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May 15, 2007
OT 07-37
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Did you guys catch this: For $82 a Day, Booking a Cell in a 5-Star Jail
Ahh, yes, must be soooooo nice to be of the upper crust in our classless ass society.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | May 15 2007 6:10 utc | 1
Inspectors Cite Big Gain by Iran on Nuclear Fuel
In a short-notice inspection of Iran’s main nuclear facility at Natanz on Sunday, conducted in advance of a report to the United Nations Security Council due early next week, the inspectors found that Iranian engineers were already using roughly 1,300 centrifuges and were producing fuel suitable for nuclear reactors, according to diplomats and nuclear experts here. Until recently, the Iranians were having difficulty keeping the delicate centrifuges spinning at the tremendous speeds necessary to make nuclear fuel, and often were running them empty, or not at all.
Now, those roadblocks appear to have been surmounted. “We believe they pretty much have the knowledge about how to enrich,” said Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the energy agency, who clashed with the Bush administration four years ago when he declared that there was no evidence that Iraq had resumed its nuclear program. “From now on, it is simply a question of perfecting that knowledge. People will not like to hear it, but that’s a fact.”
…
One senior European diplomat, who declined to speak for attribution, said that Washington would now have to confront the question of whether it wants to keep Iran from producing any nuclear material, or whether it wants to keep it from gaining the ability to build a weapon on short notice.
Continued stalemate, the diplomat said, allows Iran to move toward that ability.
But hawks in the administration say that the only position President Bush can take now, without appearing to back down, is to stick to the administration’s past argument that “not one centrifuge spins” in Iran. They argue for escalating sanctions and the threat that, if diplomacy fails, the United States could destroy the nuclear facilities.
But even inside the administration, many officials, particularly in the State Department and the Pentagon, argue that military action would create greater chaos in the Middle East and Iranian retribution against American forces in Iraq, and possibly elsewhere.
Moreover, they have argued that Iran’s enrichment facilities are still at an early enough stage that a military strike would not set the country’s program back very far. Such a strike, they argue, would make sense only once large facilities had been built.
Majority of Americans do not favor military action against Iran
WASHINGTON (CNN) — A new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll released Monday shows a majority of Americans oppose any military action against Iran and a large portion of Americans believe Iran is an enemy.
U.S. Military Action Against Iran
Favor 33%
Oppose 63%
Opinion of Iran
Ally 3%
Friendly 12%
Unfriendly 36%
Enemy 46%
Red Cross Report Says Israel Disregards Humanitarian Law
The International Committee of the Red Cross, in a confidential report about East Jerusalem and its surrounding areas, accuses Israel of a “general disregard” for “its obligations under international humanitarian law — and the law of occupation in particular.”
…
Guantánamo Detainees’ Suit Challenges Fairness of Military’s Repeat Hearings
The military system of determining whether detainees are properly held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, includes an unusual practice: If Pentagon officials disagree with the result of a hearing, they order a second one, or even a third, until they approve of the finding.
…
Reviewing records of 102 hearings that were obtained from the government through lawsuits, the report’s authors found that “at least one detainee, after his first and second tribunals unanimously determined him not to be an enemy combatant, had yet a third tribunal” that then classified him as an enemy combatant. About 380 men are now detained at Guantánamo.
…
Eric M. Freedman, a law professor at Hofstra University who has consulted with lawyers for several detainees, said the repeated hearings were a symptom of the flaws in the military hearings. “The system is designed,” Mr. Freedman said, “to validate the holding of everyone they are now holding.”
New Detainees Strain Iraq’s Jails
“They described routine ill treatment or abuse while they were there,” said a U.N. official in Baghdad who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. “Routine beatings, suspension by limbs for long periods, electric shock treatment to sensitive parts of the body, threats of ill treatment of close relatives. In one case, one of the detainees said that he was forced to sit on a sharp object which caused an injury.”
…
Instances of abuse inside Defense and Interior Ministry facilities reported by local and international human rights groups included “application of electric shocks, fingernail extractions, and other severe beatings. In some cases, police threatened and sexually abused detainees and visiting family members,” the report said.
Now that’s “oversight”:
White House Edits to Privacy Board’s Report Spur Resignation
The Bush administration made more than 200 revisions to the first report of a civilian board that oversees government protection of personal privacy, including the deletion of a passage on anti-terrorism programs that intelligence officials deemed “potentially problematic” intrusions on civil liberties, according to a draft of the report obtained by The Washington Post.
One of the panel’s five members, Democrat Lanny J. Davis, resigned in protest Monday over deletions ordered by White House lawyers and aides. The changes came after the congressionally created Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board had unanimously approved the final draft of its first report to lawmakers, renewing an internal debate over the board’s independence and investigative power.
…
Davis’s resignation letter cited disagreements about whether the board should expand its scope to investigate civil liberties abuses of non-Americans. Davis wrote that he was “concerned that there may be current and developing anti-terrorist programs affecting civil liberties and privacy rights of which the board has neither complete knowledge nor ready access.“
Where there is smoke …
Wolfowitz insists he is the only one to fuck Shaha:
According to Mr Coll’s notes: “At the end of the conversation Mr Wolfowitz became increasingly agitated and said that he was ‘tired of people … attacking him’ and ‘you should get your friends to stop it’. Mr Wolfowitz said, ‘If they fuck me or Shaha, I have enough on them to fuck them too’,” naming several senior bank staff he felt were vulnerable.
adding to b real’s collection:
Somalia too tough for al Qaeda?
Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda has failed for more than a decade to establish an operational base in Somalia due to the country’s austere environment and inhospitable clans, a new U.S. military report says.
…
“Al Qaeda found more adversity than success in Somalia,” states the report by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point. “In order to project power, al Qaeda needed to be able to promote its ideology, gain an operational safe haven, manipulate underlying conditions to secure popular support and have adequate financing for continued operations. It achieved none of these objectives.”
…
“The anarchic conditions in Somalia that many believe serve al Qaeda’s purposes turned out to be as challenging for al Qaeda as for the Western organizations seeking to help Somalia,” the West Point report said.
Okaaayyyy – so why did the U.S. kick out the government in Somalia?
Let me guess – could it be for oil?
“If they fuck me or Shaha, I have enough on them to fuck them too…”
And therein lies the horror of the situation. In one mere sentence, –one that rips open the curtain of hidden truth behind the very bottom line of– the mentality of these jackals, for all to see.
Unbeknownst to the wolf, in this seemingly faux pas, he just showed the cards for what they are; marked cards. The dice are loaded…
Everybody Knows
Posted by: Uncle $cam | May 15 2007 9:58 utc | 10
Ahhh, speaking of Juan Cole…
Juan Cole: Paul Wolfowitz’s fatal weakness
The cronyism that may cost him his World Bank job is also what caused the Iraq debacle.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | May 15 2007 12:12 utc | 12
Justin Raimondo: Benchmarks and Bullsh*t – Beware bipartisan ‘consensus’ on Iraq
The Democratic Party is not about to end this war. Far from ending it, they seek to organize and formalize the occupation. Their “compromise” spending bill signs them on to constructing a viable colonial administration based on a two-tiered system of administration – with the Iraqi legislature rubber-stamping decisions made in Washington and the money flowing in at the same speed as the Iraqis carry out their orders. Four years after “mission accomplished,” the nature of the mission – the carving out of an American province in the heart of the Middle East – is all too apparent.
…
yep …
My National Security Letter Gag Order
“Under the threat of criminal prosecution, I must hide all aspects of my involvement in the case — including the mere fact that I received an NSL — from my colleagues, my family and my friends. When I meet with my attorneys I cannot tell my girlfriend where I am going or where I have been. I hide any papers related to the case in a place where she will not look. When clients and friends ask me whether I am the one challenging the constitutionality of the NSL statute, I have no choice but to look them in the eye and lie.”
The reason I bring the above up is because the following reminded me…
Todays TPM, ‘must read’: Oversight, the Bush administration way.
Snip:
Davis charged that the White House sought to remove an extensive discussion of recent findings by the Justice Department’s inspector general of FBI abuses in the uses of so-called “national security letters” to obtain personal data on U.S. citizens without a court order. He also charged that the White House counsel’s office wanted to strike language stating that the panel planned to investigate complaints from civil liberties groups that the Justice Department had improperly used a “material witness statute” to lock up terror suspects for lengthy periods of time without charging them with any crimes.
Also, todays the first day I have ever seen and Impeachment diary on the rec list over at dkos: (not that I have kept up with it, but the first one I have noticed) A good day for IMPEACHMENT
in it are 20 damn good reasons to impeach right now today, however, we all know that will never happen for the same reason that wolfie said this, “If they fuck me or Shaha, I have enough on them to fuck them too…” .
