After Action Satisfaction

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Advertising signs that con you | Into thinking you're the one | That can do what's never been done | That can win what's never been won | Meantime life outside goes on | All around you.

Bob Dylan | It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)

On second thought, perhaps Miller does deserve to be elevated to the status of icon—not of the war in Iraq but of the new era of supercharged American impunity. Because outside US borders, it is, of course, a different Marine who has been awarded the prize as "the face of Falluja": the soldier captured on tape executing a wounded, unarmed prisoner in a mosque. Runners-up are a photograph of 2-year-old Fallujan in a hospital bed with one of his tiny legs blown off; a dead child lying in the street, clutching the headless body of an adult; and an emergency health clinic blasted to rubble. Inside the US, these snapshots of a lawless occupation appeared only briefly, if they appeared at all. Yet Miller's icon status has endured, kept alive with human interest stories about fans sending cartons of Marlboros to Falluja, interviews with the marine's proud mother, and earnest discussions about whether smoking might reduce Miller's effectiveness as a fighting machine.

Impunity - the perception of being outside the law - has long been the hallmark of the Bush regime. What is alarming is that it appears to have deepened since the election, ushering in what can only be described as an orgy of impunity. In Iraq, US forces and their Iraqi surrogates are assaulting civilian targets and openly attacking doctors, clerics and journalists who have dared to count the bodies. At home, impunity has been made official policy with Bush's nomination of Alberto Gonzales—the man who personally advised the President in his infamous "torture memo" that the Geneva Conventions are "obsolete"—as Attorney General.

Naomi Klein | Smoking while Iraq burns

My own most striking Iraqi image was part of the footage screened by the BBC correspondent Paul Wood, "embedded" with a marine unit in the recent Falluja operation. The scenes were familiar enough: jerky Saving Private Ryan shots of street fighting showing marines peering into a cellar, fearing grenades or shooting, and running for cover. But then the soundtrack picked up the voices of perhaps three or four fighters - chanting the Arabic words "Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar," (God is Great) - who presumably believe that this is the moment of their death. Falluja has since been declared a success and Red Crescent aid convoys are returning to the ruins. But those haunting cries linger on, as resonant a representation of martyrdom as any Iraqi fighter could pray for: they'll make an unforgettable addition to those split-screen clips on Arab TV channels of Americans in Falluja and Israelis in Gaza, reportage-as-propaganda displaying the twin evils of crusaders and Zionists and their Muslim victims.

Ian Black | World watch

Note: No blog's complete without the above Klein piece and the gob-smacking blather of Dan Rather (reporting as a newsman). The flood of fascist propaganda fed Americans is an essentially national phenomenon, interesting because of its noticeable effect on U.S. citizens, most of whom are now more weirdly detached (yet, paradoxically, involved) with the world around them than ever before.

Such is the fast-developing world of the PNAC [pdf]. You've all become Jehovah's Witnesses. Yes, you too. You might think you're Jewish, but George W. Bush is in charge and it's his reality we're living now.

I'll be quiet over the next few weeks. I'm moving and will be without a dial-up connection for a while. Our local monopoly, Telkom, wants ZAR700.00 a line. That's more than $100.00. With my telephone account running at about the same, $200.00 is a bit much, coming on top of a move. I don't have it. But I'll probably cut back on other things. Like smoking and U.S. agitprop.

Yeah, sure...

Addendum EastSouthWestNorth has been there...

"Americans celebrate war in their movies. We like to see visions of evil being defeated by good. When the people at home glimpse the reality of war, that it's a bloodbath, they freak out. We are a subculture they created and programmed to fight their wars. You have to become a psycho to kill like we do. To most Marines that guy in the mosque was just someone who didn't get hit in the right place the first time we shot him. I probably would have put a bullet in his brain if I'd been there. If the American public doesn't like the violence of war, maybe before they start the next war they shouldn't rush so much." The public could start by looking at the messy details of this war, such as those shown in this series of weekly posts.

Yup. And to underscore the point, al-Jazeera tells us 6,000 people may have died in Fallujah alone.

The United Colors of War

Night vision...?

"Oh, and I thought when I was there, God, what am I doing here? | I'm a-tryin' to kill somebody or die tryin'. | But the thing that scared me most was when my enemy came close | And I saw that his face looked just like mine."

The Fat Man lay in his own blood. He was an Iraqi insurgent who'd hidden in an alley next to a garbage dump waiting for the Army to come by. A couple 25 mm high explosive rounds, shot from a Bradley, blew off his left leg, leaving a stump of bone, and, from the looks of it, punched a hole through his midsection. Two or three others died with him. A group of insurgents managed to drag the others away, but the Fat Man was too big. His arms were still splayed back from where his comrades tried to pull him through the narrow alley.

Some of his guts - perhaps an intestinal tract - were splattered on the wall. His eyes were open, peering out from his dirty face and scraggly beard, staring at the heavens. A traditional red-and-white checked Arab keffiyah headdress was wrapped around his waist, and a bag with slots for RPG rounds - all empty - lay on the ground next to him.

The Fat Man was the first dead person that many soldiers had seen. They grew solemn as they leaned over his body and peered into his eyes, but never too close, never close enough to touch his skin or take in too deep a whiff of death.

[...]

The soldiers went through the door and down an alleyway, scanning the roofline for movement. Gunfire started a couple blocks away.

Ward wiped sweat from his eyes.

"They've got this shit figured out," he said. "They're running around the back of a house as we bust in through the gate."

Outside, the bodies Wright had seen were lying in the street.

One of them had been run over by a Bradley, leaving a mound of meat and bones in the sunlight. A large green bag lay next to the remains.

Howard took out a camera and clicked a few pictures.

Bentley ran over to grab the bag. He gave it a yank, and an arm rose out of the pile, but the strap would not give. With his friends looking on, Bentley pulled harder and harder, and the arm flapped in the air. Another soldier joined in the tug of war, and the arm leapt up, disgorged from its body, and Bentley fell back a little, bag in hand.

"F------ Hajji," he muttered, using grunt slang for Iraqis.

[...]

They found Sims lying on the kitchen floor, his blood pouring across dirty tile. An empty teapot sat on concrete stairs nearby. A heart, drawn in red with an arrow through it, adorned a cabinet.

Someone grabbed a radio: "Terminator Six is down."

"The b-------," Bentley said. "We've got a blood trail leaving the building, going into the next house."

A group of soldiers ran out the door, looking for revenge. Others gathered blankets.

They couldn't lift Sims' body, so they called in Howard, who lugged the squad's heavy machine gun but whose broad shoulders were sagging from the news.

Once Sims was laid on the floor of a Bradley outside, six soldiers and a reporter climbed in, slowly at first, trying not to step on the body. Someone outside yelled at them to cram in, if they had to step on Sims' body, do it, god damn it, do it.

Gunfire was pounding back and forth.

The hatch closed. The soldiers stared at each other. The soldiers stared at the ceiling. The soldiers stared at the hatch. The soldiers stared at anything but the mound on the floor.

Wright was sobbing and shaking. Howard had tears streaming down his cheeks.

