Under The Same Sun

« March 2005 | Main | May 2005 »

April 29, 2005

Spot the Missing Piece

Heartbreaking pictures from a mass grave in Samawa, Iraq were made public today. The non-acidic soil preserved the bodies of these victims of Saddam's genocidal campaign against the Kurds. Almost all the murdered were women and children, some shot at point blank range in the head, dressed in many layers of their best clothes because they were probably told of being relocated.

There was something missing, though, in this otherwise informative article about the mass grave published in the Washington Post. Here's Post's description of the Anfal campaign:

From 1987 to 1988, Hussein initiated a wave of violence, called the Anfal campaign, to punish the Kurds for siding with Iran during the Iran-Iraq war. Hussein's forces forcibly relocated hundreds of thousands of Kurds from their lands in northern Iraq. Amin said that as many as half a million people died or were killed outright and thousands of villages were destroyed.

Hmmm, what else could be crucial to this story?

Let's think for a minute. Saddam Hussein, our then-close-ally gasses the Kurds. Our response was, naturally ... to help cover it up.

Yes, here's the missing piece of information:

... 16 years ago today was the gassing of the northern Iraqi town of Halabja, which killed 5-8,000 people. It was part of the Anfal campaign, which is estimated to have killed 100-180,000 Kurds.

At the time it happened, only the left in the United States, and in Turkey, took heed and criticized the U.S. government for its support of Saddam Hussein. They might as well have been speaking in outer space. The Reagan administration squelched efforts in Congress to react to the atrocity, kept the Security Council from passing a resolution on the issue, and kept up the stream of agricultural credits and export licenses to firms to provide chemicals, biological materials, and weapon components to Iraq. Most damning of all, it organized a disinformation campaign to help suggest that Iran was the real culprit (it didn't address who was behind the numerous other chemical attacks on civilian populations that characterized Anfal).

The regime we went to such lengths to protect and prop up at the time did this:

Yes, that blue thing in the bottom third of the photo is a baby's bottle.

Posted by zeynep at 11:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 28, 2005

A year goes by

One year has passed since we first saw the pictures from Abu Ghraib. Since then we have learned that at least hundreds have died in custody, and that thousands were maimed, raped, injured, tortured and otherwise abused.

But I have just learned that I was wrong about the name I chose for this picture, which I had saved as "ghraib-mock-electrocution.jpg"

It was not a mock electrocution; this man was actually shocked with electricity. [Corrected sentence, thanks to reader Dick Fitzgerald]

Here is just a bit from his harrowing story [From February 2005 Vanity Fair via Empire Notes]:

Haj Ali claims he was given electrical shocks near the end of his stay on Cellblock 1A at Abu Ghraib. By this time, his old, customized blanket had been returned to him by Joyner; he wore it like a hospital gown for modesty, tying it in the back with its fringed edges. One night as he was praying, Haj Ali was taken hooded by Graner and led to another room. "I felt there were 8 or 10 people standing around," he says. He was then made to stand on a food box and lift his hands, as electrical wires were clipped between his fingers. "They would give me electric shocks. I could feel the pulses going even into my eyeballs. I would collapse and faint." Upon each collapse, the guards would kick and hit Haj Ali with boots and sticks, saying, "Get up! Get up!" He believes he was shocked five times.

As he tells me this, Haj Ali begins crying. Army investigators have not spoken to Haj Ali, but a report on alleged prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib released last spring noted one instance of a detainee's being hooked up to wires to "simulate" electric torture.

Following his release, after more than two months, Haj Ali quickly co-founded an Iraq-based non-governmental organization, Victims of American Occupation Prison Association, which currently has thousands of members and is growing daily.

And yet, Army investigators have not even bothered to speak with this man. The whole story is worth reading.

And yet, the same government remains in power. Neither the direct perpetrators, many of whom were cruel so much above and beyond duty that it is not possible to chalk it all off to stress and following orders, nor the higher-ups who initiated, ordered, oversaw and encouraed these practices have been held accountable. (Only one or two of the smallest, most visible torturers like Graner got anything resembling a punishment. Most of the rest got docked pay, a few months in jail, meaningless reprimands, promotions and applause).

(I have categorized my blog entries about the torture scandal here) It makes for very sad reading.)

Are we really expecting all this to go away if we just ignore it, as we have been doing?

Posted by zeynep at 08:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 27, 2005

Contempt and Contempt in Competition

Here's Thomas Friedman writing why John Bolton should not be appointed as "ambassador at an institution he has nothing but contempt for."

But at its best, the U.N. has been, and still can be, a useful amplifier of American power, helping us to accomplish important global tasks that we deem to be in our own interest. ... In short, I don't much care how the U.N. works as a bureaucracy; I care about how often it can be enlisted to support, endorse and amplify U.S. power. That is what serves our national interest.

