Advanced Semantics

Why is it that Palestinians 'kidnap' Israeli soldiers and Israelis 'detain' Palestinian ministers?

The mainstream media have fallen in line with Israeli propaganda on this latest incursion. Following the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier by Palestinian militants Israel has launched a considerable number of attacks in Palestine, with the promise of more to follow. Their retaliation seemingly intends to escalate the situation, extending to the taking hostage of dozens of Palestinian ministers and lawmakers.

This is the way it is being reported:

Peter Hirschberg writes in today's Irish Times, "Israel launched a broad ground offensive in Gaza yesterday, with thousands of troops and armoured vehicles pouring into the coastal strip under cover of fighter planes, in an operation officials said was meant to pressure Palestinians into releasing a kidnapped Israeli soldier being held captive by militants."

"The Israeli assault began shortly after midnight on Tuesday, when planes fired missiles at the main power station in Gaza, leaving hundreds of thousands of residents without power in the southern part of the coastal strip. Missiles were also fired at several bridges in southern Gaza, rendering them impassable. An army spokesman said the bridges had been destroyed to prevent militants from moving the kidnapped soldier, whom Israel believes is being held somewhere in the southern part of the strip."

Thankfully the sound of reason comes through, though cloaked in the 'condemnation' of a Palestinian, "Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas condemned the Israeli invasion, calling it "collective punishment and a crime against humanity". Many of the 1.2 million Gaza residents, anticipating a long standoff and no electricity, began stockpiling food, water, batteries and candles."

Surely President Mahmoud Abbas is simply referring to the human rights we are all supposedly guaranteed:

Part II of the Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 states that Collective punishments, Taking of hostages and the Threats to commit any of the foregoing acts shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever:
Part IV states:

1. The civilian population and individual civilians shall enjoy general protection against the dangers arising from military operations. To give effect to this protection, the following rules shall be observed in all circumstances.
2. The civilian population as such, as well as individual civilians, shall not be the object of attack. Acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population are prohibited.

Article 14.-Protection of objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population
Starvation of civilians as a method of combat is prohibited. It is therefore prohibited to attack, destroy, remove or render useless, for that purpose, objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, such as foodstuffs, agricultural areas for the production of foodstuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water installations and supplies and irrigation works.

Article 15.-Protection of works and installations containing dangerous forces
Works or installations containing dangerous forces, namely dams, dykes and nuclear electrical generating stations, shall not be made the object of attack, even where these objects are military objectives, if such attack may cause the release of dangerous forces and consequent severe losses among the civilian population.

Michael Jansen reports the 'other side', "Dr Mustafa Barghouti, member of parliament and head of the Palestinian Medical Relief Committees, argued that Israel's air strikes against power installations that cut both electricity and water constitute "collective punishment" of more than half the 1.3 million residents of the Strip." But again fails to make the logical conclusion herself, attributing the word of law to a Palestinian, someone who can be easily ignored.

It is quite clear that Israel is conducting collective punishment, there is no need to reference who claims it. It is enshrined in International law.

RTE report:

"Mr Annan said Israel should show restraint and 'avoid actions that damage civilian infrastructure'." But no reference to the Geneva Conventions.

RTE also follow the kidnap/detain rule:

"Israel has given Palestinian militants a two days deadline to release a soldier kidnapped during a pre-dawn raid at an Israeli Army post near the Gaza Strip."

"Israel has denied that 64 Palestinian officials being detained in the West Bank are to be used as bargaining chips in the crisis over the capture of an Israeli soldier."

The BBC reported in 2003:

"At the time of writing, about 5,600 Palestinians are in Israeli custody for political reasons - there are also a few hundred common criminals."

"Other categories of prisoners are easier to establish: about 75 are women, and 360 boys under the age of 18 who - controversially - are sometimes kept among the adult population."

These prisoners are denied their human rights and are subject to "physical and psychological pressure"

Wikipedia puts the current number 'detained' at over 8000.

Israeli detention assures prisoners no more rights than Palestinian captivity.

Why does Israel 'detain' and Palestine 'kidnap'?

Inverting Reality

Hugh Linehan's review of Noam Chomsky's latest book 'Failed States' is a far more balanced critic than that published by the Guardian, however Mr. Linehan makes some unnecessarily poor observations. He writes that Chomsky's work "is conveyed in dense, quotation-heavy paragraphs, with footnotes aplenty." This, according to Mr. Lineham, is very suspicious. The quotations must exist, because they support 'the contention', in order to deceive the reader, not as one might expect in order to provide evidence. Instead of offering counter evidence to 'the contention' Mr. Linehan seems to think raising suspicion of disinformation represents an adequate debunking. Hence Mr. Linehan's ironic selective quotation:

"Perhaps he's right, although his record as a prophet of apocalypse is not particularly impressive (in 2001 he suggested that the US invasion of Afghanistan could lead to the "silent genocide" of several million Afghans)."

could not be further from the mark:

"No, what I said, is that, if the assumption they were making were that, that could well be a consequence. Remember the bombing of Afghanistan was taken on the assumption that it might well put millions of people at risk of starvation, that assumption was very wide spread. You can read it in Harvard's major international journal, International Security. The New York Times for example, estimated that after a month that the number of people at risk for starvation had risen by 50%, from 5 million to 7½ million. And in fact right after September 11th, even before the bombing, the U.S. ordered Pakistan to terminate food supplies that were keeping a good part of the population at the edge of survival. So that policy, under the assumptions in which the policy was being conducted could well have led to silent genocide. That's one of the reasons why rational people should oppose policies like that." [Noam Chomsky interviewed by Bill Zimmerman in 2003]

It seems that the goal of Mr. Linehan's article was, from the outset, to discredit both the book and the writer. Therefore Mr. Chomsky's highlighting of the reported dangers facing defenseless communities in an unpopular Middle Eastern country in the event of US aggression evidences the writers deficiencies, not as any reasonable person might think, the inhumanity of US foreign policy. Mr. Chomsky, we have your number.

Yours etc...

More From Chomsky via MLMB:

"I remember a book by Norman Podhoretz, some right-wing columnist, in which he accused academics in the peace movement of being ingrates because we were working against the government but we were getting grants from the government. That reflects an extremely interesting conception of the state, in fact a fascist conception of the state. It says that the state is your master, and if the state does something for you, you have to be nice to them. That's the underlying principle. So the state runs you, you're its slave, and if they happen to do something nice for you, like giving you a grant, you have to be nice to them, otherwise it's ungrateful. Notice how exactly opposite that is to democratic theory. According to democratic theory you're the master, the state is your servant. The state doesn't give you a grant. The state's just an instrument. But the concept of democracy is so remote from our conception, that we very often tend to fall into straight fascist ideas like that... "

From an interview with David Barsamian, Language and Politics, page 747

Death Without Context

In an article search of the Irish Times archive for the period June 2005 to June 2006, the search term "Iraq lancet" gave 3 results, the last of which was printed in December 2005.

A search, for the period May 2006 to June 2006, using the term "Iraq US troop" found that the number of US military casualties was reported 8 times in less than two months, only one of these reports compared these figures with Iraqi fatalities.

"The US death toll in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion is approaching 2,500, and tens of thousands of Iraqis have died."

