The Rag Blog

04/13/07 “Asia Times” — — DAMASCUS – There are three overlapping wars in Iraq: the Sunni Arab guerrilla struggle against the US; strands of Sunni Arab guerrillas against assorted Shi’ite militias/death squads; and al-Qaeda in Iraq against the puppet, US-backed Iraqi government in the Green Zone. Make it four wars: the Sunni Arab guerrilla war against the government inside the Green Zone. Better yet, make it five wars: the Sadrists, from Sadr City to Kufa and Najaf, against the Americans.

All strands of these five overlapping wars will never allow the United States – or Anglo-American Big Oil – to control Iraq’s oil wealth. Even if the new oil law is ratified by Parliament before June, implementation will be a certified nightmare, and security for billions of dollars of necessary investment non-existent.

Strands of these five overlapping wars also will never accept the long-term imposition of vast US military bases under a Status of Forces Agreement negotiated with dodgy politicians who spend more time in London than in Baghdad.

Setting a precise date for a total US withdrawal – the crystal-clear demand insistently formulated by Muqtada al-Sadr – would be the only way for the Bush administration to salvage a modicum of not totally humiliating defeat. Instead, the world had better be ready for the imminent arrival of the Baghdad gulag.

Can I leave my condo, please?

US corporate media/think-tanks may think they fool strands of US public opinion (or themselves), but they don’t fool Iraqis on the (dangerous) ground. No realist in his right mind could possibly ignore the 14-kilometer-long throngs compacted all along the Kufa-Najaf road this past Monday, on the fourth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad.

There were hundreds of thousands, perhaps more than a million Iraqi nationalists, waving Iraqi flags – with no room for a religious divide – responding to Muqtada’s call for “Occupation out!” The Shi’ite million-man march proved once again Sadrists rule the Shi’ite street – and are the most powerful political force among Iraqi Shi’ites.

Yet for the administration of US President George W Bush, Muqtada al-Sadr – like every nationalist with immense popular appeal – is nothing but an evildoer who must be squashed by all counterinsurgency means necessary.

Imperial and neo-colonial systems are incapable of thinking laterally. The French failed to do so in Algeria. The Americans failed in Vietnam. The Israelis failed in Palestine. The Americans will fail to do so again in Iraq. Call it counterinsurgency run amok. Thirty of Baghdad’s 89 districts will become gated communities from hell – cellophane-wrapped compounds where only Iraqis with a new, theoretically safe ID will be allowed in and out of this “secure environment”, in Pentagon newspeak. Yes, it will be Orwellian. Better yet, it will be a post-mod, Arab condo version of Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon, where the eye of the system is ubiquitous.

In the last chapter of my book Globalistan – titled “Condofornia vs Slumistan” – I argue that the future now revolves around the tension between gated communities and unruly slums, “secure environments” and black waves of anger. Wherever both meet – from Baghdad to Sao Paulo – we may see endless replays of Black Hawk Down.

The Baghdad gulag is a Pentagon-enforced Condofornia imposed over an Arab Slumistan. Let no one be fooled: it’s being conducted as a technical experiment, with live Iraqis as guinea pigs, and is bound to be replicated in other areas of the Pentagon-created “arc of instability” from the Andes to the Horn of Africa to Arabia to Central Asia.

The Pentagon’s most likely next target is Iran.

Hillary Clinton says “no option can be taken off the table.”

Barack Obama says that the Iranian government is “a threat to all of us” and “we should take no option, including military action, off the table.”

John Edwards says, “Under no circumstances can Iran be allowed to have nuclear weapons.” And: “We need to keep all options on the table.”

A year ago, writing in the New Yorker, journalist Seymour Hersh reported: “One of the military’s initial option plans, as presented to the White House by the Pentagon this winter, calls for the use of a bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapon, such as the B61-11, against underground nuclear sites.”

For a presidential candidate to proclaim that all “options” should be on the table while dealing with Iran is a horrific statement. It signals willingness to threaten — and possibly follow through with — first use of nuclear weapons. This raises no eyebrows among Washington’s policymakers and media elites because it is in keeping with longstanding U.S. foreign-policy doctrine.

