UnFairWitness

Sullivan: Success in Iraq is whatever I say it is!

Campaign workers pasting up posters in Saigon for the September 1967 election, four months before the Tet Offensive. SUCCESS! United States officials were surprised and heartened today at the size of turnout in South Vietnam's presidential election despite a Vietcong terrorist campaign to disrupt the voting.

Andrew Sullivan writes a post that's a perfect example of the habitual triumphalism of the warbloggers as they mow down reality with a relentless barrage of verbiage, emotionalism and team spirit.

"In the blogosphere, we are often called to account for previous statements; or asked to concede that we were wrong about something or other. It happens. We're all human and our judgment is never going to be 100 percent correct," smarms Andrew. "But in the MSM, such accountability is rare. It seems to me, for example, that when the Iraq elections are a huge success and you have recently editorialized in favor of their postponement, you might owe your readers an acount of what you misjudged, or at least an acknowledgment that you have been proven wrong. So check the NYT editorial today. No such acknowledgment. The difference between the blogosphere and the MSM: more accountability.

OK, when you're finished laughing over the notion of the fragile flower of "accountability" flourishing in the perpetual rock-fight that is the political blog warzone,(I assume Andrew means the political blogs, since he didn't mention fact-checking the knitting, cooking or baby blogs)let's look at the NYT editorial Saint Andrew of Blogistan is so smugly criticizing as being "wrong" on The Day After Iraqis Liberated Themselves.

After summarizing the ethnic rivalries that exist in Iraq, the editorial states, "Given the violence in Sunni areas, even voters who wish to take part may hesitate to turn out. In some places, the polls may not open at all."

Check - There were reports, however, that in some areas election workers were too frightened to work and that polling stations did not open.

NYT: If the elections wind up taking place under current conditions, the new government could wind up with little or no Sunni representation when the new constitution was prepared.

Disputing that one, Sullivan? OK, score another one for the Times.

NYT:Many Americans - and many Iraqis - worry that if the elections were postponed, the terrorists would feel empowered by having won. That might indeed be the case for the next few months. But that outcome would be far outweighed by the danger that would come from a civil war, with the Sunni territory becoming a no man's land where terrorists could operate at will.

Let's use the example of the British Hercules C130 shot down trying to land at Balad, killing all aboard, of which the British said, ""It is thought the investigation into what caused the crash could prove difficult in the hostile territory." Ponder the fact that the resistance can take down fixed wing aircraft. And, what's that about "hostile territory?" Hrm. Advantage - Times: right again.

In fact, the only way Sullivan can claim the NYT editorial is "wrong" is by ignoring the fact that it was written about what is likely to occur during and after the election and pretending that voting was a "success" because "under 200 Iraqis" (revised downward from his original success metric of 500 dead Iraqis) died on the day it happened. Yes, that was Sullivan's metric for success, along with "25 percent turnout for the Sunnis" which didn't happen as far as anyone knows, but hey, this is standard in the warblogosphere, where jihad against the "MSM" is mandatory and "facts" are established by repetition and volume, not by objectively observing the real world.

The Times editorial defines "success" as something that will be detectable after a civil war fails to materialize and the various factions in Iraq negotiate a way to coexist. Andrew, eager to celebrate, crow, and cry over photos of purple fingers, defines success as whatever happens short of a catastrophic bloodbath and slams the cover shut on that book.

Of course, while I was plodding along writing this, Justin already posted about St. Andrew the Accountable. Oh well, here's a double dose for the Dish.

Raed: Vote for Food

No warbots will be quoting Raed today. He is mad. By Raed's calculation, turnout was less than 50%, at best, counting expats.

Vote For Food

In other news....

Get ready for The Morning After:

Mosul - The local electoral commission representative only began his work in earnest a week ago after his predecessor and entire staff resigned two months earlier.

A few hundred electoral workers were hastily flown in from Baghdad at the last minute, with most receiving only two hours of training. There was also a virtual absence of any independent election monitors.

The results were evident inside the polling stations.

At the Al-Khazrajiya school in the city's old quarter, Najat Ridha, 48, was ushered into a classroom and handed two ballots, one for the national assembly and another for the local provincial council.

An election worker suggested she vote for list 285 headed by interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and a local list headed by governor Duraid Kashmula.

She ticked the boxes obligingly and walked out - just as Zahra Ibrahim, 60, did before her.

"I really just did what they asked me to do," she said as the Iraqi national anthem crackled on a loudspeaker in the background.

Similar scenes unfolded at the Al-Fadhila school on the west side as men and women, perplexed over what the list numbers stood for, were offered suggestions and a helping hand by election workers.

"I want to vote for Allawi and Yawar," said a frustrated Fatima Hashim, 50.

Both Dr Allawi and interim President Ghazi al-Yawar, himself from Mosul, head competing lists for seats on the national assembly, but were popular choices in the city because of their high profile.

The lists, which only bear numbers and not candidate names for the most part, were published only two days before.

At a polling station in the New Mosul neighbourhood, Mahasin Ahmed, 37, a school teacher, wanted to vote for Yawar, a tribal leader, but did not know that his list number was 255 and neither did the election worker helping her.

He suggested she vote for list 188 because it had "tribes" in the title.

"I found most of the election workers unqualified and I observed many irregularities," said Guevara Yokhana, 34, a Christian running in the local elections, who visited seven of the 20 polling stations on the city's east side.

He said a lack of ballot papers sparked riots in the town of Qaraqush as thousands of furious Christians and Kurds realised they were unable to vote.

A Patriotic Union for Kurdistan official described a similar situation in Bashiqa district.

Ayatollah Power!

Here's a great post by swopa at needlenose to take you step by step on how we got to this day of triumph for Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who, by the way, did not vote because he is Iranian.

RAF C130 shootdown?

The London Telegraph speculates:

An RAF C130 Hercules transport aircraft, believed to have been carrying SAS troops, crashed 20 miles north-west of Baghdad yesterday.

Rescue helicopters flew over the crash site searching for any sign of life. But with the wreckage said to be spread over a wide area there was little hope that anyone had survived.

At RAF Lyneham, Wilts, Wing Commander Nigel Arnold said: "We are in the process of contacting the families of those involved and until that is done I'm, afraid we will not be releasing any details of the crew."

A senior US military officer in Iraq said the aircraft was on its way to the large US base at Balad, which is used by allied special forces to mount operations in a number of towns inside the so-called Sunni Triangle.

It was not immediately clear what caused the crash but the most likely explanation seemed to be that it had been shot down by insurgents. The incident is believed to mark the largest single loss of British personnel since the start of the war, almost two years ago.

