UnFairWitness

Back, Redux

OK, I'm back again, with apologies for disappearing. I'm on a really crappy DSL connection at the moment, which I hope to have fixed soon. How do they make DSL suck, anyway? Isn't that harder than letting it just work?

Anyways, did everyone see this?

Pentagon to recall further 5,600 reservists

The Pentagon yesterday said it was recalling 5,600 reservists for active duty, underlining the strain that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are placing on the US military.

In spite of Monday's handover of sovereignty to Iraq, the US-led multinational force is expected to maintain its troop levels of more than 140,000 for the time being as Iraq moves towards elections next January.

The army plans to tap reservists from a 111,000-strong pool called the Individual Ready Reserve, which includes career soldiers who chose to finish out eight-year commitment to the military in the reserves.

Lieutenant Colonel Pamela Hart, an army spokeswoman, said the decision to recall IRR reservists was not unusual, adding that the US recalled about 20,000 soldiers from the group during the first Gulf war.

But she conceded that the war on terrorism and maintaining forces in Iraq were putting a strain on the US military. "It is a difficult time," said Lt Col Hart.

The decision comes as President George W. Bush attempts to convince an increasingly sceptical public about the merit of his decision to invade Iraq. According to the latest CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll, 54 per cent of Americans now believe he should not have sent troops to Iraq - the first time a majority of Americans have expressed disapproval of the invasion.

continued

Ridiculing neocon ignorance and general incompetence

Col. Lounsbury whacks the idiots in the CPA, ruthlessly criticizing their utter failure from the perspective of a businessman in Baghdad trying to work with them. After reading Lounsbury's scathing commentary, you'll really appreciate this delicious skewering of Ari Fleischer's brother Michael by Andrew Zajac of the Chicago Tribune. (credit to digby for spotting it.)

As long as we're discussing ignorant neocons, don't miss Juan Cole's devastating exposure of neocon idiocy:

Mr. Carney, Mr. Lehman, journalist Stephen Hayes, Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, and all the other persons who gave a moment's thought to the idea that these two are the same person, based on these names, have wasted precious moments of their lives and have helped kill over 800 US servicemen, over an elementary error deriving from complete ignorance of Arabic and Arab culture.

On the torture document dump....

Michael Froomkin and Billmon both have good posts up about yesterday's White House and Pentagon document dump. Froomkin concentrates on the order signed by Bush on Feb. 7, 2002, which contains what Froomkin refers to as the " Royalist theory of Presidential power," in point 2b: “I accept the legal conclusion of the attorney general and the Department of Justice that I have the authority under the Constitution to suspend Geneva as between the United States and Afghanistan, but I decline to exercise that authority at this time.” Also see this post on the OLC's repudiation of it's torture justification memo.

Billmon points out that none of the released documents cover the critical period during which most of the Iraqi torture occurred:

It also appears that neither the White House's nor the Pentagon's document dump extend much beyond the spring of 2003. This leaves out the critical period in the fall and winter of last year, when the Iraqi insurgency exploded into a major problem and the administration's demands for better, more actionable intelligence jumped off the chart. According to Sy Hersh, this is when the Pentagon extended "Copper Green" - the Pentagon's existing secret program for capturing and interrogating high-ranking Al Qaeda operatives - to Iraq.

Robo-Duhbya the Amazing Talking Automaton

Try reading this post without getting brain cramps. I guess if he finds a line he can do without screwing it up, he just uses it over and over and over and over and over.......

via digby

Stuck in Iraqi sewage

Billmon says this picture is the perfect metaphor:

A crowd of Iraqis gather to watch as a U.S. armored vehicle is stuck in sewage after is slipped into a ditch during a patrol in Baghdad, Iraq Monday June 21, 2004. (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed)

Executed Marines in Ramadi videotaped by insurgents?

Now, here's a really bizarre story.

(06-21-2004) - Four U.S. service members were killed Monday - shot repeatedly in the head during an ambush while they were on patrol in the Sunni Muslim stronghold of Ramadi.
[...]
The four Americans killed in Ramadi had failed to check in at an appointed time, and a search was launched, Kimmitt said, declining further comment until relatives could be notified.

Videotape delivered to Associated Press Television News showed the four, still in uniform, lying dead near what appeared to be a walled compound.

So, four Marines were on patrol and whoever jumped them took them all out, shot them repeatedly in the head, lined their bodies up in a macabre display, took a video of them and delivered it to the AP. When I first read this terse account, which is all that any news outlets are carrying so far, I thought they might have been beheaded, which would account for Kimmitt's reluctance to tell what happened. It still may turn out that they were - then again, it may never be publicly announced either way. Maybe the video will be shown or at least an acount will be written of what it shows.

Anyway, this story stinks. Where was/is the vehicle the Marines were driving? How did they manage to be so completely overwhelmed? Are four person patrols normal in Ramadi, probably the most dangerous city in Iraq for Americans next to Fallujah? Why were they not found rapidly, after they failed to check in? Why didn't they call for help at the first sign of an attack? Who made the videotape?

Too many unanswered questions surround this odd incident.

UPDATE: The AP reports a few more details:

A videotape delivered Monday to Associated Press Television News showed four Americans in uniform lying dead in what appeared to be a walled compound in Ramadi, an insurgent stronghold 60 miles west of Baghdad. One of the Americans was slumped in the corner of a wall.