This year, with their virtually identical statements about “options” and “the table,” the leading Democratic presidential candidates — Clinton, Obama and Edwards — have refused to rule out any kind of attack on Iran.

If you’re not shocked or outraged yet, consider this:

On Feb. 22, the national leaders of MoveOn sent an e-mail letter to more than 3 million people with the subject line “War with Iran?” After citing a need to give UN sanctions “a chance to work before provoking a regional conflict,” the letter said flatly: “Senator Hillary Clinton has provided some much needed leadership on this.”

The MoveOn letter quoted a passage from a speech that Clinton had given on the Senate floor eight days earlier:

“It would be a mistake of historical proportion if the administration thought that the 2002 resolution authorizing force against Iraq was a blank check for the use of force against Iran without further congressional authorization. Nor should the president think that the 2001 resolution authorizing force after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, in any way, authorizes force against Iran. If the administration believes that any, any use of force against Iran is necessary, the president must come to Congress to seek that authority.”

But, while quoting Hillary Clinton’s speech as an example of “some much needed leadership,” MoveOn made no mention of the fact that the same speech stated:

“As I have long said and will continue to say, U.S. policy must be clear and unequivocal: We cannot, we should not, we must not permit Iran to build or acquire nuclear weapons. And in dealing with this threat, as I’ve also said for a long time, no option can be taken off the table.”

Earlier this year, David Rieff noted in the New York Times Magazine on March 25, “Vice President Cheney insisted that the administration had not ‘taken any options off the table’ as Iran continued to defy United Nations calls for it to abandon its nuclear ambitions. The response from Democrats was not long in coming. Senator Clinton helped lead the charge, reminding the president that he did not have the authority to go to war with Iran on the basis of the Senate’s authorization of the use of force in Iraq in 2002.

“But what Senator Clinton did not say was at least as interesting as what she did say. And what she did not say was that she opposed the use of force in Iran. To the contrary, Senator Clinton used virtually the same formulation as Vice President Cheney. When dealing with Iran, she insisted, ‘no option can be taken off the table.’”

To praise Hillary Clinton for providing “much needed leadership” on Iran — and to mislead millions of e-mail recipients counted as MoveOn members in the process — is a notable choice to make. It speaks volumes. It winks at Clinton’s stance that “no option can be taken off the table.” It serves an enabling function. It is very dangerous.

What has allowed so many PPs to rise so high in corporations, and now in government, is that they are so decisive. Unlike normal people, they are never filled with doubts, for the simple reason that they cannot care what happens next. Simply can’t. Do this! Do that! Mobilize the reserves! Privatize the public schools! Attack Iraq! Cut health care! Tap everybody’s telephone! Cut taxes on the rich! Build a trillion-dollar missile shield! Fuck habeas corpus and the Sierra Club and In These Times, and kiss my ass!

Iraqi civilians are experiencing “immense suffering” because of a “disastrous” security situation, deepening poverty and a worsening humanitarian crisis, according to a report by the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The ICRC also sees no sign that the US-led security “surge” in Baghdad is bringing relief to the capital, while hospitals struggle to cope with mass casualties as malnutrition as well as power and water shortages become more frequent across the country.

“The suffering Iraqi men, women and children are enduring today is unbearable and unacceptable,” Pierre Kraehenbuehl, director of operations for the organisation, said at the group’s Geneva headquarters.

The report, Civilians without Protection, provides a grim snapshot of the situation in Iraq but will carry special weight thanks to the ICRC’s reputation as the scrupulously neutral “silent service” of international humanitarian work. It maintains a presence in Baghdad despite the bombing of its offices in 2003, and works closely with the Iraqi Red Crescent.

The report says that more than 100,000 families have been forced to leave their homes in the past year because of the shootings, bombings, abductions, murders and military operations.

“Every day dozens of people are killed and many more wounded,” it says. “The plight of Iraqi civilians is a daily reminder of the fact that there has long been a failure to respect their lives and dignity.”

Saad, a humanitarian worker, is quoted as recalling the scene after a bomb blast: “I saw a four-year-old boy sitting beside his mother’s body, which had been decapitated by the explosion. He was talking to her, asking her what had happened.”