Can someone tell me the difference between John Bolton's nothing but contempt and Thomas Friedman's nothing but contempt for the United Nations -- and, obviously also for international law?

Posted by zeynep at 02:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 26, 2005

Yup. We Lied to You. Anyway, You Don't Care, Do You?

This wasn't anywhere near the top story in most major papers and television news programs. The let's-pretend-to-look-for-'em "WMD" "search" is over.

Weapons Inspector Ends WMD Search in Iraq

Wrapping up his investigation into Saddam Hussein's purported arsenal, the CIA's top weapons hunter in Iraq said his search for weapons of mass destruction "has been exhausted" without finding any.

Nor did he find any evidence that such weapons were shipped officially from Iraq to Syria to be hidden before the U.S. invasion, but he couldn't rule out some unofficial transfer of limited WMD-related materials.

There, that's it. Nada. Zip. Nothing.

Not that they even need to spin it much, given the lack of attention, but I'm sure we'll hear grumblings about "intelligence failures." What happened was not an intelligence failure, it was premeditated deception. Here's a few links to past articles and press releases:

http://www.empirenotes.org/intelligence.html
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2002/04/16/a-war-against-the-peacemaker/
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2002/10/08/thwart-mode/
http://www.accuracy.org/press_releases/PR031803.htm
http://www.accuracy.org/press_releases/PR020304.htm

Posted by zeynep at 07:43 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 25, 2005

More Misleading Accounting in the Adelphia Corporate Scandal: Corporate Criminals Keep 80 Million Dollars and Avoid Charges

So, the masterminds of the Adelphia corporate scandal, who have robbed the public of billions of dollars, will get to keep almost eighty millions dollars of their ill-gotten gains, while being spared any criminal charges:

Adelphia Communications Corp. agreed on Monday to pay $715 million under a deal with the U.S. government that avoids criminal charges for accounting fraud against the now-bankrupt cable operator.

The Rigas family, which founded the company, will forfeit 95 percent of its assets in Adelphia as part of the settlement agreements reached with the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

...

The securities regulator said the assets the Rigas family will forfeit exceed $1.5 billion in value.

So, let's do the math here. If $1,500,000,000 is 95 percent of your assets, than the five percent you get to keep is ... $78,947,368.

In other words, this man walks away with almost 80 million dollars and no punishment. "Today is a day of restitution for the victims of corporate corruption," Attorney General Alberto Gonzales apparently said in a statement.

Only if you buy into the tortured logic and misleading accounting of this Attorney General[corrected].

Most people would indeed be left with very little if 95 percent of their assets were seized, so it sounds as if there is some punishment. Of course, once you have stolen billions, you can give back 95 percent of it and remain obscenely rich.

Just imagine how much time Mr. Rigas would get if he had broken a window and stolen a few hundred dollars.

Posted by zeynep at 07:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Democratic Republic of Congo

I knew that the war in Democratic Republic of Congo has been horrific. I just came upon a few numbers while reading about a recent report about girls caught up in armed conflicts:

The report describes the six-year conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo as the deadliest war on the planet since the Second World War, and the worst in Africa. From 1998 to 2004, approximately 3.8 million people died as a result of it. All the parties involved in the conflict recruited, abducted and used child soldiers. Children made up approximately 40 percent of some armed groups in the eastern DRC in 2003, with at least 30,000 taking an active part in combat. Thousands more children, mostly girls, were attached to the armed groups to provide sexual and other services.

The second-deadliest-war since the Second World War, and it is yet a blip on our consciousness. In all honesty, I wish I didn't know about it; this is the stuff of deepest despair. I know very little about this particular conflict, but George Monbiot --whose judgement and reporting I have grown to trust-- believes that "It would not be hard for the international community ... to defuse the world’s most deadly conflict."

Posted by zeynep at 04:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 23, 2005

Why Do They Hate Us; I Lost Count...

Breaking news:

Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, faulted by some for leadership failures in the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal, has been cleared by the Army of all allegations of wrongdoing and will not be punished, officials said.

(What a coincidence that this news is released on a Friday afternoon).

I don't know what to say except that we should remember this moment the next time why we wonder why they think we are hypocrites. I don't know what else we could do to communicate to people of Iraq that we see them as less than human. If a tenth of what had been done to the torture victims in Iraq and Afghanistan had been done to American soldiers, many people would be calling for nukes. (And remember, not that you'd know by following the story from the media, that the torture scandal is far beyond the few pictures of sexual humiliation that have surfaces. Hundreds have been killed in detention, and many more mutilated, raped and subjected to extreme pain and torture.)

And Lt. Gen. Sanchez is one of the few top-brass soldiers for whom we have direct proof of his involvement in the decision-making process that encouraged, allowed and enabled the torture. Let me quote from a previous blog entry here:

And the most eggregious example in the uniformed military was Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez because cables and other materials had been unearthed which showed that he had directly authorized and ordered the use of some of the torture methods and helped run the place in a manner that allowed and encouraged the whole gamut of despicable practices.