The bodies had no flak vests _ mandatory for U.S. troops operating in contested areas _ and at least one was missing a boot. One fieldpack was left open next to a body as if the attackers had looted the dead before fleeing.

UPDATE: Information Clearing house has stills from the AP video. Click to enlarge this photo:

Seymour Hersh: Israel and the Kurds in Iraq

Seymour Hersh does it again:

PLAN B by SEYMOUR M. HERSH As June 30th approaches, Israel looks to the Kurds.

Israeli agents and Mossad operating in Kurdistan

Israeli agents in Kurdistan

I first saw this report on a rather unreliable Bulgarian site, but Ha'aretz is now running it, so I'll just post it as an FYI:

WASHINGTON - Israel operates hundreds of agents in the Kurdish areas in northern Iraq, according to a report published in the upcoming issue of The New Yorker magazine.
In an interview to CNN on Sunday, reporter Seymour Hersh said that hundreds of Israelis, some of them Mossad agents, are operating in the region in order to collect information on Iran's nuclear program and monitor events in Syria.

According to the report, Israel in the past has had many ties with the Kurds, which with the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime are currently being renewed.

Israel is not confident of the success of the American program for the stabilization of the country, the report says, and that is why it is interested in setting up independent connections in the region.

Israelis operating in the region are also attempting to assist Kurds living in Syria, the report says.

My only comment at this time is that things are not looking bright for the Kurds if the Americans sell them out again. With the furor over the peshmerga involvement in the siege of Fallujah and general collaboration with the Americans during the invasion and now being linked as sponsors of Israeli spies, the tensions are certainly there for a clash between Arabs and the Kurdish minority. The fact that Kurds are now violently displacing Arab Iraqis from lands and homes stolen from them during the Saddam Arabization period is just more dry tinder on the pile awaiting a spark.

UPDATE: The Guardian has an interesting perspective on this story:

Israeli military and intelligence operatives are active in Kurdish areas of Iran, Syria and Iraq, providing training for commando units and running covert operations that could further destabilise the entire region, according to a report in the New Yorker magazine.

The article was written by Seymour Hersh, the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who exposed the abuse scandal in Abu Ghraib. It is sourced primarily to unnamed former and current intelligence officials in Israel, the United States and Turkey.

Israel's aims, according to Hersh, are to build up the Kurdish military strength in order to offset the strength of the Shia militias and to create a base in Iran from which they can spy on Iran's suspected nuclear-making facilities.

"Israel has always supported the Kurds in a Machiavellian way - a balance against Saddam," one former Israeli intelligence officer told the New Yorker. "It's Realpolitik. By aligning with the Kurds Israel gains eyes and ears in Iran, Iraq and Syria. The critical question is 'What will the behaviour of Iran be if there is an independent Kurdistan with close ties to Israel? Iran does not want an Israeli land-based aircraft carrier on its border."

By supporting Kurdish separatists, Israel also risks alienating its Turkish ally and undermining attempts to create a stable Iraq. "If you end up with a divided Iraq it will bring more blood, tears and pain to the Middle East and you will be blamed," a senior Turkish official told Mr Hersh.

Read the rest.....

Bombing Iraq, again, thrills the neocons

When are the Americans going to stop acting on their bad intelligence? Just as their garbage intelligence led them to bomb a wedding party in their last foray against imaginary "foreign fighters", so have they now killed over 20 Iraqis by dropping huge bombs on a neighborhood in Fallujah.

A senior officer of the U.S.-backed Fallujah Brigade on Sunday disputed U.S. claims that an American airstrike had hit a safehouse of terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's network.

The Health Ministry said at least 16 people were killed in the attack Saturday; witnesses put the number of dead at least 20, including women and children.

Col. Mohammed Awad said members of the Fallujah Brigade had investigated the site and "affirmed to us that the inhabitants of the houses were ordinary families including women, children and elders."

"There was no sign that foreigners have lived in the house," Awad said.

Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, coalition deputy operations chief, told reporters Saturday that multiple intelligence sources reported that the house was used by the al-Zarqawi network, which U.S. officials believe operates in Fallujah.

Even if they were able to take out "Zarqawi" in the midst of this carnage, what gives them the right to slaughter indiscriminately all these people? Every one of these dead Iraqis had a name, a family, people who loved them. How many new resistance fighters were created in this stupid strike? It isn't just Fallujans who will now take up arms, either, it will be Iraqis from across the country who are outraged and furious over this indiscriminate slaughter.

Apart from the immoral aspect of the indiscriminate killing of Iraqis, another reason that this bombing is hideously stupid is that it once again fortifies the perception that the American occupation of Iraq parallels the hated Israeli occupation of Palestine. This is an excellent reason to avoid any IDF-like tactics in Iraq, though there is little hope that the heavily Likudnik-influenced Bush administration neocons running the show in Iraq will ever realize or be honest enough to admit that their aping of Israeli tactics has been a major factor in inspiring and sustaining the Iraqi rebellion.