Moreover, as good as the evidence is in the dkos dairy above, they leave out a few, but one that comes to my mind is the following, obstruction of justice in relation to the firings of USAs such as Carol Lam & David Iglesias.
Which brings us to the reason why again, the problem is that almost EVERYONE would be implicated. It’s like a mutually assured destruction arrangement (MAD), with everybody having something devastating on everyone else. And as good ol’ Senator (Lurch) Kerry said back in the day, when dealing with the wide spread corruption of THE BCCI it was a similar deal…”…both parties, bigshots from all over the place…everybody who was anybody, just about, was in bed with those folks” kerry had to work his ass off to get that investigation going, and although his final report was admirable it never led to anything …
Finally, I would say that the degree of corruption in the belt-way is past truly stunning, it has started to surface because it has reached the vector of velocity speed. Hell, even the ones who want it don’t really want it.
I’ve talked elsewhere about how people respond to change in different ways. In many cases people fear change, even hate it. And when that change takes the form of increasing complexity, many people would gladly shut it all out, and resort to simplistic knowledge. Information-acceleration a Mandelbrot fractal, and if we are in what Alvin Toffler calls the Third Wave — Information Civilization, then things are really starting to burn now.
According to computer scientist Dr. Jacques Vallee, information is now doubling every 18 months. If Vallee is right about information doubling every 18 months, and Gordon is right about fractals increasing where information flow increases, then everything must become steadily more unpredictable from here on — more “chaotic” in the mathematical sense.
That “chaos” may be expressed as breakdown and violence, such as we are seeing in the current theater of the Middle East. Has anybody been keeping up with what going on in Musharraf’s Pakistan the last few days?
Posted by: Uncle $cam | May 15 2007 14:21 utc | 14
pr watch: Limits Placed on U.S. Soldiers Online, Journalists in Iraq
Source: Associated Press, May 14, 2007
As of May 14, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) began “blocking access ‘worldwide’ to YouTube, MySpace and 11 other popular Web sites on its computers and networks.” General B.B. Bell said the ban would limit “recreational traffic” that had impacted “our official DoD network and bandwidth ability, while posing a significant operational security challenge.” While members of the military “can still access the sites on their own computers and networks,” many soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan only have access to DoD computers. The ban covers sites used by soldiers to keep in touch with family and friends, and comes shortly after an order requiring soldiers to pre-clear blog posts and public emails. Editor & Publisher reports that the Iraqi government “will soon routinely ban journalists from the sites of bombings and other violent incidents.” Iraq’s Interior Ministry Operations Director said the ban was not “a curtailment of press freedom,” and is needed “to protect journalists,” to safeguard evidence, to deny terrorists “information that they achieved their goals,” and to respect human rights, “by not photographing dead bodies.”
sounds like the shifting blame for losing iraq is now eyeing PSYOPS. just an image problem. no image, no problem. haha.
Posted by: b real | May 15 2007 14:39 utc | 15
Abu has two more hours (1 pm CDT) to turn over the emails, says MSNBC. . . . tick tock tick tock tick…
Posted by: Uncle $cam | May 15 2007 16:45 utc | 17
Thank you Uncle, for relating this chaos to math. What is a fractal by the way?
Until now I was developing my own theory on chaos in ME and elsewhere, which points to Wolfie’s bosses, who is/are also controlling Cheney and the rest of the gang, orchestrating chaos for their own purposes. That is I couldn’t see this a a random mathematical process which is intensified by a growing information density – inevitable due to natural laws?
It appears to me to be a back room plan because…too many coincidences. There is always a correction, a fallback, a convenient suicide to keep the chaos on track. Would math do that?
So if I am onto something, then who could these back room planners be? They are apparently working intently at the destruction of civlisation. Money is sucked up as a means of power but not for its own sake, and as da big wolf himself said, blackmail is an essential means of control. O yes and these bosses have no empathy, no humanity, nor does Wolfie or the other ranking underlings.
So if one studiously denies the evidence that we are near the end of a long deliberate invasion from another world, he will continue to babble about our wicked incompetent “leadership” with posts like, “This is un-f*kin believable…” or “These idiots need some prison time…” when in spite of the outrage TPTB presses harder on the crime/coverup pedal.
Not sure I have made a great case for my ET premise here – there is a lot more out there. Optimism and some good clues lead me to expect that this cabal will be defeated in the end with the help of more positive loving ET powers, and that will bring a total change in perspective; we and our ancestors have been born into and brainwashed by this world of wars and greed and hierarchy, so living otherwise may be a strain for awhile. I hope I live to see it.
Posted by: rapt | May 15 2007 16:49 utc | 18
The latest from Juan Cole’s blog sounds like poetry–war poetry, to be sure:
The deployment of 4,000 US troops to search for 3 captured GIs, however honorable and necessary, underscores the increasing futility of the US military presence in Iraq. If they were truly doing essential counter-insurgency, then there shouldn’t be a spare 4,000 troops for a search mission. The guerrillas are not resting on their mortar shells, after all. And, that the main mission of the 4,000 should be to find their captured colleagues is tragic. The guerrillas can tie down an entire brigade or two any time they like by grabbing some exposed GIs? What kind of a military mission does that imply? As for the idea apparently prevalent among some US military personnel that the good people of the Triangle of Death will like the Americans more if only they see them searching through their underthings in their dresser drawers looking for bomb parts, surely you jest.
Posted by: infoshaman | May 15 2007 17:05 utc | 19
@infoshaman –
I agree with Cole there.
The “force protection” mania is what makes the U.S. military inefficient as a colonial force.
Minimal risktaking by the soldiers = maximal civilian casualties = colonial mission not accomplished.
But maybe that’s not the mission the soldiers have.
“Someone was shooting at us so we had to bomb that neighborhood.”
That bahaviour is okay if the order is to “kill them all.” It’s not okay if the order is to achieve a peaceful colony.
So what are the real orders and the real mission?
Defence policy exemplifies the problem Blair leaves behind: this is a nation that is seeking to live beyond its means at every level. Is the government solely responsible for this state of affairs? No. The public has been a willing accomplice in the self-deception, buying into the fantasy that price stability was OK provided it excluded the two things they cared about most – their pay packet and the price of their house. The strength of the backlash against Blair and New Labour is a sign that voters have started to work out that the much-vaunted economic stability has a dark side.
This is manifested in record levels of personal debt and bankruptcy. Ever higher levels of borrowing have been justified by ever higher levels of house prices. Rather than save up for a new car or a holiday, consumers have been able to re-mortgage their properties and withdraw the equity. Labour used to have quite strict, even moralistic views, about the perils of personal indebtedness, but it has been the willingness of consumers to live on the never-never that has made possible the uninterrupted growth.
At the national level, the spend, spend, spend mentality has saddled Britain with a record trade deficit. Hardly noticed in last Thursday’s excitement was the release of the latest set of trade figures from the Office for National Statistics. These showed that in March, the UK imported £7bn more goods than it exported – more than 6% of GDP. This figure alone gives the lie to the notion that Britain under Labour has cracked the age-old problem of inflation, since a trade deficit is merely disguised inflation, evidence of excess demand that can only be met through imports.
It’s not difficult to see why the UK is running a trade level of this size: consumption has been rising fast while manufacturing output has flat-lined. Unlike Germany, Japan, Sweden – or even the US, which has a huge trade deficit itself – Britain is no longer an industrial nation. Is this worrying? Well, it scares the life out of me, but not it seems the government. The fantasy here is that we can cope with living beyond our means at a national level through the profits generated by the City and by building up Britain’s “knowledge economy”. A £7bn trade deficit suggests we have some way to go; hardly surprising since the fastest growing job in the 1990s was hairdressing and the UK now has as big a slice of its population working as servants as it did in 1860.
Finally, there’s the question of how we are living beyond our means globally. The good news is the government has finally “got it” on climate change; the Stern report made it clear time is fast running out to put a ceiling on emissions of greenhouse gases. The bad news is the shop till you drop culture of Blair’s Britain has meant emissions are going up not down, and while the government is prepared to talk the talk on climate change it is a long way from walking the walk. New runways, building on the green belt and rip-off fares on the railways are not consistent with saving the planet, and the public knows it. On the environment, as with personal debt and the trade deficit, we are at the limits of sustainability and time is fast running out. Politically difficult though it may be, there is an urgent need for the traditional virtues of frugality and restraint. Of that, more next week.
We could apply this to THE WEST.