A "special duties" aircraft would normally carry a crew of five or six. It could carry up to 128 passengers but in a special forces role, a maximum of 70 is more likely.
[...]
The worst loss of life for the SAS since the Second World War was in the Falklands when 18 members were killed. A total of 76 British servicemen and women have died since the start of the war in Iraq.

If the aircraft was shot down, it would represent a major success for the insurgents who have been trying to disrupt the Iraqi elections. US aircraft and helicopters have been regularly targeted with shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles. But although dozens of US helicopters have been brought down, until now no fixed-wing aircraft has crashed as a result of enemy attack.
[...]
RAF Hercules operating in Iraq are fitted with several types of so-called DAS counter-measures against the heat-seeking guidance sensors of the missiles.

They are based at Basra International Airport or al-Udeid base in Qatar and make regular "milk run" flights to Baghdad airport with supplies for personnel at the British Embassy and nearby US military headquarters.

The only RAF C130s known to operate north of Baghdad are the "special duties" aircraft of 47 Sqn based at Lyneham.

44 dead Iraqis? "Not a high price"

Hala Jaber in the Sunday Times:

"For what its worth, the election did go much, much better than many expected, both from the point of view of turnout, and from the point of view of security. After all, the Ministry of the Interior's official figure of 36 killed, mostly civilians, is not really a high price in a country where daily you have such numbers dying in one way or another.

Yeah, might as well die for "democracy" if you're going to get killed in the violence of Occupied Iraq, anyway. Is she related to Mad Madeleine?

To paraphrase the statements of Victor Davis Hanson, author of Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Culture, if we knew, let’s say, that a million people would die in the liberation of Iraq, most Americans would oppose it. A couple thousand, though? That’s more reasonable. If only a couple hundred were to die, by all means, send in the troops. A few, (or a few thousand), innocent deaths is just an unfortunate but necessary by-product of war.

Such thinking is, for lack of a better word, evil..... Emily Katz

Evil is a suitable word. The count is up to 44 now. I suppose Hana will let us know when the price goes too high.

Iraqi election watch

A British military plane has crashed north of Baghdad. No details yet.

UPDATE: The UK's Press Association newswire quoted military sources in Iraq as saying
the transport plane rarely travels north of Baghdad.

The sources said the aircraft is primarily used to ferry troops from the British
sector headquarters in Basra, the main southern city, to the Iraqi capital.

The coalition military press office in Baghdad said the aircraft crashed
northwest of Baghdad at 4.40 pm Iraq time (1340 GMT).

UPDATE:Tony Blair announces "casualties," but won't say how many.

Now reporting 10-15 deaths. Sounds like a possible VIP flight.

Bush said both U.S. and British military personnel had lost their lives on Sunday.

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This site is aggregating posts from selected weblogs on Iraq.

Words From Iraq

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Al Jazeera reports:

Polling stations in several towns in Iraq have not opened five hours after nationwide voting started on Sunday, the country's electoral commission said.

"In Latifiya, Mahmudiya and Yusufiya, polling stations have not yet opened their doors," commission spokesman Farid Ayar told reporters.

"As you know, Latifiya, Mahmudiya and Yusufiya are hotspots. We have allowed residents of these areas to vote in the nearest polling station" to the towns, said another member of the commission.
[...]
No employees turned up at polling centres in Samarra and police were not to be seen on the streets, an agency correspondent reported.

Al Jazeera reports one vote in Fallujah and in Mosul US soldiers were seen driving around city blocks asking why residents were not voting.

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Polls to close an hour early in Iraq

Nobody is saying why.

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Various spinners are touting a figure of 72% turnout in the Iraqi election, calling it a "revolution." AP elaborates on the source of that factoid:

Iraq voter turnout placed at 72 percent

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- An Iraqi election official said Sunday that 72 percent of eligible Iraqi voters had turned out so far nationwide.

The official, Adel al-Lami of the Independent Electoral Commission, offered no overall figures of the actual number of Iraqis who have voted to back up the claim.

Al-Lami said the percentage of registered voters who had gone to the polls in some Baghdad neighborhoods was as high as 95 percent.

Iraqi officials had predicted that up to eight million of 14 million eligible voters - just over 57 percent - will turn out for Sunday's election to choose a National Assembly and governing councils in the 18 provinces.

Earlier, the top U.S. adviser to commission, Carlos Valenzuela, offered a much more cautious assessment, saying turnout appeared to be high in many areas, but that it was too early to know for sure.

There has been little sign of voters in some heavily Sunni areas, such as the cities of Fallujah and Ramadi, according to witnesses. But Valenzuela said earlier that some voters had shown up in the two cities.

Clearly "AN" election official has absolutely no evidence for this assertion. Toss it in the Spin bucket.

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For those of you watching the Iraqi elections, here are some bloggers trying to live blog them. Chris Albritton is in Baghdad. Something to watch for if you're watching TV coverage:

I'm watching CNN International, and the shots of long lines and happy voters are almost all coming from Iraqi Kurdistan where the voters are motivated and the environment is (relatively) safe. The rub is that CNNi is not identifying the images as coming from Kurdistan; the only way I knew it was from up north was the single shot of someone waving a Kurdish flag. But if you don't know what the flag looks like (red, white and green bars with a yellow starburst in the center), as I suspect most Americans don't, you wouldn't know the context of these images. Shi'ites are also coming out in droves in the south. But Sunnis are staying home. I will be surprised if the Sunni vote hits double digits at this point.

I'll update this post with election news as I find it.

At this point, it appears that there have been 9 suicide bombs. Chris says:

Nine suicide bombs in Baghdad alone, with at least 20 dead. A bomb went off near the home of the Justice Minister. There are a number of outgoing mortars from my neighborhood in the last 10 minutes.

BBC Reporter's log: An entry from Hugh Sykes, Baghdad -

For the people of the district of Muthana, in eastern Baghdad this is not a good morning. The polling station opened at 7am this morning. I was here talking to early voters who were cheerful and optimistic.

We went off to have breakfast at the millitary base where I'm embedded and coming back we were told there had been a suicide bomb attack in this comfortable residential neighbourhood.

Across the road from me lies the naked torso of the suicide bomber. His arms and his head were blown off. Around the corner is the body of the bomber's only victim - a young man lying motionless in the road, with blood flowing from a large hole in his head.

I heard a bang a few minutes ago which has now been confirmed as another suicide bomb.

(BBC)Fadel Al-Badrani : Fallujah : 1103 GMT - There are two or three places open for voting in Falluja. One place I can see is inside the public park.

There a few people standing, are proceeding to cast their votes but their number is less than the fingers of one hand.