I suppose at least viciously racist neocon ideologues like Bill O'Reilly are happy, along with the bloodthirsty hard-core Republican Bushbots like these. It is quite clear that the reason the American neocon occupation of Iraq resembles the Israeli occupation is because the people running them see themselves as engaged in the same battle against the same "enemy" - never mind the pretense of "Iraqi liberation". The enemy in their minds is "the arabs" and their profound contempt for the Arab world and the religon of Islam is illustrated in both their actions and their rhetoric. A few typical comments from the link above:

I remain convinced we need to make a Carthegenian example of Fallujah: bring in a couple of full divisions and place a really tight cordon sanitaire around the place, give the women and children (including males under 15) 48 hours to get out, flatten the place with bombs and artillery, kill any men found in the rubble alive, cover the entire place with pig's blood, and then salt the earth. And get lots of TV footage of it for the media. Add footage of the aircrews preparing for nuclear missions to Mecca and Medina. Let the liberals whine, the arab world will get the very clear message we mean business. (Ed. - emphasis mine)
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Anybody who personally knows and is in the presence of such as al-Zarqawi, is complicit and is not innocent, though by comparison they may be less culpable. Israel's tactic seems to work well... terrorist leaders are being targeted, and it makes no difference where they may be, when their number is up, you don't want to be around them... ergo, since no one can tell when their number may be up, no one should be hanging around... ever... kinda like a stink bomb.
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OK, creative Freepers front and center.

How can we come up with our own realistic (faked of course, well maybe) pics and videos of Americans pulling off similiar celebrations whenever some raghead Muslime perp bites the big one. I am sure someone can come up with the appropiate scenes.

Then we can go to every Muslime site and outlet to post links to our little party passing out Krispy Kremes and Pepsi as we gyrate the lyrics of "Proud To Be An American", "Walking on the Fighting Side Of Me", and of course that Toby classic of, "put a boot up your ass", "Courtesy of the Red White and Blue"

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Remember 911 ! How many American women were killed? There wasn't any sympathy from the Muslims over that.
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"...including at least three women and five children — were taken for immediate burial, in accordance with Islamic custom, while hospitals reported at least two more dead."

Yeah? Prove it! Usually, these liars can't wait to display the bloodied bodies of their women and children so that they can weep, cry out for vengeance against the US and the Jooos while getting loads of air time on Al Jazeera TV. I think they LIE.

Even if there is a chance of some women and children being killed in the cross-fire, I say go for it, especially if there's a chance to nail Zarqawi. (sic) These 7th Century savages don't think twice before they kidnap and behead infidels or murder women and children in cars, pizza parlors, malls, etc.. The terrorist supporters' cowardly, give-in, left-wing, bleeding heart comrades can oppose these tactics all they want, while they conveniently ignore and/or excuse the barbarism of the terrorist. This is war. It's us or them...

OK, enough already. I think these quotes amply prove my point and serve to illustrate why the invasion of Iraq is a monumental failure in every way. Not only will none of the admitted or un-admitted (security for Israel, for example) goals be realized but the future consequences of unleashing the worst of the West on the Middle East will be catastrophic. It will take decades to correct the horrible damage these people have wreaked on their "enemies" - Muslims and Arabs everywhere.

O'Reilly: Bomb Iraq Again!

Via Media Matters (via pontificator at Kos and Brad DeLong)

From the June 17 broadcast of The Radio Factor with Bill O'Reilly:

O'REILLY: Because look ... when 2 percent of the population feels that you're doing them a favor, just forget it, you're not going to win. You're not going to win. And I don't have any respect by and large for the Iraqi people at all. I have no respect for them. I think that they're a prehistoric group that is -- yeah, there's excuses.

Sure, they're terrorized, they've never known freedom, all of that. There's excuses. I understand. But I don't have to respect them because you know when you have Americans dying trying to you know institute some kind of democracy there, and 2 percent of the people appreciate it, you know, it's time to -- time to wise up.

And this teaches us a big lesson, that we cannot intervene in the Muslim world ever again. What we can do is bomb the living daylights out of them, just like we did in the Balkans. Just as we did in the Balkans. Bomb the living daylights out of them. But no more ground troops, no more hearts and minds, ain't going to work.
[...]
They're just people who are primitive.

I guess O'Reilly missed Shock and Awe and the siege of Fallujah just for starters.

Oh, wait. He wanted to bomb Fallujah more, too: "Problems continue for the U.S. Military in Fallujah. Why doesn't the U.S. Military just go ahead and level it?"

Does this mean the "liberation" thing is no longer a justification for the invasion? What was that invasion called? Oh, right. Operation Iraqi Freedom. Well, screw that, the ungrateful, primitive bastards. Just bomb the living daylights out of 'em.

Saturday Blog Tour

Josh Marshall is on vacation for a few days, but he leaves us with this tantalizing claim:

I’m going to be taking a breather from TPM for a few days. I’ll be away tucked away on some island somewhere far, far away. If something truly earth-shattering happens I may pop my head up. But I'm going to try mightily to resist (and you'll be in good hands while I'm away.)

A few points before signing off, though. You may have noticed a slight down-tick in the frequency of posts of late. And that’s for a few different reasons. But a principal one is that I and several colleagues have been working on a story that, if and when it comes to fruition --- and I’m confident it shall --- should shuffle the tectonic plates under that capital city where I normally hang my hat. So that’s something to look forward to in the not too distant future. And that’s taken some of my time away from TPM and prevented me from sharing with you some delectable tidbits which otherwise I would have loved to have done.

