The Rag Blog

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?

His rosy statements about Iraq were aimed at GOP primary voters, but they suggest the would-be president doesn’t understand the war he’d be fighting.

April 9, 2007 | On Sunday, April 8, Sen. John McCain appeared on CBS’s “60 Minutes” in an attempt to do damage control. Pressed on his assertion, in a CNN interview last week, that Gen. David Petraeus goes about Baghdad in an unarmored Humvee, he admitted that he was wrong. “Of course I’m going to misspeak,” he observed, as though he could put the controversy behind him with weasel words. But he did not actually back off his recent sunny pronouncements about the situation in Iraq. “I believe we can succeed, and I believe the consequences of failure are catastrophic.”

In the past two weeks, McCain has produced a trove of Iraq-related images and quotes that are sure to dog his faltering bid for the presidency. On March 26, during an interview with conservative radio host Bill Bennett, McCain said, “There are neighborhoods in Baghdad where you and I could walk through those neighborhoods today.” The next day, he insisted to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that Gen. Petraeus was driving around armorless. Then, on April 1, in an attempt to back up his words, McCain went on his infamous Baghdad shopping trip. The Internet was soon awash with mocking photos of McCain strolling blithely through the Shurja market in a Kevlar vest. On Sunday, “60 Minutes” ran footage of McCain dickering over a rug with a merchant, then pulled back to show the senator surrounded by heavily armed and armored U.S. troops, and also mentioned that attack helicopters were hovering overhead. In the past year, only the image of Israeli Minister of Defense Amir Peretz looking out on the battlefield through binoculars with the caps still over the lenses has made a politician look more foolish.

Any Republican running for president must face the fact that a year and a half out from November 2008, two-thirds of likely GOP primary voters still back President Bush on Iraq. Having been beaten by Bush in the primaries in 2000, McCain’s strategy now seems to be out-Bushing the competition by insisting that “things are getting better in Iraq.” He is targeting precisely those remaining voters who keep telling pollsters Bush is “doing a good job in Iraq.” But by reaching out to the faithful, McCain has exposed himself to ridicule from everybody else. Four years after the fall of Baghdad, he still doesn’t seem to understand the facts on the ground.

First of all, contra McCain, there is no evidence that things are getting better in Iraq. The Nouri al-Maliki government began implementing the U.S.-directed “surge” –what is known in Iraq as “the new security plan” — in late January. While deaths decreased in Baghdad itself, especially killings by sectarian death squads, other sorts of violence increased in the capital, including car bombings and mortar attacks. And the guerrillas, melting away before the expanded U.S. presence in the capital, simply did more killing in other places, especially to the north and west. Iraqi government officials admitted early last week that while in February, 1,806 persons were killed in political violence nationwide, in March the number rose to 2,078. Allowing for the greater number of days in March, the daily death toll still climbed slightly, from 64.5 deaths a day in February to 67 last month.

Horrific attacks continue in Iraq. On April 8, six U.S. troops died, four as a result of a roadside bomb in the violent Diyala province. In Ramadi on April 6, a truck bomber unleashed chlorine gas, killing 30 persons and wounding or sickening nearly 100. Dozens of Shiites have been kidnapped in the past week in regions around the capital, and many have since shown up dead. On April 7, there were at least five roadside bombings in Baghdad, several neighborhoods of the capital were hit with mortar or rocket fire, and the bodies of 12 people killed by sectarian death squads were discovered by police. In the city of Baquba, an hour northeast of the capital, 27 bodies were discovered on April 7, and in the northern Turkmen city of Tal Afar, trumpeted as a success story by George W. Bush, 11 corpses were found in the streets. And on April 2, the day after McCain’s photo op in Baghdad, some of the merchants from the largely Shiite market he had visited were murdered. They had gone north looking for work when they were ambushed and killed by Sunni Arab guerrillas.

The al-Maliki government still appears paralyzed politically. Its Cabinet approved a new oil law with provisions for fair revenue sharing among sectarian and ethnic groups, but the Parliament has balked at taking it up. There has been no practical movement in Parliament for revision of “de-Baathification” measures that resulted in the firing and marginalization of tens of thousands of Sunni Arabs who once belonged to the Arab nationalist Baath Party, but who otherwise have not been found guilty of any wrongdoing.