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I don't find any Iraqi blogs updating. The US sponsored "Friends of Democracy" site, which was touted as live-blogged election coverage hasn't been updated since before 9 PM yesterday. Their "Voter Turnout" page was last updated on January 14.

Ali, the blogger who left the Iraq the Model blog (last updated January 28) after being betrayed by Jeff Jarvis the above mentioned US group that sponsors the Fadhil brothers' NGO "Friends of Democracy," posts that he's headed out to vote in Baghdad. No word on his return yet.

Ali is back and has described his day.

Kevin Sites from Banda Aceh

Kevin Sites, writing from Banda Aceh, has a disturbing essay up on his blog:

Black Plastic

Ibnu Jarir has no tent -- so the 28-year old fisherman must make one. And in this crowded refugee camp in the shadow of a silver mosque on the outskirts of the city -- fifteen people will take shelter under it. Ibnu lost his wife to the Tsunami and says very little while he works.

He busies himself cutting and stretching black plastic sheets over a small plot of ground that will be their only protection from the winter rains. He is skillful in laying out the shelter, pulling the guylines taught, staking them firmly, tying off the awning using strips of discarded wire.

It seems sturdy -- but Ibnu is uncertain how long this black plactic will hold. It's purpose, after all, was not to shelter the living, but to sheath the dead.

Pop Quiz-Name that torturer!

Who said it?

"This so-called ill treatment and torture in detention centers, stories of which were spread everywhere among the people, and later by the prisoners who were freed ... were not, as some assumed, inflicted methodically, but were excesses committed by individual prison guards, their deputies, and men who laid violent hands on the detainees."

Answer here. Thanks, jazzman.

US embassy in Baghdad attacked

Breaking: AP reports:Attack on the US Embassy in Baghdad, and there appear to be casualties.

UPDATE: AP reporting rocket attack:

Embassy spokesman Bob Callahan confirmed the embassy had been hit in an attack, but could give no details.

"There appear to be some casualties, but we don't know yet. We're looking into it," he said.

UPDATE: AP - Rocket hits U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, killing 2

Iraqi elections

Lenin's Tomb has an excellent rundown on the Iraqi elections.

Foreign Policy & a Beltway Libertarian

I responded to a post by Justin Logan in which he says, "...the problems with antiwar.com are many," by asking such as? He answers in the comment thread here, and my reply is here, as well as at Antiwar.com because Justin's blog apparently does not allow HTML in its comments and I need linkage.

I read Preble's statement the same way Justin Raimondo does:

"If Iraqis wish to retain their sovereignty and independence, they must ensure that al-Qaeda and other anti-American terrorist groups do not establish a safe haven in their country. Accordingly, the withdrawal of U.S. forces must be coupled with a clear and unequivocal message to the new government of Iraq: do not threaten us or allow foreign terrorists in your country to threaten us. If you do, we will be back."

Your reduction of that statement to "the U.S. will attack any threats to the U.S. that emerge in a post-war Iraq" is either disengenuous or ill-informed. Raimondo is saying that last time they attacked Iraq all it took was...."some Chalabi-esque character com[ing] up with "intelligence" that links Iraq to "weapons of mass destruction." Déjà vu? Isn't that how it was? What's nuts about that? If you think that's nuts, you'll really get sandbagged by the pending Iran attack, for which some Chalabi-esque characters are already creeping out of their rat-holes to give witness for whatever the rationale for that invasion turns out to be.

Why would anyone who knows how the Iraq invasion happened this time not see Preble's threat as putting the Iraqis in a hopeless position of trying to prove there are no terrorists in Iraq? We saw how proving that there were no WMDs turned out. All the next Bush would need is a new Chalabi to fulfill the threat so handily articulated for them by CATO.

As for the Yuschenko thing, there was evidence of typical meddling by the US gov in funding the Orange people, which you apparently would dismiss in favor of "a fruitful debate about how (or, I would submit, whether at all) U.S. taxpayer funds should be used in foreign elections and the perils and undesirability of NATO expansion." That the US government's use of funds coercively extorted from Americans to meddle in other countries might be a "subject for debate" for a libertarian is in itself astonishing and your assertion that antiwar.com's "taking sides" stifled that debate is false - first because the "taking of sides" was all in your head and second because the debate over whether tax-payer funds should be used to meddle in foreign countries seems to be doing quite well no matter how loudly CATO dodges, panders, and equivocates on that question. Anytime you want to debate the merits of using taxpayer funds to empower the US's meddling in other countries, I'm sure antiwar.com will gladly defend the NO position from libertarian principle.

Your characterization of the opinions expressed on AWC on the Ukraine elections (jihad, vicious) is telling, and this - "there was no "war" involved in Ukraine to be 'anti' " - is a naive confession of misunderstanding the way the road to war is invariably prepared far in advance with propaganda.

Both the Y's were loathsome politicians who merited no support from libertarians, even if libertarians were in favor of meddling in foreign affairs. As Ron Paul put it, "I do not think we should be supporting either of the candidates. While I am certainly no supporter of Viktor Yushchenko, I am not a supporter of his opponent, Viktor Yanukovich, either. Simply, it is none of our business who the Ukrainian people select to be their president." I know the FReep types, Bush cultists and neocons lined up behind Yuschenko, so there must be something extra-loathsome about him, but I don't care enough at this point to find out what it is. What did surprise me was that anyone who tried to question how credulous a person would have to be to believe the Twilight-zone poison story were accused of "Supporting Yanukovich." This came even from nominal libertarians, who one would think would take into account the well-known professed anti-interventionist libertarian opinions of the people to whom they were trying to tack this lame accusation. Honesty in debate is clearly of no value to them.

Your description of one of these politicians as "the good guy in what seemed to me to be a pretty clear cut dichotomy" speaks volumes. Libertarians with an understanding of the nature of the state cringe at such simplistic statist analysis. I'd like to hear you tell Rothbard all about who the "good guy" was in the Ukrainian election.

As for BHHRG, once again I am astonished that a libertarian would advance a shabby argument like this: "....the trickery about the "Helsinki" human rights organization that isn't..." What is that supposed to mean? What do you know about BHHRG? Daniel McAdams has this to say about "shorthand" foreign policy analysts:

So, it is easy to attack using shorthand and limited information. It is a lot more difficult -- and not very well-paid -- to take the effort to seek the truth in these faraway places rather than to just consider them playgrounds for our own amusement. Most Beltway types would never sign up for such unglamorous duty.