Shuffling tectonic plates in DC can only be a good thing and we can always hope some of the rotten structures there fall into rubble. Meanwhile, Spencer Ackerman of TNR's Iraq'd is filling in so TPM is still a good read while we wait for Marshall's revelations.

In an effort to lighten the gloomy atmosphere created by the rafts of bad news from Saudi Arabia, Alhamedi of The Religious Policeman treats us to this amusing bit of Saudi Arabian Camel trivia. Did you know that there were camel overpasses in KSA?

Here's tristero on the debacle at Berkeley triggered by Berkeley Hillel having the infamous intellectual zero and logic-impaired Daniel Pipes to speak.

In short, you wanna prevent the sheer awfulness of what happened at Berkeley from happening again? First, remove from power the kinds of people who think Danny's a legitimate voice. And be sure to keep Danny and his ilk from having any kind of influence over American foreign policy (note to rightwingers: by "Danny and his ilk," I'm not talking about Jews, you schmucks! I'm talking about ignorant rightwing ideologues. There's a helluva difference, y'know.).

Next, increase funding and provide more attention to legitimate scholars of Islam and the Middle East who will, as a matter of course, rapidly displace Danny's Islamist doppelgangers, the pricks who are presently teaching the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as a genuine Jewish text. (Oh yes, indeed: there are some major league slimebags in Islamic Studies right now. But Danny's not the boy to be casting stones at 'em.)

After that, I dunno what to do. But hey, that's a pretty good start.

Jim Henley, softy: "Hey, you know me, Loyal Reader - I just can't stay mad at people. Heck, if Glenn Reynolds himself suddenly slapped himself on the forehead and said, 'Hey! How did I, a libertarian, succumb to a freaking cult of personality for a politician? And George W. Bush, yet?' I'd want to drive to Tennessee and give him a big ol' hug. That's just the kind of sweet guy I am." And who has Jim gone soft on? Christopher Hitchens, of all people. "I have hopes for this guy." Read all about it.

Jim also points out an excellent (as always) Arthur Silber post:

Arthur Silber puts our present pass down to worship of the State. He's close, but there's one further level. Our real god is Perfect Safety, whom we have elevated in our pantheon above its divine siblings Freedom and Dignity. The State is Perfect Safety's high priest. It preaches from the altar and whispers in the agora that it will bring the blessings of the god if we but bend the knee now and do the spastic dance of the flails when the oracles are propitious. The high priest is not innocent in this, but unless we remove the god to a humbler altar we shall remain under his sway.

There is much wisdom here, though I would say reject the god and smash the altar entirely. I'm for pulling evil weeds out by the roots.

Micah Holmquist on Horowitzwatch: "Moral equivalence," a term that is basically just a more subtle way of saying DO NOT COMPARE US, THE GOOD GUYS, TO THE BAD GUYS.

The Libertarian Jackass has hired an intern, "Efficient E." His duties are described as "....making LibertarianJackass.com a dynamic, entertaining, radical, and highly informative Internet experience." One might wonder why an intern would be expected to achieve what LJ himself h.....well, never mind. Anyway, LJ is soliciting ideas for how poor Efficient E should attack this monumental task. Help him out. Participate in the "WHAT SHOULD MY INTERN DO NEXT?" CONTEST. I'm sure that not posting the prize list is simply an oversight, soon to be corrected.

Great post by Brian Hunter at Common Prejudice on Bush's Bizarro World. Of course, the Medium Lobster dissents because he believes, along with GDuhbya, "Where there is desire for smoke, there is conceptual fire."

Martial Law in Iraq?

US appointed Iraqi "Foreign Minister" Falah Hassan al-Naqib says he will impose "martial law" in response to ongoing violence, particularly the horrific series of car bombings, 20 in the past month alone, if he feels it necessary. The question would be, what sort of martial law can a government with no military impose?

Falah Hassan al-Naqib, the interior minister, said the new interim government would have no qualms about imposing martial law if the violence threatened to undermine its authority.

"If we need to do it, yes, we’ll do it, we won’t hesitate," he said. "This is the security of our country, the security and the life of our people."

martial law
n.

1. Temporary rule by military authorities, imposed on a civilian population especially in time of war or when civil authority has broken down.


2. The law imposed on an occupied territory by occupying military forces.

That should go over like a lead balloon. In what way does "martial law" differ from what is happening in Iraq now, anyway?

American Hostage Paul Johnson Beheading Photos

Paul Johnson beheaded in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

I'm BACK!

Finally. I've had a terrible week, cut off from all but TV news and no internet. I'm sorry I didn't put an Out of Order sign up, but I only planned to be gone a day and it through various horrible twists and turns of fate, it turned into a grueling 4 days instead. Now, to catch up on everything I've missed.....

tex

Photos of Abu Ghraib abuse of Iraqi prisoners

I've uploaded most of the abuse pictures into this album:

Photo Album: Abuse of Iraqis

I'll upload others as they are available. This album includes the Abu Ghraib military dog torture photos.

Froomkin on the Torture Memo

Michael Froomkin parses the OLC's Aug. 1, 2002 Torture Memo ("the Bybee Memo".) This is a very helpful post to read especially if you're becoming confused by the sheer number of various torture memo leaks bombarding us daily.