Two kinds of imperial whining have come to pervade foreign policy discussion. One relates to Bush’s overextending the military so they cannot deploy to other places desperately needing their lethal capacity.

Others fixate on “American credibility.” If we withdraw, an October 22, 2006 Washington Post editorial declared, we forego our “moral obligation.” After all the U.S. military and Iraqi sacrifices, the U.S. must not allow a collapse, which would occur “without the prop of 140,000 [now 170,000] U.S. troops.”

By leaving, this argument posits, we open the door to greater horror in this poor land. Bush might have made a mistake to invade and occupy, but we as a nation owe it to the Iraqis to keep our troops there until the Iraqis themselves can assume security responsibilities.

Some moralist-realists admit that as many as 650,000 Iraqi civilians have died since the March 2003 US invasion. (Lancet, October 11, 2006) Nor do they dispute claims by Caritas Internationalis and Caritas Iraq (a confederation of 162 Catholic relief, development, and social service organizations), showing that malnutrition rates have risen in Iraq from 19 percent before the U.S.-led invasion to a national average of 28 percent four years later. (March 16, 2007) Caritas also claims that the causes of rising hunger relate to high levels of insecurity, collapsed healthcare and other infrastructure, increased polarization between different sects and tribes, and rising poverty.

They report that over 11 percent of Iraqi babies are born underweight, compared with a figure of 4 percent in 2003. Before March 2003, Iraq already had significant infant mortality due to malnutrition because of the 13 years of UN — pushed by Washington — sanctions. In addition to the hundreds of thousands of dead, wounded and displaced, approximately one of every eight Iraqis has fled to Syria, Jordan, Iran and nearby states.

World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz, in a memo to the bank’s staff, responded today to the growing controversy surrounding the salary paid to a staffer with whom he is romantically linked after she was detailed to work at the U.S. State Department in September 2005.

“I…acted on the advice of the [World Bank] Board’s Ethics Committee to work out an agreement that balanced the interests of the institution and the rights of the staff member in an exceptional and unprecedented situation,” he said.

The World Bank’s staff association had said Shaha Ali Riza, who remained on the bank’s payroll while working at State for the Middle East Partnership Initiative, had received $61,000 in raises since she left, a sum the association said is out of line with bank rules governing salary increases.

Her annual salary — $193,590 — exceeds that of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and as a foreign national working for an international institution, Riza isn’t subject to the same U.S. income taxes as Rice.

The bank’s 24 executive directors — representatives of the countries that own it — said last week they “have decided to acquire all the information related to this matter and will respond to the issues raised as soon as possible.” The executive directors asked World Bank General Counsel Ana Palacio, a Wolfowitz appointee and former Spanish foreign minister, to handle the inquiry.

The text of Mr. Wolfowitz’s memo follows:

“Over the past few weeks, information regarding the external assignment of a World Bank staff member has raised concerns among some of you about upholding Bank Group rules regarding the rights, obligations, and fair treatment of all employees,” Wolfowitz said. “I would like to assure the staff that I have always acted to uphold these rules to the best of my ability, and I will continue to do so.”

“The case of the staff member mentioned prompted me to seek the advice of the Board of Executive Directors upon my arrival at the Bank. I subsequently acted on the advice of the Board’s Ethics Committee to work out an agreement that balanced the interests of the institution and the rights of the staff member in an exceptional and unprecedented situation. Just as one example, a normal external assignment is voluntary and for a maximum of three years, but this one was involuntary and for the length of my service.”

“As President of this institution, I accept full responsibility for the actions taken in this case.

“I have already indicated to the Board my intention to cooperate fully in their review of the details of the case. In particular, I will ensure that the Board has access to the facts in this case, in a manner that also respects the Bank’s rules concerning the right of every staff member to the confidentiality of his or her records.”

Following a grand photo opportunity in March 2005 for the presidents of Mexico and the United States, and the prime minister of Canada, observers were regaled, almost to the point of nausea, by references to these men as ‘the three amigos’. Their alleged camaraderie was deemed by a compliant media to be of far greater interest and import than the substance of what might have been discussed or accomplished. Unfortunately, the major issue under review by the three men will, if not aborted, cause immense harm to North America and, ultimately, the world.

