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March 28, 2006
They "Claim," We Don't Know
Note the story here:
Shiite politicians raged at the United States and halted negotiations on a new government Monday after a military assault killed at least 16 people in what Iraqis claim was a mosque. Fresh violence erupted in the north, with 40 killed in a suicide bombing. ... The U.S. military said in a statement that "no mosques were entered or damaged during this operation." It said the raid targeted a building used by "insurgents responsible for kidnapping and execution activities."...
"In our observation of the place and the activities that were going on, it's difficult for us to consider this a place of prayer," said Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, a U.S. military spokesman. "It was not identified by us as a mosque, though we certainly recognized it as a community gathering center. I think this is frankly a matter of perception."
Associated Press reporters who visited the scene Monday said the site of the attack clearly was a neighborhood Shiite mosque complex.
Here's what's probalby going on. Even after three years of occupation, the troops on the ground haven't learned that Shi'ite shrines don't necessarily look like mosques.
That's how bad things are.
Of course, Post can't just come out and say it so they say "military assault killed at least 16 people in what Iraqis claim was a mosque." Can you imagine if they reported everything that way: Last weekend in Seattle, a gunman entered a compound that the survivors claimed was a house and killed six people inside...
Posted by zeynep at 08:20 PM | Comments (0)
March 26, 2006
A Day in the Life Of
It has been getting depressingly worse and worse.
It's important to note that most of the killing is now sectarian, Iraqis killing Iraqis. This is an important shift in the nature of the conflict, one that is not good for anyone.
Posted by zeynep at 07:29 PM | Comments (1)
March 23, 2006
CPT Hostages Freed
The surviving Christian Peacemaker hostages have been freed. The CPT statement celebrating their release doesn't forget what it's all about:
During these past months, we have tasted of the pain that has been the daily bread of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. Why have our loved ones been taken? Where are they being held? Under what conditions? How are they? Will they be released? When?
Posted by zeynep at 07:08 PM | Comments (1)
March 22, 2006
Six Months
Six Months. That's it.
Remember that we know from Sy Hersh's account that the dogs did bite and bleed the prisoners.
Sgt. Michael J. Smith says that he was ordered to do what he did. Probably true -- however, that doesn't let him off the hook, morally or legally. (According to reports, Sgt. Smith was unrepentant during the trial). The so-called Nuremberg defense, "I was Just Following Orders" is specifically banned by the Uniform Code of Military Justice of the United States.
Posted by zeynep at 07:30 PM | Comments (0)
March 21, 2006
We Hold Our Breath (Not) for Sentencing
So, Sgt. Michael J. Smith has been found guilty of his handling of the dogs vis-a-vis the detainees. What do you think are the chances of him getting a sentence that would deter anyone?
While jurors agreed with prosecutors that Smith improperly allowed his dog, Marco, to get close to detainees while barking and growling, they found Smith not guilty of seven of the original 13 charges against him; the judge also threw out one of the 13 charges. The panel rejected the government's argument that Smith conspired with other military police soldiers who have previously been convicted of abuse at the prison. Jurors also found him not guilty of using his dog to abuse two other detainees -- one of whom was shown naked and cowering from military working dogs in one of the most recognizable photos of abuse at Abu Ghraib.
We should hear about the sentence pretty soon. I'll post an update.
Posted by zeynep at 09:38 PM | Comments (0)
March 19, 2006
The incident seemed like so many others from this war
The Time magazine has done some investigative reporting about an incident in Haditha, where the Marines had claimed that 15 Iraqi civilians were killed by a roadside bomb. Footage shot at the morgue showed that the Iraqi dead, mostly women and children, had been shot at close range in their night clothes.
The incident seemed like so many others from this war, the kind of tragedy that has become numbingly routine amid the daily reports of violence in Iraq. On the morning of Nov. 19, 2005, a roadside bomb struck a humvee carrying Marines from Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines, on a road near Haditha, a restive town in western Iraq. The bomb killed Lance Corporal Miguel (T.J.) Terrazas, 20, from El Paso, Texas. The next day a Marine communique from Camp Blue Diamond in Ramadi reported that Terrazas and 15 Iraqi civilians were killed by the blast and that "gunmen attacked the convoy with small-arms fire," prompting the Marines to return fire, killing eight insurgents and wounding one other. ... But the details of what happened that morning in Haditha are more disturbing, disputed and horrific than the military initially reported. According to eyewitnesses and local officials interviewed over the past 10 weeks, the civilians who died in Haditha on Nov. 19 were killed not by a roadside bomb but by the Marines themselves, who went on a rampage in the village after the attack, killing 15 unarmed Iraqis in their homes, including seven women and three children.