Tom Lasseter | The battle of Fallujah Parts 1 and 2

"And I couldn't help but think, through the thunder rolling and stink, | That I was just a puppet in a play. | And through the roar and smoke, this string is finally broke, | And a cannon ball blew my eyes away."


Distractions...?

The US media prattles about the difficulties encountered by the US marines. It never calls them bullies who occupy another people's country, subduing patriots with superior technology to kill civilians and destroy their homes and mosques. On November 15, an embedded NBC cameraman filmed a US soldier murdering a wounded Iraqi prisoner in cold blood. As CNN showed the tape, its reporter offered "extenuating circumstances" for the assassination we had witnessed. The wounded man might have booby-trapped himself as other "insurgents" had done. After all, these marines had gone through hell in the last week.

The reporting smacks of older imperial wars, Andrew Greely reminded us in the November 12, Chicago Sun Times. "The United States has fought unjust wars before — Mexican American, the Indian Wars, Spanish American, the Filipino Insurrection, Vietnam. Our hands are not clean. They are covered with blood, and there'll be more blood this time." Falluja should serve as the symbol of this war of atrocity against the Iraqi people, our Guernica. But, as comedian Chris Rock insightfully points out, George W. Bush has distracted us. That's why he killed Laci Peterson, why he snuck that young boy into Michael Jackson's bedroom and the young woman into Kobe Bryant's hotel room. He wants us not to think of the war in Iraq. We need a new Picasso mural, "Falluja," to help citizens focus on the themes of our time, not the travails of the Peterson case.

Saul Landau | Fallujah, the 21st Century Guernica

As he turned away to walk, his Ma was still in shock | At seein' the metal brace that helped him stand. | But as he turned to go, he called his mother close | And he dropped his medals down into her hand.

Bob Dylan | John Brown

No Direction Home

How does it feel...?

Once upon a time you dressed so fine | You threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn't you? | People'd call, say, "Beware doll, you're bound to fall" | You thought they were all kiddin' you.

Three million people had to die in south-east Asia before that arrogant American imperial misadventure ended. How many now?

In this newspaper, Allawi's deputy prime minister called Falluja a necessary exercise, to root out "Saddam loyalists and foreign fighters", parroting Donald Rumsfeld's pathetic line that all the "terrorists" come from across the border, or are "dead-enders" from Ba'athist days. But the only deadly dead-ender is someone who could mendaciously argue thus.

All Iraqis watch as their homes and mosques are desecrated by soldiers who shoot injured men in the stomach in pre-emptive lunacy that mirrors that of their leader. They and a billion Muslims watched as Americans forbade families from burying their dead, and allowed stray dogs to gnaw the corpses of pregnant women and toddlers on the mean streets of what was once Falluja, during Id al-Fitr, Islam's Holy Feast. No one is taken in by the lies and arrogance and greed of this racist war.

Rana Kabbani | No one is taken in by the US lies

The Iraqi Red Crescent Society has called the health conditions in and around Falluja "catastrophic." One hospital staff member who recently left the city reports that there were severe outbreaks of diarrheal infections among the population, with children and the elderly dying from infectious disease, starvation and dehydration in greater numbers each day. Dr. al-Jumaili, Dr. al-Ani and journalist Badrani each stated that the wounded and children are dying because of lack of medical attention and water. In one case, according to Dr. al-Jumaili, three children died of dehydration when their father was unable to find water for them. The US forces cut off the city's water supply before launching their assault.

"The people are dying because they are injured, have nothing to eat or drink, almost no healthcare," said Dr. al-Ani. "The small rations of food and water handed out by the US soldiers cannot provide for the population." For the thousands living in makeshift camps outside the city, according to Firdus al-Ubadi of the Red Crescent Society, hygiene and health conditions are as precarious as in Falluja. There are no oral rehydration solutions or salts for those who are dehydrated, she says.

Miles Schuman | Falluja's Health Damage


To be on your own...?

You used to laugh about | Everybody that was hangin' out | Now you don't talk so loud | Now you don't seem so proud | About having to be scrounging for your next meal.

"These people will change their minds about the liberators when they, too, have had a family member killed by them."

"The American warplanes came continuously through the night and bombed everywhere in Fallujah! It did not stop even for a moment! If the American forces did not find a target to bomb, they used sound bombs just to terrorize the people and children. The city stayed in fear; I cannot give a picture of how panicked everyone was."

He is shaking with grief and anger. "In the mornings I found Fallujah empty, as if nobody lives in it. Even poisonous gases have been used in Fallujah—they used everything—tanks, artillery, infantry, poison gas. Fallujah has been bombed to the ground. Nothing is left."

Several men standing with us, other refugees, nod in agreement while looking at the setting sun, the direction of Fallujah.

Abu Hammad continues, "Most of the innocent people there stayed in mosques to be closer to God for safety. Even the wounded people were killed. Old ladies with white flags were killed by the Americans! The Americans announced for people to come to a certain mosque if they wanted to leave Fallujah, and even the people who went there carrying white flags were killed!"

One of the men standing with us, a large man named Mohammad Ali is crying; his large body shuddering with each bit of new information revealed by Abu Hammad.

"There was no food, no electricity, no water," continues Abu Hammad, "We couldn’t even light a candle because the Americans would see it and kill us."

Dahr Jamail | Fallujah Refugees

The key factor to remember here is that the United States is not in Iraq to ensure a transition to peace and stability prior to a complete withdrawal; it is there because of Iraq’s immense geopolitical (including oil-related) importance to US security. The United States, as earlier columns in this series have argued, has always intended to build a number of permanent military bases, quite apart from its much larger numbers of occupation forces. This has not changed.

In this light, a reasonably clear plan of action may emerge from current US difficulties – one that represents a significant tactical shift. If even partial elections are held in January, US troops will quickly reduce high-profile counterinsurgency operations and withdraw from Iraq in numbers. The remainder — still likely to be tens of thousands of troops — will be located at a few large, well-protected bases far from major urban centres but conveniently close to current oilfields and areas of future exploration. The cities will be virtually abandoned in the hope that the diminished US presence will undercut the motivation of, and support for, the insurgents.

This would be far from the original proselytising expectations of the United States in Iraq, yet would do nothing to check the view across the region that the US is determined to implant itself in the heart of the Arab world for the long term. The presence of US bases would continue to serve the interests of radical Islamists and insurgency campaigns.

Paul Rogers | No direction home

How does it feel | How does it feel | To be without a home | Like a complete unknown | Like a rolling stone?

Bob Dylan | Like a Rolling Stone

Note: For an early-November view of the Fallujah onslaught through the eyes of Lt. Col. Gary "He's called Satan" Brandl's 1/8 Marines, watch the BBC's Inside Falluja: Paul Wood's account of the assault (best with RealPlayer). Alternatively, read Hunting 'Satan' in Falluja hell. Read Firas Al-Atraqchi's How America Wages War in Iraq and, from Colombia's Laura Del Castillo Matamoros, an open letter to George W. Bush, Welcome to Your Colony, courtesy of Danny Dayus's World Crisis Web. And, bearing arch-neocon Robert Kaplan's words in mind (below), watch media focus swing from Iraq to Ukraine after reading Ian Traynor's US campaign behind the turmoil in Kiev and Jonathan Steele's Ukraine's postmodern coup d'etat.

