad, with much rain and it is very cold. When they were told to leave the city, it was summer and they were not dressed for this cold and many could not carry out their clothes. Some lucky children are going to school in tents and all the classes have been shortened to 2 hours per day. Food is short and they are eating what the farmers grow and the surrounding community can spare. Again, even after five months they have received no outside aid from either the American government or the new Iraqi government.
The city itself has been devastated. Most houses have been seriously damaged, with about 65% of them totally destroyed. Evidence of depleted uranium (DU) shells is everywhere. This leaves radioactive contamination behind which has a half-life of 4.5 billion years. (See note1). Unexploded ordinance is a common sight. Many residents who were there speak of chemical weapons, napalm, cluster bombs and phosphorous used by the Americans. These are all illegal weapons and considered war crimes by the international community. Many of the houses were fired, meaning that the troops burned them down after searching them. Many houses with white flags and markings stating “Family Here” were destroyed.
Some families who had nowhere to go stayed in the city during the fighting and have paid dearly. I interviewed many people who were there and their stories will live forever in my mind. Here are some samples:
· A mother whose son was killed by DU shells. He was in his bed sleeping when the shells came through the walls.
· A father who at 65 years of age was shot during a raid of his house, whose son was arrested during that raid and has not been seen since (he states that his son was not a fighter.)
· A 17 year old girl who hid under her bed with her 13 year old brother during a raid of her house and witnessed her father, her cousin, and her two sisters 18 and 19 years old, all shot to death. She hid for three more days with the dead bodies of her family and then they returned and shot her and her brother after finding them under the bed. Her brother died. She survived and told me her story.
· A Family of ten who lived through all the fighting. The kids were 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10 and 12. They were a mess. These kids will never be ok. Their faces were marked with open and oozing sores and they were exhibiting serious signs of emotional damage.
There is presently very little medical aid available to the residents and refugees, and again, no aid has been provided to the refugees in the surrounding area. The medical centers in the city have been destroyed and have not been rebuilt. The main hospital has been reopened, but to get there you have to walk, as the ambulances are still being shot by the Americans and the Iraqi National Guard. The doctors have been beaten and their lives have been threatened by the Iraqi National Guard. These are the security forces that the Americans are training. The new government has warned them not to talk to any journalists about the conditions in Falluja. They understand this threat to be very real and a direct threat on their lives and the lives of their families.
To walk to the hospital you must go through checkpoints, sometimes through fighting, and only at certain daylight hours. The checkpoints are manned by the Iraqi National Guards and they are very hostile to the residents of Falluja. When we were at the hospital, an old man died of a heart attack because he was not allowed through the checkpoint. A woman gave birth in the ambulance because they would not let the ambulance back to the hospital after 5 pm and instead turned it away with her in labor.
We delivered by hand the medical aid provided by some of you to the hospital in Falluja. Me and one Iraqi woman, WE were the international medical aid to Falluja. We carried these boxes one at a time through the checkpoints, across the bridge and into the hospital. They would not let us drive in, we had to walk these boxes in. We did it every day for a week, one box at a time.
All of the people I talked to had messages to the American people. They said: “We did not attack you! We have done nothing to the Americans. Why have you done this to us?”
These are the people who hosted me, fed me, and worried about my safety. They took care of me and I will never forget their generosity, compassion and grace. They want peace with America and they want the fighting to stop. They feel they are the ones being attacked and that the Americans are the terrorists. They see absolutely no justification for this war and were constantly asking me to explain how the American people can support these acts against a civilian population. For the first time in my life, I was ashamed to be an American.
There are so many more stories to tell you and I will be making a film about it all. But for now, what I want you to know is that I spent two weeks in the heart of the beast. The place where our government and media said is the heart of the resistance, terrorists and Saddam Loyalists, and guess what; the place is full of people. People like you and me. Kids are everywhere. The average Fallujan family has 10 people in it. That means about 8 kids. 500,000 people in the city, you do the math. That is a lot of kids.
There are fighters in Falluja. That is a fact. But they are surrounded by some 490,000 innocent people. As a country, we have decided the damage to the innocents is worth the end result, whatever that may be. These people are being shattered by this very serious situation that they have no control over. They are the innocent victims of this war.
I cannot tell you what to do. This is a story of just one area in Iraq. These stories are all over the area we call the Sunni Triangle. But I was there and lived with these people and they taught me about love, forgiveness, truth and compassion. They, after all that has happened to them, still have the ability to differentiate between the acts of an enemy and the people of a nation. They cry out to us to save them from the ignorance that has brought this destruction on them. They have suffered 33 times 9/11. Over 100, 000 Iraqis have died at the hands of the American invasion (note 2) and still they say that they have nothing against the American people. This is grace. I learned from these people how to find peace. By deeply listening to my “enemy” I have found that the real enemy is ignorance and fear and acting from that place of weakness.
I will never forget the people of Falluja.
Thank you for listening to them.
Your Friend,
Mark Manning
http://www.conceptionmedia.net
1. http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/du.htm , http://www.sundayherald.com/32522
2. http://progressivetrail.org/articles/041029Cole.shtml
http://www.brusselstribunal.org/Articles.htm#iloja