Finally, what is most telling about critics of organizations like the British Helsinki Group is the hypocrisy at the core of their attack. Anyone familiar with the intent of the 1977 Helsinki Accords understands that autonomous civic organizations were to be created to monitor the adherence of signatory countries to the agreement. The whole point of the NGO sector, and particularly where the Helsinki Accords are concerned, is to have organizations completely outside the control of the state to monitor the state. But, we certainly cannot have that, can we? So what do we get? The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) as the official Helsinki body -- an organization with many cut-out NGOs and member organizations, including ones like the International Helsinki Federation, who share the fact that they are all entirely funded by member states. These plush and well-funded organizations are then expected to criticize the very governments who pay their salaries. So when an organization comes on the scene that rejects this corrupt arrangement and refuses all government money, whose members do not receive the enormous OSCE salaries but are in fact, as I was, volunteers, they are attacked as being hopelessly biased. While government funded NGOs are touted as the paragons of impartiality.

If a libertarian has a critique of a private organization's credibility up against the voices of bought and paid-for government funded NGO's they'd better get their argument together before voicing it. Let's see your evidence that BHHRG is a ""Helsinki" human rights organization that isn't." When you lay out your case, perhaps you'd be so kind as to include specific examples where BHHRG was wrong on the facts. Perhaps you could consult with this guy who cites them.

Bloggers Oppose Gonzales

Daily Kos has a No on Gonzales statement that at this time is signed by 454 bloggers. If you've posted opposing Gonzales, add your blog to the database here. The statement:

Unprecedented times call for unprecedented actions. In this case, we, the undersigned bloggers, have decided to speak as one and collectively author a document of opposition. We oppose the nomination of Alberto Gonzales to the position of Attorney General of the United States, and we urge every United States Senator to vote against him.

As the prime legal architect for the policy of torture adopted by the Bush Administration, Gonzales's advice led directly to the abandonment of longstanding federal laws, the Geneva Conventions, and the United States Constitution itself. Our country, in following Gonzales's legal opinions, has forsaken its commitment to human rights and the rule of law and shamed itself before the world with our conduct at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. The United States, a nation founded on respect for law and human rights, should not have as its Attorney General the architect of the law's undoing.

In January 2002, Gonzales advised the President that the United States Constitution does not apply to his actions as Commander in Chief, and thus the President could declare the Geneva Conventions inoperative. Gonzales's endorsement of the August 2002 Bybee/Yoo Memorandum approved a definition of torture so vague and evasive as to declare it nonexistent. Most shockingly, he has embraced the unacceptable view that the President has the power to ignore the Constitution, laws duly enacted by Congress and International treaties duly ratified by the United States. He has called the Geneva Conventions "quaint."

Legal opinions at the highest level have grave consequences. What were the consequences of Gonzales's actions? The policies for which Gonzales provided a cover of legality - views which he expressly reasserted in his Senate confirmation hearings - inexorably led to abuses that have undermined military discipline and the moral authority our nation once carried. His actions led directly to documented violations at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo and widespread abusive conduct in locales around the world.

Michael Posner of Human Rights First observed: "After the horrific images from Abu Ghraib became public last year, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld insisted that the world should 'judge us by our actions [and] watch how a democracy deals with the wrongdoing and with scandal and the pain of acknowledging and correcting our own mistakes.'" We agree. It is because of this that we believe the only proper course of action is for the Senate to reject Alberto Gonzales's nomination for Attorney General. As Posner notes, "[t]he world is indeed watching." Will the Senate condone torture? Will the Senate condone the rejection of the rule of law? With this nomination, we have arrived at a crossroads as a nation. Now is the time for all citizens of conscience to stand up and take responsibility for what the world saw, and, truly, much that we have not seen, at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere. We oppose the confirmation of Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General of the United States, and we urge the Senate to reject him.

Say NO to Torture Gonzales

This message is from Human Rights First:

This week the Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to vote on the nomination of Alberto Gonzales for United States Attorney General.  Gonzales is the architect of U.S. torture policies that defined torture so narrowly that it undermined discipline in the military, put American fighting men and women at greater risk, and compromised the ability of the United States Government to hold the moral high ground. Human Rights First is formally opposing Alberto Gonzales’ confirmation and they have created a web movie that explains how Gonzales’ legal advice opened the door for the prison abuse scandals that shocked the United States and the rest of the world. Click here to view the web movie now! Once you’ve seen the movie, you can take action by urging your Senators to vote against Albert Gonzales’ nomination for U.S. Attorney General. 

Stupidest guy on the face of the earth resigns

Ashcroft-Gonzales. Powell-Rice.  Every time they get worse.  But the Bushies have their  work cut out for them if they try to find a worse replacement (as is their wont) for the guy Tommy Franks called "...the f***ing stupidest guy on the face of the earth..."

Bloody day for the US in Iraq

As Yankeedoodle would say, Bring 'em on:

• Iraq helicopter crash "kills 31 U.S. troops"
• US soldier killed in ambush north of Baghdad
• Four U.S. Marines Killed in Action in Iraq

US helicopter crash kills all aboard

American helicopter crash kills as many as 30:

CBS News National Security Correspondent David Martin reports as many as 30 are dead in the crash of the CH-53E "Super Stallion" helicopter. All aboard were killed. Military officials are not sure yet whether the chopper was shot down or crashed for some other reason. The crash took place Wednesday morning near the town of Rutbah, 220 miles west of Baghdad in the al Anbar province, while the aircraft was transporting 1st Marine Division forces conducting "security operations," the U.S. military said in a statement.

Hold Rice accountable

Arthur Silber has a petition appeal from Barbara Boxer. As he says:

Just do it. It would be awfully nice finally to have someone in this administration held accountable for something, for God’s sake. And perhaps if Boxer has several hundred thousand signatures on her petition, a few other Democrats will manage to remember where they left their spines. It shouldn’t at this point, but it nevertheless astounds me that Boxer is portrayed as the villainess in this business – simply because she’s asking the questions and raising the issues that every single American over the age of two ought to be asking. So give her some support. She’s doing the hard and absolutely necessary part, and only being vilified for it.

For those spineless Democrats who've let Boxer take all the heat, James Wolcott has this to say:

Why is Barbara Boxer out there all alone asking the tough questions about Condi Rice's snail trail of deceit and fearmongering? She has the audacity to act as if the Senate actually has some traditional advise-and-consent role to play and for her pains is caricatured as a shrieking harridan on Saturday Night Live and a witch on talk radio. Boxer was terrific today on CNN, refusing to back down and reiterating her questions and objections regarding Rice with emphatic clarity while Sen Lugar mumble-mumbled some pathetic excuse-making about how Rice didn't deliberately mislead the country re Iraq's WMDs, she just did the best she could under the circumstances. Look, Biden and the rest of you Democratic punk-asses--get behind Boxer or get lost. She shouldn't be up there on the parapet alone, not with this wrecking crew trying to gear us up for war on Iran.