Canadian prime minister Paul Martin and Mexican president Vicente Fox are now gone from the world stage; neither will be missed. Unfortunately, the most simple-minded of the three remains. In the context of this article, however, United States president George Bush is not the villain; he is merely a symptom of a virulent disease that is infecting North America and which may be unstoppable unless the brakes are applied very soon.

Completely outside the public forum, behind closed doors and in first class comfort, planners have been meeting to create a North American Union (NAU). Mostly, these planners are not government officials; they are not the representatives of the people. Those government minions who have been admitted to these hallowed meetings are there solely for the functionary benefit of greasing the skids for the conductors of what might soon become a runaway train.

What is occurring is the auctioning of North America. You can find some of the details if you really search; but there is no way to know how much information is still hidden.

A small, but influential, group of wealthy business people is proceeding with plans to create a North American union that will combine Canada, Mexico, and the United States. There is no political or economic mandate for these plans and various polls, mostly unofficial, indicate that citizens of all three countries would oppose such a union. Although George Bush is not the prime mover behind this effort, it does have its genesis in the Executive Branch of the US government – more than 30 years ago – and both Presidents Bush have their fingers all over it.

What is being created can be best thought of as NASSR — North America’s Sinking Ship Republic. It has most of the bad points of the USSR, and none of the good. Most important, it is doomed to fail.

Triumphant Trilateralism

In 1973, a group known as the Trilateral Commission was founded. It’s a private organization created on the initiative of David Rockefeller, of the family who bears that famous surname. He solicited a cadre of influential people and, after a series of preliminary and exploratory meetings, the first executive meeting of the Commission took place in October 1973. Today, the membership is between 300–350 private individuals from North America, Europe, and Asia; it claims to exist for the purpose of promoting closer economic and political cooperation between these areas. In fact, the group has asserted throughout the years that its only goal was to foster a ‘New International Economic Order’.

The membership list during its history contains a lot of familiar names: George Bush the First, Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Henry Kissinger, Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney – and a host of influential politicians, diplomats, and business executives from several continents.

It presents itself as non-political; but nothing could be further from the truth.

The Trilateral Commission has maintained a lock on the Executive Branch of the US government since the election of Jimmy Carter in 1976. The Trilateral Commission is believed to have hand-picked Carter to be a candidate for the presidency; his training in globalist philosophy and foreign policy appears to have been provided by Brzezinski personally. As president, Carter appointed a third of the US members of the Commission to his cabinet and other high-level administration posts.

White House influence continued with the election of Ronald Reagan and his vice-president, George H.W. Bush, who influenced Reagan to appoint Commission members to key areas in his government. Following Reagan, the presidency itself was held by members of the Trilateral Commission for twelve consecutive years. And although the current President Bush is not a member of the Commission, his vice-president is.

This group is, despite all protestations to the contrary, established solely to provide a forum for the elite to plan the management of the world. Because the people of the world are not, in the view of the Commission members, entitled to any kind of input into how the world should be ordered – only this elite group should have that right. Naturally, the order of the world shall be whatever enriches them most.

The North American members of the group now have their sites set on a new prize.

Circumventing the Ballot Box

Membership in the Trilateral Commission includes corporate CEOs, politicians, academics, labor leaders, and individuals involved in overseas philanthropy. Members who gain a position in their respective country’s government must resign from the Commission. That criteria has nothing to do with maintaining integrity or averting inappropriate influence; it is to deflect criticism that the Commission is running the world’s governments – but it does run them nonetheless, or at least many of them.

The time for democratic choice by citizens has long since passed. No government of a major country can make any real claim to democracy any longer. Governments do not represent the citizenry; they represent business. And business is the domain of the Trilateral Commission and other similar groups whose prime purpose is to ensure that the elites continue to be in charge, and that the great mass of humanity functions as their feudal peasants.

In North America, there is a general belief among the citizenry that we have largely fair and clean elections. There is at least some belief that the people we elect to represent us intend to do just that. But such beliefs are wishful thinking. If the citizens of the three North American countries ever truly did have democratic choice and honest representatives, it is in some semi-mythical past far beyond the reach of remembrance.