Pentagon did not make these cables public, but some appropriately disgusted government employee turned them over to the Washington Post. Let me recap the key part (I wrote more about it here):

The cable signed by Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez listed several dozen strategies for extracting information, drawn partly from what officials now say was an outdated and improperly permissive Army field manual. But it added one not previously approved for use in Iraq, under the heading of Presence of Military Working Dogs: "Exploit Arab fear of dogs while maintaining security during interrogations."

And:

Unnamed officials at the Florida headquarters of the U.S. Central Command, which has overall military responsibility for Iraq, objected to some of the 32 interrogation tactics approved by Sanchez in September, including the more severe methods that he had said could be used at any time in Abu Ghraib with the consent of the interrogation officer in charge.

...

The high-pressure options that remained included taking someone to a less hospitable location for interrogation; manipulating his or her diet; imposing isolation for more than 30 days; using military dogs to provoke fear; and requiring someone to maintain a "stress position" for as long as 45 minutes. These were not dropped by Sanchez until a scandal erupted in May over photographs depicting abuse at the prison.

Someone should remind these people that just because we here seem so resolute in not noticing this massive cover-up, it doesn't mean the rest of the world is also not noticing it.

Posted by zeynep at 10:09 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 22, 2005

Earth Day

Today's Earth Day.

Where to begin? Global warming? Resource depletion? Air quality? Mercury in the food chain? Melting of the polar caps?

Most everything is getting drastically and rapidly worse. It's a bit like what Einstein is to have said about the fourth world war: "It will be fought with sticks and stones." We will either have an effective, dramatic global environmental movement soon, or there won't be much left to fight over.

Posted by zeynep at 06:28 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 20, 2005

We'll Publish Your Photo, But That's It

So we learn a bit more about something that came to light just as Marla Ruzicka was killed. The U.S. military does indeed have some form of tracking for the number of Iraqi civilians killed by their actions:

A week before she was killed by a suicide bomber, humanitarian worker Marla Ruzicka forced military commanders to admit they did keep records of Iraqi civilians killed by US forces.

Tommy Franks, the former head of US Central Command, famously said the US army "don't do body counts", despite a requirement to do so by the Geneva Conventions.

But in an essay Ms Ruzicka wrote a week before her death on Saturday and published yesterday, the 28-year-old revealed that a Brigadier General told her it was "standard operating procedure" for US troops to file a report when they shoot a non-combatant.

She obtained figures for the number of civilians killed in Baghdad between 28 February and 5 April, and discovered that 29 had been killed in firefights involving US forces and insurgents. This was four times the number of Iraqi police killed.

Can you imagine if all those media outlets that jumped on the story of her death, publishing many pictures of the photogenic, blond Marla hugging children of Iraq and Afghanistan, directed just a small portion of that attention to the cause for which she was willing to put her life on the line?

Posted by zeynep at 10:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 19, 2005

"Let's face it. It will make a better story for the families if I'm killed."

Marla Ruzicka, the humanitarian worker killed in Iraq while trying to bring attention to the plight of victims of war, was apparently contemplating drawing up her will last month to try to make sure her work could continue even if she died. Her friend Jennifer Abrahamson recalls Marla's words:

"Let's face it. It will make a better story for the families if I'm killed."

There it is, in a nutshell, a most damning indictment of our society.

Posted by zeynep at 06:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Head of the Office of the Inquisition Elected Pope

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany has just been elected the Pope. Since 1981, Ratzinger had acted as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, modern successor to the Inquisition (formerly known as the Sacred Congregation of the Universal Inquisition.)

Yes, Inquisition. How's that for tradition?

Posted by zeynep at 06:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 18, 2005

Marla Ruzicka Herself Becomes a Victim of War

Marla Ruzicka, who tried very hard to help victims of war in Iraq, has died in a carbomb attack. Her organization's (Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC)) website says that she was on her way to visit an Iraqi child injured by a bomb, a part of her constant effort to document and help civilian victims. I had been following her work from the time she was in Afghanistan -- she had been trying to get a count of the civilian casualties, a number that seems to interest very few people. Ruzicka's Iraqi colleague, Faiz Ali Salim, was also killed.

I think the Christian Science Monitor story, written by a correspondent who knew here well, says it best:

The only thing we can say now is at least she died doing what she wanted, doing what she really, really believed in. If she were still here, she'd be most worried now about her driver's family and who will take care of all the other Iraqi families she was working with.

She would point out, this happens to Iraqis every day and no one notices or even cares. There are no newspaper articles or investigations into what happens to them.