So, OK, maybe you don't agree with Boxer on everything, or many things or even a few.  But, surely you agree that Rice should be held accountable for propagating the lies that the Bush Administration hawked in order to attack Iraq.  If so, sign the thing.

Related - - Clark Stooksbury: A Byrd in the Sheets

Elections in Occupied Iraq

I guess we're about to find out just how infiltrated the Iraqi police and military is:

The run-up to Sunday's vote is pressing every available American service member into action in most of Iraq - assisting an Iraqi-ordered nationwide ban on traffic from Saturday to Monday to block car bombs and other attacks on election targets; and preparing to respond to any Iraqi request for help repelling assaults or tending casualties.

The election plan puts the might of the U.S. military in a full-force back-up role. U.S. forces are funneling stepped-up training, hundreds of fixed barricades and miles of razor wire, weapons, body armor, communication systems, generators and the fuel to run them, and even water and meals-ready-to-eat rations to Iraqi police and troops charged with the front-line defense of polling sites.

More from the Guardian:

Politicians are not alone in distributing propaganda leaflets. Yesterday insurgents walked though a district of eastern Baghdad handing out their own election leaflets. They carried a warning: "Those who dare to stand in the lines of death to participate in the elections will be responsible for the consequences that will be heavy."

With mounting security concerns, the locations of many of the 5,000 polling centres across Iraq have not been announced. When the buildings have been identified - usually schools which are now empty for the holidays - they have promptly been shelled or mortared by insurgents. Three schools in the otherwise quiet city of Basra in the south were destroyed last week in a mortar attack. It is still unclear how and when voters will be told where to vote.

On election day motorists will be banned from the roads and a nationwide curfew will be imposed between 8pm and 6am. Voters must walk to polling centres, where they will find several security cordons ringing each station. They must then pass through the many security checks before they can finally enter the booth, unfold the vast ballot paper in front of them, choose one of the 111 parties contesting the election and tick the correct box.

American hostage in Iraq pleads for help on video

American Roy Hallums pleads for his life on a video released today.

In the video, hostage Roy Hallums spoke slowly, rubbing his hands as he sat with the barrel of the rifle inches from his head. He said he had been arrested by a "resistance group" because "I have worked with American forces." He appealed to Arab leaders, including Libya's Moammar Gadhafi, to act to save his life.

Hallums, 56, was seized Nov. 1, 2004, along with Filipino Robert Tarongoy during an armed assault on their compound in Baghdad's Mansour district. The two were working for a Saudi company that does catering for the Iraqi army. The Filipino was not shown.

"I am please asking for help because my life is in danger because it's been proved I worked for American forces," the bearded Hallums said. "I'm not asking for any help from President Bush because I know of his selfishness and unconcern for those who've been pushed into this hellhole." Hallums said he was asking for help from "Arab rulers especially President Moammar Gadhafi because he's known for helping those who are suffering."

Ghadafi?  Well, he got the part about Bush right.

The Baghdad Burning book

Bill at  thoughts on the eve of the apocalypse has a chock-full-of-information MegaPost where I found out that Riverbend's posts will be made into a book:

In her riveting weblog, a remarkable young Iraqi woman gives a human face to war and occupation.

In August 2003, the world gained access to a remarkable new voice: a blog written by a 25-year-old Iraqi woman living in Baghdad, whose identity remained concealed for her own protection.  Calling herself Riverbend, she offered searing eyewitness accounts of the everyday realities on the ground, punctuated by astute analysis on the politics behind these events.

Riverbend recounts stories of life in an occupied city - of neighbors whose home are raided by U.S. troops, whose relatives disappear into prisons, and whose children are kidnapped by money-hungry militias.  The only Iraqi blogger writing from a woman's perspective, she also describes a once-secular city where women are now afraid to leave their homes without head covering and a male escort.

Interspersed with these vivid snapshots from daily life are Riverbend's analyses of everything from the elusive workings of the Iraqi Governing Council to the torture in Abu Gharib, from the coverage provided by American media and by Al-Jazeera to Bush's State of the Union Speech.  Here again, she focuses especially on the fate of women, whose rights and freedoms have fallen victim to rising fundamentalisms in a chaotic post-war society.

With thousands of loyal readers worldwide, the Riverbend blog is recognized around the world as a crucial source of information not available through the mainstream media.

The book is due out in March 2005.  You can order it from the Feminist Press at the City University of New York.

Al-Sadr and the Sunnis

Moqtada Al-Sadr, no slouch at political maneuvering, appears to have preserved several options for his response to the looming elections. Anthony Shadid, in the Washington Post, on the Sadrists' stance toward the Ayatollah Sistani:

Sadr's men have stopped short of calling for a boycott but insist they are not supporting the election. In coded language, they have ridiculed Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the country's most influential religious leader, whose perceived backing of the top Shiite coalition has made it the favorite in the vote. Loath to provoke the U.S. military, which killed hundreds of its followers in last year's fighting, the Sadr movement has relegated its militia to a lower profile while keeping up its strident rhetoric.

According to Shadid, Sadr's opposition to the occupation has not lessened. Often, al-Sadr is portrayed as a rival to Al Sistani for leadership of the Iraqi Shi`a, which is true, but is it possible that Moqtada al-Sadr is angling for the leadership of a coalition? Shadid quotes a statement by Sadr this month:

"I personally will stay away [from the elections] until the occupiers stay away from them, and until our beloved Sunnis participate in them," the statement read. "Otherwise they will lack legitimacy and democracy."

Hmmm. Lately, al-Hakim has been firming up his US-out-of-Iraq rhetoric, but it is widely understood that the United Iraqi Alliance (the party list al-Hakim heads) is less enthusiastic about the immediate departure of US troops than most Iraqis, correctly seeing the US as a necessary barrier to their immediate assassinations. At this point, I think the pertinent question may be to ask what is the US response to be to an alliance of the Sadrists with the Sunni resistance when they respond to the newly elected regime's failure to demand an immediate and complete withdrawal of US troops by overthrowing them?

In the WarBlogger Bubble

The warblog-O-sphere echo chamber is busy linking to itself in a self-referential circle-post over Jackie Spinner's Washington Post account of a pro-American Iraqi, humiliated by American troops in a home raid:

  On the night of Jan. 5, Imaad and his mother, Um Imaad -- both of whom declined to give their full names for fear of retribution -- were watching a movie in the living room. As in most other parts of the capital for the past two months, their Adhimiya neighborhood has electricity about two hours a day. So the generators outside were humming at about 9 that night, and the television was turned up so they could hear.