Faced with the evidence, the Marines changed the story to say they had taken fire from inside the house:
In January, after Time presented military officials in Baghdad with the Iraqis' accounts of the Marines' actions, the U.S. opened its own investigation, interviewing 28 people, including the Marines, the families of the victims and local doctors. According to military officials, the inquiry acknowledged that, contrary to the military's initial report, the 15 civilians killed on Nov. 19 died at the hands of the Marines, not the insurgents. The military announced last week that the matter has been handed over to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (ncis), which will conduct a criminal investigation to determine whether the troops broke the laws of war by deliberately targeting civilians.
There are eyewitness accounts from children who survived because adults sheltered them from the bullets with their bodies:
So far, neither of the evidence nor the eyewitness accounts supports the Marine's changing account:
A day after the incident, a Haditha journalism student videotaped the scene at the local morgue and at the homes where the killings had occurred. The video was obtained by the Hammurabi Human Rights Group, which cooperates with the internationally respected Human Rights Watch, and has been shared with Time. The tape makes for grisly viewing. It shows that many of the victims, especially the women and children, were still in their nightclothes when they died. The scenes from inside the houses show that the walls and ceilings are pockmarked with shrapnel and bullet holes as well as the telltale spray of blood. But the video does not reveal the presence of any bullet holes on the outside of the houses, which may cast doubt on the Marines' contention that after the ied exploded, the Marines and the insurgents engaged in a fierce gunfight.
In the end, it seems pretty clear what happened. The marines lost one of their own in a roadside bombing and in their rage, they went into the nearest three houses and killed everyone inside. Will anyone get punished? So far, $2,500 per victim has been paid out -- a sum probably much smaller than what the Marines would have paid someone in the United States if they accidentally destroyed a briefcase, or even unintentionally scared a person.
The U.S. has paid relatives of the victims $2,500 for each of the 15 dead civilians, plus smaller payments for the injured. But nothing can bring back all that was taken from 9-year-old Eman Waleed on that fateful day last November. She still does not comprehend how, when her father went in to pray with the Koran for the family's safety, his prayers were not answered, as they had been so many times in the past. "He always prayed before, and the Americans left us alone," she says. Leaving, she grabs a handful of candy. "It's for my little brother," she says. "I have to take care of my brother. Nobody else is left."
This kind of atrocity is not an unpredictable, unavoidable part of war. It is very predictable as it occurs in most wars and in almost all occupations. The only way to avoid is to punish the offenders very harshly, making sure the soldiers understand that it will not be tolerated. The current policy is to avoid even slaps on the wrists, if possible -- and to offer some regrets and minimal, mostly administrative punishment when incontrovertible evidence can somehow be summoned.
Posted by zeynep at 06:07 PM | Comments (0)
March 18, 2006
Anniversary...
Tomorrow's the anniversary of the invasion. While it is a good opportunity to mark our protest, it is a bit misleading. U.S. aggression against Iraq started way before that -- with the sanctions, the indiscriminate bombing, the abritrary manipulation of the oil-for-food program.
There is one difference, though. Before 2003, they shared the responsibility of what was done to the people of Iraq with Saddam Hussein. Now it is theirs.
Posted by zeynep at 12:13 PM | Comments (0)
March 16, 2006
Operation Swarmer: Keep the Army Busy
So they captured "weapon caches":
More than 1,500 U.S. and Iraqi troops, more than 200 tactical vehicles and more than 50 aircraft participated in the operation, dubbed "Operation Swarmer," according to a statement released by the U.S. military command in Baghdad. The operation was intended to secure an area that has been a hotbed of insurgent activity over the last several weeks, military officials said. The military said early reports indicate that a number of weapons caches -- containing artillery shells, explosives, materials for making car bombs and military uniforms -- were captured.
If I could, I would like to poll all officers in the armed forces and the marines. I wish we could have a show of hands: who thinks that hunting for weapon caches with massive airpower will stop the insurgency or the sectarian violence in Iraq?
So, why this operation? Probably for two audiences: what remains of Bush's base in the United States, and the armed forces themselves. Remember the recent report about Zogby's polling of the troops? 72 percent want out, this year. A little bit of action would might help that.
Posted by zeynep at 08:39 PM | Comments (1)
March 10, 2006
Tom Fox: Why He Was There
The murdered body of Tom Fox, one of the four Christian Peacemaker activists who were abducted last November, was just found in Iraq.