Posted by: Cloned Poster | May 15 2007 18:17 utc | 21
Falwell finally kicked the bucket, wayyyy too late to be helpful to the country. Funeral should be a doozy!
Posted by: jj | May 15 2007 18:22 utc | 22
amy goodman is really getting taken by the save darfur propagandists. two weeks ago she had john prendergast & actor don cheadle on the program misinforming the audience on darfur (& really really pissing off keith harmon snow). today she featured a darfur refugee (who says he fled his home three years ago) who was arrested in sudan for re-entering sudan six times under false documents/identity to act as a translator for western journalists covering the “genocide” from chad, one of them being nicholas kristof. after being released & returning to chad, he was then given special treatment to become one of only three darfurians the u.s. has actually granted refugee status to, under the notion that his life was in danger in both chad & sudan. since then, he’s been active on the ‘save darfur’ circuit, saying he wants to get the message out to people about what’s really happening in darfur.
is amy blind? or is there something else going on. how can she, of all reporters, not be more skeptical of these propagandists?
listen to the program or read the transcript & tell me this is not outright propaganda.
for reference, here’s a recent reporter’s without borders report on media in sudan.
Darfur : An investigation into a tragedy’s forgotten actors
Many journalists who are denied entry to Sudan or access to Darfur (which requires a special travel permit) cover the crisis in western Sudan from refugee camps in neighbouring Chad or illegally enter Sudan across the border, risking arrest and trial.
Anticipating the difficulties of getting a visa and travel permit, foreign journalists have often taken the easier option of “covering” Darfur’s tragedy from eastern Chad, solely on the basis of what refugees there tell them.
Whatever the reasons for this, any report on Darfur from refugee camps in Chad is inevitably incomplete. It can even misrepresent the reality if, for example, refugees who fled at the height of the atrocities in 2003-2004 describe a situation that has evolved since their forced departure. (The violence has spent itself in a land razed and emptied of its inhabitants, while the two initial rebel movements have split into many factions and, since the peace accord some of them signed with the government in May 2006 in Abuja, are fighting among themselves and are also carrying out atrocities on the civilian population.)
Posted by: b real | May 15 2007 18:58 utc | 23
Oh one could feel this one coming. I was jittery and goose bumped… oh it was coming up… Kouchner as foreign Minister of France.
I have noted that many Americans and ‘Anglos’ admire Kouchner – they see him as the great Frrench Doc-tor, all for humanitarianism, etc. Others such as Spaniards, Morocans, others, are either less keen or don’t know the man.
K is an innovative kind of neo-con (while nominally belonging to the French Socialist Party, so I suppose a neo-lib?) That choice was made when the Socialists were the ‘main’ party and no doubt K thought that is was more appropriate for this strategy of attack, which is based on the ‘humanitarian’ ticket. (This was after being excluded from the Communist party!) Not to burden readers with his checkered history, but ppl often imagine he is a respected politician. He is not, as he has never been elected to anything, even though he has stood countless times usually getting less than a tiny % of the vote… All his positions have been crony appointments. (With one trivial exception, iirc.) Moreover, the organization he originally founded threw him out. (He went on to found another – Medecins du Monde.) French voters are suspicious or see thru him.
Kouchner supported the invasion of Iraq. K is a die hard friend of Israel. K is for ‘the right of interference for humanitarian reasons’ – what a surprise. You know, save a few darkies with the TV pics showing it while smashing their infrasctructure or Gvmt or whatever.
And of course, Annan nominated him ‘governor’ of Kosovo. K was a main mover (the full extent is not known officially) in the that scene, kissing and lunching with Maddy Allbright and Hacim Tasi (KLA leader – these were freedom fighters for the US.)
Nominally, as a socialist, he supported Sego. I saw on the TV, he made snarky (sakry?) comments and winked to the anchors.
He is expert at media spectaculars, such as going with abroad with bag of rice which is not handed out but just scattered on the ground (Somalia, early 1990s)..
wiki, seems OK to me, low key, of course
Posted by: Noirette | May 15 2007 18:59 utc | 24
@rapt #15:
The Old Man in the Cave maybe?
Posted by: Dr. Wellington Yueh | May 16 2007 0:50 utc | 25
W/the belated departured of Falwell, Gareth Porter informs us god may be poking its head out:
A source who met privately with Fallon around the time of his confirmation hearing and who insists on anonymity quoted Fallon as saying that an attack on Iran “will not happen on my watch” Commander’s Veto Sank Threatening Gulf Buildup
Wonder what PL will have to say, since he wrote at that time that appt. signalled War. Perhaps we should have had more confidence in Gates, who we knew was opposed.
Posted by: jj | May 16 2007 2:15 utc | 26
sounds like a really bad sitcom
Mystery Afghan gave Padilla evidence to U.S.
MIAMI, May 15 (Reuters) – An Afghan man drove up to a CIA outpost in Kandahar in December 2001 and delivered a truckload of documents, including what prosectors say is U.S. citizen Jose Padilla’s al Qaeda pledge form, according to trial testimony on Tuesday.
The CIA agent who received the documents said he had never seen the man before but understood that he was loyal to a tribal leader cooperating with U.S. forces who were then driving out Afghanistan’s Taliban government.
“He said this item came from an office that had previously been used by Arabs,” said the agent, who was given permission to testify under a false name and wore a beard and glasses to hide his identity. “Basically he cleaned out the office.”
…
The agent was handed a blue binder containing several pages. He testified that he recognized it as one he unloaded from the heap of documents in the unidentified Afghani’s truck and later delivered to the FBI in Pakistan in a cardboard box that once contained cooking oil.
He said he handled it with his bare hands and could not read it because he does not understand Arabic.
“You do realize that you degrade the quality of a piece of evidence by handling it with your bare hands?” asked one of Padilla’s lawyers, Orlando do Campo.
“Yes,” replied the CIA agent.
The agent said he did not know who had filled in the form nor when. Nor did he know the motive of the tribal leader he presumed had directed the load of documents to be delivered.
“I’m not in a position to gauge the level of reliability,” he said.
An FBI agent who received and inventoried the documents in Islamabad testified that she sent them on to an FBI office near Washington to be translated. That agent, Jennifer Keenan, said she could not read the form alleged to incriminate Padilla but recognized it as similar to another that had been partly translated from Arabic.
“I knew the content as being a pledge form with personal identification,” said Keenan.
She did not elaborate on the nature of the pledge but said the form contained “the rules of going to the camp.”
Posted by: b real | May 16 2007 4:01 utc | 27
The new war-zar is a bit odd. How can an unremarkable three star general in Washington tell a four-star (Adm. Fallon) tell what to do?
Was there nobody else to be found? Was the new guy, Lt.Gen. Lute, ordered to do the job after nobody else could be found?
I guess he’ll collect his fourth star and retire without doing much.
Here is an 2005 Financial Times report/interview with him US general sees significant withdrawal in Iraq.
“surge” results: Iraq Attacks Stayed Steady Despite Troop Increase, Data Show
Newly declassified data show that as additional American troops began streaming into Iraq in March and April, the number of attacks on civilians and security forces there stayed relatively steady or at most declined slightly, in the clearest indication yet that the troop increase could take months to have a widespread impact on security.
Even the suggestion of a slight decline could be misleading, since the figures are purely a measure of how many attacks have taken place, not the death toll of each one. American commanders have conceded that since the start of the troop increase, which the United States calls a “surge,” attacks in the form of car bombs with their high death tolls have risen.
The Decapitation of Secular Iraq A pretty good roundup of the war against the intellectual/professional/scholar class.
Posted by: anna missed | May 16 2007 8:18 utc | 30
Thought some but not all, may enjoy this:
“Time (The Revelator)”
Posted by: Uncle $cam | May 16 2007 11:01 utc | 31
A good argument against “liberal interventionism”
Where anti-Arab prejudice and oil make the difference
The key difference between the two situations lies in the racial and ethnic composition of the perceived victims and perpetrators. In Congo, black Africans are killing other black Africans in a way that is difficult for outsiders to identify with. The turmoil there can in that sense be regarded as a narrowly African affair.
In Darfur the fighting is portrayed as a war between black Africans, rightly or wrongly regarded as the victims, and “Arabs”, widely regarded as the perpetrators of the killings. In practice these neat racial categories are highly indistinct, but it is through such a prism that the conflict is generally viewed.
It is not hard to imagine why some in the west have found this perception so alluring, for there are numerous people who want to portray “the Arabs” in these terms. In the United States and elsewhere those who have spearheaded the case for foreign intervention in Darfur are largely the people who regard the Arabs as the root cause of the Israel-Palestine dispute. From this viewpoint, the events in Darfur form just one part of a much wider picture of Arab malice and cruelty.