The report quotes a woman as saying: “If there’s anything anybody could do that would really help us, it would be to help collect the bodies that line the streets in front of our homes every morning and that we find nobody dares touch or remove.” It was “simply unbearable” to face them every morning on the way to school.

Afraid to challenge America’s leaders or conventional wisdom about the Middle East, a toothless press collapsed.

April 10, 2007 | It’s no secret that the period of time between 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq represents one of the greatest collapses in the history of the American media. Every branch of the media failed, from daily newspapers, magazines and Web sites to television networks, cable channels and radio. I’m not going to go into chapter and verse about the media’s specific failures, its credulousness about aluminum tubes and mushroom clouds and failure to make clear that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11 — they’re too well known to repeat. In any case, the real failing was not in any one area; it was across the board. Bush administration lies and distortions went unchallenged, or were actively promoted. Fundamental and problematic assumptions about terrorism and the “war on terror” were rarely debated or even discussed. Vital historical context was almost never provided. And it wasn’t just a failure of analysis. With some honorable exceptions, good old-fashioned reporting was also absent.

But perhaps the press’s most notable failure was its inability to determine just why this disastrous war was ever launched. Kristina Borjesson, author of “Feet to the Fire,” a collection of interviews with 21 journalists about why the press collapsed, summed this up succinctly. “The thing that I found really profound was that there really was no consensus among this nation’s top messengers about why we went to war,” Borjesson told AlterNet. “[War is the] most extreme activity a nation can engage in, and if they weren’t clear about it, that means the public wasn’t necessarily clear about the real reasons. And I still don’t think the American people are clear about it.”

Of course, the media was not alone in its collapse. Congress rolled over and gave Bush authorization to go to war. And the majority of the American people, traumatized by 9/11, followed their delusional president down the primrose path. Had the media done its job, Bush’s war of choice might still have taken place. But we’ll never know.

Why did the media fail so disastrously in its response to the biggest issue of a generation? To answer this, we need to look at three broad, interrelated areas, which I have called psychological, institutional and ideological. The media had serious preexisting weaknesses on all three fronts, and when a devastating terrorist attack and a radical, reckless and duplicitous administration came together, the result was a perfect storm.

The psychological category is the most amorphous of the three and the most inexactly named — it could just as easily be termed sociological. By it, I mean the subtle, internalized, often unconscious way that the media conforms and defers to certain sacrosanct values and ideals. Journalists like to think of themselves as autonomous agents who pursue truth without fear or favor. In fact, the media, especially the mass media, adheres to a whole set of sometimes explicit, sometimes implicit codes that govern what it feels it can say. Network television provides the clearest example. From decency codes to subject matter, the networks have always been surrounded by a vast, mostly invisible web of constraints.

Seen in this light, the mass media is a quasi-official institution, an info-nanny, that is held responsible for maintaining a kind of national consensus. Just as our legal system is largely based on what a “reasonable” person would think, so our mass media is charged with presenting not just an accurate view of the world but also an “appropriate” one.

Boston: A friend of mine who is a female journalist handed me an edition of “The New Yorker” magazine of March 26, 2007. One morning , my earlier female journalist “P” came forward to me while i was focusing on my computer trying to read the news. She was holding the magazine in her hand when she asked me :” Did you read this article about how the iraqi translators felt betrayed by the Americans who did not offer any protection after being threatened?”

– I replied:” No, I did not. Where is that?”

– ” It is in The New Yorker magazine here, be careful there is unpleasent and a horrible photo of a dead man and hands tied whose body was thrown beside a heap of trash yard. read it but do not look at the photo because I could not. It is very disturbing” said “P”.

Believe it or not , the first thing i went to look at is the dead man’s photo before even reading the article, because it became a usual thing to look at.The article was a long one but it was one of the best articles I have longed to read concerning the Iraqis for long time. You should read it and if you ask why, I say because it was a genuin story about the Iraqis who worked as translators for the American troops or the administration in particular and any other American or foreign agency and were doing their best to help the Americans to understand the iraqi nature and how they can deal with them and what is the best way to reach out. it really reveals what many iraqis felt when the coalition forces came 2003 and how they feel now. Now they are in the middle seeking for a saviour but no one is trying to hold their hands and everybody is shuting the doors in their face.