Posted by: conchita | Mar 7 2005 2:02 utc | 73

No one said it would be easy, DeAnander, and no one was absolutely right. And of course you’re downhearted. Do you of know anyone who isn’t? And would we bother to spur each other on in this good place if we didn’t need each other’s assistance? You’ll take heart, I trust, in the fact that your posts have never failed to raise the morale of at least one fellow-poster.
I really do wish I knew a thing or two about the natural sciences…

Posted by: alabama | Mar 7 2005 4:19 utc | 75

DeAnander: by the way, is anyone else starting to feel really worn down by the daily barrage of nonsense, BS, insults to the intelligence, and so forth from the Bush gang? I’m feeling really, really tired. I’m sure this is how they want me to feel, which makes it even more irritating. sorry about the personal note… but as Mose wrote in another song
I’m not downhearted…
but I’m gettin’ there.
Mose? How nice. 😉
Yes to all of the above. Weary. Weltanschung-ness. A homesickness for a place I’ve never seen.
The personal is, of course, always political, De.

Posted by: Kate_Storm | Mar 7 2005 4:48 utc | 77

A homesickness for a place I’ve never seen.
Damn, Kate. That went right to the gut. But I think if I have any more temptation to personal maunderings I will take them over to LS. Seems kinda quiet over there lately…
I think the worst thing these creeps-in-power do to us is the theft of meaning.

Posted by: DeAnander | Mar 7 2005 5:24 utc | 79

@De
Are you at all familiar with A. G. Borgese?
A. G. Borgese, produced the work The City of Man (1939/40), it was billed as an anti-fascist project concerned with the conceptualization of a world democracy. But I can’t help but wonder if it was not a reply to St. Augustine’s city of God anyway,During his stay at Yale University, Broch writes the “Proposal for the Founding of an Institute for Political Psychology and for the Study of Phenomena of Mass Psychosis” (1939), which Albert Einstein, to whom it was submitted at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, regarded as an “original text”–even though he was not in favor of the founding of a separate institute.[I wonder why?] Coming as it was from an academic outsider and speculative thinker, Broch’s project was not as successful as that of Hadley Cantril, A Princeton psychologist and the director of a project on the study of mass psychology at the Rockefeller Foundation [the Rockefeller foundation? hummm, berry, berry interesting]within which Broch’s research had been accepted. Broch’s theory of mass psychology differs from others (Freud, Le Bon, Reich, etc.) through its ethical emphasis on how the masses can be “converted” to mass democracy. For Broch himself, the project was a “theory about the formation of political will,” and it departed from the notion of a “state of twilight” (Dämmerzustand), an ecstatic-mystic predisposition for mass psychotic reactions. While he sought an intellectual exchange with Canetti, who was simultaneously working on his own theory of crowd psychology, the latter refused. Interestingly enough, Hadley
Cantril went on to study the effects of mass media on society. October 30th 1938 was one of the most important dates in the history of mass media and its impact on society. Produced by Orson Welles, the radio broadcast of War of the Worlds created nationwide panic and thus allowed anyone to see the social effects that were made possible by the media. Interestingly, while panic was observed during the broadcast, some people were still able to remain calm and collected. Two years later, this led physiologists Hadley Cantril, Hazel Gaudet, and Herta Herzog to study the phenomenon where some people seemed more susceptible to the effects of the radio broadcast as compared to others. What they found out was that those who were not frightened were not suggestible because they displayed what psychologists called a critical faculty (pg. 589). The lack of critical faculty was the lack of the ability to create a framework in which to check if the information were true. People who lacked critical faculty included those in the lower income bracket or educational level, as they would have considerably limited sources of information to refer to (pg. 582).(Neo-cons anyone? ABCBSCNNFOX?) Radio was the most accessible media for them and would be a reason why they seemed to exhibit the most panic. The psychologists behind this paper could be likened to early communication researchers who delved into the mind in order to better understand ones behaviors. They performed standard research methodology including interviewing 135 persons as their sample size, and created a working framework of four psychological conditions in which to classify people’s behaviors. This was in a sense an early study of media effects on society. Oh, it gets better one of Cantril’s protege’s Frank Stanton was president of CBS between 1946 and 1971 interesting character but back to Cantril. Cantril later established the Office of Public Opinion Research (OPOR), also at Princeton. Among the studies conducted by the OPOR was an analysis of the effectiveness of “psycho-political operations” (propaganda, in plain English) of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Then, during World War II, Cantril — and Rockefeller money — assisted CFR member and CBS reporter Edward R. Murrow in setting up the Princeton Listening Center, the purpose of which was to study Nazi radio propaganda with the object of applying Nazi techniques to OSS propaganda. Out of this project came a new government agency, the Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service (FBIS). The FBIS eventually became the United States Information Agency (USIA), which is the propaganda arm of the National Security Council. I wonder if Karl Rove and the Pnac Posse lay in bed at night and masterbating and salivating to dreams of world domnination by means of the information above.with reformational political thinkers such as Samual P.Huntington critical theorists of the Frankfurt School. A side note, speaking of reformational political thinkers Johannes Althusius concluded that “if ever the state transgresses its divinely ordained authority, it so it becomes illegitimate”.Sounds like Straussian pnac thinking to me…
“They are playing a game. They are playing at not playing a game. If I show them I see they are, I shall break the rules and they will punish me. I must play their game, of not seeing I see the game”.- Knots by RD Laing