…
Humanitarian concern among policymakers in Washington is ultimately self-interested. The United States is willing to impose new sanctions on the Sudan government if the latter refuses to accept a United Nations peacekeeping force, but it is no coincidence that Sudan, unlike Congo, has oil – lots of it – and strong links with China, a country the US regards as a strategic rival in the struggle for Africa’s natural resources; only last week Amnesty International reported that Beijing has illicitly supplied Khartoum with large quantities of arms.
…
By seeing foreign conflicts through the prism of their own prejudices, interventionists also convince themselves that others see the world in the same terms. This allows them to obscure uncomfortable truths, such as the nationalist resentment that their interference can provoke
In the Washington Post Nir Rosen takes Paul Bremer’s Sunday OpEd apart: What Bremer Got Wrong in Iraq
In Bremer’s mind, the way to occupy Iraq was not to view it as a nation but as a group of minorities. So he pitted the minority that was not benefiting from the system against the minority that was, and then expected them both to be grateful to him. Bremer ruled Iraq as if it were already undergoing a civil war, helping the Shiites by punishing the Sunnis. He did not see his job as managing the country; he saw it as managing a civil war. So I accuse him of causing one.
Bremer claims that Hussein “modeled his regime after Adolf Hitler’s” and compares the Baath Party to the Nazi Party. Set aside the desperation of the debater who reaches immediately for the Nazi analogy and remember that there is no mention of such “modeling” in any of the copious literature about Iraq. This ludicrous Nazi analogy permeates the entire article; it also permeated the proconsul’s time in Baghdad, when Bremer imagined himself de-Nazifying postwar Germany, saving the Jews (the Shiites) from the Nazis (those evil Sunnis).
This thoughtless comparison is one of the main reasons why he performed so horribly in Iraq. (Remember, most Baath Party members were Shiites; so in Bremer’s analogy, I suppose most of the Iraqi “Nazis” would be “Jews.”)
…
Bernhard, this should go in your Possible Iran Deal file:
Egypt welcomes Iran overtures to restore ties
Posted by: Alamet | May 16 2007 13:43 utc | 34
Yolanda King, daughter of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.,
dies at 51
Well, they say it comes in three’s, whose next?
Posted by: Uncle $cam | May 16 2007 14:11 utc | 35
Thanks Alamet – interesting
—
Something about my home country that is little known and seldom spoken about:
How three million Germans died after VE Day
His best estimate is that some three million Germans died unnecessarily after the official end of hostilities. A million soldiers vanished before they could creep back to the holes that had been their homes. The majority of them died in Soviet captivity (of the 90,000 who surrendered at Stalingrad, only 5,000 eventually came home) but, shamingly, many thousands perished as prisoners of the Anglo-Americans. Herded into cages along the Rhine, with no shelter and very little food, they dropped like flies. Others, more fortunate, toiled as slave labour in a score of Allied countries, often for years. Incredibly, some Germans were still being held in Russia as late as 1979.
The two million German civilians who died were largely the old, women and children: victims of disease, cold, hunger, suicide – and mass murder.
Apart from the well-known repeated rape of virtually every girl and woman unlucky enough to be in the Soviet occupation zones, perhaps the most shocking outrage recorded by MacDonogh – for the first time in English – is the slaughter of a quarter of a million Sudeten Germans by their vengeful Czech compatriots. The survivors of this ethnic cleansing, naked and shivering, were pitched across the border, never to return to their homes. Similar scenes were seen across Poland, Silesia and East Prussia as age-old German communities were brutally expunged.
Iraqi sovereignty?
Sadrist lawmakers, U.S. soldiers in Green Zone standoff
An Associated Press reporter witnessed the encounter.
He said the soldiers drove up in an SUV marked “police” and stopped the lawmakers, who included two women, just outside the building where they attended a session of the 275-seat parliament.
The soldiers asked the three male lawmakers to hand over the passes giving them access to the Green Zone, home to Iraq’s parliament as well as its government offices and the U.S. and British embassies.
The lawmakers obliged, but an argument broke out.
The Americans cleared the area as the argument was in progress but one of the lawmakers later told the AP that the argument lasted about 30 minutes and ended with the soldiers giving back the passes.
“You can call (top U.S. commander in Iraq) General (David) Petraeus on the phone and demand an apology,” one lawmaker, Saleh al-Aujaili, quoted a soldier as saying.
about the Kos round up, actually quite good, posted by anna missed, killing off the intellectual class in Iraq (link)
All this did not go unnoticed by the academic, medical or ‘intellectual’ community – rather, their actions, which included letters to the UN, internet appeals, letters to be signed, etc. were ignored, by the public, the ‘authorities,’ -the US, the UN-, by the media.
They should have all together gone on strike after the first few killings, hired a lot of goons and imperatively sent delegations abroad, with threats. Yes threats.
The difficulty is that academics (specialists, first class U teachers) and those who practice (eg. heart specialists, top flight engineers, etc.) depend on the environment to function, and when things go west, they stick to their roles, figuring it is the best thing they can do. They continue to teach, even when threatened with death; they continue to operate, without electricity; they make plans for repairing bridges when they know it won’t happen. They have made a commitment for life and do not give it up. (Or they leave, which is giving up in a personal, not dishonorable way, they feel…) That makes them sitting ducks – what was previously noble and productive turns into a suicidal liability.
The round up gives the impression that there are various parties who have an interest in killing off these ppl. That may very well be so.
And yet, I feel, to destroy a country, everybody knows there are just a few things to be done. First, kill movement, trade, agriculture; second, destroy the conditions for health, such as clean water, whatever doctors and clinics existed (begun long ago, under sanctions), third, destroy knowledge – schools, experts, teachers, libraries, communication.
That is what is happening in Iraq. Pointing to present chaos as a cause is weak.
Posted by: Noirette | May 16 2007 17:32 utc | 38
How three million germans died after VE day posted by b re linked
It is hard to imagine that time. (OK, again, no historian me.)
Victor’s vengeance was implemented with sadistic barbarity.
This was known, underground, by participants, historians, specialists, but a ‘proper’ book – reviewed in the Independent! i guess i will order it.
The relevance to Iraq is obvious.
Posted by: Noirette | May 16 2007 17:52 utc | 39
Noirette @ 38,
All this did not go unnoticed by the academic, medical or ‘intellectual’ community – rather, their actions, which included letters to the UN, internet appeals, letters to be signed, etc. were ignored, by the public, the ‘authorities,’ -the US, the UN-, by the media.
Yes! There is a very dedicated campaign at the BRussels Tribunal, Stop the Assassination of Iraqi academics with a continuously updated list of the murdered, good information, articles and everything. Well worth the read.
… and it culminates at an appeal for an online petition. I am NOT being dismissive, not one bit. But it makes me feel so disheartened. Is this the best the world community can come up with? Are we so powerless?
Posted by: Alamet | May 16 2007 18:17 utc | 40
@U$, #31–yum!
In the dressing room afterward, I asked Rawlings how he would describe his playing, and he said that he simply has a fondness for certain notes and he finds ways to play them. When I asked which notes they were, he shrugged and said, “The ghostly ones.”
Full profile by Alec Wilkinson, originally published in the New Yorker
Posted by: catlady | May 16 2007 18:30 utc | 41
@Noirette – “reviewed in the Independent!”
The sad thing is the book, still unreleased, was reviewed in the neo-con Daily Telegraph, not The Independent.
Too many people forget the horrors of the past wars. The horrors of those fighting in uniform are most remembered. Some remember the death of civilians killed in military acts. But the real horrors are those civilians take during wars and after wars in not officially military acts. The silent deaths.
The victimes of sanctions in Iraq as well as the death in the 30 year war in the 17th century, the most horrible one that ever occured (30% of the population died). Those victims were the reason the peace of westphalia was made and nations were accepted as a concept and agreed to non-interference.
Now that concept is erroding and the consequences will be more 30 year wars …
My parents told me tiny bits of their pre-war/war/after war experiences. Those were bad enough. I wish they had told me all – I am sure there were plenty and worse than those they told me about.
The horrors of war should be anchored into our societies and cultures. Instead some glory of war and weapons is. How can we change that?
interview: Chomsky Takes on the World (Bank)
Noam Chomsky is a noted linguist, author, and foreign policy expert. On April 26, Michael Shank interviewed him about the conflict between Congress and the U.S. president over Iraq and Syria, the scandal enveloping World Bank head Paul Wolfowitz, and the nature of foreign debt.
chris carlson: Washington’s New Imperial Strategy In Venezuela
First used in Serbia in 2000, Washington has now perfected a new imperial strategy to maintain its supremacy around the globe. Whereas military invasions and installing dictatorships have traditionally been the way to control foreign populations and keep them out of the way of business, the U.S. government has now developed a new strategy that is not so messy or brutal, and much sleeker; so sleek, in fact, that it’s almost invisible.