The Irish Times has developed a problem reporting the death toll of modern conflict, they have shown an unwillingness to report the full toll, preferring instead to report individual incidents without providing any indication of the bigger picture. This problem is of course limited to conflicts that are supported by the Irish government. In a letter I sent to the Times last year I wrote "over 100,000 Iraqis and several thousand coalition troops [have died]." A fairly uncontroversial statement, given the figure for Iraqi mortality is provided by the respected medical journal The Lancet. Figures for other conflicts, estimated by the same team who undertook the Iraq survey have received approval by the mainstream media and are generally reported as fact:

"One of the first EU battlegroups was deployed by France in Rwanda in 1994, with UN approval, not to prevent the Rwandan genocide, but to help the mass murderers escape into the Congo, sparking off civil wars that caused up to four million deaths."

However even in this instant, where I made the 'bold' assumption that more than the estimated 100,000 Iraqis have died since the invasion, the Irish Times discomfort with large numbers rose it's ugly head again. The word "over" was replaced with the less controversial word "perhaps" before printing. Perhaps 100,000 Iraqis have died, or perhaps none, who knows.

Where the Irish Times does report Iraqi deaths, they generally prefer to provide a lower figure to counterbalance the 'exorbitant' Lancet figure. Therefore a baseline figure for Iraqi mortality, provided by the organisation Iraq Body Count, is printed by it's side.

Since the IBC figure accounts for only a fraction of the deaths estimated by other reports, referring to it as a "baseline" is misleading. The term "baseline" does not even suggest the actual extent of Iraqi deaths that go unreported.

Stephen Soldz, Director of the Center for Research, Evaluation, and Program Development at the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis, described the inability of the IBC method in providing an accurate account of Iraqi deaths:

"[T]here is simply no reason to believe that even a large fraction of Iraqi civilian combat-related deaths are ever reported in the Western media, much less, have the two independent reports necessary to be recorded in the IBC database. Do these few agencies really have enough Iraqi reporters on retainer to cover the country? Are these reporters really able comprehensively to cover deaths in insurgent-held parts of Iraq? How likely is it that two reporters from distinct media outlets are going to be present at a given site where deaths occur? How many of the thousands of US bombings have been investigated by any reporter, Western or Iraqi? Simply to state these questions is to emphasize the fragmentary nature of the reporting that occurs and thus the limitations of the IBC database."

IBC themselves admit their count is not a true reflection of total deaths:

"We've always said our work is an undercount, you can't possibly expect that a media-based analysis will get all the deaths. Our best estimate is that we've got about half the deaths that are out there."

“Our maximum therefore refers to reported deaths, which can only be a sample of true deaths unless one assumes that every civilian death has been reported. It is likely that many if not most civilian casualties will go unreported by the media. That is the sad nature of war.”

"Assuming even the most pessimistic outturn for violent civilian deaths, our database must include a substantial proportion of all victims, certainly not less than 25%, probably significantly more than half."

While the IBC figure is of course a damning indictment of Western foreign policy in Iraq, the Lancet figure begins to show the full extent of the death US/UK led invasion has inflicted upon Iraq's people. And while the figure is quite shocking, the Lancet figure accounts only for deaths in the first six months of the invasion. This figure is now obviously not a true reflection of the number of dead. Les Roberts of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and lead author of the report, has said the current figure may be much higher. The information available suggests this assumption is correct. The BBC reported earlier this month:

"Iraqis mourn at the entrance of a morgue in a local hospital in Baghdad Mortuaries have become a focal point for families seeking loved ones. The bodies of 6,000 people, most of whom died violently, have been received by Baghdad's main mortuary so far this year, health ministry figures show. The number has risen every month, to 1,400 in May. The majority are believed to be victims of sectarian killings."

"But no-one believes these are the true figures from the violence in and around Baghdad as many bodies are not taken to the morgue."

The Irish Times' preference to ignore the Lancet figure is arguably worse than say a preference to continually report the figure and at the same time criticise it's validity. This sort of reporting would at least offer the reader an opportunity to judge the methodology themselves.

In complete contradiction to the Irish Times' non-reporting of the Lancet study, presumably considered 'out of date', the Irish Times regularly, sometimes daily, reports the number of US and coalition deaths.

In the last two months the total number of coalition deaths has been reported eight times. That is eight times more than the total number of Iraqi deaths has been reported. The irony being that the figure for Iraqi deaths is upwards of 40 times more than that of coalition casualties.

The Irish Times and the mainstream media in general have shown a distinct lack of interest in a study that attempts to show the result of Western foreign policy in the Middle East. This evidences much about the symbiotic relationship between governments, corporations and the media that bolsters their control. The now infamous quote by US General Tommy Franks, “We don’t do body counts,” is not just a reminder of the ethical deficiency in the US military, it shows a congruent agenda between the media and the law makers.

The Irish Times, “We don’t do body counts.”

Posted over at Indymedia.ie

And 'in the news':

"An anti-war campaigner placed six US soldiers under citizen's arrest in Ennis on Thursday after he observed them walking along a busy roadway close to a hotel where they were staying while their aircraft underwent technical repairs at Shannon airport."

Continued... The Irish Times

Sarcasm and RTE

Tonight's RTE Nine O'clock news reported that President Bush wants to close the Guantanamo detention centre. According to an RTE report Bush 'understands' European concerns over the imprisonment of terror suspects in Guantanamo.

Anne Doyle commented that the President had "gone out of his way" to assure EU leaders about treatment in Guantanamo.

RTE correspondent, Sean Whelan, stated that President Bush "would like to close" the facility, to which the correspondent followed with the question, "when would he like to close" the facility?

There seems to be one seemingly obvious question RTE failed to ask. If Bush would like to close the detention centre, and yet it remains open and will continue to be open for the foreseeable future, doesn't this suggest President Bush has either insufficient power or insufficient will to close the centre.

Human rights organisations have continually called for the centre's closing, which has been the subject of numerous credible allegations of torturing detainees. The only assurances that these crimes are not being committed have come from those that run the centre. These assurances are at odds with the majority of information we have available on the facility. The recent suicides of three inmates is adequate grounds to warrant speculation about the veracity of these assurances.

Robert Shortt described the brutal killing of a disabled Iraqi man and the recently exposed killing of men, women and children in Haditha as an 'incident of considerable embarrassment' for the same US military responsible for the Guantanamo facility.

If the question as to the accuracy of President Bush's recent statement is neither obvious nor important to RTE's correspondents, it appears that the manner in which this 'confession' has been reported is less than balanced.

Would the same reporters be able to report the same statements, and then ask the same follow up questions "'when would he like to close the facility?", if the leader making the statements was Saddam Hussein or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? Would a similar pacification of language be employed?

Guantanamo prison is an integral part of the War on Terror, it is not as it was described just the 'dark side' of this war.

Contact RTE at complaints@rte.ie

More on the story: RTE

From the BBC: "I'd like to end Guantanamo. I'd like it to be over with," Bush said.

[cross posted at Indymedia.ie]

Chomsky in the Guardian

A negotiated solution to the Iranian nuclear crisis is within reach

The US must take three basic steps to defuse this confrontation. The consequences of not doing so could be grim

Noam Chomsky
Monday June 19, 2006
The Guardian

The urgency of halting the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and moving toward their elimination, could hardly be greater. Failure to do so is almost certain to lead to grim consequences, even the end of biology's only experiment with higher intelligence. As threatening as the crisis is, the means exist to defuse it.

continued... The Guardian via MLMB

Oh and the Guardian recently 'took on' chomsky. Funny stuff.

Do Nothing

[Update]

letter to the Irish Times:

Dear Ms. Kennedy,

Rory Bryne's recount of his Burma experience is both welcomed and belated. Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi explained to reporter John Pilger in 2005 "For the media, Burma is seldom fashionable. But the important thing to remember about a struggle like ours is that it endures, whether or not the spotlight is on, and it can't be turned back." While Rory's article does not set out to answer any questions it does leave one essential question left infuriatingly unanswered. Soe, a trained lawyer and former student leader, we are told took a big risk in speaking to Rory, yet the article fails to to explain; if speaking to a foreign journalist or even a foreign tourist is so dangerous, why would Soe risk his life to fill a few column inches in an Irish newspaper?