So Pure, So Wrong

hip-bone militia
like death you are pretty
bondage queen to the non-existent audience
she dances
like fire
walk with me, slowly
cut with me
deeply
kiss with me
oh, we should be
together forever
to kill the pain
obesession of purity
pure thoughts indeed
like a whore, you sell
your thoughts to fuck
that old man
that old woman
that young girl
who begs at the corner
whore, slut, wench
but i love you for it
just never lie dead on the floor
can't stop that screaming now
make my ears bleed
lick up sweet blood
so wrong
so wrong
so painfully right

Cathryn

Ash-Dead Kisses

girls behind mirrors
casting oh-so-perfect reflections
of perfection so perfect
there could be no other...
no other way of what?
no other way of harming myself with malicious thoughts
so dirty
face-cloth drama queen
with prettiness aside
left for her dessert of
pills, bullets and carving knives
that can carve away the disease
i hope it goes away
into crystal savage rooms
placed so purely next to me
opposite doors facing me
in my mind
red slippers
so beautiful
non-sensical
i hope i die
razor-blade break alongs
that flow beside the glass texture
of loving the white stuff
imprinted on your nose
that one last sniff
that makes it all
better
passed out on the floor
another girl lost in her fluids
of reds, blues and rainbows
detailed in the lines of her own dear selfish suicide

Cathryn

Face-cloth drama queens, crystal savage rooms, girls behind mirrors and the hip-bone militia... She writes this—and others—off the cuff now and goes to high school next year. Surely, after thousands of years, we can offer thirteen-year olds more than death by numbers?

Mind you, after reading the news...

Setting Justice to Rights

In an alarming shift, the reduced, fragile discourse of "human rights" is replacing the magnificent concept of justice. The difference is that notions of equality have been pried loose and eased out of the equation. It's a process of attrition. Almost unconsciously, we begin to think of justice for the rich and powerful, and human rights for the poor. Justice for the corporate world, human rights for its victims. Justice for the Indian upper castes, human rights for Dalits and Adivasis (if that). Justice for white Australians, human rights for Aboriginals and immigrants.

It is becoming clearer that violating human rights is an inherent and necessary part of implementing a coercive and unjust political and economic structure on the world. Without wholesale violation of human rights, the neo-liberal project would remain in the dreamy realm of policy. But increasingly human rights violations are being portrayed as the unfortunate, almost accidental, fallout of an otherwise acceptable political and economic system. This is why in areas of heightened conflict - in Kashmir and in Iraq for example - human rights professionals are regarded with suspicion.

[...]

It's easy to blame the poor for being poor. It's easy to believe that the world is being caught up in an escalating spiral of terrorism and war. That's what allows the American President to say "You're either with us or with the terrorists". But we know that that is a spurious choice.

It is mendacious to make moral distinction between the unspeakable brutality of terrorism and the indiscriminate carnage of war and occupation. Both kinds of violence are unacceptable. We cannot support one and condemn the other. The real tragedy is that most people in the world are trapped between the horror of a putative peace and the terror of war. Those are the two sheer cliffs we're hemmed in by. The question is: How do we climb out of this crevasse?

For those who are materially well-off, but morally uncomfortable, the first question you must ask yourself is do you really want to climb out of it? How far are you prepared to go? Has the crevasse become too comfortable?

If you really want to climb out, there's good news and bad news...

Arundhati Roy — November 3, 2004 | Peace and the new corporate liberation theology

Why does it seem to take someone with literary gifts to see what journalism misses?

Tom Matrullo | Let us prey

Note: Reread The algebra of infinite justice (The Guardian September 29, 2001).

Since my return from Iraq, I have continued to watch the horror unfold on television. It's different seeing the violence decontextualized from the battlefield, now playing out in discrete video clips that run between ads for Chevys and the Olive Garden. Videos of militants staging beheadings against dungeon-like backdrops, with the perpetrators wearing masks and the victims in colorful jumpsuits, seem almost like grotesque TV shows.

One of the great ironies of the Bush administration, obsessed as it is with Christian values and the attendant crusade to punish what it deems obscene and lewd in the media (from Janet Jackson's breast to Howard Stern's speech), is that it has given us a war in which the airing of snuff films on national TV has become routine. The conflict in Iraq, as seen through news coverage, has begun to resemble the macabre underground 1980s video series Faces of Death. Throw in the images produced by the U.S. Army at Abu Ghraib, and the administration has put itself in the running to successfully compete with the BDSM side of the porn industry.

Evan Wright | Dead-Check in Falluja [via InformationClearingHouse]

But this week, in defending embattled NBC television reporter Kevin Sites — the man behind the now-famous video from Fallujah showing a U.S. Marine shooting an injured insurgent — abuse is coming Mortenson's way in waves. "Yeah," he told me, "I’m getting my butt kicked around here a bit. I try not to take it personally."

Sites, still in Iraq with the Marines, is getting it even worse, from conservative commentators here at home to the troops (his former buddies) over there. "Sites wrote me first thing this morning," Mortenson informed me. "He seemed pretty down."

Darrin Mortenson | Shoot the Messenger [via InformationClearingHouse]

The importance of public opinion was stated quite frankly by Robert Kaplan, a leading neo-conservative, in the Atlantic Monthly last year. The most important battleground of America's new "combination warfare," he wrote, is the media:

"Indeed the best information strategy is to avoid attention-getting confrontations in the first place and to keep the public's attention as divided as possible. We can dominate the world only quietly, so to speak. The moment the public focuses on a single crisis like the one in Iraq… it becomes a rallying point around which lonely and alienated people in a global mass society can define themselves through an uplifting group identity, be it European, Muslim, anti-war intellectual, or whatever."

Therefore, public opinion — if strategically focused — can end this war. To understand this requires a different analysis than the usual one that assumes that there will be an "exit strategy" after Iraq is "stabilized." The war will end either when the U.S. military "wins" or it will not end at all.

Tom Hayden | How to End the Iraq War

Kevin Sites Comes Under Fire for Fallujah Killings

"Cover my back."

"These were the same wounded from yesterday," I say to the lieutenant. He takes a look around and goes outside the mosque with his radio operator to call in the situation to Battalion Forward HQ.

I see an old man in a red kaffiyeh lying against the back wall. Another is face down next to him, his hand on the old man's lap — as if he were trying to take cover. I squat beside them, inches away and begin to videotape them. Then I notice that the blood coming from the old man's nose is bubbling. A sign he is still breathing. So is the man next to him.

While I continue to tape, a Marine walks up to the other two bodies about fifteen feet away, but also lying against the same back wall.

Then I hear him say this about one of the men:

"He's fucking faking he's dead — he's faking he's fucking dead."

Through my viewfinder I can see him raise the muzzle of his rifle in the direction of the wounded Iraqi. There are no sudden movements, no reaching or lunging.