It was so invisible in Serbia that no one seemed to notice in 2000 when a regime was toppled, the country was opened to massive privatization, and huge public-sector industries, businesses, and natural resources fell into the hands of U.S. and multinational corporations. Likewise, few have noticed as countries in the former Soviet-bloc have recently been victims of the same strategy, with the exact same results.
Nations that do not give in to the demands of the empire and the expansion of global capitalism are targeted by an undercover, well-designed plan to change the political situation in the country, and open it up to corporate investors. U.S.-supported groups inside the country overthrow the president, making it seem like there is no outside intervention. And now, Washington has turned toward its new biggest threat: Latin America, and more specifically, Venezuela.
philip greenspan: Report From A Chávez Fan Club
On the instructions of my orthopedist I had limited my activities for over five weeks since I had fractured my knee. So on the day he allowed me to chuck my crutches and cautiously resume normal activities I attended a lecture by Charles Hardy, who had lived in Venezuela since 1985 when as a Maryknoll priest he was assigned there.
He prefaced the lecture by stating that coming back to the states was like visiting from another planet — so different was its culture from what he had experienced in Venezuela. On his arrival there Hardy took up residence in a government project in one of the poor barrios on the outskirts of Caracas. His talk, therefore, reflected the views of poor Venezuelans.
Much of his allotted time was devoted to how the media, almost completely controlled by the elite, distort and misrepresent the Chávez government. The wealthy and middle class swallow and savor what’s dished out but the overwhelming numbers of poor people, the Chávez constituency, are not taken in.
The mainstream US media — aligned with Bush’s anti-Chávez policy — disparage him similarly. I was pleased that Hardy employed an example typically applied to tarnish an out-of-favor foreign leader — mistranslating a foreign language to pervert the meaning of the leader’s remark.
…
Posted by: b real | May 16 2007 18:49 utc | 43
b, yes you are right, daily telegraph, i should check and re check my posts. how on earth i got that wrong, thinking about another article in the independent…futzing around…
to change it, real history, real news, the ppl speak up!
Fat hope.
Humans band in groups and count on leaders to procure them advantages; they will follow. All those in power count on that, and it works. those who submit do so willingly.
how to change it has actually been somewhat effective. (War death stats, EU union etc.) More another time.
Posted by: Noirette | May 16 2007 19:18 utc | 44
Obama Caves
As reported in Ha’aretz:
Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, a leading candidate for the Democratic Presidential ticket, has decided to take a more active role in the fight against the Iranian nuclear program. “Iran continues to be a major threat”, he said this morning, “both the U.S. and to some of our allies”. And he calls for an urgent enhancement of “the economic pressure”. Calls for it, and acts on it with the introduction of a new bill: the ‘Iran Sanctions Enabling Act’ ….
The Obama bill will require the federal government to publish a list of companies that have an investment of more than $20 million in the Iranian energy sector, and will be updated every six months. This list will be the tool, providing investors with the knowledge they need as to divest from the right companies. It will also authorize local governments actually divest their pension funds, or any other funds, from companies on the list. Fund managers will be protected from lawsuits directed at them by investors who are unhappy with the decision to divest….
Divestment from Iran, Obama believes, is an “appropriate strategy”. His bill is almost identical to the House version, but has one small additional component: it can only sunset once the government of Iran has retracted the statements of the President of Iran calling for the destruction of Israel.
Posted by: Bea | May 16 2007 23:12 utc | 45
Daily Kos Bans Two Palestinian Diarists
Were you guys aware of this?
(PS – Annie, I think you will like this site. LOL.)
Posted by: Bea | May 16 2007 23:18 utc | 46
Report from Gaza
From Leila el-Haddad, author of the blog Raising Yousuf Unplugged”:
“….But the news that really upset many here was word of the Israeli government briefly opening the Rafah crossing with Egypt, which it has shut down 50% of the year to average residents here, to allow US-funded, Jordanian-trained, Fatah reinforcements (450 members of the elite Badr Brigade) inside.
The fact is, Gaza is not combusting spontaneously.
To quote Alistair Crooke, “the US is not only not interested in dealing with Hamas, it is working to ensure its failure” – a policy promoted and openly acknowledged by the American deputy national security adviser Elliott Abrams.
In his meetings with a group of Palestinian businessmen last January, Abrams said the US had to support Fatah with guns, ammunition and training, so that they could fight Hamas for control of the Palestinian government. And just over a week ago, a 16-page secret American document was leaked to a Jordanian newspaper outlining an action plan for undermining and replacing the Palestinian national-unity government. The document outlines steps for building up Abbas and his security forces, leading to the dissolution of the parliament, a strengthening of US allies in Fatah in the lead-up to new elections.
Events have unfolded according to plan, with not so much as a peep or word of protest from the major world governments.
It has become a city decaying, debilitated, and on the verge of implosion; its people exposed to the most violent form of subjugation, collectively sentenced to a life in prison by global power colluding to unwind the very fabric of their society, punishing them where no crime existed.
The US has allocated as much as $84 million to this end, directly funding president Mahmoud Abbas and Fatah strongman Mohammad Dahlan and their security forces, which are often one and the same as the Fatah militias engaged in bitter battles with Hamas and even firing missiles at Israel.
That doesn’t change the bitter resentment in the streets over what has unfolded, and the utter cynicism associated with it.
Posted by: Bea | May 17 2007 0:57 utc | 48
as a commentator on nazert.com points out, it certainly looks like reuters is running propaganda for ethiopia’s dictator meles zenawi (and his western supporters) today, issuing three separate wire articles based on one interview. meles is one of those bastards who, as r’giap succintly says, couldn’t lie straight in bed.
Ethiopia rebel attack won’t deter Chinese-PM Meles
Wed 16 May 2007, 12:49 GMT
By Andrew Cawthorne
ADDIS ABABA, May 16 (Reuters) – A rebel attack on an oil facility in Ethiopia that killed nine Chinese workers and 64 locals has not dented Beijing’s investment in the Horn of Africa nation, the Ethiopian leader said on Wednesday.
“The Chinese have made it abundantly clear that they are not going to be scared away,” Prime Minister Meles Zenawi told Reuters. “On the contrary, they are increasing their investment in our country.”
…
Meles’s government wants more foreign investment and he said the attack should not have a lasting impact.
“I would understand that some foreign investors might be a bit worried about going to the place where the massacre took place,” he said.
“But I do not think it will have any long-term impact. There have been no such incidents in the main economic centres of the country. And here in Addis, I would argue that it is probably one of the safest cities on earth.”
Meles confirmed Ethiopia was seeking membership of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and was “reasonably optimistic” of acceptance.
Ethiopia’s Meles rules out hurried exit from Somalia
Wed 16 May 2007, 11:40 GMT
By Andrew Cawthorne
ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – Ethiopian troops will not leave conflict-torn Somalia until several thousand more African peacekeepers arrive to avoid a security vacuum, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said on Wednesday.
“It is a burden financially and otherwise that we would have preferred to do without,” the Ethiopian leader told Reuters in an interview at his offices in Addis Ababa.
…
Money for his Somalia operation was being “squeezed” out of the defence budget, with “not a single cent” from abroad, Meles said. “We have had to bear this burden on our own. It cannot be sustained indefinitely.”
Fatalities for Ethiopia were “quite a few, in the dozens”, he said, in his government’s first public estimate of casualties in Somalia this year.
…
Briefly losing his relaxed demeanour, Meles lambasted media and the United Nations for reporting civilian casualty figures of between 1,000 and 2,000 in Mogadishu this year, and an exodus of nearly 400,000 refugees.
“I am deeply disheartened by the fact that the media and the U.N. agencies have been circulating lies without any attempt to verify the facts,” he said.
Inflated civilian casualty figures came from a pro-Islamist rights group, Meles said.
“People tell me there might have been a handful, let us say maybe in the tens, 20, 30, but nothing more than that.”
Those figures contrast starkly with eyewitness accounts.
…
The Ethiopian leader said up to 80,000 civilians had fled the two or three of Mogadishu’s 16 districts where fighting was fiercest — about a fifth of the U.N. estimate.
“One person high up the U.N. ladder even suggested the number of displaced people in Mogadishu was higher than that of Darfur. I do not think he knows what he is talking about.”