Marla and Faiz were on the road to the airport because that's the road all Iraqis seeking compensation or help from the American forces must travel:

The blast also killed Ruzicka's longtime Iraqi aide and driver, Faiz Ali Salim, 43, as they drove the road to a U.S. military base by the airport, where foreigners travel for flights out of the country and where Iraqis go to ask for help from the American forces.

"The ride is not pleasant. Military convoys passing every moment. Faiz and I hold our breath," Ruzicka wrote on June 25, 2004, in her online journal. "Such convoys in that area are the target of rockets and fire from the resistance. It would be nice if there was a more secure location for Iraqis to seek compensation."

It's very well known that road to the airport is one of the most dangerous roads. It's hard not to conclude that Marla and Faiz were victims of a policy that was obviously meant to make it hard for Iraqis to seek compensation.

Here's what I want to know most. Marla had apparently come to the conclusion that the U.S. military did indeed keep records of its civilian victims:

This time Ruzicka stayed in Baghdad longer than she had planned because she believed she had found the key to establishing that the U.S. military kept records of its civilian victims, despite its official statements otherwise, colleagues said.

This certainly sounds plausible; that they would count but not disclose. And it also sounds plausible that Marla could have found out about it, with her endless energy and ability to befriend everyone. I wonder if we will ever know what she had just been learning.

To say she will be missed is such an understatement.

Posted by zeynep at 12:29 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 17, 2005

It's Official. We Have No Shame.

Really, you'd think Halabja, the Kurdish town gassed by Saddam Hussein, invoked often as a pretext for various wars would get some special treatment -- like potable water, which is pretty special in Iraq these days.

Well, read it and weep:

The New York Times reports on the effects of the Bush dministration's earlier diversion of funds that had been earmarked by Congress for Iraq's reconstruction: "with the outbreak of insurgency in central and southern Iraq last year, the United States shifted $3.4 billion from water, electricity and oil projects to pay for training and equipping the Iraqi Army and police forces." Of 81 planned water projects to be financed through the Iraqi government, all but 13 were cancelled. Effects even in the Kurdish north, the part least affected by the invasion and occupation, have been harsh. The town of Halabja, gassed by Saddam (with the aid of the Reagan administration) in 1988, and frequently used as a propaganda point in subsequent U.S. assaults on Iraq, just lost a $10 million project, with the result that only half of its population has regular running water and even less has potable water.

I saw this story over at the newly-redesigned Occupation Watch, which is now running a daily compilation of news and analysis about the occupation. It looks as if it will be an invaluable resource.

Posted by zeynep at 11:24 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 14, 2005

Collateral Damage

Eric Rudoph, the Olympic park bomber who murdered at least one person, tried to murder many more, apologized to the "innocent civilians" that he maimed or killed:

But he apologized to "innocent civilians" and their families wounded in attacks like the Centennial Park bombing — an operation he said he botched.

...

"I had sincerely hoped to achieve these objections (sic) without harming innocent civilians," he said. "There is no excuse for this, and I accept full responsibility for the consequences of using this dangerous tactic."

Understandably, his victims weren't too pleased with his smug and callous attitude. But, hey, at least he didn't claim that he was trying to bring them democracy and that they should be grateful for the bombs.

Posted by zeynep at 11:28 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 13, 2005

As I Speed Past, I can See Through The Windows on My Humvee That All is Well

Robert Zoellick, former trade-rep and current Deputy Secretary of State, "toured" Fallujah:

"It was a wonderful opportunity to see a city coming back to life in part through a town council, which just took office at the beginning of April, and have a sense of the Iraqi people determining their own destiny," he told reporters.

Well, "toured" because this is how it was done:

Yet Zoellick, who wore body armor under his suit jacket, was told by military commanders he could not leave his armored Humvee because of security concerns during his quick tour of the shattered downtown. His heavily armored motorcade briefly paused before a restarted water-treatment plant -- within view of the Euphrates River bridge where the charred bodies of American security contractors were suspended after four of them had been ambushed and killed in Fallujah a year ago.

Then the motorcade moved so quickly past an open-air bakery restarted with a U.S.-provided micro loan that workers tossing dough could be glimpsed only in a blink of an eye.

And the town council he attended? That took place in a fortified military compound:

Zoellick had expected to tour a water pumping station and a bread-making factory to observe signs of the city's progress.

But Zoellick was confined to a caravan of armored transport vehicles -— except for a meeting with Fallujah's civic leaders at a fortified military compound. Marines said the security situation in the city remained tenuous, although daily attacks were down.

Still, the people at the town council complained bitterly about their destroyed homes, about their undrinkable water, and about the non-construction reconstruction. Not that it matters. All is well because we say so:

Despite inhabitants' complaints about the destruction of their homes, Zoellick insisted that "most of the fighting took place in more industrial and commercial areas".