The answer, I'm sure, is that Soe believes the risk he takes in order to bring the plight of the Burma people to the West is worth the possibility the change that publicity might bring. He might also believe that if people are aware of Burma's history, if they are aware of it's present, they can act to change it. We can also be quite sure that Soe does not favour the kind of 'humanitarian intervention' Iraq has been subjected to, as Desmond Tutu wrote "Suu Kyi and the people of Burma have not called for a military coalition to invade their country. They have simply asked for the maximum diplomatic and economic pressure against Burma's brutal dictators." He might also presume that if people in the West knew they could contribute to change in Burma by simply doing nothing, the risk involved in telling them this was a risk he should take.

A report, issued by the former President of the Czech Republic and Bishop Desmond M. Tutu, "Threat to the Peace: A Call for the UN Security Council to Act in Burma, issued in September 2005, provides a detailed overview of the reasons why the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) needs to intervene in Burma to insure that Burma's people can live in an environment free from oppression."

The "Threat to Peace" website offers some useful examples for those concerned enough to want to act. The first and most important suggestion is that the concerned citizen should learn more about Burma. While Mr. Byrne's article is a welcome acknowledgment to the plight of the Burmese people, it is enormously deficient.

There remains a whole host of important facts concerning Burma's past and present that Mr. Byrnes' article makes a well disguised reference to, but fails to pass on to the reader. Such as, what keeps the military junta in power? The answer to this question has much to do with foreign investment, though one could not garner this from Rory's article. Though one article is obviously not sufficient space to unveil years of buried history, Mr. Byrne could at least have made reference to economic factors. Nearly 800 words and not one mention of sanctions, investment, corporations or natural resources.

Following the events of 1988 the regime took a new outlook on foreign investment. According to The Burma Campaign UK "the junta quickly realized that forests and fisheries were finite resources and sought other foreign investment." This foreign investment, while it encountered setbacks such as US economic measures, remains , perpetuating the rule of a repressive, un-elected junta.

The list of companies that still maintains links to the Burmese military junta can be found here: http://www.global-unions.org/burma/default3.asp

There is one simple thing Irish Times readers can now do, thanks in part to Rory's in-adequate spotlight, and that thing is NOTHING. Don't use oil from companies that operate in Burma, don't travel with travel companies that finance the Burmese government, don't buy cars from companies with connections to the Burmese government, don't invest in financial institutions that work with the Burmese government. Don't do anything to support the military junta that continues to destroy the lives of Burma's people.

Regards,

[Full Post]

Rory Bryne's recount of his Burma experience in today's Irish Times is an interesting read, and while it does not set out to answer any questions it does leave one essential question left infuriatingly unanswered. As Soe, a trained lawyer and former student leader, pedalled off with a smile and a wave Rory explains that his "Speaking to me was a big risk. I had to admire his courage."

If speaking to a foreign journalist or even a foreign tourist is so dangerous, why would Soe risk his life to fill a few column inches in an Irish newspaper?

The answer, I'm sure, is that Soe believes the risk he takes in order to bring the plight of the Burma people to the West is worth the possibility the change that publicity might bring. He might also believe that if people are aware of Burma's history, if they are aware of it's present, they can act to change it. We can also be quite sure that Soe does not favour the kind of 'humanitarian intervention' Iraq has been subjected to, as Desmond Tutu wrote "Suu Kyi and the people of Burma have not called for a military coalition to invade their country. They have simply asked for the maximum diplomatic and economic pressure against Burma's brutal dictators." He might also presume that if people in the West knew they could contribute to change in Burma by simply doing nothing, the risk involved in telling them this was a risk he should take. [1]

A report, issued by the former President of the Czech Republic and Bishop Desmond M. Tutu, “Threat to the Peace: A Call for the UN Security Council to Act in Burma, issued in September 2005, provides a detailed overview of the reasons why the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) needs to intervene in Burma to insure that Burma’s people can live in an environment free from oppression." [2]

The report "does not call for UN-led military intervention or the deployment of a peacekeeping force in Burma. Rather, it makes recommendations on how to peacefully achieve democratic change."

The "Threat to Peace" website offers some useful examples for those concerned enough to want to act. The first and most important suggestion is that the concerned citizen should learn more about Burma. While Mr. Byrne's article is a welcome acknowledgment to the plight of the Burmese people, it is enormously deficient.

There remains a whole host of important facts concerning Burma's past and present that Mr. Byrnes' article makes a well disguised reference to. Such as, what keeps the military junta in power?

EU imports between 1998 and 2002 were around 4bn dollars. In October 2004 "the fifth summit of the 39-state Asia-Europe Meeting (Asem) was held in Hanoi and attended by representatives of the junta for the first time. Instead of announcing a boycott, the Europeans turned up and said nothing. Rather, France's president, Jacques Chirac, said he hoped stronger sanctions would not be necessary because they "will hurt the poorest people". For "poorest people" read Total Oil Company, part-owned by the French government, the largest foreign investor in Burma, where the oil companies' infrastructure of roads and railway access have long been the subject of allegations of forced labour." [1]

John Jackson of the Burma Campaign UK explained to John Pilger "None of the EU officials I have met, denies that foreign investment and military spending in Burma are closely linked. In the week the regime received its first payment for gas due to be piped to Thailand from a gas field operated by Total Oil, it made a 130m dollar down-payment on ten MiG-29 jet fighters." And yet these commercial ventures are almost never mentioned in the mainstream press, let alone in the influential and coloured writing of 'the editorial'.

The BBC reported in May 2005, "Some 12.3 million people are enslaved worldwide. The International Labour Organization says 2.4 million of them are victims of trafficking, and their labour generates profits of over $30bn." [3]

Human Rights Watch reported in 1995, "the overall human rights situation is worsening. As the SLORC has moved to attract international investment, at least 2 million people have been forced to work for no pay under brutal conditions to rebuild Burma's long- neglected infrastructure."

While Mr. Byrne alludes to the historical perspective his readers need, "In 1988, Ne Win, Burma's hard line dictator, unleashed the army against unarmed pro-democracy protesters, killing thousands in cities throughout Burma. In the wake of the crackdown, Ne Win was compelled to resign but was replaced by his friends in the army, who remain in power today," he leaves the reader hanging.

Though one article is obviously not sufficient space to unveil years of buried history, Mr. Byrne could at least have made reference to economic factors. Nearly 800 words and not one mention of sanctions, investment, corporations or natural resources.

Following the events of 1988 the regime took a new outlook on foreign investment. According to The Burma Campaign UK "The junta quickly realized that forests and fisheries were finite resources, however; and sought other foreign investment. In addition to immediate hard currency earnings that the generals would receive in signatory bonuses, taxes and profits, foreign investments offered a degree of international respectability to a regime with one of the world's worst human rights records. Further, significant Western investment in itself would tend to become a factor in foreign policy formulation. The greater the stakes held by American and European companies, the less likely their governments would be to take a strong stand against even a cruelly dictatorial regime." [4]

"foreign investment helps perpetuate the rule of a repressive, un-elected junta. Large investment in Burma is carried out through joint ventures with the military regime. Much is directed through companies owned and operated by Burma's Ministry of Defence, notably the Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings (UMEH).