After I saw the picture of the dead man by the trash like a dog, like this person never had life or dreams or expectations or worries. I strongly imagined myself end up like that. I burst in tears while reading and looking at the photo. I kept asking myself, what will happen to my family if they see me or find me on a trash heap or may be what will be left of me from the dogs’s bites? is this how our lives end ? is this how we are going to end up instead of dying in a respectable way? how can I imagine my dear mother could ever see me like that. She will definitely die. I have all these frightening pictures of how will I die? I could not tolerate with that, I promised myself if I ever under any circumstances end up in the hands of such thugs , I would kill myself before I let them torture me or terrorise my family. I believe Allah “God” will not punish me in hell for killing myself for I do not think he would like to see his creature being torutured and killed in such savage way. I do not believe so. It is true that I’m not in Iraq for now due to my fellowship which will last for a year and may not be able to extend my visa or my study for any reason and will have no choice but to go back to Iraq.

I kept this article with me in my handbag all the time and repeat reading it all the time. I began to ask myself , what wrong have we done to be betrayed by the Americans and the Iraqi Government and the neighboring countries ? was it those Iraqi translators’ mistake to be honest and dedicate in their work to convey the accurate information to help maintain security and stability in their country? and on the other hand, the iraqi government is doing nothing to protect the ordinary citizens not to mention the academics and the intellectual people who fled the country and left few intellectuals struggling to live or find a way to join the others and leave the country to the extreme radicals of both sects and the thugs to sabotage what is left of Iraq. Some of the Arab and neighboring countries still believe Saddam and his regime was a hero as long he was a dictator not showing any sympathy to how many Iraqis died for nothing because of his dictatorship.

Few of us who worked in foreign media agencies as translators and reporters were lucky to gain support from their agencies to send them on scholarships or fellowships for sometime away from violence and killings to gain reporting skills which I do not know what future left for us to see.And though we are far but we can not feel peace within ourselves because the death shadow over us and our families left behind is a constant worry. Many of us are torn between going back and continue working or staying here for safety until everything is clear and secured. Besides what is the point if we report and get killed and have no impact to make a change and without recognition to the fallen iraqi journalists or even pursuit their killers and put them to justice.

I know that no one can predict his/her death. And as journalists , we need to convey the truth at least for the history.But many of the poor Iraqis did not enjoy any kind of decent and peaceful life like anybody else in the world.Iraq which owned this huge heritage of civilization and loving people of science, literature , industry and most of all , their love for life.

Why many iraqis who worked with the American troops or in the Embassy or with the Administration should be abandoned after offering what they thought of serving their country to improve the situation and make it better. they risked their lives , of course nobody was forced to work with the Americans but Iraqis tried to believe in the American dream of democracy, freedom and prosperity. Besides, thanks to them , there were no other jobs after the fall of Baghdad. As U.S. is the most powerful country in world and they should have studied their agenda in Iraq thouroughly but it turned up that they did not. The Iraqis realized the opposite through the time.

Now how will the Iraqis trust the Americans as the latter do not trust the iraqis in anything since the beginning which the Iraqis did not realize that until they worked with them and they were trying their best to show them that they can trust them. There were few incidents but imagine if all the Iraqi translators who worked or work with the coalition forces or the embassy or in the Green Zone were tied with the insurgents? what could have happen to the Americans? of course huge amount of casualties but the iraqis did not sell them and I’m saying here in general and not to talk about individual incidents so please understand my view. The Iraqis thought by being honest , loyal and dedicate in their work, that they will receive some gratitude or recognition in return. Others thought they did their job and they would have done it even if it was not the Americans if the goal is to serve Iraq.There were American soldiers who worked in the Green Zone or in their units who really wanted to help the Iraqis and those who worked with them but they had to face bureaucracy in the system.Or that they were trained to trust The Iraqis. But I wonder why the American Administration want us to trust them while they do not trust us?