Imaad said they were startled by a loud banging at the door. He went quickly to open it. When he did, Imaad said, there were about a dozen U.S. soldiers standing with their guns pointed at his head.

Imaad and his mother said the soldiers rushed in, ordering them to sit together while they searched the house. "You look poor," Imaad recalled one of the soldiers saying. "Why?"

Imaad answered in English: "I have not been able to find a job, although I'm a graduate of the College of Arts." His heart was pounding, Imaad said. His mother, a chatty widow who adores her son, sat next to him, shaking.

The soldiers went to search his bedroom. He heard laughing, and then they called for him, he said. Imaad went to his room and saw that the soldiers had found several magazines he kept hidden from his mother. They had pictures of girls in swimsuits and erotic poses. Imaad said the soldiers spread the magazines on his bed and put his Koran in the middle.

"This is a good match," Imaad said one of the soldiers told him. "It was a nightmare," he said. "I will never forget those bad soldiers when they put the Koran among the magazines."

Warbloggers in ideological lockstep mock the Iraqi and the reporter.

 
• Powerline: "Unintentionally hilarious." Links to Tim Blair and Roger Simon.
 
• LGF: "Today’s most ridiculous report from Iraq..." Links to Tim Blair.
 
• Instapundit:  Links and quotes Blair.
 
• Tim Blair: " It's another My Lai!" Links to LGF.
 
• Roger Simon: "...exercise in conscious/unconscious self-destruction by the mainstream media."  Links to Blair and Jarvis.
 
• Jarvis: "Blair shreds the assumption and attitude in her writing by using her own reporting to show just how absurd her view is."  Links to Blair and Instapundit.

Now, you probably felt a sense of dread and sorrow that yet another Iraqi is going to be gunning for Americans, but that's why you really need to read the warbloggers because you, outsider that you are,  didn't get the important, hilarious part!  See, the reporter is stupid!  And biased! 

Still, I'm missing something.  The reporter is stupid for believing this story and even stupider for writing about it and foreign correspondents are a dying breed in a dying industry and the Iraqi is a hypocrite and violent and not "educated" like Spinner wrote, right?  But, didn't we just see the resistance grow by at least one gun, for whatever reason?  That's not the funny part, right?  That wasn't supposed to happen, was it?  What is it the US is trying to accomplish in Iraq, again?

"I used to have a good opinion of the Americans," Imaad said. "But they are the enemy. They are bad."

[ed. - fix error, NYT for WashPost]

Chinese terrorist located

Remember the scary Chinese terrorists that were going to blow up Boston?

The FBI said a Chinese woman wanted in connection with an alleged terrorist plot against Boston has been in a U.S. Customs detention facility since November and doesn't appear to have terrorist links.

No wonder they couldn't find her! Now, maybe next time they'll look in the dungeons first.

When is a photo too graphic to publish?

Here's an interesting survey by the APME on the use of graphic photos, courtesy of Ryan at Dead Parrots Society. Here's Ryan's accompanying article: Readers, journalists struggle with same issues in publishing graphic photos,

Another APME survey to talk about, about the use of graphic photos in the news. This one was especially interesting, I think, because we asked readers and working journalists to take the same survey, giving us numbers and comments to compare. A copy of the original survey is still online, and my report on the findings is online. It probably goes without saying, but the survey contains graphic images, each of which was published by some outlets, and left unpublished by others. To summarize the report: Both groups were presented with five photos -- on subjects including tsunami devastation, American soldiers, and violence in Iraq -- and then were asked to describe where (or if) they'd run the photo and why.

The survey is closed and the results available, but try taking the survey yourself and see how your choices stack up against the ones recorded. News judgment and photographs

Zeyad on the Iraqi elections

Zeyad at Healing Iraq has an interesting post on the elections.  I'm not sure how right he is in his assessment, but then it's probably impossible for anyone to gather much information with the chaotic conditions prevalent right now in Iraq.  Some interesting points:

• Sheikh Naji Al-Abbudi, a spokesman for Sistani, affirmed the claims that the Grand Ayatollah is backing the United Iraqi Coalition list. Indeed, Sistani's agents all over the country have been quite active in educating Iraqi Shia on the merits of elections, which has led to the assassination of at least two of them. Al-Abbudi stated that "His Emminence" decided to openly support the list because "others" (obviously a reference to Allawi) have been abusing official state positions and media outlets in their campaigning. Again there is no official written statement from Sistani's office confirming this allegation, which I think is intentional.
• The main Kurdish coalition list (PUK and KDP) is barely mentioned outside the Kurdish region. Even there, many Kurds look and act as if they are going to grab the chance to vote them out of power. I doubt that will be the outcome though.
• Many Iraqis, including conservative and religious Iraqis, are surprisingly rooting for the Iraqi Communist party, probably in an attempt to counter the influence of Islamists in the forthcoming National Assembly. The Communist party has the largest number of registered party members in the country and can be considered as the oldest popular political party in Iraq. Its support base is much larger than what it seems

.

The whole thing is interesting.  Zeyad's Saturday post indicates that he's headed for Jordan until "this mess is over."

Iraqi election chaos

Iraqi election restrictions:

Driving on the streets will be restricted, Al-Nakib said, to elections supervisors and other officials.

And,

Walking in and around the polling places will be restricted, Al-Nakib said.

Does anyone see a problem here, or am I missing something?

Chalabi threatened with arrest. Again.

It may be time for Chalabi to head for Tehran again. 

Ahmad Chalabi, the leader of the Iraqi National Congress, will be arrested after the Eid al-Adha holidays, Iraq’s interim defence minister has said. Speaking to Aljazeera, minister Hazim Shaalan, said Chalabi would be handed over on arrest to the Interpol.

Shaalan said Chalabi was suspected of killing thousands of opposition figures in Arbil and stoking discord between the two main Kurdish parties.

“We will arrest him and hand him over to Interpol. We will arrest him based on facts that he wanted to malign the reputation of the defence ministry,” Shaalan said.

Shaalan also said Chalabi would be handed to Interpol over his conviction in absentia by a Jordanian court in 1992 of embezzling millions from Petra Bank, whose 1989 collapse shook Jordan’s political and financial system.

Chalabi, who founded and ran the bank during a long period when he lived in the country, denies any wrongdoing. “Our measures will start after Eid,” Shaalan said. Chalabi invited the wrath of the interim Iraqi authorities after he accused the defence minister in an interview of stealing $500 million from the ministry and posted documents on a Web site accusing him of links to Saddam Hussein’s regime.

Then again, Shaalan is about as reliable as Baghdad Bob.  Maybe this is just negative campaigning, Iraqi Puppet style.