Over the last fifteen years Foreign Direct Investment has flowed into Burma, largely for tourist infrastructure and natural resource extraction projects. During the same period Burma’s military has expanded from 180,000 personnel to 400,000 while the country’s health, education and public services have almost collapsed.

Military spending has fluctuated between a third and a half of the regime’s budget during the 1990s. A country of around 50 million people has one of the largest armies in Asia, and yet has no external enemies." [4]

The enemy it seems is the 'government's' own people.

While on the surface there have been promising moves towards stricter control on foreign investment, with a growing number of companies joining the dis-investment list as a result of campaigns designed to highlight the brutality this investment supports, there are signs that investment shows no sign of ending:

While the US has enacted a number of measures; in 1997 - Ban on new investment, in 2003 - US import ban, in 2003 - Ban on remittances, "the EU will continue to be a source of economic comfort for Burma’s military establishment."

The list of companies that still maintains links to the Burmese military junta can be found here: http://www.global-unions.org/burma/default3.asp

Aung San Suu Kyi told reporter John Pilger in 2005 "For the media, Burma is seldom fashionable. But the important thing to remember about a struggle like ours is that it endures, whether or not the spotlight is on, and it can't be turned back."

There is one simple thing Irish Times readers can now do, thanks in part to Rory's in-adequate spotlight, and that thing is NOTHING. Don't use oil from companies that operate in Burma, don't travel with travel companies that finance the Burmese government, don't buy cars from companies with connections to the Burmese government, don't invest in financial institutions that work with the Burmese government. Don't do anything to support the military junta that continues to destroy the lives of Burma's people.


1. http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content
2. http://www.unscburma.org/
3. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4534393.stm
4. http://www.burmacampaign.org.uk/aboutburma

Other Links for information on Burma:

http://www.burmaforumla.org/
http://www.unscburma.org/Docs/

Choose your employer wisely

Working with/for the occupiers, it seems, is not a good idea.

"Employees all share a common tale of their lives: of nine emplyees in March, only four family members knew they worked at the embassy. That makes it difficult for them, and for us. Iraqi colleagues called after hours often speak Arabic as an indication they cannot speak openly in English."

The Washington Post reports more bad news from Iraq:

From the U.S. Embassy in Iraq, a stark compendium of its local employees' daily hardships and pressing fears

Sunday, June 18, 2006; B01

Hours before President Bush left on a surprise trip last Monday to the Green Zone in Baghdad for an upbeat assessment of the situation there, the U.S. Embassy in Iraq painted a starkly different portrait of increasing danger and hardship faced by its Iraqi employees. This cable, marked "sensitive" and obtained by The Washington Post, outlines in spare prose the daily-worsening conditions for those who live outside the heavily guarded international zone: harassment, threats and the employees' constant fears that their neighbors will discover they work for the U.S. government.

via Sau at Persistence of Vision

Terrorists and Allies

The BBC reported last week that Palestinian officials said "Seven people, including three children, have been killed by Israeli shells which hit a beach in the northern Gaza Strip.

At least 30 people were wounded in the shelling, they say.

The Israeli military says it has halted all shelling of Gaza and has launched an inquiry into whether ground-based artillery could have been involved.

Four other people were also killed in separate Israeli air strike in northern Gaza on Friday, Palestinians said."

Initial reports then, revealed the obvious, but the Israeli propaganda machine had yet to kick into overdrive:

"Beach deaths 'not Israel's fault'

Palestinian PM Ismail Haniya visited the wounded in hospital Israel is not responsible for a blast that killed eight Palestinians enjoying a picnic on a Gaza beach last Friday, Defence Minister Amir Peretz says. He said an inquiry had shown an Israeli shell could not have caused the blast, as had initially been alleged."

And then "Nine Palestinians, including two children, have been killed and at least 30 hurt in an Israeli air raid in Gaza. The Israeli army said it had targeted "a terror cell" on its way to fire rockets at Israel on a vehicle loaded with Katyusha rocket launchers. The Islamic Jihad militant group said two of its members died in the blast. Seven civilians were also killed. "

While in the Guardian ""All the evidence points to the fact that it couldn't have been a mine," said Marc Garlasco, a former Pentagon adviser on battlefields who led the US military's battle damage assessment team in Kosovo and worked for its intelligence wing, the Defense Intelligence Agency."

Though the headline reads: "Israel blames Hamas for beach deaths"

Derek Lane over at the Media Lens message board worte to the BBC:

Dear Ms Boaden, Mr Herrmann,

Today, on the 15th June 2006, there are 2 'highlighted' stories in the mid-east section regarding Israel/Palestine:

The first reads 'Militants fire rockets at Israel', the second reads 'Israeli town bears brunt of attacks'.

In the second story, it is not until the 5th last paragraph that we discover that "On Tuesday an Israeli air strike killed two Palestinian militants and seven Palestinian civilians after targeting a vehicle allegedly carrying Katyusha rocket launchers about to be fired into Israel."

Until that point - and after, we are lead to believe that Palestine has taken up an unjustified attack on Israel, rather than the reality; they are +responding to attacks from Israel+.
Why is this not made clear from the outset?

Why are both stories framed in the context of what 'Palestine is doing to Israel', rather than the more honest 'what Israel is doing to Palestine'?

It is becoming increasingly difficult to see from the BBC perspective how any of this constitutes 'balance' and 'impartiality'. We learnt of international criticism of Israel (not BBC criticism) last week concerning the continued bombing of civilians in Palestine, this week it is as though it (yet again) no longer matters.

7 civilians is only an issue worthy of mentioning in the 5th last paragraph of an article on the effect bombing has had on +Israelis+. We even hear of one Israeli who believes flattening Gaza (or 'wiping Gaza off the map', or perhaps, 'the destruction of Gaza' - to use your own parlance) is justified. Naturally, no criticism from the BBC there; this is the point we see that famed BBC objectivity.

If only the same objectivity existed for the actions of Palestinians against Israel.

Regards,

Derek Lane

In Palestine, a War on Children
by John Pilger
June 17, 2006

Arthur Miller wrote, "Few of us can easily surrender our belief that society must somehow make sense. The thought that the state has lost its mind and is punishing so many innocent people is intolerable. And so the evidence has to be internally denied."

Miller's truth was a glimpsed reality on television on June 9 when Israeli warships fired on families picnicking on a Gaza beach, killing seven people, including three children and three generations. What that represents is a final solution, agreed by the United States and Israel, to the problem of the Palestinians. While the Israelis fire missiles at Palestinian picnickers and homes in Gaza and the West Bank, the two governments are to starve them. The victims will be mostly children.

continued...ZMag

What do you mean, no dissent?

BBC 2 found time in the graveyard slot for a must see documentary last night. It was my first time to see it and I can safely say I won't be able to forget it for some time.

A short clip on YouTube

Darwin's Nightmare

New York Time's Review:

Feeding Europe, Starving at Home

By A. O. SCOTT
Published: August 3, 2005

"Darwin's Nightmare," Hubert Sauper's harrowing, indispensable documentary, is framed by the arrival and departure of an enormous Soviet-made cargo plane at an airstrip outside Mwanza, Tanzania. The plane, with its crew of burly Russians and Ukrainians, will leave Mwanza for Europe carrying 55 tons of processed fish caught by Lake Victoria fisherman and filleted at a local factory. Though Mr. Sauper's investigation of the economy and ecology around the lake ranges far and wide - he talks to preachers and prostitutes, to street children and former soldiers - he keeps coming back to a simple question. What do the planes bring to Africa?

continued... NY Times

Image from 'film laden'

What's going on in Chad?