However, the Marine could legitimately believe the man poses some kind of danger. Maybe he's going to cover him while another Marine searches for weapons.

Instead, he pulls the trigger. There is a small splatter against the back wall and the man's leg slumps down.

"Well he's dead now," says another Marine in the background.

I am still rolling. I feel the deep pit of my stomach. The Marine then abruptly turns away and strides away, right past the fifth wounded insurgent lying next to a column. He is very much alive and peering from his blanket. He is moving, even trying to talk. But for some reason, it seems he did not pose the same apparent "danger" as the other man — though he may have been more capable of hiding a weapon or explosive beneath his blanket....

Kevin Sites | Open Letter to Devil Dogs of the 3.1

I hope Kevin Sites is watching his back. Blogs that have appeared on the internet since the freelance cameraman filmed a US Marine shooting and killing a wounded and prostrate Iraqi in Falluja do not make comfortable reading.

While Sites has many supporters, it is his detractors who are most chillingly eye-catching, suggesting they would like to do to him what the Marine he filmed did to the injured Iraqi. 'The Marines should have shot that goat-tee [sic] m***** f***** Kevin Sites,' said one message posted last week, while a second ventured: 'Kevin Sites should have a bullet in his f****** face.'

Suddenly, the freelance cameraman, veteran of Kosovo, Afghanistan and now Iraq, has found himself in the middle of a controversy that he did not invite and could not avoid - facing a petition of 24,000 names supporting the Marine who pulled the trigger and damning Sites to boot.

Peter Beaumont in The Observer | Why embedded journalists are being taken for a ride

These terrorists do not follow the rules of war. These terrorists kill innocent women by disemboweling them, cut of the heads of innocent truck drivers, detonate car bombs in crowds full of innocent people, and fly planes into buildings filled with innocent Americans.

It is my opinion that NOTHING should happen to this American Marine. He should be returned to his unit or be given an honorable discharge. We don't need our young men and women taking an extra second to decide if its right to shoot an enemy terrorist when that could mean that one of our soldiers could lose their life. The lives of our soldiers should be the single most important factor in this war against terrorism. The rights of terrorists can come second.

Petition to U.S. Congress

The above online petition (and its duplicate—yeah, you can sign both) in 'support' of the Marine withdrawn from active duty pending investigation into the death of one of four defenseless Iraqi fighters shot dead in Fallujah [.ram], has 155,000 signatories to date. And uncorroborated reports such as this, Insurgents (sic) Faking Dead Fires on Marines, filed today from the Headquarters United States Central Command (CentCom) and replicated by ABC News Online, suggest the likely outcome of the military investigating one of its own.

On the upside, tens of millions of readers support responsible journalism. It allows us to know what is going on about us. It allows our societies to continue functioning. As the NBC cameraman's blog entry shows and Peter Beaumont's article points out, Kevin Sites is a responsible, courageous journalist.

Note: Michael Schwartz plots the unravelling of the American 'conquest' of Fallujah, Xinhuanet reports resistance fighters holding 60 percent of the city, Abbas Ahmed Ibrahim offers a view from within (as does Xinhuanet's Abdul Rahman), and Dahr Jamail details further indiscriminate slaughter by U.S. troops in Ramadi.

Related (added 11.23.2004)

The videotaped shooting of a Fallujah combatant by a U-S Marine has evoked strong emotions in the Arab world and on Capitol Hill.

Texas Democrat Sylvestre Reyes ... says it's time to rethink the presence of embedded reporters in combat zones. During a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee, Reyes compared it to a football game, saying "we don't want to know everything that's going on on the field." Reyes says this is not censorship. In his words, "We should not be providing the Al-Jazeera the kind of propaganda they've had the last couple of three days."

Associated Press | Fallujah Video has congressman calling for reporter ban

The Blogging of the President

The Blogging of the President

While chastising him for the length of his posts, South African investigative magazine noseweek (paid subscription required to access articles) gives President Thabo Mbeki's weekly blog an extremely favourable review. And so it should. Amid the noise surrounding reports that U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's allegations of Iran's nuclear proliferation program rest on 'intelligence' from walk-in sources—much like his Iraqi WMD stories, the unassuming South African leader this week blogs the quiet voice of reason.

Though diplomatic, Mbeki is incisively blunt and, in titling his entry Give Peace a Chance, calls the United States on its attempts to engineer war with Tehran. With Iran agreeing, subject to December 2004 negotiations, to work with several EU countries in adhering to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), U.S. propaganda has been ramped up (why does one find this agreement only on French diplomatic or Arabic sites?). Powell, whose shoes will soon be filled by fork-tongued Condi Rice and, God forbid, John Bolton, is currently doing duty as neocon propagandist in chief.

Mbeki, seeking observation of protections guaranteed Iran in terms of the NPT (including the peaceful use of nuclear power), notes: "We have been very concerned that the dispute relating to Iran should be solved without confrontation. Apart from anything else, we were and are convinced that such a confrontation would further undermine global peace and the possibility of reducing global tension, against the interests of all countries and peoples."

Reminding readers of South Africa's membership of the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) board, the blogging president recalls our country's experience of U.S. nuclear doublespeak.

Before our liberation in 1994, the US Government engaged our movement in discussions aimed at persuading us to discontinue the programme for the production of the missiles the apartheid regime had intended to use for the delivery of the WMDs. We agreed to this and kept our side of the bargain. The US Government had undertaken to provide the new democratic government in our country with the resources we would need to ensure the redeployment to other high-tech projects of the scientists, engineers and technicians who had been involved in the missile development programme. Sadly and regrettably, the US Government never gave us a single cent of the money it had promised, which necessarily impacted negatively on the development of science and technology in our country.

That was ten years ago. Several years later, South Africa sent its nuclear disarmament team to Iraq to assist the Iraqis and the IAEA assess and monitor compliance. The team found Iraq willing to work "unreservedly" with UN weapons inspectors and advised the IAEA accordingly.

Unfortunately this advice was ignored. Had it been respected, it would not have required a war to establish that there were no WMDs in Iraq.

When it comes to the Bush administration, the South African president's certainly a damned side more diplomatic than Madiba. He is, however, intellectually more astute and cutting. In short, he knows how to twist the blade. Pointing to Israel's aggressive refusal (going back to the 1981 bombing of the Osirak nuclear reactor) to accede to Iran's South African-backed request to render the Middle East a nuke-free zone by way of implementing a two-state solution in Palestine, he highlights the irony of the U.S. permitting South Africa, under the apartheid regime, to ship up to 1,000 metric tons of yellow cake to Iran under CIA frontman and lickspittle, Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. He goes further, hammering the Western media now trumpeting Powell's allegations.

Scepticism about Iran's commitment not to produce nuclear weapons was stated as recently as Thursday, 18 November. An editorial in the 'International Herald Tribune' said: "Nobody knows whether Iran is really ready to give up its ambitions to have nuclear weapons. For now, there is no real assurance that Iran is not secretly moving ahead with enrichment experiments at a still secret location."

It is precisely this kind of speculation, driven by one strategic goal or another, whether stated or not, that led to the 2003 Iraq war.