Ethiopia PM praises Blair as “friend of Africa”
Wed 16 May 2007, 11:39 GMT
ADDIS ABABA, May 16 (Reuters) – Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi praised his outgoing British counterpart Tony Blair on Wednesday for his commitment to Africa.
“He has been a great friend for Africa,” said Meles, a close ally of Blair who sat on his Africa Commission, created to diagnose the continent’s problems.
“I doubt whether Africa has had a more sincere friend at 10 Downing Street than Tony Blair,” Meles added. “I am happy that he is leaving on his own terms … I wish him all the best.”
…
After being hailed as a model progressive African leader in the 1990s, Meles’ good ties with London soured when violence followed elections in 2005, and security forces shot scores of people on the streets of Addis Ababa.
But Meles said the relationship with Britain had now recovered to its previously healthy state.
i find it amazing that anyone even listens to meles, nearly everything that comes out of his mouth is a blatant lie. i mean, the man could make dick cheney look reliable.
for instance, in march, in between the two main periods of heavy fighting in mogadishu, meles gave an interview to al jazeera that had some completely absurd moments in it
I’ll start with the issue of Somalia. You invaded nearly three months ago, you wanted to get your troops out quickly, at least two-thirds of them are still there, are you in a dangerous quagmire?
Meles Zenawi: I think we should get the facts straight first. We did not invade Somalia. We were invited by the duly constituted government of Somalia, internationally recognised government of Somalia to assist them in averting the threat of terrorism. We did so. We are not in a quagmire now; we have completed our first phase of withdrawal, we’ll complete our second phase of withdrawal in a few days’ time and things are improving in Somalia.
at that time, if i remember correctly, some soldiers, reportedly from ethiopia & somaliland, had just been killed & dragged through the streets of mogadishu.
Let’s look at this point and you’d expected more support from the international community and the African Union and that has not been forthcoming in the scale you wanted. So I’ll put to you, you fought a proxy war on behalf of the US, don’t you regret it now?
Zenawi: Well let’s get the facts straight first, we did not fight a proxy war on behalf of the United States, indeed the United States was very ambivalent about our intervention, once we intervened of course the United States and much of the international community was supportive but in the initial phase before we intervened, everybody, including the United States was warning us that we might walk into a trap and a quagmire and that we should think twice before taking steps.
That’s the first point that I want to stress. Secondly, the African Union has been extremely helpful, it has deployed its forces within a few months – that’s much more than what the United Nations is capable of…
haha. yesterday there were articles out making it clear that, after earlier reports from ethiopia about pulling their troops out ASAP, the u.s. warned meles that he’d better not. that’s part of the reason for the one article above, where meles makes a public announcement that he’s not going to pull out until more AU support arrives (which i wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for.)
I’d like to just pick up on your assertion that the US were not directly involved with the run up to this war because in a leaked UN document, referred to a meeting around June 2006 between top brass military from Ethiopia and the US in which a series of options were looked at, now this has been documented now do you deny that there wasn’t active discussion about a military operation with the US, assistance and the US backing months and months before the actual hostilities took place?
Zenawi: Months and months before the actual hostilities took place … I … publicly stated that we will take military steps unless the terrorists change their ways and this public information was shared with anybody who was interested in our view not just the Americans, there was no military planning.
But the point is, do you deny that the US were not involved actively with your forces months before … you don’t deny it?
Zenawi: They were not involved at all, except in the form of sharing intelligence which we have done for years before the military intervention in Somalia.
But sharing intelligence can mean a number of things can’t it, that it can be a description of formulating options…
Zenawi: No, we planned our military operation, we executed it without the support, military support of anybody, without the financial support of anybody.
who ya going to believe, me or your lyin’ eyes?
no wonder the u.s. likes this guy so much.
Posted by: b real | May 17 2007 3:40 utc | 49
democracy-promotion in kenya, u.s.a.-style
US urges Kenya to spurn tribalism before polls
NAIROBI (Reuters) – Kenyan politicians intent on stirring animosity between the country’s myriad tribes in the run-up to this year’s elections are the biggest threat to democracy, the U.S. ambassador to Kenya said on Wednesday.
Kenya is widely regarded as a haven of relative stability and prosperity in a region rife with conflict, hunger and insecurity. The country’s fourth multi-party poll is seen as a test of its democratic credentials.
…
U.S. ambassador Michael Ranneberger said corruption, tribalism and gender equity remained major concerns in Kenya.
“Tribalism — rather, political appeals to tribalism — remains perhaps the most significant challenge to Kenyan democracy,” he said in a speech at the University of Nairobi.
whoops… almost let that one get out
Ranneberger also urged political leaders to present detailed electoral platforms that focused on the core issues troubling Kenya’s 35 million people such as jobs, governance and security.
And he called on parties to forge broad coalitions, saying political fragmentation was unhealthy.
“Kenya does not need 85 political parties, many of which are little more than ‘sitting room’ or ‘briefcase’ parties representing personal interests,” Ranneberger said.
He said Washington would field a large number of observers to polling stations across the east African country.
kenya- you better hurry up & kick the u.s. out of your country!
Posted by: b real | May 17 2007 4:08 utc | 50
71.1 Million record price paid for this piece of AMERICANA.
The scene, as it is depicted in Warhol’s painting, is a tediously dull suburban street that has been instantaneously transformed into an almost surrealistic nightmare, in which an overturned car in flames is shown in the foreground while the catapulted body of the driver can be seen hanging, although still alive, impaled on a post.
Seems fitting. No?
Posted by: anna missed | May 17 2007 8:42 utc | 51
Talks May Help Unite Rebel Forces In Darfur – U.N. Envoy Wary On Peace Prospects
Eliasson expressed concern over three developments he has observed in the four trips he has taken to Sudan and its Darfur region in the past five months. He warned of land grabs, infighting among Sudanese tribes, and a radicalization and taking up of arms by refugee camp residents, factors that might scuttle prospects for peace in the troubled western region.
“We see new problems erupting in Darfur among the tribes themselves. They are competing on what scorched land is left after the burnings and killings, and there is more fighting among them than between the rebels and the government,” he said.
Such reality doesn’t hinder some Congress critters to intervene
In Washington yesterday, House Democrats introduced a measure that would require the Defense Department to study the possible expansion of the Abeche airfield in Chad, near the border with Sudan. The expanded airfield could be used for military or humanitarian purposes.
“General Bashir has been testing the will of the world for too long,” said Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.). “This amendment sends him a message that we will explore every option and invest the resources necessary to relieve the genocide.”
Rove’s Worrisome Witness – By Robert D. Novak
“We’re not hostile to the administration,” one prominent conservative House member who did not want his name used told me. “We just want it to be over.”
Funny:
Unfriendly Views on U.S.-Backed Arabic TV
For decades, the United States has provided funds for radio and television stations dedicated to promoting American values and views. During the cold war, Radio Free Europe sought to counter the state-controlled Soviet media by broadcasting pro-American views.
…
Al Hurra was supposed to follow that tradition. But the station’s executives admitted Wednesday that they could not be completely sure that Al Hurra was doing so, because none of the top executives speak Arabic.
Normal Finkelstein
Q: Do you think that professors have an obligation to engage in political activity?
A: They don’t have an obligation as professors; they have an obligation as citizens. They have the luxury of devoting their working life to trying to ferret out the facts and the truth about what’s going on.
For most other working people, their working lives are devoted to jobs which have minimal levels of personal gratification and have very little to do with mental activity of the sort that creates informed citizens. So since you have the luxury of sitting around and reading books, you do have an obligation as a citizen to pursue and expose the truth.
Death Squad:The Anthropology of State Terror
A volume in the Ethnography of Political Violence series
View table of contents
“There is real personal danger for anthropologists who dare to speak and write against terror; by doing so, they potentially and sometimes actually bring the terror down on themselves.”—Jeffrey A. Sluka, from the Introduction
Death Squad is the first work to focus specifically on the anthropology of state terror. It brings together an international group of anthropologists who have done extensive research in areas marked by extreme forms of state violence and who have studied state terror from the perspective of victims and survivors.
The book presents eight case studies from seven countries—Spain, India (Punjab and Kashmir), Argentina, Guatemala, Northern Ireland, Indonesia, and the Philippines—to demonstrate the cultural complexities and ambiguities of terror when viewed at the local level and from the participants’ point of view. Contributors deal with such topics as the role of Loyalist death squads in the culture of terror in Northern Ireland, the three-tier mechanism of state terror in Indonesia, the complex role of religion in violence by both the state and insurgents in Punjab and Kashmir, and the ways in which “disappearances” are used to destabilize and demoralize opponents of the state in Argentina, Guatemala, and India.