John Neliga writes into today's Irish Times to answer Jack Downey's (June 10th) question. His answer is that unless Ireland turns into a brutal dictatorship which sponsors global terrorism, invade our neighbours and commit genocide against our own people, we will not need protection from the US.

But in his haste the gets the answer a tad wrong. If Ireland was to turn into a brutal dictatorship and commit genocide against our own people there is no reason to believe we would suffer the rath of US foreign policy, the support for Saddam during his worst crimes is testament to this. No doubt we would be unpopular if we decided to invade our close neighbours, as the UK is of course a close friend of the US, but so was Kuwait.

But the most obvious hypothetical Mr. Neliga neglects is, and this is the one that is bound to require us some protection, if Ireland turns into one of the world's most oil rich countries in one of the world's most oil rich regions.

Anyone know what's going on in Chad?

[sent to the IT]

Jack's question: "For decades, we looked on the US as our protector against the Soviet Union. Today, who will protect us from the United States?"

Peace hopes dim with Occupiers stance

In an article that's headline reads "Peace hopes dim with al-Qaeda stance" Michael Georgy in the Irish Times reports that Al-Qaeda's promise to continue attacks means that although "Iraqi leaders and their closest ally US president George W Bush welcomed Zarqawi's death," "no one expects violence to ease."

There are a few niggling problems with this sort of framing of the war. Firstly, I doubt Al-Qaeda's response to the killing of Zarqawi was ever going to be anything less than violent. In fact it would have been justified to predict attacks would increase significantly in the short term. Secondly, there is obviously something slightly 'suspicious' about Iraqi leaders having military occupiers as their closest allies. Thirdly, predicting violence will not subside suggests that Al-Qeada are the controlling factor of violence in Iraq. This is not the case, the majority of Iraq's resistance is home grown, and attacks are primarily directed against foreign troops and increasingly towards Iraqi police and military who are seen to be in collusion with the occupiers.

Michael Jansen reported in the Irish Times, only several days ago, "Although al-Qaeda in Iraq has been considered public enemy number one by the US, it has never been a mainstream Iraqi resistance organisation and, with no more than 10 per cent of the total resistance fighters, it remains one of the smaller factions opposing the US occupation."

The Sunday Telegraph reported in late 2005 the results of a secret poll undertaken by the British MoD, the results were a damning indication of the lack of support for coalition occupation. The poll found that "up to 65 per cent of Iraqi citizens support attacks [on British troops] and fewer than one per cent think Allied military involvement is helping to improve security in their country."

Which also supports the findings of a report conducted by The Center for Strategic and International Studies at the end of 2004. It concluded that the Iraqi insurgency was "largely domestic in character, and had significant popular support," while the number of attacks on Coalition Forces accounted for approximately 75% of all attacks.

The November 2005 National Survey of Iraq Report found that over 60% of Iraqis opposed US occupation and the majority of these were 'strongly' opposed.

Dr. Khalid Ibrahim of the Iraqi Human Rights Organisation, a strong supporter of the present puppet government, has admitted that "of course, all Iraqis do not want occupation and want to end it." [For a short exchange with Dr. Khalid Ibrahim visit the archive]

The same MoD poll found that most Iraqis thought that in the event of a coalition withdrawal there would be a a) decrease in violence b) increase in security c) improvement in public services d) decrease in inter-ethnic violence and e) increased co-operation within the Parliament.

It seems Iraqis have consistently voiced their opinions on the occupiers. And with the occupiers refusal to draw up a timetable for withdrawal, it is more likely that "Peace hopes dim with occupiers stance."

[cross posted at Indymedia.ie]

Ireland is not a military base

No more renditions Bertie.

June 26th is the date that the United Nations has marked as the International Day in Support of Survivors and Victims of Torture.

Torture Awareness month

Another 'PR stunt'...

This truly is scary. Three Guantanamo detainees take their own lives and the BBC leads with a quote from a 'top US official':

"A top US official has described the suicides of three detainees at the US base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as a "good PR move to draw attention"."

While the "camp commander said the two Saudis and a Yemeni were "committed" and had killed themselves in "an act of asymmetric warfare waged against us"."

Dear Steve Herrmann and Helen Boaden (BBC Online and News Editors),

The BBC coverage of the suicide of three Guantanamo prisoners has and continues to be appalling. While the detention centre continues to deny their detainees of their basic human rights, the BBC continues to parrot the Official US line on the issue, leading articles on the issue with headlines such as "Guantanamo suicides 'acts of war'" and "Guantanamo suicides a 'PR move'."

We are all aware that past and probably many present detainees are innocent, given that so few have been tried and found guilty. The fact there have been numerous suicide attempts since the prison opened with "some detainees trying to kill themselves by biting their own veins" would suggest to most reasonable people that the conditions in Guantanamo are harsh enough to push their guests to kill themselves.

Are you familiar with Chinese water torture? The method is designed to cause a person to go insane by holding them for an undefined period, perhaps indefinitely, with drops of water falling on their head. In essence this is exactly what Guantanamo detainees are being subjected to. They have no idea when they will be released and according to many reports, they suffer continued/constant torture and inhumane treatment. It is not beyond reason to suspect this might cause them to take their own lives.

And yet the BBC continues to assign precedence to the statements of US Officials as opposed to those of aid agencies and organisations that monitor human rights violations. The real PR stunt is being conducted by the BBC.

Yours sincerely,

helenboaden.complaints@bbc.co.uk
steve.herrmann@bbc.co.uk

"Official records show that there have been 41 suicide attempts since the prison opened in January 2002. Released prisoners say that due to a lack of appropriate instruments, some detainees have tried to kill themselves by biting their own veins, an act considered extremely desperate." [The Guardian]

Spotting PR stunts has never been one of the beeb's most successful hobbies:

"In the main square in Baghdad, a group of Iraqi men attempted to pull down a massive statue of Saddam Hussein in an unprecedented show of contempt for the Iraqi leader.

The metal plaque at the base of the statue was torn off and the statue's marble plinth attacked with a sledgehammer.

The men scaled the statue to secure a noose around its neck but were unable to pull it down. Then US troops joined in, and used an armoured vehicle to gradually pull down the statue."

In fact as we know they helped create that stunt:

"Toppling the statue of Saddam Hussein was a staged event, by U.S. soldiers, for the media. A Reuters long-shot of Firdos Square where the statue was located shows that the Square was nearly empty when Saddam was torn down. The Square was sealed off by the U.S. military. The 200 people milling about were U.S. Marines, international press and Iraqis. However, the media portrayed it as an event of the Iraqi people."

Gabriele Zamparini has been emailing the BBC in an attempt to point out the obvious...

The Cat's Blog


Update: Tom Clonan, a 'defense analyst', rebrands these suicides a little more accurately as "an act of resistance."

In the Shadow of 'Success'

While in clinical terms the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is indeed a success for US and UK occupiers, in that it provides a excellent PR opportunity and at the same time puts an obviously sadistic killer ‘out of the picture’, it will also no doubt prove to be blow to war supporters confidence. Given that al-Zarqawi is neither a military or ideological leader to the large majority of the Iraqi resistance, the violence will no doubt continue unabated. This will obviously despair many of the coalition faithful who would have come to regard the killing of such a prominent terrorist figure as a key moment in ending the resistance. This could be more harm than good for messers Bush and Blair.