Protesters chase military recruiters off campus

Sgt. 1st Class Jeff Due, right, a U.S. Army recruiter, is surrounded by protesters at Seattle Central Community College, Thursday, Jan. 20, 2005, in Seattle. After about a 10-minute standoff during which protesters tore up U.S Army literature, the protesters were successful in getting Due and another recruiter to leave their table under escort by campus security officers. Several hundred students walked out of classes at several Seattle colleges and universities to protest the inauguration of President Bush. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

The Betrayal of the "Iraq the Model" Bloggers

Yesterday the warblogs and Cult-of-Bush blogs exploded in veritable unison with trumped-up outrage and hysteria which ricocheted throughout their echo chamber in a matter of hours over the story in the NY Times Arts Section on the Iraqi bloggers of Iraq the Model and Free Iraqi.  On the theory that such an avalanche of comment must be about something of significance, I think a closer look at the Brothers Fadhil is warranted. The first oddity that leaps out about the Fadhils is their rather singular outlook on the American occupation of Iraq.  The Fadhil brothers aren't the only pro-occupation Iraqis blogging, but they stand out by virtue of their relentlessly positive postings and lack of criticism of events that most Iraqis are finding, to put it mildly, disturbing.  Middle East expert Professor Juan Cole, in his Informed Comment weblog, speculated,

The MR posting (Martini Republic) brings up questions about the Iraqi brothers who run the IraqTheModel site. It points out that the views of the brothers are celebrated in the right-leaning weblogging world of the US, even though opinion polling shows that their views are far out of the mainstream of Iraqi opinion.

This is self-evident with the most cursory glance at the blog.  Juan Cole has the poll numbers here.  Whereas a large majority of Iraqis say they feel occupied and not liberated, the Fadhil brothers post endlessly about their liberation.  They praise the conduct of the US soldiers and even managed to rationalize the Abu Ghraib torture scandal by interviewing an Iraqi who claimed he worked there who recounted how the prisoners were playing volleyball and basketball every day, took baths anytime they wanted and had fans in their cells.    Their rhetoric is larded with phrases and terms common to American warbloggers and neocons like "MSM" for main stream media and "terrorists" for everyone resorts to violence against the occupation, and they dispute tales of misery by other Iraqi bloggers.  They praised the Allawi regime for the rubblizing of Fallujah.  They link to FOX News and the US government created and sponsored Radio Sawa on their blog while calling for a boycott of al-Jazeera. Taken together, these things spell Iraqi Neocon. Iraq the Model began, as Justin Raimondo describes it, "..with a moniker that manages to express the essence of the neocon program for the Middle East..."  The credulous brothers bought the neocon vision and committed themselves in a loud and public way, to its success.  True believers in the promises of a "democratic Iraq," they founded a political party and planned to run in the Iraqi elections.  They hooked up with "Spirit of America" and "Friends of Democracy," both US based organizations (which deny links to the US government) and attended a SoA conference in Jordan in October  .  In December, two of the brothers made their trip to the US and that's where things get really nasty. Here's Ali, on December 11 (emphasis mine):

We were always known as the Fadhils brothers and I don't know who made this confusing change and why, but I have an idea about it. We were all invited in the beginning and I was very excited to meet our friends that we met through this blog, and I wanted to be able to say "Thank you America" in America, but I decided few days before the trip not to go (for reasons that I'll discuss in the future, probably). However, my invitation was cancelled even before I tell the people who set up the trip about my decision. So I asked Mohammed and Omar to go ahead, as I thought it might be good for our project "Friends of Democracy" and Iraq. I still hope to visit America some day, but I would love this to happen normally, and not through exceptional procedures and I would be so happy to meet all my American friends and to say thank you to the American people.

Why was Ali disinvited to go on the trip?  Was it because he knew or suspected (with good reason, it turned out) that the brothers were going to be cynically used and exploited by the warbloggers and Washington Neocons, and he felt this would endanger all of them? Ali again (lambasting Professor Cole who had speculated as to whether their blog was "astroturfing"), on December 16:

I was never invited to meet Bush (neither my brothers knew until they were there) and we don't know why he wanted that, but this is where I agree with you that those who did set up this meeting had their own motives that we don't share with them. The thing that upset me the most is that if there are some powers that are trying to use us and our writings as propaganda tool, you and other bloggers as well as some of the media outlets are doing the same with anti-American Iraqi bloggers...

Ali, December 19:

This is the last time I write in this blog and I just want to say, goodbye. It's not an easy thing to do for me, but I know I should do it. I haven't told my brothers with my decision, as they are not here yet, but it won't change anything and I just can't keep doing this anymore. My stand regarding America has never changed. I still love America and feel grateful to all those who helped us get our freedom and are still helping us establishing democracy in our country. But it's the act of some Americans that made me feel I'm on the wrong side here. I will expose these people in public very soon and I won't lack the mean to do this, but I won't do it here as this is not my blog. At any rate, it's been a great experience and a pleasure to know all the regular readers of this blog, as I do feel I know you, and I owe you a lot. Best wishes to all of you, those who supported us and those who criticized us as well.

That was Ali's last post on the ITM blog. He then started "Iraqi Liberal," which he changed to "Free Iraqi" after his largely neoconservative pro-war following showed up and complained about the word "liberal."  Ali's new blog began December 24, and he made 8 posts before admitting he was Ali from ITM.  A full two weeks after posting his ominous farewell threatening to "deal with" and "expose" some Americans, an oddly calmer and apologetic Ali posted this explanation of his defection from ITM:

I had some serious doubts about that trip to the US and did express them to my brothers. I saw that it was an unnecessary risk and I feared there would be more than just the harmless meetings with readers and donors. When I didn't get answers that calm these doubts I decided not to go. As I was sitting here behind my computer watching the reactions to my brothers' visit, my doubts grew stronger. I believe that they were exposed to a great risk and despite we were promised that there would be no major media, I got a mail from a journalist in the Washington Post asking about the meeting with (POTUS). After that mail, I decided to quit. My brothers were not as concerned as I was and thought that western media is hardly read by terrorists or fanatics. However, few days ago a friend of ours came to our house telling us that he read about the visit and the meeting with Bush in "Al Sharq Al Awsat" a widely distributed Arabic newspaper that reaches most Arab countries if not all. They had the news through the Washington Post and this was not strange to me, as it's a common thing that Arabic newspapers and Satellite TV channels discuss western media regularly. It's one thing to risk your life for doing what you believe in and serving your country and humanity and it's totally another thing to risk your life just to meet (POTUS).