All I can do right now is to post a section from Tom's last email out of Iraq. I post these words not just to remember him, but mainly to remind myself that he would not want me to write about his murderers what I really want to write at this moment:
U.S. forces in their quest to hunt down and kill "terrorists" are, as a result of this dehumanizing word, not only killing "terrorists," but also killing innocent Iraqis: men, women and children in the various towns and villages.It seems as if the first step down the road to violence is taken when I dehumanize a person. That violence might stay within my thoughts or find its way into the outer world and become expressed verbally, psychologically,
structurally or physically. As soon as I rob a fellow human being of his or her humanity by sticking a dehumanizing label on them, I begin the process that can have, as an end result, torture, injury and death."Why are we here?" We are here to root out all aspects of dehumanization that exist within us. We are here to stand with those being dehumanized by oppressors and stand firm against that dehumanization. We are here to stop people, including ourselves, from dehumanizing any of God's children, no matter how much they dehumanize their own souls.
Posted by zeynep at 11:45 PM | Comments (1)
March 09, 2006
We Bomb, You Accept
This is how the Washington Post story, titled "Iran Threatens U.S. Over Nuclear Program," begins:
Iran threatened the United States with "harm and pain" Wednesday if the U.S. tries to use the U.N. Security Council _ which has the power to impose sanctions _ as a lever to punish Tehran for its suspect nuclear program.
This is what you find if you read all the way to the bottom of the fairly long piece:
"The United States has the power to cause harm and pain," Ali Asghar Soltanieh, the chief Iranian delegate to the IAEA, said, reading from a statement. "But the United States is also susceptible to harm and pain. So if that is the path that the U.S. wishes to choose, let the ball roll."
This is what the Post tells us it means:
... diplomats said the comment as possibly a veiled threat to use oil as a weapon.
So, let me get this straight.
If Iran says that U.S. would also suffer "harm and pain" if it causes "harm and pain" to Iran, that's a threat from them and not from us. And the Post informs us that diplomats think what it means is that Iran might pump less oil, or otherwise pressure world oil markets. So, we have a right to bomb them, but they don't have a right to extact less of a natural resource that's on their soil, as a response to our bombing them.
And the news piece in which all this information is buried is titled "Iran Threatens U.S..."
Posted by zeynep at 09:02 AM | Comments (1)
March 07, 2006
Fool Me Over and Over and Over and Over
Vice President Cheney threatened Iran today with "meaningful consequences" if it fails to cooperate with international efforts to curb its nuclear program."For our part, the United States is keeping all options on the table in addressing the irresponsible conduct of the regime," Cheney said in a speech to the pro-Israel lobby group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
This really shows the the distinct character of this regime: they have almost totally abandoned any pretense of caring about support or legitimacy... But, wait, here's one better, from John Bolton (also addressing AIPAC):
The Security Council will likely take a graduated approach to dealing with this issue, but it is critical that we use the Council to help mobilize international public opinion. Rest assured, though, we are not relying on the Security Council as the only tool in our toolbox to address this problem.
Ummm, so, the security council is a tool to mobilize global public opinion for our upcoming war? I guess that's what they mean by diplomacy these days. (This one reminds me of Madeline Albright's "we will behave multilaterally when we can and unilaterally when we must.")
Posted by zeynep at 07:28 PM | Comments (1)
March 04, 2006
Orwell Awards Forever Claimed
I think this takes the Orwell Award:
Two Iraqi women whose husbands and children were killed by US troops during the Iraq war have been refused entry into the United States for a speaking tour. The women were invited to the US for peace events surrounding international women’s by the human rights group Global Exchange and the women’s peace group CODEPINK.In a piece of painful irony, the reason given for the rejection was that the women don’t have enough family in Iraq to prove that they’ll return to the country.
In fact, if there were Orwell Awards, they'd have to stop giving them out.
Posted by zeynep at 03:35 PM | Comments (6)
March 01, 2006
Who Would Have Thought
So, we now have a video of the president being directly told that the levees might well be breached:
In dramatic and sometimes agonizing terms, federal disaster officials warned President Bush and his homeland security chief before Hurricane Katrina struck that the storm could breach levees, put lives at risk in New Orleans’ Superdome and overwhelm rescuers, according to confidential video footage.Bush didn’t ask a single question during the final briefing before Katrina struck on Aug. 29, but he assured soon-to-be-battered state officials: “We are fully prepared.”
Contrast it to this::
On the September 1 broadcast of ABC's Good Morning America, President Bush acted as though the breach of the levees was an unforeseeable fluke occurrence: "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees."
Really, now. Who would have thought Saddam didn't have WMD? Who would have thought the Iraqis might not want to be occupied by an arrogant, incompetent foreign army that seems to give little importance to their lives and treasure? Who would have thought turning over Medicare perscription drug benefit into a gift for large pharmaceuticals might be expensive and troublesome? Who would have thought giving tax breaks to gas guzzling might not be the best strategy?
Who would have thought? Who thinks these thoughts? Must be those crazy critics who want to make Bin Ladin president instead of Dick Cheney.
Posted by zeynep at 09:10 PM | Comments (0)