The mainstream media often comments on the inhumanity of Islamic extremists when they extol the virtues of killing the enemy. Journalists reel in horror as the enemy rejoices in the killing of coalition forces, despite the common occurrence of innocent people dying in the process. This infrequent morality makes the near unanimous celebration by US and UK officials in the aftermath of the killing of al-Zarqawi, and seven others, all the more amazing. The media has made no comment on this reaction. The US Ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, said al-Zarqawi's death marked a 'great success' and Mr Bush said special forces had 'delivered justice' in killing al-Zarqawi.

Despite the mainstream media's best attempts to assimilate Al-Qaeda in Iraq and the more obvious and more popular indigenous resistance, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's targeted killing will more than likely have little or no effect on the counter insurgency violence directed towards coalition troops. There have been few noticeable reasoned accounts of Thursday's 500lb bombing, which also managed to kill several other people including a woman and a child. In most cases reports focused heavily on President Bush's reaction, with little or no consideration of the methods employed to assassinate what was a much exaggerated threat.

This threat has been carefully manipulated by the military and then faithfully echoed by the media. The purpose of which was and is still to make a firm association in consumers minds of the connection between a) Al Qeada and the Iraqi resistance b) Al Qeada and Iraqi suffering and c) Al Qeada as the main/principle obstacle to Iraqi independence (Where Al Qeada represents global terrorism and Islamic extremism). At the same time taking the focus away from coalition malfeasance and occupation.

There have been a few exceptions, Michael Jansen in the Irish Times is one, who resits the temptation of lumping foreign fighters and Iraqi resistance into the same basket:

"Although al-Qaeda in Iraq has been considered public enemy number one by the US, it has never been a mainstream Iraqi resistance organisation and, with no more than 10 per cent of the total resistance fighters, it remains one of the smaller factions opposing the US occupation."

He concludes that; "While the removal of Zarqawi is undoubtedly a politico-military and propaganda coup, it deprives the Bush administration of its main foreign terrorist enemy in Iraq. Since Zarqawi was a Jordanian who was initially followed by Arab jihadists rather than Iraqi resistance fighters, the US was able to create the illusion that armed opposition to the occupation was non-Iraqi. Consequently, Zarqawi's removal will deprive the Bush administration of a convenient explanation for continuing anti-US violence in Iraq."

Although reprisals for the killing will more than likely fulfil the 'explanation quota' for the time being. Until that is, a new evil incarnate is created.

There has been almost no discussion of the morality of killing seven other, potentially innocent, people in order to kill one person. Given that these targeted attacks are not always as accurate as they are claimed to be. Collateral damage is acceptable when 'we' are doing the killing, it is rarely (nor should it be) considered so when it is the enemy doing the 'damage'.

Tom Clonan gives examples of precision targeting gone wrong in the Irish Times: "Task Force 145, relying on this fast-moving combination of intelligence and timing, would have been very conscious of previous attempts by US forces to eliminate prominent high-profile targets by air strike.

In the early hours of March 20th, 2003, the invasion of Iraq began with an intelligence-driven attempt to "decapitate" the Iraqi regime by means of a combined cruise missile and 2,000lb bomb attack on one of Saddam's safe houses. The attack - which was too late - failed to kill Saddam but flattened a large area of down-town Baghdad.

A further attempt to kill Saddam by air strike in July 2003 employed four massive "bunker-buster" bombs which destroyed a number of houses in the Mansour district of Baghdad. The crater left by these munitions measured 40m (130ft) wide by 20m (65ft) deep and US forces - had they successfully "neutralised" the Iraqi leader - would have been faced with the prospect of conducting an intensive forensic search for minute particles of DNA to confirm Saddam's death." Tom failed to tell if anyone died in these failed assassinations.

While in Afghanistan:“On the first night of bombing US fighter jets swooped low over the hill post overlooking Kabul airport. The raid was short and accurate. "Three times they hit the hill on the first night and they destroyed the radar. The targeting was exact," said Qiamuddin, 50, a former Afghan army officer and a village elder.”

“Then around 10 days later they saw American jets in the broad, blue sky above their village once again.…Ten civilians died.”

“Evidence of destruction on the ground and accounts from dozens of witnesses point to a devastating pattern of inaccuracy by US bombers, in sharp contrast to Pentagon assertions of precision bombing.”

President Bush praised the "courage and professionalism" of the US forces who killed Zarqawi and seven others, Denis Staunton reinforced this welcoming of the killers death using the comments of those personally effected by Zarqawi's brand of terrorism. "The brother of Ken Bigley, who was taken hostage and beheaded by forces under Zarqawi's command in 2004, said yesterday he was glad the "monster" was dead but he would rather have seen him rot in jail."

However there are others he could of quoted, although their scepticism does not have the same effect:

Nick Berg's (apparently personally killed by Zarqawi) father speaking about the killing:

"Today is a day of revenge....George bush's and congresses way hasn't worked.......Killing him is a bad day for everybody..........George Bush sits there glassy eyed in his office....and condemns people to death.....that to me is a real terrorist...George Bush terrorises with air strikes.. air strikes indiscriminately killing people. To me that is a big terrorist."

His father wrote in the Guardian in may 2004: “George Bush never looked into my son's eyes. George Bush doesn't know my son, and he is the worse for it. George Bush, though a father himself, cannot feel my pain, or that of my family, or of the world that grieves for Nick, because he is a policymaker, and he doesn't have to bear the consequences of his acts. George Bush can see neither the heart of Nick nor that of the American people, let alone that of the Iraqi people his policies are killing daily.”

While the celebrations continue there is of course another important story which has been conveniently overshadowed by this latest coalition 'success'.

Dahr Jamail and Jeff Pflueger on making the Haditha Massacre public:

“Propaganda is when the Western corporate media tries to influence public opinion in favor of the Iraq War by consistently tampering with truth and distorting reality. It is to be expected. And it is to be recognized for what it is. On occasions when the media does its job responsibly and reports events like the November 19, 2005, Haditha Massacre, it must also be willing and able to anticipate and counter propaganda campaigns that will inevitably follow. It is to be expected that the responsible members of the media fraternity will stick to their guns and not join the propagandists.

This piece is a summary of five most commonly deployed crisis management propaganda tactics which the State and Media combine that we can expect to see in relation to the Haditha Massacre. Listed in a loose chronological order of their deployment, the tactics are: Delay, Distract, Discredit, Spotlight and Scapegoat. Each of the five public relations campaigns will here be discussed in the context of the Haditha Massacre.”

[cross posted on Indymedia: http://www.indymedia.ie/article/76565]

Nice work, but is it the answer?

"If we knew more about Ireland, the invasion of Iraq might never have happened."

Loach's film about the Irish independence war is being rubbished because it tells the other side of the occupation story

George Monbiot in The Guardian

"In the Times, Tim Luckhurst compares him - unfavourably - to Leni Riefenstahl. His new film is a "poisonously anti-British corruption of the history of the war of Irish independence ... The Wind That Shakes the Barley is not just wrong. It infantilises its subject matter and reawakens ancient feuds." I checked with the production company. The film has not yet been released. They can find no record that Luckhurst has attended a screening - and last night he refused to discuss the matter."

Full Article... The Guardian and Monibot.com


Dear George,

Your recent Guardian article highlighting the mainstream media's hostile reaction to Ken Loach's award winning film, 'The Wind That Shakes the Barley' was a much needed breath of fresh air. It is rare to read such a balanced critic of what is I'm sure, as I have yet to see it, an uncompromising look at recent British colonialism in Ireland.

My experience has been that British people, but more specifically English people, are relatively unaware of their historical influence in Ireland. I have on many occasions had to provide a brief history lesson to strangers who were unsure whether Ireland was part of the UK. And while I think it is essential that the colonisers should learn more about Ireland I am unconvinced that "the invasion of Iraq might never have happened" if history was remembered more clearly.