'Nuff said. The South African president, roundly condemned in the mainstream press for spending either too much time abroad or too much time on the Internet, is a peculiar man. Unlike most leaders, but much like his predecessor, he is both a team player and a person who thinks for himself. With so-called progressives in America dead in the water, the Bush cabal is free to do as it pleases. And with Israel being supplied U.S. bunker busters in December, the neocons have their sites set on Iran. Let it not be said, when the United States overreaches itself in that country, that South Africa remained silent.

Note: For a good backgrounder on U.S. aggression towards Iran, read the first instalment in a two-part series by Flogging the Simian.

That Iraq is only stage one in a much larger global strategy has repeatedly been made clear by neocons and foreign policy hawks inside and outside the administration. In February [2003], Undersecretary of State John Bolton told Israeli officials that the administration would "deal with" Iran, Syria, and North Korea just as soon as Iraq was defeated.

Michael Flynn | The right flexes muscle with new U.S. agenda

Related

• Tom Barry | Is Iran Next?
  
• Guardian | Pentagon turns heat up on Iran
  
• New York Times | A 'Good-Cop, Bad-Cop' Approach on Iran
  
• PNAC | Regime Change in Iran
  
• American Enterprise Institute | The Mullahs' Manhattan Project
  
• Jerusalem Post | IDF: Iran has secret nuclear program
  
• Artuz Sheva | Iran and Korea the "Axis of Evil"
  
• The Daily Star | The paradox of anti-Americanism in Iran
  
• Tom Barry | Coalition for Democracy in Iran
  
• GlobalSecurity.Org | Iran's Nuclear Program
  
• Washington Post | U.N. Finds No Nuclear Bomb Program in Iran
  
• The Observer | Why America has got it so wrong on Iran

"This is a very serious matter, the world knows it's a serious matter, and we're working together to solve this matter."

George W. Bush | Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (Apec) summit

Screw Lagos...

Dispatches from the Green Zone

-----Original Message-----

From: Nobody [mailto:nobody @ server343 dot server-center dot net] On Behalf Of Awad
Sent: Friday, 19 November, 2004 19:23 PM
Subject: Re-Construction.

Dear Sir,
My name is Engr. Abdel Nasser Awad, I am a member of the Iraqi Interim National Government. I have information and the capacity, to influence the re-award of reconstruction contracts. I am acting on behalf of, and with the mandate of three senior officials. We will require you to represent our interests and present your company for the award of a reconstruction contract and subsequent payment. If you have the required interest and capability, please write me back, and you will receive the necessary details.

I await your response.

Regards,
Engr. Abdel Awad.

---

...I'm off to Baghdad. This looks genuine.

Trading Places

"Where have you gone, Saddam Rumsfeld?"

"The enemy has a face. It is Satan's. He is in Fallujah, and we are going to destroy him."

Colonel Gary Brandl, U.S. Marines

A Confession

Once in a while,
I'm standing here, doing something.
And I think,
"What in the world am I doing here?"
It's a big surprise.

From: The Poetry of D.H. Rumsfeld Slate Press, 2003. Editor: Hart Seely

"The people who are doing the beheadings are extremists ... the people slaughtering Iraqis — torturing in prisons and shooting wounded prisoners — are 'American heroes'. Congratulations, you must be so proud of yourselves today."

River | American Heroes

Note: Read Pepe Escobar's Counterinsurgency Run Amok.

Filler Thoughts

Former Republican House Leader and Strom Thurmond groupie Senator Trent Lott appears to the be only person with an opinion on U.S. Secretary of Defense, Donald H. Rumsfeld. And opinions matter in a Cabinet reshuffle. Bloggered once, Lott sought to preempt another beating by so-called progressives seeking Rumsfeld's head for his role in bringing the United States to its knees.

To find further mention of Rumsfeld, a one-time media celebrity forced in front of everybody's face (how I long for a return to those days of innocence), I was forced to go to Google. Even then, I didn't come up with much. He appears to be yesterday's man. Hell, even Jacques Chirac—pointing out that the Iraqi invasion made terrorism—hoots with laughter when reminded of the feisty little septuagenarian with the Kevorkian brain. Chirac calls Rumsfeld "...that nice guy, I've forgotten his name, who talked about Old Europe."

Lott, adopting a different stance to that of the French President and fighting the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) program's impact on Mississippi, said:

"We've added four additional seats on the Republican side. Most of them are southerners. I think that's good, so I'll keep working on it." ... "And that's one reason why I wish Secretary Don Rumsfeld would retire and go back to the private sector. I think he's a problem when it comes to BRAC. He's tired and he needs a little rest."

Okay, his heart's in the wrong place, but at least Lott wants Rumsfeld, the man directly responsible for Abu Ghraib, Fallujah, countless war crimes and other atrocities, out. With news of Ashcroft and Powell exiting in shame and disgrace, I'd hoped to see Rumsfeld hounded off the Hill like a leper. No such luck. The man responsible for the Afghan and Iraqi invasions and occupations understands that, to be invisible in the United States, all you need do is stay away from the press. Besides, there are too few 'progressives' in the United States to mount anything like an uproar. And if there were muted whispers, they went unheard.

If you seek promotion from the U.S. political elite, all you need do is lie low or court it—like Condi Rice. And, if need be, kiss the monkey. These people are, if anything, consummate professionals. They play Mrs. Robinson to the American public's Benjamin Braddock.

As George W. Bush's primary attack dog, Rumsfeld announced his duplicitous, treacherous and illegal campaign against the Iraqis in a series of notes jotted on September 11, 2001. As far as war criminals go, Donald Rumsfeld is right up there with George W. Bush. He is a mean and evil little man and his heart is full of hate. He could do with a break at the Carlyle Group where, with former college friend Frank Carlucci, he is well liked and seen as an asset.

With the departure of Powell and Ashcroft and allegations of war crimes mounting against Rumsfeld's charges, you'd think Bush would do something to satisfy his detractors. But Bush is, if dumb, honest. Oh yes he is. He will conquer the world and he will do it with Rumsfeld at his side. Rumsfeld is in favor and, while the Man in the Long Black Coat gathers in a rich harvest from the killing fields of Iraq, he will lie low.

Guys like Lott generally don't have a clue. It takes neocons in the know to spew appropriate-but-harmless invective. As American troops bogged down in Iraq and it became apparent even to dullards that they were in for a hiding akin to that meted the Yanks in Vietnam, the likes of Robert Kagan ran "John F. Kerry" articles castigating Rumsfeld for not sending sufficient personnel to kill Arabs.

Rumsfeld appeared chagrined. There's nothing as humiliating as being whipped for lacking the viciousness of the Rottweiler you pretend to be. But Kagan and his ilk were sowing disinformation and we know it. Similar crap, bolstered by rights' activists causes, is running today in South Carolina's The State:

"This is a reflection of Secretary Rumsfeld’s philosophy that America can showcase a military where fewer people do more fighting — a view he stuck to even when warned by career military officers that more people on the ground would be necessary.