So we see that Ali was, despite his relentless optimism and support for Iraqi elections, aware that candidates were being executed regularly by the resistance as "collaborators" and he knew that the surest way to paint a bullseye on your back in Baghdad was to associate with any Americans, let alone tour the US with your pro-invasion American "friends" and visit the  widely-despised US President George W. Bush.  Having compromised themselves in a way that the Iraqi Olympic Soccer Team refused to allow, the hapless Iraqis were then feted by every warblogger who could get in on the action, as well as written up in various "MSM" papers and featured in radio interviews.  Warbloggers plastered pictures of Omar and Mohammed on their blogs which underwent a succession of changes as the brothers, possibly galvanized by Ali's reaction in Baghdad,  begged them to first, obscure their faces and then remove the pictures.  (The picture issue was a bit ridiculous because the brothers already had their pictures on their campaign website.) The warbloggers and their various fellow-travelers would prefer to forget this moment of blogger triumph and glory when at last some trophy Iraqi bloggers arrived who were willing to validate their  bloody invasion of a country that posed no threat to them (they ignored Salam Pax, the most famous Iraqi blogger, who made his way to the US in October) , especially when they need to make a vicious attack on an "MSM" reporter for doing what they would now pretend they had never done first and far worse: endangering and exploiting the people they were ostentatiously "liberating," who mistakely thought that they were under the protection of people who cared about them and their wellbeing. 

The writing is already on the wall to indicate how the War Party and it's Internet Cadres intend to handle the looming demise of their Great Iraqi Vision when it inevitably swallows up the Iraqis who listened to them and trusted them (along with the Americans already mired in the quagmire.)  They're going to pin it on the very people who warned them from the beginning that they were wrong and bound to fail.  Already you hear it constantly, the whiny accusations against the media and analysts who dare to criticize - negative, sapping morale, breaking our will to win - as if not acknowledging reality could somehow keep it at bay.  The hypocritical charge of the Fighting Keyboarders - endanger, endanger, endanger, endanger echoed through the warblog-O-sphere as they all linked to one another's posts. And so, at this moment when these severely compromised and exploited Iraqis have returned to the life-threatening chaos that is now the New Iraq and still live, I challenge all of you who clamored for meetings and held parties with real, live Iraqi centerpieces to step up and accept the responsibility for what you've done.  You brought these guys here and - according to Ali, "...despite we were promised that there would be no major media, I got a mail from a journalist in the Washington Post.."  You lied.  These guys are dead men walking because the most dangerous occupation on this planet right now is being a candidate for election in Occupied Iraq, and Baghdad is in it's own little category of hyper-danger.

  Now, it becomes obvious why all of you latched on to the NYT Boxer piece.  In the time-honored method of cowards and low-lifes everywhere, you were looking for someone on whom to pin the blame when these guys get killed, just like you'll do and have done with every other miserable, predictable consequence in this murderous war.

If any of you had any decency, you'd arrange for these guys to take refuge in the Green Zone, at least.  I really hope you already did that and arranged for a phalanx of bodyguards to follow them everywhere, but I doubt you did.  Because you're all too busy pretending your fantasy Iraq really exists.

RE: Collective punishment

RE: Justin's post Life in Sparta, referring to Dahr Jamail's article on al-Dora. There is an album on Jamail's website that illustrates the story.  See here.

Breaking bones in Gaza

Ran HaCohen has one of his infrequent but always worth waiting for articles on the main page of Antiwar.com. Much discussion is ongoing as we watch the spectacle of Israel's Sharon struggling to cope with the loss of his favorite scapegoat. (See peacepalestine here and the Head Heeb here.) Ran HaCohen:

So expect a large-scale operation in Gaza, soon. The immediate excuse – missile attacks on Israel – does not really matter: Abu Mazen, so the argument goes, does not stop the missiles, so we are forced to send the army to stop them; at the same time, the army itself admits it has no means to stop the missiles. So we are sending the army to do what it cannot do, because Abu Mazen does not do it either. After all, occupation is not about logic – it's about breaking bones.

Crisis Pictures is keeping an updated album of the broken bones of Gaza. Scroll down to the second picture to see a photo of Mohammed Raban, a survivor of the Strawberry Field Flechette Massacre.

Rice diced by Boxer

Tim Dunlop has a good summary of the Rice confirmation hearings:

At the confirmation hearings for Condoleeza Rice today, Senator Barbara Boxer did to Rice what the Bush administration has been doing to the country for the past four years....Read the rest

UPDATE: Arthur Silber has posted an appeal for signatures on a petiton by Barbara Boxer here.

Fallujah:City of Ghosts

Via Yoshie at Critical Montages, a quote from Iraqi doctor Ali Fadhil:

The US military destroyed Falluja, but simply spread the fighters out around the country. They also increased the chance of civil war in Iraq by using their new national guard of Shias to suppress Sunnis. Once, when a foreign journalist, an Irish guy, asked me whether I was Shia or Sunni -- the way the Irish do because they have that thing about the IRA -- I said I was Sushi. My father is Sunni and my mother is Shia. I never cared about these things. Now, after Falluja, it matters. (Fadhil, "City of Ghosts," January 11, 2005)

This (realplayer)clip is from Dr Ali Fadhil's special report on his return to Fallujah, produced by Guardian Films:

Falluja: The Fall and Fall Out (January 10, 2005)

Iraq

Spreading Democracy and Hypocrisy

At a time when Iraqi expats all over the world are registering to vote in the forthcoming election, here's a related situation, explored by James Bowen in the Irish Times, to ponder:

The elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about is the disenfranchisement of the Palestinian refugees in the diaspora outside the borders of pre-1948 Palestine. These people, who constitute the majority of the Palestinians, were not allowed to vote in Sunday's election.

According to PASSIA, a well-respected independent Palestinian research institution in East Jerusalem, the worldwide Palestinian population in mid-2001 was 8.8 million. Of these, one million werePalestinian citizens of Israel, 3.3 million were living in the WestBank and Gaza and 4.5 million were refugees in the diaspora.

Since the Palestinian population has one of the highest growth rates in the world, 4.5 per cent per annum, the corresponding figures inJanuary 2005 are higher but it is reasonable to assume that therelative proportions are similar.

Of the millions of Palestinians who are not Israeli citizens, 58 percent are in the diaspora and only 42 per cent live in the West Bank and Gaza. However, only the latter were allowed to vote on Sunday. While nobody should complain about these people electing someone whowill administer their local taxes and services, the problem is that the Palestinian Authority is actually expected to negotiate a treaty which will determine the future of the disenfranchised refugees.

The Israelis want the PA to sign an agreement abdicating the right of the refugees to return to the homes from which they were ethnically cleansed by Israeli troops in 1948.

Posted by Howard Lenow (guest blogging for Andrew Schamess) Read the rest here.

What reason is there for facilitating the participation of the