Here in Ireland where our history resonates not just through the stories of our parents and grandparents, but through daily events and still open wounds. The crimes of occupiers and resistance fighters are fresh in the mind of many and yet we as a country have obliged our services for the invasion of a foreign country with little sacrifice.

Clinical discussion of the Middle East is prominent here too. The cost in terms of Iraqi lives is often flippantly rationalised, in the surface thought of oil resource control, regional stability and home security. There seems to be something much deeper lacking than an awareness of our own brutality.

Yours sincerely,

Preempting the backlash

Mark Dooley in the Sunday Independent preempts the opportunistic war critics in what is their rare moment of "I told you so":

"Get used to hearing the name Haditha, a city in Iraq's Al Anbar province. Last November, a homemade bomb exploded beneath a US military vehicle as it patrolled the city. It killed a 20-year-old marine, Miguel Terrazas."

Even the first line is a sour start to an article that gets progressively harder to swallow. 'Get used to' is (a more than likely, automated) unconscious slight at war critics. It suggests to the agreeable/susceptible reader that the anti-war crowd will use this incident adnausem, so disregard.

It is noticeable that while there is substantial evidence to suggest this event was subject to a considerable cover up, the deaths to be attributed to the ruthless insurgency, there is nothing alleged about the the military casualty version of events. On the other hand the Iraqi girl's described "reprisal" is of course shrouded in suspicion. "A group of Terrazas's comrades allegedly rampaged through Haditha, murdering 24 civilians. They included women, children, and invalids." Yet "a marine wounded by the roadside bomb said, "I think they were just blinded by hate. They just lost control."" Which suggests there is nothing 'alleged' about it.

While "Parallels are being drawn with the My Lai massacre of 500 Vietnamese by US troops in 1968. "It is apparently "a bad comparison because far fewer perished in Haditha." Which is in a sense fair, fewer people were killed, but as Chomsky noted: "My Lai was indeed an aberration, but primarily in the matter of disclosure. Though the press concealed the evidence of the massacre for over a year, the news broke through, largely because of the pressure of mass peace movement demonstrations." (The Washington Connection, South End Press, 1979, p.317)

But as with any publicised incident such as this the crucial issue of the matter is not the brutality of US/UK occupiers or the organised cover up of murder, "the fallout from Haditha could still seriously damage the American military." Which is, no doubt, the principle influencing factor in the massacre's cover-up.

One could be be forgiven for thinking that the role of the reporter in this instance would be to attempt to uncover a) Why this incident occurred b)Why the public were never informed c) Is this an isolated incident d) How far up the ladder did the cover up go e)...

Because as one should be fully aware by now, the role of the reporter is to a) Diminish the brutality of the crime b) Portray it as the work of a few bad apples c) Justify any cover up as essential to the success of the bigger picture d)...

As an experienced reporter Mr. Dooley reveals: "Those of us who support America in Iraq view abuses like Abu Ghraib and Haditha with disgust. The whole point of removing Saddam Hussein was to rescue ordinary Iraqis from cruelty. That is why it is sickening to watch the liberators resort to murder and torture. But we also recognise that only a tiny fraction of the US army posted in Iraq are sadists and thugs. The rest are brave and decent individuals who steadfastly believe in the moral cause of their mission.

Think for a moment what daily life is like for a soldier in Iraq. Each morning, you wake up wondering if it will be your last. You venture into the streets fearing that each passing car might explode, or that the woman approaching is concealing a suicide belt beneath her burka. Every marine knows what fate will supply if captured by a jihadi. They have seen the charred remains of their comrades dragged through the streets. They have watched helplessly as others are beheaded live on the web. And still they carry on, hoping that some day Iraq will stand proud."

While I am quite sure coalition soldiers are under intense pressure in Iraq and I am sure they feel a certain 'ill feeling' towards some sections of the Iraqi people, this should not be used to justify murder. This is of course a war of choice. Iraq posed no threat, and the humanitarian intervention purpose is a non starter given Western support for Saddam during his worst atrocities. I think I could predict quite accurately, without resort to searching all his previous work, that Mr. Dooley has never sought to justify 'insurgent' attacks on coalition troops, Iraqi police or Iraqi civilians on the grounds that many of this resistance have lost family members or friends to coalition bullets.

But he continues: "That is the attitude of most Americans stationed in Iraq, which is why they feel so betrayed by the butchers of Haditha. As General Peter Pace, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said, "They have not performed their duty the way that 99.9 per cent of their fellow marines have.""

"Human nature can only endure so much horror before it finally snaps. That is why it is miraculous there have been so few incidents like Haditha. Credit for that should be given to the US army in Iraq, but not to their political masters in the Pentagon."

Let us for a moment take Mr. Dooley's psychological diagnosis as true. These soldiers in Haditha simply could not endure any more horror, so they snapped. Since this is true, it is amazing that more soldiers have not snapped.

Unsurprisingly this version of reality does not stand up to the facts:

Iraqi Prime Minister recently told reporters violence against civilians was "common among many of the multinational forces".

Many troops had "no respect for citizens, smashing civilian cars and killing on a suspicion or a hunch", he added.

Robert Fisk on reshaping our suspicions: "I remember clearly the first suspicions I had that murder most foul might be taking place in our name in Iraq. I was in the Baghdad mortuary, counting corpses, when one of the city's senior medical officials - an old friend - told me of his fears. "Everyone brings bodies here," he said. "But when the Americans bring bodies in, we are instructed that under no circumstances are we ever to do post-mortems. We were given to understand that this had already been done. Sometimes we'd get a piece of paper like this one with a body.""

Dahr Jamail on what doesn't get reported: "Yet just like Abu Ghraib, while the media spotlight shines squarely on the Haditha massacre, countless atrocities continue daily, conveniently out of the awareness of the general public. Torture did not stop simply because the media finally decided, albeit in horribly belated fashion, to cover the story, and the daily slaughter of Iraqi civilians by US forces and US-backed Iraqi "security" forces had not stopped either."

A recent documentary recorded the confessions of US soldiers who served in Iraq: " He says that soldiers who served in his area before his unit's arrival recommended them to keep spades on their vehicles so that if they killed innocent Iraqis, they could throw a spade off them to give the appearance that the dead Iraqi was digging a hole for a roadside bomb."

RTE reported last week; "US military prosecutors are expected to charge seven marines and a navy serviceman over the death of an Iraqi civilian. The eight men are being held at Camp Pendleton in California, in connection with the 26 April killing of a Hamandiya man and a subsequent attempt to make him look like an insurgent by placing an AK-47 rifle near his body."

Since the preceeding content of the article doesn't hold water and in order to put the 'mini-massacre' in it's true perspective Mr. Dooley adds a little historical embellishment:

"When Saddam ruled Iraq, Haditha happened every day across the nation. But today, Iraqi leaders no longer govern their citizens through murder and fear. Instead, people like Iraq's new prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, are helping America wage war against a common enemy."

The US army were not "betrayed by a few 'sadists'" as the headline states, the US army were betrayed by their elected leaders and their faithful corporate sponsors.

Pointed out by Hugh Green at mostsincerelyfolks

Also available at Indymedia.ie

It's Official...

The Irish Times doesn't even bother to read Charles Krauthammer's ramblings before printing them.

Therefore in a week where Iran is the subject of yet more US diplomatic aggression, another UK terror suspect is shot and Iraq massacres occur daily, we are subjected to a nonsense 'opinion' piece about the use of steriods in rounders.