Here's a bit more of what they said about how their city was "coming back to life":

Mounds of debris from crumpled structures filled each city block, and interim city council members expressed frustration about how long it was taking for residents to get reimbursement checks for their damaged homes. Some officials said residents weren't being paid enough compensation for all that had been destroyed.

They also complained of unsafe drinking water, an inadequate sewer system and little food aside from rationed goods. Residents fretted about not having enough jobs.

Now, now. Repeat after me: all is well. All is well.

Posted by zeynep at 05:57 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

April 12, 2005

Don't Let Them Die in Vain! Add to Their Numbers!

Here's another shot from the past -- this time John Bolton:

Growing up in the 1960s, John R. Bolton often debated with his high school history teacher over the dangers of America going soft on communism and giving up in Vietnam, honing a blunt hard-line style that would later become his trademark.

"He'd say `How can you let 2,000 men die there in vain?'" recalled Marty McKibbin, Bolton's teacher at the McDonogh School, then a private military academy in Baltimore. "The next year he'd come back and say, `How can you let 4,000 men die in vain?' He had his mind set on his views, and they haven't changed in 40 years."

Please someone remind me to repost this entry when the number of Americans and Iraqis who died because in this war on Iraq doubles -- and we're told we can't let them die in vain.

Posted by zeynep at 12:15 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

April 11, 2005

"Spreading Democracy," Past and Present

Here's a shot from the past -- from John Negroponte's days as the ambassador to Honduras. A post he used to organize contra activity aimed at violently overthrowing the democratically elected government of Nicaragua, while ignoring and covering up the grave human rights abuses by his cooperating hosts. The documents have come to light in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from The Washington Post:

The day after the House voted to halt all aid to rebels fighting to overthrow the Sandinista government of Nicaragua, U.S. Ambassador to Honduras John D. Negroponte urged the president's national security adviser and the CIA director to hang tough.

The thrust of the envoy's "back channel" July 1983 message to the men running the contra war against Nicaragua was contained in a single cryptic sentence: "Hondurans believe special project is as important as ever."

Special project" was code for the secret arming of contra rebels from bases in Honduras -- a cause championed by Negroponte, then a rising diplomatic star.

...

The contrast with his immediate predecessor, Jack R. Binns, who was recalled to Washington in the fall of 1981 to make way for Negroponte, is striking. Before departing, Binns sent several cables to Washington warning of possible "death squad" activity linked to Honduran strongman Gen. Gustavo Alvarez. Negroponte dismissed the talk of death squads and, in an October 1983 cable to Washington, emphasized Alvarez's "dedication to democracy."

...

The secret message traffic suggests that Negroponte was highly attuned to the political and public relations ramifications of embassy and State Department reporting. He occasionally berated colleagues for their lack of discretion and worked hard to maintain the fiction that Honduras was not serving as the logistical base for as many as 15,000 anti-Sandinista rebels known as the Nicaraguan Democratic Force, or FDN.

"We request that Department no longer clear out cables for Codels [Congressional Delegations] which of late almost invariably have included 'meet with FDN' or 'visit contra camps,' as one of the desired schedule items," Negroponte cabled then-Secretary of State George P. Shultz in July 1984.

John Negroponte, John Bolton, Elliot Abrams at the helm ... Democracy-lovers everywhere can breath sigh of relief.

Posted by zeynep at 11:15 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 10, 2005

Spot the Staged Demonstration

Remember the toppling of Saddam Hussein's statue in Firdos square two years ago? While the sentiment against Saddam Hussein in Iraq was very real, the event was obviously staged:

So, here's the same Firdos Square, two years later:

And the demands are very clear: they want the occupation to end and they want a speedy trial for Saddam Hussein.

/>

As you can tell from these pictures, Saddam Hussein is held with the same regard as George W. Bush and Tony Blair (So much for the Baathist-dead-enders theory):

Posted by zeynep at 03:23 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

April 08, 2005

My Way or the Highway, Says GM

While we are on the subject of the propaganda model, here's GM in action:

General Motors Corp. on Thursday pulled its advertising from the Los Angeles Times over disagreements with car reviews and other articles that have appeared in the newspaper.

The world's largest automaker said the move was "based on strongly voiced objections from our dealers in California about factual errors and misrepresentations in The Times editorial coverage."

A GM spokesman would not specify the errors or say which articles caused the rift.

...

A GM executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Wednesday's review of the Pontiac G6 by Times Pulitzer Prize-winning automobile critic Dan Neil was particularly offensive.

Neil wrote that "GM is a morass of a business case" and called for the ouster of GM's chairman and chief executive, Rick Wagoner. Among other things, Neil took the company to task for not more aggressively developing fuel-efficient cars and focusing instead on SUVs.

All this over a few critical reviews... Imagine if there were critical reporting on our automobile culture. (I guess it's easy to see why the previous sentence had to be in the hypothetical subjunctive mood.)