“An inspiring and disquieting read.”—International Journal of Human Rights
Jeffrey A. Sluka is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Social Anthropology at Massey University in New Zealand. He is the author of Hearts and Minds, Water and Fish: Popular Support for the IRA and INLA in a Northern Irish Ghetto.
Also see, Anthropologists in the Public Sphere:Speaking Out on War, Peace, and American Power be sure to not miss the Table of Contents and an excellent Excerpt.
@anna missed et al..
your #51/52 AMERICANA link Reminded me of the track “The Dead Flag Blues” by the phenomenal musical group ‘Godspeed You Black Emperor‘. This is only the intro, and an interpretation art montage of the intro of the song. The original is about 16 minutes long, and there is no way to explain how something so myopic and dark can be cathartic in the impossible way they have a knack and mastered skill for taking you into the deepest depths of despair to cleanse your soul of by fire. You can’t explain it unless you experience the whole of the album/cd.
I am reluctant to post this as it does not do the music justice. If you can get a hold of any of their recordings you will understand. I highly recommend it for it’s surprisingly soul healing properties. Finally, I hate that this is sounding like a review, but, those of us whom grew up before sound-bite culture took over the airwaves, remember the mystique of not merely listening, but experiencing albums of great music. These guys bring that indeterminacy liminal journey state back to that lost ideal. And rewards you handsomely for stepping into the abyss.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | May 17 2007 10:20 utc | 56
@remembereringgiap
A few days ago r’giap pointed to the new Russia/Turkmenistan/Kazakhstan pipeline deal.
Here is a good ATOL piece explaining the consequences: Russia draws Europe into its orbit.
The US has lost big time in central asia, mostly out of hybris, and Russia now has the energie distribution it needs to keep Europe in its fold.
A good one from Pfaff: The Should/Could Dillemma
This grave lack of understanding in dealing with foreign countries explains why the public debate on policy often ends up in confusion between what can be done and what should be done. It is why politicians like George Bush and Tony Blair end up in fateful confusion between the shoulds of international relations and the cans of what actually can be accomplished — and may be destroyed by misunderstanding the differences.
…
This should/could fallacy is common in the foreign affairs thinking of politicians and in much of the discussion even of foreign affairs professionals. Washington is awash in it. The U.S. government has described the situation in Darfur as “genocide,” and everyone agrees that something should be done about it. But what?
It’s been suggested that the U.S., NATO or France should bomb the mounted raiders harassing and murdering the Darfur refugees. Would that solve the problem? Of course not; it would add to the misery. Would Washington like to send a few thousand soldiers to Darfour to stop the killing? Particularly when the trouble ultimately arises from forces of tribal and religious rivalry, exacerbated by water and arable land shortages caused by climate change? Again, of course not.
The Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama recently said in Chicago that the broken and failed despotic nations of the world don’t just need deposed dictators and ballot boxes but “a strong legislature, an independent judiciary, the rule of law, a vibrant civil society, a free press and an honest police force.” Wonderful! Why doesn’t President George Bush put him in charge of Iraq? Obama would quickly learn the difference between should and could.
Dick Durbin, Mike Gravel and Sibel Edmonds: When Silence is treason
an excellent interview and post right here folks… belly up to the bar, next round is on me. Barkeep!
Posted by: Uncle $cam | May 17 2007 13:28 utc | 59
Chopper destroyed, damage to nine others in Taji-U.S. army
Baghdad, May 17, (VOI) – A U.S. helicopter was destroyed, while damage was reported to nine others in an artillery attack on Sunday on the Taji Camp, north of Baghdad, a source close to the Multi-National Force in Iraq (MNF) said.
“The ten helicopters were landed at the camp,” the source, who requested his name not be mentioned, told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI) today.
According to the source, an official spokesman for the U.S. defense department confirmed the attack today.
(snip)
Posted by: Alamet | May 17 2007 15:14 utc | 60
typepad has made me fill out 5 sets of letters and is not letting me post the link to israel bombing hamas headquarters
Posted by: annie | May 17 2007 15:58 utc | 61
Item: Lt. Gen. Lute is selected as the Bush regime’s “war czar”, in an apparent direct contravention to the constitution of the United States and the powers of the executive branch. Thoroughly unreported in the U.S. legacy media (or even the progressive new media) is that Lute views the internet as a battleground in the war on terror.
Posted by: beq | May 17 2007 17:15 utc | 62
The case of Luis Posada Carriles is a prime example of the tentacle-like reach of Miami’s exile community into both the Washington foreign policy establishment and the U.S. judicial system. What is so instructive about the Posada case is how little secrecy actually surrounds it: few details are shrouded, and his dastardly crimes are not only publicly known, but even celebrated in select circles. This apathy and lack of moral rectitude is appalling, even under the Bush administration’s Olympic record for duplicity. Such openness has been fostered by a deep rooted culture of impunity that affects Washington – one that has existed for so long that it no longer sparks adequate debate or investigation.
…
That Posada’s chosen refuge after his 2004 release was Miami, illustrates the underlying fact of his case: even after the end of the Cold War and the modest decline of anti-Castro ardor in successive administrations of various ideological stripes, a relatively small community of zealous rightwing Cuban extremists mainly situated in South Florida, continue to play a conclusive role in the formulation of U.S. hemispheric policy. Indeed, Posada’s story can be traced not only through his actions, but through the far reaching influence of that group whose political power extends to the farthest corners of society. Going back years, it was the Miami exiles who first financed Posada, knowing that, together with the complicity of the U.S. government, he would operate with relative impunity. However vile were the charges against him, those who have consistently supported him, have, with a great deal of success, fought off any attempts to bring the terrorist to justice. The scenario just witnessed of the Posada case being dismissed by a Texas judge on what appears to amount to a technicality seems to underscore the ongoing political potency of these ultramontane political activists, and could position her, as was the case with Clarence Thomas, who during the presidency of the first George Bush, was described as having the finest legal mind of his generation, similarly to be nominated. That Judge Cardone claimed that the government prosecutors had bungled Posada’s case is both depressingly ironic and almost eerily sinister, but fully comprehensible given the ideological parameters of this administration.
Just months after Colombian President Alvaro Uribe Vélez’s landslide re-election in May 2006, some critics began pointing to ‘cracks in the pedestal’ of his popularity. The ongoing brouhaha surrounding the evident connections between the Uribe government and the paramilitary organizations, however, make that claim seem like so much wishful thinking. Uribe’s millions of supporters have long been aware of his ties to the paramilitaries but have chosen to ignore them, though they realize that they made a deal with the Devil. Without question, a majority of voting Colombians want to stay the course.
However tempting, given the heinous crimes possibly committed by the vigilantes, it would be wrong to view Colombians as callous and uncaring. Rather, they are extraordinarily war-weary. They continue to believe that Uribe’s iron-fisted and uncompromising approach is the only way to end a conflict that, in different avatars, goes back more than six decades. Unfortunately, the evidence does not bear out their hopes. The leftist FARC guerrillas are alive and in no danger of defeat by the military. Paramilitary political violence will continue to benefit the landed classes and will not end the country’s horrific civil war. The more pertinent question is: how much longer will the United States continue to play enabler to Colombia’s paramilitary habits? Let’s speak plain: Uribe is no to-the-core democrat; rather, he is a cynical pragmatist who says he is bending plow but somehow ends up with more swords. But that’s good enough to feed the eagerness of the State Department to go along with this elaborate hoax that Colombia is a working democracy.
Posted by: b real | May 17 2007 19:00 utc | 65
analysis: Ethiopia preparing the ground for another war against Eritrea
May 17, 2007 — Serious observers of the Ethiopian political panorama, especially the homegrown who can also do better reading of the Abyssinian psychic, are unanimous in that Prime Minister Meles is concocting ‘good’ reasons to wage another war against Eritrea. Movement of ground troops and political debates in the doomed Ethiopian parliament suggest that this war is very likely to follow the coming winter which also comes conveniently after the Ethiopian millennium, which has captured serious attention of the Prime Minister. It is unlikely Meles will go to war before such a big party although the millennium could be left for honeymoon of the postwar victory, if the victory can be assured. A number of reproach strategies have been adopted by Meles paving the ground for attack and grooming “logical” justifications for the possibility of a war.
author lays out some strong evidence, but i’m not sure how likely a conflict is — ethiopia is still bogged down in somalia, and the last border war w/ eritrea cost a lot of lives & a lot of money. but then, today there’s news that the world bank & others have announced that their lending ethiopia $780 million.
kim jong il — please pick up the white(house) courtesy phone
Posted by: b real | May 18 2007 5:10 utc | 66
BuzzzFlash interviews Greg Palast, Author of Armed Madhouse
Quite a good read on American Politics as it exists today.