"Opinion: Leave it to the good people of Philadelphia, whose football fans once famously booed and threw snowballs at Santa Claus, to come up with the perfect takedown of the most inflated (in more ways than one) superstar in contemporary baseball, and probably sport."

letters@charleskrauthammer.com

Something more useful:

Hotel Baghdad
There are no safe havens for journalists in Iraq, say two 'Independent' correspondents who have been there since the start of the conflict
By Patrick Cockburn
Published: 04 June 2006

Iraq is so lethal for journalists because the threats are multiple. Travel without guards and you are less likely to be targeted, but vulnerable to kidnappers. Travel with guards or be embedded with US or Iraqi troops and you may be safe from kidnappers, but you are more likely to be hit by a roadside bomb.

In the past week British journalists Paul Douglas and James Brolan have been killed in a car bomb attack that left the CBS correspondent Kimberly Dozier critically injured. Nothing is more absurd than to imagine - as diplomats deep in the Green Zone slyly pretend and my old friend, Rageh Omaar, has unwisely suggested - that journalists lurk in their hotel rooms or in the zone itself. If this were true then they would not have been kidnapped or killed in such numbers. And even lurking in one's hotel room is not necessarily a safe option - a fact brought home to me forcefully last November when The Independent's room in the Hamra hotel in Baghdad was torn apart by a suicide bomb.

Full Article: The Independent

From the Archive

from May 2005

Logic Commits Hari-Kari

In a 2002 Downing Street Memo, based on a meeting that took place involving Tony Blair,Geoff Hoon, Jack Straw and several other high ranking officials, Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney General 'said that the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action.'

Tony Blair countered that 'Regime change and WMD were linked in the sense that it was the regime that was producing the WMD.' He added, 'If the political context were right, people would support regime change.' 'The two key issues were whether the military plan worked and whether we had the political strategy to give the military plan the space to work.'

What occured at this meeting, in essence, is the planning of a military campaign against a sovereign nation without the backing of international law. An illegal war to be conducted under false pretences and for those responsible, with impunity.

If you've ever seen a documentary or read a book detailing the events of the 22nd of November 1963 in Dallas you may have several or many questions left unanswered. No matter how emphatic the ex-CIA investigator seems, or how detailed the reconstructions are, there will still be pieces that simply don't fit together.

Bill Hicks said "No fucking way! I can't even see the road. Shit they're lying to us. Fuck! Where are they? There's no fucking way. Not unless Oswald was hanging by his toes, upside down from the ledge. Either that or some pigeons grabbed onto him, flew him over the motorcade..." and we laughed, but that was it. We understood why it was funny, but the relation between Bill's insight and our reasoning just didn't click. Many people will tell you they don't believe the government line on that days events, some believe it was a 'hit' ordered from within Kennedy's own administration, but even if everyone believed this, would we be up in arms calling for a new investigation?

Logic says yes, if the evidence doesn't support the official declaration then this is sufficient reason to warrant the re-opening of the investigation. In this case it is not just warranted, it is essential. However, when it comes to the investigation of officials, logic seems to go out the window. Re-opening an investigation that was offcially closed decades ago is obviously absurd.

Following the events of 9/11 an 'independent' commission was set up to investigate the attack and to find the responsible parties. The results of this investigation were inconclusive at best. The largest single human catastrophe in American history, and the results the of official investigation are completely inadequate. Most people with any knowledge of the subject recognise that this commission's findings were insufficient, logically, a re-opening is in order. This is not just a feeling one finds in the backrooms of internet chatrooms, within the press there is a sizeable list of acedemics and journalists who recognise that the holes in this one are gaping, but the call for further investigation is muffled. Logic, has commited hari-kari.

We can be quite sure that the US administration is, at least, guilty of shocking levels of incompetence regarding both its reaction to 9/11 and the measures it employed to prevent such a catastrophe from happening. But they have escaped any punishment. In fact they were basically excused from taking any responsibility at all. It begs the question, what is it about Blair and cohorts that make them the free from any sort of liability? No matter what sort of evidence is stacked against them, the water seems to roll off these ducks' backs. Are we so conditioned that asking for a full and final investigation into wars, terrorist atacks and assassinations is not worth fighting for? Is our role as 'the public' limited to infrequent criticisms and then general subordination to power?

What is more absurd, calling for the re-opening of investigations into Kennedy's assination or the fact that a war criminal is likely to be re-elected, in one of the world's 'great' democracies?

Iran Iraq 'within next 10 years'

BBC headline reads today:

Iran bomb 'within next 10 years'

Iran is determined to have a nuclear weapon and could possess one within 10 years, according to the top US intelligence chief.

Then RTE news followed BBC suit in their prominent reporting of John Negroponte's claim that Iran is within 10 years of obtaining a nuclear weapon. While this is of course a credible claim and one that has been broadcast many times recently. His assertion that "Iran is determined to have a nuclear weapon" is without foundation, infact it is amazing that RTE would publish these claims without offering some perspective.

The Irish Times reported in Feruary 2005, "Mr Negroponte is a former US ambassador to the United Nations and was at the heart of the Bush administration's drive to convince the world body that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction."

The claim that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction is now accepted by everyone to be false. The fact that Mr. Negroponte made similar claims in the lead up to the Iraq war should be considered essential information for RTE viewers and readers.

But Mr. Negroponte's complicated history with regard to Iran does not end here. In 1979 Nicaragua Washington created and funded the Contras in an attempt to undermine and overthrow the democratically elected Sandanista government.

After congress cut off most military aid to the Contras the Reagan administration began a covert war, raising money for the Contras from the secret sale of U.S. arms to Iran (which was under embargo after seizing Americans as hostages). The discovery of this and other illegal schemes led to the Iran-Contra scandal, in which Negroponte played key roles.

Perhaps the line "It should be noted that John Negroponte was instrumental in promoting the myth Iraq possessed WMDs prior to the Iraq war" should be incorporated in this article.


US intelligence chief warns over Iran arms

The US Director of National Intelligence, John Negroponte, has claimed that Iran could have nuclear weapons within the next ten years.

In an interview this morning, Mr Negroponte said it was his assessment that Iran was actively trying to make weapons.

RTE news

Isolated Incident

Countless My Lai Massacres in Iraq
By Dahr Jamail
truthout Perspective
Tuesday 30 May 2006

The media feeding frenzy around what has been referred to as "Iraq's My Lai" has become frenetic. Focus on US Marines slaughtering at least 20 civilians in Haditha last November is reminiscent of the media spasm around the "scandal" of Abu Ghraib during April and May 2004.

Yet just like Abu Ghraib, while the media spotlight shines squarely on the Haditha massacre, countless atrocities continue daily, conveniently out of the awareness of the general public. Torture did not stop simply because the media finally decided, albeit in horribly belated fashion, to cover the story, and the daily slaughter of Iraqi civilians by US forces and US-backed Iraqi "security" forces has not stopped either.

Earlier this month, I received a news release from Iraq, which read, "On Saturday, May 13th, 2006, at 10:00 p.m., US Forces accompanied by the Iraqi National Guard attacked the houses of Iraqi people in the Al-Latifya district south of Baghdad by an intensive helicopter shelling. This led the families to flee to the Al-Mazar and water canals to protect themselves from the fierce shelling. Then seven helicopters landed to pursue the families who fled … and killed them. The number of victims amounted to more than 25 martyrs. US forces detained another six persons including two women named Israa Ahmed Hasan and Widad Ahmed Hasan, and a child named Huda Hitham Mohammed Hasan, whose father was killed during the shelling."

continued... Dahr Jamail and Truthout.org