That failing should have been enough to warrant a new team at Defense. But the total mismanagement of prisoner abuses — from lax supervision to mishandling the public revelation of Abu Ghraib — should have cost Mr. Rumsfeld his post already."

Uh-huh. The rednecks are doing your job for you. Even the Brits are having a go. Australia's ABC Online tells us:

"Britain has frequently expressed concern to Washington at the highest level about US troops allegedly mistreating victims in Iraq, most recently in October, a British official has told the UN's anti-torture panel."

Yeah. Read it and weep. You should be ashamed of yourselves. Never mind. It doesn't really matter. Rumsfeld knows what he is doing and, with the backing of the American people, will shortly reappear to condemn Iran and, later, North Korea to suffer the mighty slings and arrows of the world's greatest arsenal of WMD.

But to do so, and with no sign of spine on the left, he'll have to go through Trent Lott first. He will do so with ease. Like his former friend and nemesis—with whom he met and who matched Fallujah with the U.S. sanctioned Halabja [note the date of the press release], Saddam Hussein (and bloggers everywhere), Donald H. Rumsfeld is resting.

Trent Lott and millions of others just don't get it.

What Price Innocence...?

Who killed Margaret Hassan?

After the grief, the astonishment, heartbreak, anger and fury over the apparent murder of such a good and saintly woman, that is the question her friends - and, quite possibly, the Iraqi insurgents - will be asking.

This Anglo-Irish woman held an Iraqi passport. She had lived in Iraq for 30 years, she had dedicated her life to the welfare of Iraqis in need. She hated the United Nations sanctions and opposed the Anglo-American invasion.

So who killed Margaret Hassan?

Of course, those of us who knew her will reflect on the appalling implications of the videotape (sent to Al Jazeera on Tuesday and apparently showing her execution). Her husband believes it is evidence of her death.

If Margaret Hassan can be kidnapped and murdered, how much further can we fall into the Iraqi pit? There are no barriers, no frontiers of immorality left. What price is innocence now worth in the anarchy that we have brought to Iraq? The answer is simple: nothing.

Robert Fisk | What price innocence in the anarchy of Iraq?
Kim Sengupta | Husband's hopes dashed by video of killing
Jason Burke | Obituary: Margaret Hassan
Kirsten Zaat | 'A beacon of hope to humanity'

And This Will Be Called Victory

Nothing in Iraq has so illumined the folly of this occupation as the now completed suppression of Fallujah. When Napoleon entered Moscow in 1812 after the Battle of Borodino, he was mystified. He too found a city emptied of people. He found buildings aflame on all sides. There was no enemy to admit defeat and no one to supply his troops. The Muscovites had simply melted away, taking their food and their pride with them. Napoleon had conquered not an empire but a desert, and that desert eventually consumed his army and forced its retreat.

[...]

No statement about Iraq is more absurd than that “we must stay to finish the job”. What job? A dozen more Fallujahs? The thesis that leaving Iraq would plunge it into anarchy and warlordism defies the facts on the ground. Iraq south of Kurdistan is in a state of anarchy already, a land of suicide bombings, kidnapping, hijackings and gangland mayhem. There is no law or order, no public administration or police or proper banking. Its streets are Wild West. The occupying force is entombed in bases it can barely defend or supply. Occasional patrols are target practice for terrorists. Iraq is a desert in which the Americans and British rule nothing but their forts, like the French Foreign Legion in the Sahara.

Simon Jenkins | A wrecked nation, a desert, a ghost town. And this will be called victory

Speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of U.S. military reprisal, a high-ranking official with the Red Cross in Baghdad told IPS that ”at least 800 civilians” have been killed in Fallujah so far. His estimate is based on reports from Red Crescent aid workers stationed around the embattled city, from residents within the city and from refugees, he said.

[Note: This is an horrific article detailing the 'total war' mentality informing the cold-blooded extermination of Fallujah's people. Link via Bruce.]

Dahr Jamail | 800 Civilians Feared Dead in Fallujah

Terror Strikes

Great White breaching... Photo: Chris Fallows

A wreath of flowers lay on a bench on Jagger's Walk early today, the bench where Tyna Webb always left her towelling robe before plunging into the sea for her regular early morning swim.

But yesterday's swim was her last.

Shortly before 7am an exceptionally large shark, believed to be a 6m Great White, seized the elderly resident of Sunny Cove, Fish Hoek, in its jaws.

Cape Argus | Fish Hoek Mourns After Horror Attack

"The attack happened at 7am yesterday about 150 metres from the shore. After the attack a small crowd, several eyewitnesses among them who said the shark was about six metres long, gazed out to sea in shock.

Many in the crowd knew Webb and several had swum with her in the mornings.

Said fellow swimmer Carla Reiman: "I had just arrived on the beach and saw the trek fishermen waving a flag and shouting from the watchpoint on the mountain. From the beach, I saw the fin, then the whole shark, coming out of the water. It thrashed around. Everybody was screaming and shouting."

Cape Times | Shark Victim's Final Seconds

They say there is a Great White for every wave in False Bay. As horrific as Tyna Webb's death might have been, and as much as we sympathise with her family and friends, these sharks seldom attack people and need our protection. Follow the White Shark Trust to Seal Island or visit the Florida Museum of Natural History's Ichthyology Section for more information on these remarkable creatures.

License to Kill

"...did not appear to be armed or threatening." Click here for video

Now, they take him and they teach him and they groom him for life | And they set him on a path where he's bound to get ill, | Then they bury him with stars, | Sell his body like they do used cars

David Weinberger pointed to Kevin Sites's blog a few days ago. Embedded with the 3rd Battalion of the 1st Marine Regiment in Fallujah, Sites is a "...freelance solo journalist currently on assignment for NBC News..." His second-to-last entry, Street By Street, reflects both his easy camaraderie with the soldiers with whom he travels and his impartiality when reporting their inexperience in responding to attack. It's a great piece of journalism, stuck on a blog.

Working for NBC News as a cameraman, Sites's filming Saturday of the deliberate shooting of five unarmed and wounded Iraqi prisoners in a Fallujah mosque by U.S. Marines offers a convincing argument for networks to send seasoned freelancers rather than organizational drones into war zones. MSNBC, after using every textual artifice and device at its disposal to excuse the shootings—including a subhead reading "Military investigating shooting of wounded man", warns readers of 'graphic language' before reporting Sites's experience:

Sites saw the five wounded men left behind on Friday still in the mosque. Four of them had been shot again, apparently by members of the squad that entered the mosque moments earlier. One appeared to be dead, and the three others were severely wounded. The fifth man was lying under a blanket, apparently not having been shot a second time.

One of the Marines noticed that one of the severely wounded men was still breathing. He did not appear to be armed, Sites said.

The Marine could be heard insisting: “He’s f---ing faking he’s dead — he’s faking he’s f---ing dead.” Sites then watched as the Marine raised his rifle and fired into the man’s head from point-blank range.

“Well, he’s dead now,” another Marine said.

When told that the man he shot was a wounded prisoner, the Marine, who himself had been shot in the face the day before but had already returned to duty, told Sites: “I didn’t know, sir. I didn’t know.”