As an aside, I wish to thank Bernhard, Uncle $cam, breal, and so many others here who are contributing such great posts and links. (Also, thanks Uncle for the heads up on the PBS Frontline documentary on the U.S. Government spying on Americans – I watched intently and came away even more troubled if that were possible.) Personally, I am overwhelmed with the scandals, the apathy and the wars; yet everyday there is more and more to acknowledge, and the terror of it all seems to be growing exponential. I have not enough time to read even a smidgeon of the information, much less post my thoughts to further the muddle. Again thanks to all who post and read here.
Posted by: Rick | May 18 2007 13:02 utc | 67
salim lone: Somalia: Humanitarian Advocacy Now Takes On a Low-Key Hue
N THE END, SIR JOHN HOLMES could not contain his exasperation at Monday’s press conference in Nairobi: “You don’t seem to be interested in the humanitarian situation in Somalia,” he told the journalists.
The United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Humanitarian Co-ordinator had just flown in from Mogadishu, the first high-level UN official to visit the city in 14 years.
But the journalists were treated to an astonishingly bland and low-key presentation of the fraught humanitarian challenges faced by the hundreds of thousands of Somalis who have been prevented by the authorities from receiving desperately-needed assistance.
In altogether sanguine tones, he said he had “good conversations” with transitional government leaders Abdullahi Yusuf and Ali Gedi and had requested them to “continue facilitating” and improving humanitarian access to the hundreds of thousands they have so far prevented from receiving.
It turns out, however, that no promises about full access to the needy were in fact made to Mr Holmes!
THIS WAS DISCOVERED THE NEXT day after a reporter at the daily briefing by Michele Montas, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon’s spokeswoman in New York, asked about agreements reached by Mr Holmes with the authorities.
Mr Holmes’ presentation did not contain any criticism of the Ethiopian army and the Transitional Federal Government, which are the principal perpetrators of civilian atrocities, some of which have been committed by the insurgents as well.
Even more amazing was his decision not to meet with the Ethiopians who run the show, or even the elders of clans whose civilians have suffered so heavily.
One would never have guessed Mr Holmes was arriving from a city that was gripped by unspeakable carnage and had been levelled liked Grozny by bombs and heavy artillery raining on densely-populated civilian areas, and that victims of the war were still dying primarily because of restrictions placed on humanitarian access by the authorities. No wonder he was not fielding many questions about the humanitarian crisis.
But he was asked numerous questions relating to accusations of war crimes raised by European Union legal experts, by current EU president Germany, through its ambassador, Mr Walter Lindner, and by Human Rights Watch.
He deflected those questions, twice saying that his responsibilities did not include human rights and politics.
The world, and the Somalis, needed to hear from Mr Holmes, not about requests, but firm, strong public demands that the fullest access be immediately provided for the imperiled population’s relief.
That it did not attests to how, even on the humanitarian front, the once resonant voice of the United Nations is being muted, if the perpetrators of the horrors are allies of our sole superpower.
…
To be fair, I must also mention that Mr Holmes responded to a question on comparing the worst crises by indicating that in “numbers of displaced and access, Somalia is a worse crisis than Darfur.”
But don’t hold your breath for an international outcry.
instead, like in the link i supplied last night, money & support is flowing into ethiopia. the global media appears to have completely fallen in line w/ the west’s lead, and the ratio of propaganda to factual, contextualized reporting is discouraging. indeed, the international community doesn’t really seem to care about the victims of the bush regime’s third large-scale aggression in the GWOT.
for instance, the italians, who have a relatively lengthy history in the region, don’t care that they are siding w/ war criminals
Somalia: Italy to Assist in Peace, Stability Efforts
Italian Deputy Foreign Minister said her country would work in closer cooperation with Ethiopia in bringing lasting peace and stability in Somalia.
Italy would also provide the necessary support for the Somali peace and reconciliation conference that would be held in mid-June this year.
Following talks with Prime Minister Meles Zenawi yesterday afternoon, Patrizia Sentinelli told journalists that her country would cooperate with Ethiopia in bringing lasting peace and stability in Somalia and provide the necessary support.
Italy would provide the necessary support for the Somali national peace and reconciliation conference to be held soon, he added.
yesterday, the u.s. appointed an envoy to somalia
Rice Names Veteran Africa Diplomat as Somalia Envoy
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Thursday named veteran diplomat John Yates to be the United States’ special envoy for Somalia. Yates, who has served as U.S. ambassador to several African countries, will be based in Nairobi.
The Bush administration has generally resisted pressure from Congress and elsewhere to name special envoys for world trouble spots, saying their roles often overlap with those of regular diplomats.
But an exception is being made for Somalia, which has acute political problems and has not had a resident U.S. ambassador for more than a decade and a half.
Secretary Rice announced the appointment of Yates in a written statement Thursday, saying the move is in furtherance of the U.S. commitment to help Somalis develop national institutions and overcome their violent recent history.
Yates, who had ambassadorships or senior postings in six African countries, technically retired in 2002. But he was called back to duty for Darfur peace talks, and most recently has been coordinating diplomatic contacts on Somalia from the U.S. embassy in Nairobi.
and, straight out of a playbook template, his first press conference shows exactly why he was considered just the right man for this position
US envoy sees terror imprint in Somalia AU attack
An attack that killed four Ugandan peacekeepers in Mogadishu this week bore the hallmarks of terrorist groups such as al Qaeda, Washington’s new special envoy to Somalia, John Yates, said on Friday.
In the first attack of its kind against African Union troops, gunmen used a remote-controlled bomb to blow up their convoy, fuelling fears Islamist militants were following through on a threat to wage an Iraq-style insurgency.
“Obviously the tactics of the one that hit the Ugandan convoy and killed AU peacekeepers were very much like the tactics that al Qaeda and other terrorist movements have used in the past,” Yates told a news conference in neighbouring Kenya.
“And we are very concerned of course that this is in fact an indication of something like that,” the career diplomat said in his first public comments since being appointed on Thursday.
obviously the rhetorical tactics of the envoy yates were very much like the tactics that the united states and other state terrorist groups have used in the past
– – –
some background on ethiopia’s role in the horn
It Didn’t Start in Mogadishu
Whenever Ethiopia sneezes in the Horn of Africa – comprising Djibouti, Eritrea and Somalia – the region catches a cold.
Ethiopia’s location in the Horn of Africa is strategic. It’s a landlocked country with a land area of approximately 1.2 million square kilometres. The manifold linkages between Ethiopia and its neighbours in the Horn have an important bearing on conflict dynamics within Ethiopia itself and in the region.
Ethiopia’s long and complicated border has been a flashpoint for conflict on many occasions. For example, the precise demarcation of its northern border with Eritrea for instance, is a continuing source of conflict between the two countries, with Ethiopia having rejected the results of international arbitration she considers to have favoured Eritrea.
It’s difficult to make a clear distinction between the conflicts arising within Ethiopia and the conflicts with neighbouring countries.
Posted by: b real | May 18 2007 18:03 utc | 68
ogaden online: Ethiopian Miltary Burns Down the town of Laasdoole
May 17, 2007 Reports reaching our service desk from Ogaden confirm the burning down of the entire town of Laasdoole by a contingent of Ethiopian military and an associated militia. It is reported that all the meager resources owned by the local citizenry burned down as well.
It is reported that there were also human casualties, including the former chairman of the town council Mr. Duulane Guuleed Carab. Also some of the names of the dead civilians who have been extra judicially killed include Adan Mohamed Canshuur and Jaacuur Fataax.
Ogaden Online reporter in the city of Wardheer reports that the displaced civilians from Laasdoole are now squatting outside the town with no access to shelter, food and drinking water.
In related news, Ogaden National Liberation Army, ONLA, is said to have responded to the extra judicial killings and mass civilian displacement carried out by the Ethiopian military. Eyewitnesses confirm that heavily armed contingent of ONLA attacked the Ethiopians who carried out the mass murder.
After a heavy firefight between ONLA and the Ethiopian military around Laasdoole, it is reported that two transport trucks were destroyed by ONLA. Both of these trucks were transporting army personnel as well as military supplies, which is said to have been destroyed.
Eyewitnesses from this firefight confirm that the Ethiopians who burned down Laasdoole have totally been annihilated by ONLA. Few who escaped from this firefights are said to have been pursued by ONLA in the surrounding vicinity.
Posted by: b real | May 19 2007 7:45 utc | 69