After explaining what the OLC is ( Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel) and sketching the relationships between the various legal offices and lawyers in the FedGov, Froomkin sets up his argument:

The memo is about what limits on the use of force (“standards of permissible conduct”) for interrogations conducted “abroad” are found in the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment ( Torture Convention) “as implemented” by 18 USC §§ 2340-2340A (the Torture statute).

The memo concludes that the restrictions are very limited — that only acts inflicting and “specifically intended to inflict severe pain or suffering”, whether mental or physical, are prohibited. Allowed are severe mental pain not intended to have lasting effects (pity if they do…), and physical pain less than that which acompanies “serious physical injury such as death or organ failure” (p. 46). Having opined that some cruel, inhuman, or degrading acts are not forbidden, only those that are “extreme acts” (committed on purpose), the memo moves on to “examine defenses” that could be asserted to “negate any claims that certain interrogation methods violate the statute.”

• This is not a draft, but it’s not an action document either. It’s legal advice to the Counselor for the President. The action document was Gonzales’s memo to Bush.
• is OLC document is a legalistic, logic-chopping brief for the torturer. Its entire thrust is justifying maximal pain.
• Nowhere do the authors say “but this would be wrong”.
• Lots of the (lousy) criminal law legal reasoning in this memo is picked up in the Draft Walker Working Group memo
• This memo also has a full dose of the royalist vision of the Presidency that informs the Draft Walker memo. In the views of the author(s), there’s basically nothing Congress can do to constrain the President’s exercise of the war power. The Geneva Conventions are, by inevitable implications, not binding on the President, nor is any other international agreement if it impedes the war effort. I’m sure our allies will be just thrilled to hear that. And, although the memo nowhere treats this issue, presumably, also, the same applies in reverse, and our adversaries should feel unconstrained by any treaties against poison gas, torture, land mines, or anything else? Or is ignoring treaties a unique prerogative of the USA?

Read the rest....

A particularly interesting bit from the end:

Ultimately, the best legal commentary on this memo may belong to Professor Jay Leno:

According to the “New York Times”, last year White House lawyers concluded that President Bush could legally order interrogators to torture and even kill people in the interest of national security - so if that’s legal, what the hell are we charging Saddam Hussein with?

Who will be the Republican presidential candidate?

In light of the information breaking in the White House's torture scandal, along with the legal complications of their thousands of detainees in Iraq as well as the fact that the Iraqi insurgents are clearly winning, I'm wondering who the Republicans are going to run as their presidential candidate. Do they have time to find someone?

On the other hand, they could probably just support Kerry, anyway. Maybe the Republicans could swing a pardon deal for the Bush Administration with Kerry.

Video of American Robert jacob killed in Riyadh

Video Shows Murder And Slaughter Of American Robert Jacob, In Riyadh

Click link above for video link on Information Clearinghouse.

Chanting glorifying Jihad, or holy war, is heard in the background on the tape as two men are seen chasing a Western-dressed man who screams: "Wait, wait! No, no!"

Seconds later about 10 gunshots ring out as the man falls to the ground.

The tape, then shows the two men rush to the body. One appears to be slitting the victim's throat.

The two assailants, who are also dressed in Western clothes, are only ever shown from the shoulder down.

The killing takes place in the covered yard of a residential building where a four-wheel-drive vehicle is parked in a garage space. After the killing, the tape says: "Voice of Jihad - expel the infidels from the Arabian Peninsula."

The footage is attributed to an al-Qaeda terror cell which claimed responsibility for the killing.

The video described the victim as "American Jew Robert Jacob, who worked for the spy group Vinnell".

Mr Jacob, 44, who worked for the US Vinnell Corp, which helps train the Saudi National Guard, was shot dead at his home in Riyadh last Tuesday. He was reportedly shot nine times in the head.

Yesterday, an al-Qaeda cell said it had killed a US national in a drive-by shooting and kidnapped another American in the Saudi capital amid a bloody campaign by the network to drive Western "infidels" out of the kingdom.

Iraqi "intelligence" was disinformation

Remember when Al-Douri was the focus of a manhunt in Iraq because the US was convinced that he was a leader of the insurgency?

Here's a Sydney Morning Herald article from December, 2003:

With the capture of Saddam Hussein, US forces are focusing more attention on Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, a long-time Saddam deputy as vice chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council, and now top of the shrinking list of Iraqi officials who have eluded capture. He is one of 13 former regime members from the US list of 55 most-wanted Iraqis to elude capture, and the only one with a $US10 million ($13 million) bounty on his head. The US says al-Douri is a leading force behind the Iraqi insurgency, but Iraqi officials say he has leukaemia and is probably expending his energy avoiding capture.

The US has stepped up the hunt for al-Douri in recent weeks, destroying one of his homes with missiles and detaining his wife and daughter in an attempt to pressure him to surrender.

Human rights groups condemned the detentions, saying family members should not be used as bargaining chips and that the arrests violated international law and the Geneva Convention, which guarantees rights for people under occupation.

Many Iraqis were bewildered when the $US10-million reward was announced, because al-Douri was the subject of much ridicule during Saddam's regime. Atwan Rasul, 38, a Baghdad fish seller, said: "You couldn't tell jokes about Saddam himself, but you could tell jokes about Izzat al-Douri. No one respected him. This man can't be the leader of the Iraqi resistance."