'Nuff said. It'll be interesting to see how long Sites remains embedded with the Marines. But does it matter? He is an experienced freelancer who, knowing the risks he runs each time he files a story, delivers on his promise to his employer. He'll certainly not go without work. The Sydney Morning Herald, which appears to believe those at war should be permitted to see those who kill in their name, tells us:

At the point when the gunshots were fired, NBC and other networks blacked out the footage.

"The Marine then raises his rifle and fires into the man's head. The pictures are too graphic for us to broadcast," Sites said.

The Associated Press said the blacked out portion of the video tape showed the bullet striking the man. His blood splatters on the wall behind him and his body goes limp. Sites said the shot prisoner "did not appear to be armed or threatening in any way".

Mmm... war is ugly, but murder is murder [something at which the U.S. armed services seem to excel—see video clips here, here and here]. One of the soldiers involved in the shootings, the marine caught on camera, has been removed from active duty and investigations are, as they say, continuing. With the media giving wide coverage to Ayad Allawi's assurances that no civilians were killed during the obliteration of Fallujah, blogs like Kevin Sites's are well worth reading.

Now, there's a woman on my block, | She just sit there facin' the hill. | She say who gonna take away his license to kill?

Bob Dylan | License to Kill

Addendum

The room was silent at the end of the scene, with only the voice of the news anchor and the sobs of my aunt. My little cousin flinched and dropped her spoon, face frozen with shock, eyes wide with disbelief, glued to the television screen, "Is he dead? Did they kill him?" I swallowed hard, trying to gulp away the lump lodged in my throat and watched as my cousin buried his face in his hands, ashamed to look at his daughter.

River | American Heroes

"The hypocrisy of Americans complaining about what is going on in Sudan while American troops are doing much worse in Iraq is amazing."

xymphora

xymphora's right, you know. Only the American right appear interested in what's going down in Irak. Irack? Iraq. Ah, yes, that's it. Near Egypt. Nobody else, given the supposed power of the blogs, appears to give a damn.

I think most people are in denial. About almost everything. Either that or they're cool about millions of dead A-rabs. And that's where I think it's at. Tom Engelhardt punted measuring the empire factor in this year's rigged U.S. presidential election. I'd add the racism factor and conclude Americans dig having George W. Bush as their president.

Whether they praise him or piss on him, they don't really have to do anything about him. For many of those who don't like the genocidal little maniac, it's a case of embarrassment meaning never having to say you're responsible.

Yeah. He makes it all so easy. Good ol' George.

"What was I supposed to tell them?" He asked, an hour later, after we had sent his two daughters to help their grandmother in the kitchen. "What am I supposed to tell them? 'Yes darling, they killed him. The Americans killed a wounded man; they are occupying our country, killing people and we are sitting here eating, drinking and watching TV?" He shook his head, "How much more do they have to see? What is left for them to see?"

River | American Heroes

Not a single major voice has been raised in the American media against the ongoing destruction of Fallujah. While much of the world recognizes something horrifying has occurred, the US press does not bat an eye over the systematic leveling of a city of 300,000 people.

David Walsh | US Media Applauds Destruction of Fallujah
IslamOnline | Marines Killed Four Wounded Iraqi Prisoners: US Reporter
George Paine | These Are Our Boys?

Guernica, Iraq

Guernica by Pablo Picasso [click here to enlarge]

News Report | Secretary of State Powell Quits Bush Cabinet

Yes, even here, here more than anywhere
more than before
we know and we see what happens
what you are doing
to the world we have left you

What else is there to do with our time?

Yes, I was there, Colin Powell
to see you
standing in front of my Guernica
a replica, it's true
but my vision, still
of what fell
upon men and upon women
and on children on children
more than anything on that child
in Guernica on that day in 1937
from the sky

Of course Guernica wasn't there.
They covered it, our Guernica
covered it so that you could speak.
There in the United Nations building in
New York.
So that you could speak about Iraq.

So that Guernica wouldn't bother you

Why should it it bother you
disturb you?
Why didn't you demand that they remove
the covering?
reveal
the painting?
Why didn't you point to the horse
that screamed and died
that died and died again and again
the woman with the child, forever
dead
in her arms
the child who shelters now and here
in that darkness
the child who watches with me
while you, Colin Powell
talk
and talk
and talk more

Why didn't you say, Colin Powell,
that this horror was done by that tyrant.
Why didn't you say
that this had already been done and undone in Iraq.
Why didn't you say this is what this
man wants to do with
the world.
Why didn't you want to use Guernica
to prove
what you wanted to prove?

Were you scared of the mother?
Were you scared of the image of the
mother
scared of the image that came
out of the painting
out of the howling image of
the mother
are those who you will bomb
from afar
are those who you are to kill
the child
no no no
he is the one who kills them them
from afar with the bombs
and we far from your eyes
and always close to death
we imprisoned in death
Were you scared of that
that the horse
would show the world the future
that is coming
three thousand cruise missiles in the
first hour
falling on Baghdad
ten thousand Guernicas
falling on Baghdad
from the sky
in the first hour

Were you scared of my art
that continues to accuse
more than 65 years
later
history keeps telling
my image stays dangerous
this hanging light
like the eye of someone dead
my eye that sees you, though dead

be careful, careful

careful of the eye of the child
in the darkness

you have to join with us
with the child and me
with the horse and the mother
here on the other side

you will join us then then
in a voyage that we will all make
all of us
Colin
Colin Powell

is that why you were
afraid of me?
you have to join us
and then an eternity
looking
looking
nothing more than looking
together with us
and with the distant dead
not only of Iraq
not only those dead

is that why, such fear
of that eye in the darkness?

seeing
your own eyes opened at the
force
having to see
the world you left

with nothing else to do
with our time

condemned to look again
and again
behind us

until there are no more
Guernicas
until those who live understand

and only then, Colin Powell
only then

a world without Guernicas

and then
only then, yes
yes, then, yes
you and me
we can rest
you and me
you and me and the child who died

Guernica—Pablo Picasso's words to Colin Powell, from the other side of the grave | Ariel Dorfman March 16, 2003

On April 26, 1937, the Nazi Luftwaffe dropped 100,000 pounds of bombs on the peaceful Basque village of Guernica, Spain on the urging of the Fascist Generalisimo Francisco Franco. At the end of the day, Guernica was in total ruins and 1,654 Basque civilians had been slaughtered and 889 wounded. The world in those days was horrified by the deed. Generalisimo Franco initially denied to the press that the raid ever took place. Later, when photographs of the massacre were published, the Fascist Franco blamed the destruction of Guernica and the killings on those who defended it.

Hector Carreon | Fallujah : America's Guernica

Her nephew was killed a week ago, but his body still lies on the street. "They haven’t even let us pull his body to the house." She couldn’t help crying. Death is overwhelming. An old man they originally didn’t know died in her house. They found him bleeding at the door. Taking him inside didn’t help a lot. Phones don’t work; and if they worked, there are no more doctors in Fallujah anyway, as they were all expelled by US and Iraqi forces and weren’t let back in. So the strange old man bled for three days until he died inside the house.