Posted by zeynep at 09:35 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

April 07, 2005

This is Your Brain on Propaganda

Here's a text-book example of propaganda in action from this Newsweek interview with Paul Wolfowitz:

Newsweek: Your opponents say you are going to use the bank to pursue the Bush administration's philosophy of pushing democracy all around the world.

Wolfowitz: No, but I think when the bank performs its mission, which is reducing poverty and promoting economic development, it makes it more possible for people around the world to achieve their own goals of freedom and democracy.

Gee, once you pose the question that way, what's there to argue about? Why would it even be a bad thing to "push democracy all around the world"? That question is wrong because pushing democracy is not what the Bush administration is doing, and it's wrong because that's not what opponents of Wolfowitz were saying.

You know the saying: if you can get them to ask the wrong questions, the answers don't matter.

Posted by zeynep at 08:14 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 06, 2005

Mercy Killing

I saw this over at Left I on the News:

A lot of words have been written about the suffering of the Schiavo family. Just a few days ago, a lot fewer words were devoted to the fact that an American soldier found guilty of killing an unarmed, wounded Iraqi in a "mercy killing" was allowed to walk free, dismissed from the Army but with no other penalty. And not a single word, as far as I saw, noted that the dead man actually had a family (as, of course, do every one of the other 100,000+ Iraqis who have died as a result of the U.S. invasion, not to mention the million who died from the decade of sanctions). Via Raed in the Middle comes this photo of the dead man's son, holding up a picture of his father and himself to remind the world of the victim of the American Army's "mercy". Yes, Iraqis have families too:


An Iraqi boy holds a picture of his slain father, Karim Abed Ali. US Army Captain Rogelio Maynulet, 29, was dismissed from the military, but a court martial panel did not impose a prison sentence for shooting Abed Ali, a military spokesman said.

No jail time. No punishment, except being dismissed from the military, despite of being convicted of " assault with intent to commit voluntary manslaughter."

Captain Rogelio Maynulet should at least have to explain to that kid why he killed his father.

Posted by zeynep at 10:07 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

April 04, 2005

Dear MoveOn, Please Get Your Facts Straight. Hard As It May be To Believe, That's Iraqi Money.

Here's an excerpt from the last MoveOn action alert:

From: "Tom Matzzie, MoveOn PAC"
Date: April 4, 2005 6:16:49 PM CDT
Subject: $82 billion more for Iraq: Demand an exit strategy.

Dear MoveOn member,

Congress has barely debated the war in Iraq or its aftermath since it voted to authorize the use of force in October 2002. Now, the Bush administration is skipping the normal budget process to ask for an additional $82 billion to fund the American presence in Iraq. Among the big-ticket items, a $600 million embassy and some 14 "enduring" bases.[1] Those bases, and the absence of an exit strategy, will worsen, not improve the situation in Iraq.

And, remember the last $87 billion Congress authorized for the war: a whopping $9 billion of it is missing because of corrupt contracting.[2] We must root out the corporate corruption that has undercut the rebuilding efforts and lost billions of taxpayers' money.

Yes, among other things, it's certainly outrageous that a "whopping $9 billion" is missing. Except that's Iraqi money the occupation authorities "lost" to American companies -- not American taxpayer money as MoveOn implies. What's even more outrageous is that the story Moveon cites in its action alert gets it right. Other reports on the same issue, such as this Newseek story, also get it right. Why can't MoveOn?

Let's try this again. THOSE BILLIONS WERE IRAQI MONEY. Readers of this blog know that I've been following this story closely for some time now (some examples here, and here), and it never ceases to amaze me how Democrats, starting with John Kerry, can't seem to stop pushing a story of American victimhood -- even when it's not true. Last year, just as it was becoming scandalously clear that billions of dollars in Iraqi money had been turned over to American corporations without accountability, transparency, or results, while the money Congress actually allocated to rebuild the country we helped destroy sat unspent, John Kerry's applause line was "we shouldn't be opening firehouses in Baghdad and closing them down in the United States of America."

So, I ask my readers to join Pat Youngblood, who brought this matter to my attention, in asking MoveOn to correct their error:

Dear MoveOn PAC,

In your last message on Iraq you repeat an error that is becoming
common. You say that $9 billion of U.S. money (part of the famous $87 billion) has been lost. But this is not American taxpayer money. These funds came from the sale of Iraqi oil. This is the old Oil-For-Food fund, now called the Development Fund for Iraq. So, the correct story is that the US has presided over the theft of $9 billion of Iraqi resources that were supposed to be spent on the welfare of ordinary Iraqis. Even the CNN story you cite as a source gets this important fact correct. An organization with the reach of MoveOn could do a lot to correct this common misperception. It seems, however, that you're more comfortable seeing Americans as the victims, rather than Iraqis.