Knowing what we now know about the near-total absence of actual intelligence being gathered by the military in Iraq, despite their willingness to inflict pain and humiliation on their captives, and the tendency for torture victims to say whatever their torturers want to hear it seems likely that the focus on Al-Douri was inspired by the now-infamous "flow of information" from Abu Ghraib interrogations. Watching the Americans chasing a clown like Al Douri was probably the subject of much coffee-shop humor in Baghdad.

Less funny is the Keystone Kops like idiocy of the US's "decapitation" strikes at the opening of the invasion. Much ado was made of the strikes aimed at Saddam Hussein (which managed to kill dozens of civilians instead of Saddam) but only today do we have confirmation that the US was trying to bomb many Iraqi leaders in that period, although they managed to miss them all, reduce the number of "hearts and minds" that were available for winning, and jump-start the insurgency that was to form in the wake of the pointless violence.

These strikes were apparently based on "intelligence" acquired from Iraqis on the ground which looks like it was about on par with Ahmed Chalabi's "intelligence." It's interesting in hindsight to look back and see why some of the neocons' trumpeted predictions about Iraq failed to materialize. Remember all the en masse surrenders that were supposed to happen? Sometimes they would even announce them and after a day or two of confusion it would become clear that they were about 180 degrees wrong. Remember this one? Iraqi army division surrenders to coalition forces, Pentagon officials say. Never happened. Basra "uprising?" Never happened. An Najaf "HUGE chemical weapons plant" that was supposed to have been discovered, breathlessly reported in screaming headlines by Fox News and the Jerusalem Post?? Nada. Zip. Nothing.

The extent of the wrongness of practically everything the neocons and Bushie warbots believed about Iraq would be amusing if it weren't so destructive and fatal to thousands of people. Oh, and Al Douri's family is still in one of the US's Iraq gulags, and their detention is still a war crime under the Geneva Conventions.

American kidnapped in Riyadh

A photo of U.S. engineer Paul M. Johnson is posted on a Web site yesterday along with a claim by Al Qaeda to have kidnapped him.

Saudis described as Al Qaeda militants have kidnapped one American and claim to have killed another in the same operation.

In a statement posted on Sawt al Jihad Islamist web site, Al Qaeda militants identify the kidnapped American as Paul Marshal Johnson from New Jersey - born on May 8, 1955 - and a specialist in Apache helicopters.

"The Mujahidoun were able in the same operation to kill another American working as a manager in the military sector," said the statement signed by the "Al Qaeda Organisation in the Arabian Peninsula".

"They stalked him and then killed him inside his home," it said.
[...]
In a statement, the Mujahidoun displayed a copy of the passport of the American it kidnapped, his Saudi driving licence and his business card, which showed he worked for Lockheed Martin as a systems engineer and site manager.

It said he was one of four top engineers specialising in developing Apache helicopters.

Further, the kidnappers' statement says that they reserve the right to treat this American captive as the Americans treated their brothers in Abu Ghraib.

"It is not a secret that these planes have long been used by the Americans and their Zionist allies and the apostates in killing Muslims, terrorising and displacing them in Palestine, Afghanistan and Iraq," the statement said.

"The Mujahidoun in the Arab Peninsula reserve the legitimate right to deal with the Americans in the same way to avenge what the Americans did to our brothers in Abu Ghraib prison [in Iraq] and Guantanamo," the statement said in reference to images of US soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners.

The famously competent Saudi police who have not arrested any of the perpetrators of any of the attacks in the past few months (except one who was wounded so they had to take him), are "combing Riyadh" looking for the kidnapped American.

American shot in Riyadh

Another American has been gunned down in Riyadh.

No details yet. The last one like this was Tuesday. Last Sunday, a BBC cameraman was shot and his reporter colleague critically wounded.

That's just this week. One might wonder if there is a pattern developing.

Saturday Blog Tour

Sadly, No! makes fun of the warbots at the Corner and InstaStatist by highlighting their now-embarrassing excitement over the State Department's 2003 report on terrorism that turned out to be a lie grossly wrong. Oops! Rahul Mahajan also has some apropriately withering comments:

I'm no expert on statistics, but it seems to me that comparing the number of incidents in an entire year with the number in part of a year is a pretty basic error.

Now, of course, there might be some of you out there who wish to defend the arithmetical ability of both State and Defense by pointing out that whenever they make "errors," the errors always tend in the same direction, to make the administration look better. You might even produce arguments to show that the likelihood, if the errors were truly random, that all of them would pile up on one side, is negligible.

But if you make those arguments to Paul Wolfowitz and Dick Armitage be sure to speak very slowly and draw lots of pictures.

Fortunately for us, Col. Lounsbury was confined to his room with a case of food poisoning resulting in this review of the Pentagon-funded Al Hurra TV, the US Propaganda Channel in Arabic.