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Mar 7 2005 12:58 utc | 81

Thanks Uncle $cam,
that critical faculty thingie is a piece I was looking for. I have noticed a definite dumbing down of the US and wondered why this was going on. I first saw about 20 years ago a remarkable decrease in reading ability among new military personal arriving where I worked. All new people were required to take a reading test to see if they could read at the 8th grade level. I was astonished at the number who could not…around 30 %. These people were all high school graduates.
I feel fortunate to have been born in an age when the US thought it important to educate the young. When I began grade school Sputnik had just been launched and the US was embarrassed that those damn commies could do something before us. I guess the base desire for power and wealth by the elite overcame this temporary lapse into humanity, even if it was for the wrong reason it was still a good thing.
Reading this makes me despair even more. How can you combat this? Most people are already dumbed down and can’t be bothered with thinking something so unpleasant. The only people who can do something about it…..won’t because it is not in their interests.
shorter above….we’re screwed.

Posted by: dan of steele | Mar 7 2005 16:28 utc | 83

dea
yr right – the mere accumulations of barbarity, stupidity & senselessness advertising itself as a higher morality & good sense has been enough to take even a hardened optimist down
if it’s not stupidity it is criminality & when it is the two it is a highly developed form of barbarism
we wonder whether the better angels of our nature exist at all

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Mar 7 2005 18:20 utc | 85

i find it a little odd that people do not take the italian journalist at her word -“i was the objective” – that it was a deliberate killing action. she would not be the first & she certainly won’t be the last journalist who has been assasinated by u s forces
what do we need – when we see – with our own eyes – as in the assassination of the iraqui in fallujah – that was broadcast – on their own medium – when we see that – when we know instinctively & actually that it is the tip of the iceberg – that what we are not seeing, what is not being witnesses, that which is being hidden from us – by design is far more terrible in its reality
with each psychopathic turn of the screw – we are all left wondering – wondering at this criminal administration – which seems with appointments like negroponte & bolton – to be provoking the world. each incident & many pass each week that would be deeply shocking at any other time – but we are becoming used to this quotidian barbarism.
the renditions – surely as evil a judiciomilitary tactic as any invented – does not tear into our mortal selves as it should
what they are doing in our world is to destroy it bit by bit. they have done such a demolition job on ethics & morality – that as margins or measures – surely they can be of no further use
the world can all become premptive – in everything we do. we can annul all form of responsibilities & use all international tribunals to blame the victim
on french radio tonight they go over & over again – about the checkpoints, the american checkpoints – they drwon the facts with so much elaboration that they forget the facts. us forces attempted to assasinate another journalist – but instead they shot an honourable member of the italian secret service
& even when they repeat over & over again ‘checkpoints’ – they never ever mention how many iraqui people who have been killed, massacred at such ‘checkpoints’ – the premise is so disgusting, so contemptible – that is that brown or yellow people do not matter. they are nothing. they are less than nothing
journalisms greatest crime today is that it not only protects the powerful & venal in every case but it tries to silence the screams of those who are being turned into statistics. & even the statistics – they configure in an almost cabbalic way so that we foreget the essential truth – that human beings – very much like you & me – are being murdered by a conquering army – that knows neither measure nor moderation
my friend slothrop – what would you have me do in front of all these facts – all this terrible knowledge – is it better to not name who the enemy is & what he does. as others here i think our lives are being turned to shit by what we are learning to live with -& it is not unnatural that our fury finds excess but it is an excess much more moderate than the facts themselves

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Mar 7 2005 20:51 utc | 87