Please respond.
Respectfully,

Pat Youngblood
Austin, TX

(Pat's the editor of Austin's indispensable Third Coast Activist Resource Center. As well as having a sharp eye for falsehoods whatever their source, he does a great job compiling the most interesting and relevant news and analysis of the day. A highly recommended bookmark against the infoglut out there.)

Posted by zeynep at 10:10 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

April 02, 2005

Family Values and Corporate Heroes: The Curious Makeover Jack Welch

Here's Jack Welch, ex-CEO of GE on honesty and family values:

Bosses know that the work-life policies in the company brochure are mainly for recruiting purposes and that real work-life arrangements are negotiated one on one in the context of a supportive culture, not in the context of, "But the company says ...!"

People who publicly struggle with work-life balance problems and continually turn to the company for help get pigeonholed as ambivalent, entitled, uncommitted, incompetent—or all of the above.

In other words, don't believe what we say. And families are not our problem. He hobnobs with all the politicians who can't stop saying how much they are for family values. Why is this man on the cover of Newsweek? And why are these corporations allowed to control our airwaves?

Posted by zeynep at 01:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 01, 2005

You Too Can Lose Weight and Keep it Off: The Terri Schiavo Success Story

(I am reposting here a piece that I submitted to a few websites. It sums up my response to the eating-disorder discussion that has been taking place on this blog, as well as my concern that many progressives are not recognizing the significance of the Schiavo case for the disability-rights community.)

If it hadn't been for that moment when the potassium imbalance brought about by her bulimia caused Terri's heart to stop, she might have been the woman in the television ad I just watched, selling the latest weight-loss method. "I lost a hundred pounds," declares the svelte looking woman on TV, "you too can lose weight and keep it off."

If we had any amount of decency in our culture, weight-loss ads would have been hastily pulled off the air this week, as Terri Schiavo's body died from lack of water.

There is much to be angry about the indignant, callous manner the right-wing has exploited the plight of this family. They have taken hypocrisy to new levels, and much ink has been spilt on that. But I am disappointed that the progressive community has not seized upon the publicity generated by this tragedy to do more on two very important moral issues.

One is that this is an opportunity to shout from many rooftops that the cause of her condition is bulimia, and that her plight was not so far removed from that of the typical woman trying to keep her weight at a level that is considered socially desirable but is, in fact, nearly impossible for most women without heroic measures, such as forcing yourself to throwing up your food, eating too little to nourish your body, or exercising obsessively.

Second, that there is genuine reason to "err on the side of life" -- and that a system that gives a husband or a parent the right to terminate a person's life based on the argument that "she wouldn't want to live like that" is fraught with grave danger for the sick and the disabled. That's why many in the disability-rights community cheered when Federal courts intervened, however hypocritical the source of that intervention might have been. Frankly, when someone is coming to yank your feeding tube, and you can't speak, you take whatever help you can get.

Progressives should give be better allies to them. The current alignment means that many in the disability-rights community are forced to work with an outrageously-hypocritical right-wing political machine. As a case in point, Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa, a well-known advocate of disability-rights, chose to work with the Republicans in this case. This is no aberrant occurrence; many of the issues raised in the Schiavo case are of genuine concern to people with disabilities and chronic illnesses.

I personally know of one person who was thought to be a "vegetable" and abandoned in a corner, unable to communicate, who was, in fact, very much cognizant and, if anything, wickedly intelligent. The reason that he ended up in law school rather than in a hospice where he might well have been put to death because of "lack of quality of life" is a story of luck, perseverance and very good advocates -- the kind of advocates that appear irrational, and looking for hope when there is none, until proven right.

About a week ago, I wrote in my blog that I found it hard to believe that her husband was oblivious to her bulimia, and that her parents were obviously in denial about it. Michael Schiavo knew "she had peculiar eating patterns." She had lost more than a hundred pounds. She had stopped menstruating regularly. She was trying to survive on liquids. I got a lot of angry letters from people with eating disorders and their loved-ones about the secretive nature the illness. Terri's condition, bulimia, brings about its own shame and secrecy. Many argued out that it was unfair to blame him for her actions, which she most likely kept secret.

Fair enough. Maybe Michael Schiavo could not see. Maybe neither he nor the rest of the family could recognize the signs. That simply highlights the urgency of talking about this subject. Terri was just 110 pounds when she collapsed, down from more than 200 in her high school years.

Most people's first reaction to such a drastic weight-loss would be to congratulate the person. As Schiavo's case illustrates, concern may be more appropriate. And her behavior was practically broadcasting that something was amiss. In his Larry King interview, Michael Schiavo said that "When I was with her, when we were together, Terri would eat and eat and eat" -- yet she was able to maintain her weight-loss. Michael's brother, Scott remembers noticing in family gathering that, "Terri was eating a huge plate of food, but she was thinner than ever." How can you eat like that and still be so thin, he asked her. "She laughed," recalls Scott, "and said she must just have a good metabolism." It is not really possible for someone who has a propensity to gain weight, as Terri obviously did, to suddenly develop a "good metabolism."