Giblets and Fafnir on why just because there exists a paper trail of memos justifying an action doesn't mean it actually occured: (excerpt)

"Chris what you have there is a legal finding," says Giblets.
"A consultation," says me.
"Now all that means is that it was within Gibletsian law to sell your stuff and use it to buy a motorcycle," says Giblets.
"But that doesn't mean we actually sold your stuff and bought a motorcycle!" says me. "Least I don't think we did."
Chris gets all upset sayin "But there is a motorcycle!" which is really besides the point. I mean the memos just show that we talked about buyin a motorcycle, and the motorcycle shows that somebody bought a motorcycle but it doesn't show who it was or how they did it or why. It is another mystery wrapped in a conundrum wrapped in a motorcycle.

Digby connects some dots and makes an interesting argument about the "flow of information" from the Abu Ghraib torture chambers to the White House. (excerpt)

Everyone's been speculating that the reason General Fay has requested to be replaced by a higher ranking General is because of a need to interview General Sanchez and army protocol precludes him interviewing someone of a higher rank than he. I'm sure that's at least partly true, although it is more likely that this shuffle is designed to kill more time before the election. But there is also the problem that Fay cannot complete his investigation without being able to talk to his equal in rank, Maj. General Barbara Fast, something which is also prohibited.

And, she may just be the key to the whole story.

Tom Ridge finally calls on the General to be an important part of the War Effort.

Raed Jarrar directed a country-wide survey of Iraq (link to Salam Pax's description of the part of the survey he helped Raed with, along with numerous pictures)to determine civilian casualties after Mission Accomplished was declared in the now infamous Flight Suit Speech by Duhbya. He now has a website displaying his findings.

I would like to thank my great American friend, Michael Richardson, a writer and graphic designer from Northampton, MA, USA, for his huge effort, and for the time he spent designing the IRAQI CIVILIAN WAR CASUALTIES website. Michael emailed me some weeks ago offering to help me complete this small humanitarian job that started one year ago.

Thousands were killed and injured.

Each one of these thousands has a life, memories, hopes. Each one had his moments of sadness, moments of joy and moments of love.

In respect to their sacred memory, I would appreciate it if you could spend some minutes reading the database file when I publish them, read their names, and their personal details, and think about them as human beings, friends, and relatives -- not mere figures and numbers.

For all of you who have linked to the lunaville Iraq Coalition Casualty Count site, they have moved. The new URL is http://icasualties.org/oif/ and they have added new information like casualty counts for contractors.

From Tom Tommorrow:

Tim Dunlop has an excellent post about the Bushie Republicans' excuses for torture: (excerpt)

Excerpt: (click to enlarge pictures)

So let me make it easy for those who still wish to excuse what has happened. Here's a list of things you can no longer say with any certainty about this issue and be considered credible:

• There was only a handful of people involved (a few bad apples etc.)
• It wasn't systemic
• It only involved relatively junior officers
• As soon as they knew about them they acted immediately to stamp out the practices of abuse
• As soon as they knew about them they acted immediately to bring charges against those involved
• No-one died
• No-one was raped
• Only the guilty or terrorists were affected
• The investigation has been open to full scrutiny
• It wasn't really torture

Repeat: none of this washes anymore, and you can read this report from Human Rights Watch (.pdf file) for a pretty comprehensive account of what we now know about the way the conditions for this abuse were put in place and encouraged, sometimes implicitly, sometimes explicitly, by the Bush administration, right down to---almost unbelievably---presenting legal argument that the president was not bound by US or international law and therefore able to authorise various techniques of abuse.

On the bright side, here's something that, as far as we know, you can still say with relative certainty:

• It wasn't as bad as Saddam

Maybe that makes you feel better, or is all you need to know. It seems to be more than enough for the likes of rightie-come-lately, Dennis Miller, who continues the rightwing tradition of making hilarious torture jokes:

MILLER: I'm sorry, those pictures from the Abu Ghraib. At first, they, like infuriated me, I was sad. Then like, a couple days later, after they cut the guy's [Nick Berg] head off, they didn't seem like much. And now, I like to trade them with my friends.

And of course, he was taking his lead from Rush Limbaugh (same link as Miller):

LIMBAUGH:"The media ought to start making some money off these pictures and videos, not just publishing them free. We need some prison torture, you know, bubble gum cards ... you know, like I say, we got baseball cards and bubble gum. Now let's have terror cards -- only let's show our prison abuse photos instead of the terrorists and who they are and what they do."

Which brings us back to moral relativism.

I added the pictures above to Tim's post. These were released by the Washington Post yesterday and are archived here by AntiWar.com.

Anti-Freaker Googlebomb

Cpl. James E. Wright, who lost both hands in the war in Iraq, salutes the former president's casket on Thursday. (Associated Press )

Democratic National Convention
Democratic National Convention
Democratic National Convention
Democratic National Convention
Democratic National Convention
Democratic National Convention
Democratic National Convention
Democratic National Convention

Here's why.

Iraqi guerillas destroy police stations

Mahdi Army guerillas appear to be making a concerted effort to destroy Iraqi police stations in hit and run attacks:

Police in this Euphrates river town, 10 miles south of Baghdad, called for help from American forces when they came under attack. But the Americans didn't reach the town until about five hours after the attack, police Lt. Satpar Abdul-Reda said.

Abdul-Reda said the attackers arrived in seven cars, surrounded the station and opened fire with small arms and rocket-propelled grenades. The 10 policemen inside were armed only with Kalashnikov rifles and pistols and fled the station after realizing they were outgunned, Abdul-Reda said.