Sara Khorshid | Pray for Fallujah

Dahr Jamail | Occupation Diary: The Other Face of Fallujah's 'Success'

Note In the eighth part of an ongoing series, EastSouthWestNorth chronicles and archives the destruction of Fallujah and the slaughter of its people. And Associated Press reports photographer Bilal Hussein's escape from the killing zone:

Hussein moved from house to house — dodging gunfire — and reached the river. "I decided to swim ... but I changed my mind after seeing U.S. helicopters firing on and killing people who tried to cross the river." He watched horrified as a family of five was shot dead as they tried to cross. Then, he "helped bury a man by the river bank, with my own hands."

Associated Press | AP Photographer Flees Fallujah

Blowing Stuff Up

"It's a great thing blowing stuff up..."

Journalist Fadil al-Badrani said there are an estimated 120 mosques in the city. "Almost half of the city's mosques have been destroyed after being targeted by US air and tank strikes," he added.

al-Jazeera

"It's a great thing blowing stuff up," said Napoleon, who has been in Iraq for nine months. "We're getting the city free, back to democracy...."

[....]

Yes, Dotson told him. They hit the mosque. Twenty confirmed killed.

"We really get no glory," said Staff Sgt. Jason Moye, 25, of Phoenix.

Washington Post

In Fallujah's dusty streets, cats fed off the corpses.

Mail & Guardian

Collective Punishment

Fallujah, November 2004: Collective Punishment

People in Falloojeh are being murdered. The stories coming back are horrifying. People being shot in cold blood in the streets and being buried under tons of concrete and iron... where is the world? Bury Arafat and hurry up and pay attention to what's happening in Iraq.

River

There's a true story circulating through the Arab world that has dwarfed the many other horrors now taking place in Falluja. It's the tale of a nine year old boy who was wounded by shrapnel in the stomach when his house was hit by an errant bomb. Over the next ten hours his father Mohammed Abboud watched his son bleed to death in his living room because he was unable to venture out to go to the hospital. After the American bombing ceased, Abboud was forced to bury his son in his own garden.

The story of Abboud is particularly poignant because it takes one small event, one tiny part of the collective suffering, and crystallizes the entire Iraq conflict. If Americans want to understand why we will lose this war; they must understand Abboud's story. It explains why Iraqis will never accept the occupation and why anyone with even a drop of patriotic blood has already joined the resistance. The same would be true in America if the situation was reversed.

Mike Whitney | The Guernica of Iraq


Fallujah, November 2004: Regrettable Necessity

According to official Pentagon spin, "hundreds and hundreds" of "terrorists" have already been killed in Fallujah. There's no proof - and there's no way to independently confirm it. Also because of the news blackout, nobody knows how many Fallujah civilians are dead. Sat-phone calls to Baghdad by trapped Fallujah civilians tell of rows of decomposing bodies littering the streets. Firdoos al-Abadi, the lady who is the head of the Iraqi Red Crescent's emergency committee, sums it all up: "It is a disaster inside Fallujah. There is no water, no electricity, no food. They [the Americans] are forbidding doctors from helping the people." The Red Crescent sent a convoy of four trucks to the city on Thursday with some first aid kits, food, blankets and tents. But a makeshift hospital set up in a mosque is helpless because the doctors are severely under-equipped.

[ABC News Online reports: "United States troops have prevented a Red Crescent convoy of emergency aid from reaching residents inside the Iraqi city of Fallujah, after allowing it as far as the main hospital."]

Dahr Jamail, blogging from Baghdad, as well as girl blogger Riverbend confirm what Asia Times Online has already posted: the resistance now controls parts of Baghdad neighborhoods, such as al-Dora, Abu Ghraib and Amiriyah. Jamail says there's no electricity in the Aadhamiyah neighborhood - one of the key centers of the resistance, as well as in most of Baghdad. The lines outside gas stations stretch for as long as four kilometers. Water has been cut off. Many shops are closed. And significantly, "...the Green Zone continues to be bombed by mortars every day, sometimes for extended periods of time"; and "...the US base in the old Saddam palace in Aadhamiyah has been mortared every single night now for at least a week straight". Baghdadis are furious with US soldiers in Fallujah bombing mosques - at least half of the city's 120 - and using the ones still standing as lounges.

Pepe Escobar | Collective Punishment: Regrettable Necessity

Further Reading
Pepe Escobar | Satan Hides in a Hospital
Syed Saleem Shahzad | Resistance Blueprint

Iraqis will never forgive this—never. It's outrageous—it's genocide and America, with the help and support of Allawi, is responsible. May whoever contributes to this see the sorrow, terror and misery of the people suffering in Falloojeh.

River

Die Now, Vote Later

Die Now, Vote Later

On the afternoon of Sept. 11, Donald Rumsfeld, having failed to act against those who had just attacked the United States, told his aides to set in motion an attack on Iraq – when the evidence was nonexistent. Eighteen months later, the invasion of Iraq, unprovoked and based on lies now documented, took place. This epic crime is the greatest political scandal of our time, the latest chapter in the long 20th-century history of the West's conquests of other lands and their resources. If we allow it to be normalized, if we refuse to question and probe the hidden agendas and unaccountable secret power structures at the heart of "democratic" governments and if we allow the people of Fallujah to be crushed in our name, we surrender both democracy and humanity.

John Pilger

Is it any wonder that Iraqis are skeptical of the version of democracy being delivered to them by U.S. troops, or that elections have come to be seen not as tools of liberation but as weapons of war? First, Iraq’s promised elections were sacrificed in the interest of George Bush’s re-election hopes; next, the siege of Fallujah itself was crassly shackled to these same interests. The fighter planes didn’t even wait an hour after George Bush finished his acceptance speech to begin the air attack on Fallujah, with the city bombed at least six times through the next day and night. With the U.S. elections safely over, Fallujah could be destroyed in the name of its own upcoming elections.

Naomi Klein

The Iraqi government warned news organizations Thursday to distinguish between insurgents and ordinary civilians in coverage of the fighting in Fallujah and to promote the leadership's position or face unspecified action. The warning came in a statement sent to news organizations by Iraq's Media High Commission, which cited the 60-day state of emergency declared Sunday on the eve of the offensive in Fallujah.

"You must be precise and objective in handling news and information," the statement said. It stressed the necessity of differentiating between "innocent citizens of Fallujah who are not targeted by the military operations and between the terrorist groups who infiltrated the city and took its people hostage under the pretext of resistance and jihad."

It also told news organizations to tell their correspondents "to be credible and precise" and not to "add patriotic descriptions to groups of killers and criminals." Finally, the commission told news organizations to provide space to explain "the government position, expressing the ambition of most of the Iraqi people" and underscore that "these military operations did not come about until all peaceful means were attempted" to avoid violence.

It said that failure to follow the instructions will require authorities to "take all necessary measures to safeguard the supreme interest of the homeland." The statement did not provide further details.

Associated Press

Note: Thanks to Danny Dayus of World Crisis for the Naomi Klein link. Read also Normon Solomon's A Distant Mirror of Holy War.