Although we don't know, there might have been other typical signs of bulimia present in Terri. Bloodshot eyes, as the eye vessels burst during the forced throwing up. Chronic sore throats. Brittle nails. Dull hair. Rapid weight-shifts and a fluctuating weight. Frequently bruising. Menstrual irregularities. Smell of vomit in hair or hands. And, yes, cardiac arrest in A 26-year-old.

Frankly, it was no comfort to hear Michael Schiavo's long-time lawyer, George Felos, declare that he'd never seen "such a look of peace and beauty upon her," as Terri Schiavo was more than a week into her starvation. With this level perversity among Michael Schiavo's team, one could not help but wish that Terri Schiavo had had independent protection. In fact, all these last two weeks, I have kept hearing many people, progressives among them, say "this is a private matter" and "government should stay out of this."

This is very hard to understand. I keep wondering do these people really not understand how hostile and uncaring families can become when faced with a member who requires long-term care? One often hears of stories of remarkable heroism and perseverance from family members of the disabled and the chronically-ill. Outside of Planet Reader's Digest, there are also other stories.

It is very human for loved ones of people who are seriously sick or disabled to project their own wishes unto the situation. From every reading of the story, it seems clear that Michael Schiavo first tried very hard to see if she could recover, realized that the chances were almost zero, and gave up and moved on with his life; forming a new family and having two kids. In such a situation, he would humanly be tempted to see Terri, who is obviously gone as a person, also be gone in body. There is a genuine conflict of interest here, regardless of the lack of interest in Terri Schiavo the Republican leadership has shown.

And the problem here is much bigger than Terri Schiavo. In her case, there has been enough controversy that we have a reasonable belief that she may have had no brain-activity. Her EEG was flat. Most of her brain had been replaced with fluid. Not all people whose quality of life may be deemed "too low to be worth living" have such clear medical diagnosis. Many in disability-rights community fear the consequences giving legal guardians such sweeping authority over life-and-death. The same issue comes up with the right to euthanasia. While I also believe in a person's right to choose to die, I am truly scared of the consequences of this right if it is not coupled with very strong social support in favor of people who wish to live with their disability. To put it bluntly, if the right to assisted suicide is recognized, some of the time, it will bring down pressure on the disabled to commit suicide.

Just think about it: many families can have bitter, cruel fights over who will inherit that valuable piece of jewelry. Can you imagine the kind of bitterness and resentment that accumulates upon a severely-disabled family member whose care is incumbent upon the family? I have hard many stories of loving, caring families, but I have also heard many horror stories.

I have a friend who has very severe cerebral palsy caused by lack of oxygen to his brain during birth. For the first many years of his life, it was assumed he was almost like "a vegetable," and he was parked in a corner of his family's home. He could not talk, and he had almost no control over body. Yet, somehow, his mind persevered. He learned to read through the scattered observations he could make from his corner. Years later, he managed to trace out a few letters, enough to alert people to the fact that perhaps there was a person "in there." With much intensive therapy, a means for him to communicate was devised -- he can shape his mouth and throat to the words he is trying to vocalize and he makes up the kind of sounds that Terri's parents got ridiculed for saying that their daughter was trying to make: saying "aaaaaah, whaaaaa" in order to start the sentence "I want to live." I understand that, in a persistent vegetative state, those are sounds not words.

But that's exactly how my friend speaks. Only trained-interpreters and his close friends can understand his words. The reaction to claims made by Terri's parents scared me. It scares me to see the idea that someone could communicate in spite of severe speech impediments ridiculed. In fact, most people's first reaction to hear my friend speak is that the interpreter is making it up -- a conclusion soon overcome as one's ear gets used to his articulations and one starts recognizing a few words here and there. (Besides, my friend's vocabulary and range of knowledge is often much greater than that of his interpreters.)

To make it clear, I do support the right to die. Many of our methods of artificially extending life for people who are terminally ill and in pain are downright cruel and perverse. But there should be extraordinary pause in cases where the person is not terminally ill remember Terri Schiavo was not dying; the required assistance is minimal, a feeding-tube, not a respirator; and the wishes of the person is unclear.

Terri Schiavo's situation has apparently prompted a boom in living-wills; I wish it would also prompt a will-to-live among all the women who may have skipped or thrown-up their breakfast, lunch, or dinner this very day. I also hope it prompts a deeper dialogue between progressives and the disability-rights community about the right to live with dignity, as well as about the right to die with dignity.

Posted by zeynep at 11:02 AM | Comments (12) | TrackBack