The gunmen entered the building, rigged it with explosives and blew it up, the lieutenant said.

It was the fourth attack on police stations across the country in the past week. On June 5, gunmen killed seven policemen before blowing up the police station in Musayyib. The following day, gunmen believed loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr blasted a police station in the Sadr City area of Baghdad. Al-Sadr's followers overran a police station Thursday in Najaf and ransacked the building.

This is why it is ridiculous to say that a guerilla army is "defeated," as Brigadier General Mark Hertling foolishly announced last week.

Reporters badger Bush about torture

AP reports:

Addressing advice the White House got suggesting torture might be allowed for some terrorist interrogations, President Bush said Friday he ordered U.S. officials to act consistent with law and international treaties.

"What I authorized was staying within U.S. law," Bush said at the conclusion of the G-8 summit meeting here. The president said he doesn't recall seeing Justice Department advice about the conditions for such torture.

Asked repeatedly about it, Bush sidestepped a question about whether he thought torture was immoral, saying that his instructions were "to adhere to law. ... We're a nation of law" and "you might look at those laws."

The direction he provided was to "conform to U.S. law" and to act consistent with international treaty obligations, Bush said.

Sounds a little on the nervously evasive side, doesn't he? Almost as evasive as Ashcroft.

Who really ended the cold war?

Grand Kremlin Palace. Moscow. 6/1/88

Gorbachev did.

Lew Rockwell comments:

I still remember the horrified faces of George H.W. Bush and his consigliere, James Baker, when the Berlin Wall came down. There followed a few bad years for the US superstate, with no foreign bogeyman to scare the American people into continued subservience.

Was that once a yellow ribbon?

From SignOnSanDiego:

The yellow ribbon tied around the tower of the County Administration Center has faded. Wind, rain and pollution, especially from last fall's wildfires, have taken their toll on the salute to U.S. troops. County supervisors installed the 240-foot-long ribbon and bow during President Bush's visit here on May 4, 2003. As the conflict in Iraq has dragged on, the decoration has turned more gray than yellow and screams to be either cleaned, replaced or removed.

It's time for the bow to come down, agree supervisors Dianne Jacob and Greg Cox, who championed the tribute. While it would be great to display the mesh-fabric ribbon and bow until the last ship returns home, the decoration came with a life expectancy of about a year, Jacob notes, and some of our troops probably will be in Iraq for a long time to come. "We're making plans to take it down on the 30th of June," says Jacob, to coincide with the transfer of power to the Iraqis.

This reminds me of the days just after the WTC attack when the US looked like a giant pep rally with American flags everyplace that could be plastered with a flag and little American antenna flags on car after car. A "patriot" at WarmongerRepublic once said this to me:

I have a flag on my car and yes it's getting tattered. But I plan to keep it there till the day we get Osama. I don't care if it's the size of a tissue.

29 posted on 11/16/2001 1:27:01 PM PST by veronica

I wonder if it's the size of a tissue yet?

All that "patriotic" fervor and "support the troops" enthusiasm somehow segued into 800+ dead Americans, thousands of dead Afghanis and Iraqis, billions of dollars squandered and tens of thousands of American soldiers who were told that all they had to do was cakewalk to Baghdad and they would then go home in time to be heroes in their home town Fourth of July Parades still roasting in Iraqi sandstorms in full body armor, getting attacked constantly. Afghanistan is ruled by warlords and producing bumper poppy crops, while Americans are still dying and killing there and Osama's whereabouts are unknown, though he still manages to his convey his threats whenever he wants.

And the yellow ribbons fade and the flags, long turned to tattered rags, disappear.

Defeated Mahdi Army strikes in Najaf

Shiite gunmen seized a police station in the holy city of Najaf and held it for two hours Thursday in the first outbreak of fighting since an agreement to end weeks of bloody clashes between U.S. troops and militia forces. Four Iraqis were killed and 13 were injured, hospital and militia officials said. [...] Chaos swept the southern city of Najaf after gunmen loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr overran the Ghari police station, which is 250 yards from the Imam Ali Shrine, witnesses said. The station was looted and police cars were burned.

"We sent a quick reaction unit to assist the policemen defending the station, but they were overwhelmed by al-Sadr fighters," said Najaf Gov. Adnan al-Zurufi. "We will solve this problem as soon as possible. We will ask for the help of the Americans, if necessary."

Hours later, al-Sadr's forces withdrew and disappeared. Rioters looted the cars that had been attacked outside the station.

Fighting ebbed Thursday around the main police station, which came under fire Wednesday night, when the attacks began.

How could this be possible? As Sadr's army was defeated.

“The Moqtada militia is militarily defeated. We have killed scores of them over the last few weeks, and that is in Najaf alone,” said Brigadier General Mark Hertling, one of the top US commanders in charge of Najaf.

“Over the past several days, Moqtada’s militia has lost much of their stomach for fighting,” he said, also declaring victory in the central cities of Kut, Diwaniyah and Karbala, dogged by fighting over the past two months.

“We have also destroyed their weapons stores and their offensive capability,” he said.

“What remains of them, which is a very small force, will take advantage of the governor’s announcement to disperse if not disband.”

Looks like Brigadier General Mark Hertling, continuing the established tradition for Americans in Iraq, was wrong.