The Rag Blog

It is Pat’s birthday on November 6, and elections are the day after. It gets me thinking about a conversation I had with Pat before we joined the military. He spoke about the risks with signing the papers. How once we committed, we were at the mercy of the American leadership and the American people. How we could be thrown in a direction not of our volition. How fighting as a soldier would leave us without a voice … until we got out.

Much has happened since we handed over our voice:

Somehow we were sent to invade a nation because it was a direct threat to the American people, or to the world, or harbored terrorists, or was involved in the September 11 attacks, or received weapons-grade uranium from Niger, or had mobile weapons labs, or WMD, or had a need to be liberated, or we needed to establish a democracy, or stop an insurgency, or stop a civil war we created that can’t be called a civil war even though it is. Something like that.

Somehow America has become a country that projects everything that it is not and condemns everything that it is.

Somehow our elected leaders were subverting international law and humanity by setting up secret prisons around the world, secretly kidnapping people, secretly holding them indefinitely, secretly not charging them with anything, secretly torturing them. Somehow that overt policy of torture became the fault of a few “bad apples” in the military.

Somehow back at home, support for the soldiers meant having a five-year-old kindergartner scribble a picture with crayons and send it overseas, or slapping stickers on cars, or lobbying Congress for an extra pad in a helmet. It’s interesting that a soldier on his third or fourth tour should care about a drawing from a five-year-old; or a faded sticker on a car as his friends die around him; or an extra pad in a helmet, as if it will protect him when an IED throws his vehicle 50 feet into the air as his body comes apart and his skin melts to the seat.

Somehow the more soldiers that die, the more legitimate the illegal invasion becomes.

I was standing in the Roof with my AK-47 and just stared at them.

Rumsfeld said he had “information that shipments of military supplies have been crossing the border from Syria into Iraq, including night vision goggles.”

“We consider such trafficking as hostile acts and will hold the Syrian government accountable for such shipments,” he told a Pentagon press conference. He didn’t say what the other equipment was, and several senior Defense Department officials said they didn’t know.

Syrian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Bouthaine Shaban rejected Rumsfeld’s statement as “unfounded and irresponsible.”

“He only brings problems for his country and humanity at large,” she told Britain’s Channel 4 television in a telephone interview from Damascus. “It is an absolutely unfounded, irresponsible statement, just like his statements that brought his country and the allied countries into a terrible war, unnecessary war on Iraq.”

Syrian President Bashar Assad has described the military action against Iraq as “clear occupation and a flagrant aggression against a United Nations member state.”

Rumsfeld also said that Iraqi militants opposed to Saddam Hussein’s regime were streaming into Iraq from Iran, where they had been in exile. He said their presence was complicating U.S. war plans.

Sharing a Pentagon briefing with Rumsfeld, Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the Iraqi government has lost control of 35 percent to 40 percent of its territory and that allied air forces have supremacy over 95 percent of Iraq’s airspace.

Rumsfeld said that Iraqi forces were being helped by shipments from Syria, Iraq’s neighbor to the West.

“There’s no question but that to the extent that military supplies or equipment or people are moving across the borders between Iraq and Syria, it vastly complicates our situation,” Rumsfeld said.

Asked if the United States was threatening military action against Syria, Rumsfeld said: “I’m saying exactly what I’m saying. It was carefully phrased.”

“These deliveries pose a direct threat to the lives of coalition forces,” the defense secretary added.

Rumsfeld also said that “hundreds” of Iran-backed militants opposed to Saddam’s regime, known as the Badr Brigades, were entering Iraq and complicating U.S. war plans drawn up by the on-scene commander, Gen. Tommy Franks.

“To the extent that they interfere with Gen. Frank’s activities, they would have to be considered combatants. And therefore we’re suggesting they not interfere,” Rumsfeld said.

“They are Iraqis….They have been housed in Iran, armed by Iran, sponsored by Iran,” Rumsfeld said. “Gen. Franks and the coalition countries are busy, they’ve got a complicated task. We’d prefer it not be made more difficult by the neighbors.”

Rumsfeld and Myers briefed as America’s battle plan for Baghdad was taking shape, with U.S. forces now in position to strike the Iraqi capital from nearly all sides – or to mount a siege and wait for Saddam Hussein’s regime to fall to internal opposition.

Myers said that Republican Guard units defending the city are ”dug in.”

“They could be consolidating to make a defense. It doesn’t make any difference. The outcome is certain,” said the Joint Chiefs chairman.

The Bush administration’s accusations against Syria follow complaints that Russia had sold anti-tank guided missiles, jamming devices and night-vision goggles to Iraq.

“They control their border,” he added. “We’re hoping that kind of thing doesn’t happen.”

As sporadic battles raged between American infantry and defiant Iraqi troops and paramilitary guerrillas, more armor and at least 100,000 reinforcing U.S. and allied troops are on their way to join the coalition force over the next few weeks.

In the interim, the American game plan is simple: bombs, bombs and more bombs.

The Army’s senior ground commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. William S. Wallace of V Corps, told reporters of The New York Times and The Washington Post on Thursday that unexpected tactics by Iraqi fighters and stretched supply lines were slowing down the campaign. “The enemy we’re fighting is different from the one we’d war-gamed against,” the papers quoted Wallace as saying during a visit to the 101st Airborne Division headquarters in central Iraq.

Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks, at the daily briefing at U.S. Central Command in Qatar, insisted U.S. war planners had not underestimated Iraqi fighting capabilities, but said unexpected developments were inevitable in any war. He accused the Iraqis of using “terrorist death squads” who changed in and out of civilian clothes.

Meanwhile, a U.S. official involved in military planning and intelligence said Iraqi troops have been spotted between U.S. and Iraqi lines wearing full chemical protection suits and unloading 50- gallon drums from trucks. U.S. intelligence doesn’t know what was in the drums, but fear it could be chemicals.

Officials have said that the closer invading forces get to Baghdad, the higher the possibility that a cornered regime will launch an attack with chemical weapons or other weapons of mass destruction, which Saddam as denied he has.

A senior U.S. diplomat has criticized his country’s role in Iraq as President George W. Bush said the United States is still expecting to win the war, but is changing its tactics.

“We tried to do our best but I think there is much room for criticism because, undoubtedly, there was arrogance and there was stupidity from the United States in Iraq,” Alberto Fernandez, an Arabic-speaking diplomat in the State Department’s bureau of Near Eastern affairs, said on Al-Jazeera television on Saturday.

An administration official wondered whether the translation was accurate, the Associated Press reported. The unidentified official said Fernandez was not repeating the administration position.

KHARTOUM, Sudan (Oct. 22) – The Sudanese government Sunday ordered the chief U.N. envoy out of the country after he wrote that Sudan’s army had suffered major losses in recent fighting in Darfur.

Jan Pronk was given 72 hours to leave — an order that is likely to complicate international efforts to halt the killings, rapes and other atrocities in the strife-torn region of western Sudan.

“The presence of the United Nations is vital to hundreds of thousands of citizens of the Darfur region,” said a European Union spokesman, Amadeu Altafaj Tardio, in Brussels.

In a statement distributed by the official Sudan News Agency, the country’s Foreign Ministry accused Pronk of demonstrating “enmity to the Sudanese government and the armed forces” and of involvement in unspecified activities “that are incompatible with his mission.”

In New York, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Secretary-General Kofi Annan had received a letter from the Sudanese government asking that Pronk be removed from the post.

Coupla nights ago, I sat down and, anticipating big changes in Iraq verbiage coming out of the White House — and I swear this was before the newest developments and stories of today (Saturday) — I fantasized a news conference in the Baghdad Green Zone press room in which Tony Snow (what a great name, huh? — if you’re a Repugnican, ya wanna live in a tony neighborhood, and if you’re the White House news flak, ya wanna snow people, and this guy has managed — for a while — to do both) — but anyway, in which Tony Snow, newly arrived from DC, and accompanied by the Bush deputy flunky for whatever at the State Department or the Defense Department or whatever, flanked by Condi Rice and Dick Cheney’s least-liked deputy, announces that it is time for fresh blood, a new face, “to lead the Iraqi people, to repair the damage that has been done by terrorists, and to give the Iraqi people hope again, to rebuild back to greatness the greatness that at one time was Iraq…” and so on. In my imagined news conference, Tony goes on and on about the newness of this new great leader who is needed, and it’s clear that he has someone literally waiting in the wings as he speaks, and he’s gonna bring him out as the new US puppet when he finishes talking about how bold and brave and mainly how fresh a face this new man will be. Rick Redfern is there, as is the resurrected Duke, and the remnants of the once-embedded US news media in bed with the invasion forces, and they’re all wondering, “Who can these poor bastards have FOUND who would take the mantle of US lackey, who would willingly subject himself to the ridicule, not to mention the risk, of being seen as a shill and a water boy for the tattered and shredded remnants of The American Dream in Iraq? There is rustling behind the curtain as Snow begins to work towards his crescendo of introductory praise: “…..and this man, whom a year ago, two years ago no one would have dreamed could lead a nation such as Iraq….to the glory….that once was this great nation’s destiny…..a man who, though virtually unimaginable as a world-class leader just a few short months ago brings FRESH VISION, FRESH EXPERIENCE, FRESH BLOOD — er, uh, I mean, FRESH PERSPECTIVE…..to his own beleagured homeland….ladies and gentlemen, I give you a man who stands ready to bring FRESH IDEAS, FRESH SOLUTIONS, NEW AWARENESS, BOLD AIMS to the WORLD STAGE …. ladies and gentlemen, I give you, none other than……(the curtain parts and a tall, erect figure in the olive drab uniform of the old Iraqi armed forces, red felt epaulets glowing, shoes spit-shined, trousers freshly creased, steps out…..for a brief moment there is a collective gasp….as the whisper goes around that he resembles ….perhaps too much….an unbeloved figure in Iraq….but there are shadows from the TV camera lights and his face, for an instant cannot be clearly seen, then he steps fully into the light, and there is a collective and deafening roar of stunned silence: shoe-polish black hair, a salt-and-pepper beard….if he had huge bags under his eyes he would be the spitting image of ….but wait….it IS….the bags are gone, there is just the faintest hint of a smile behind the stolid endurance….it is ….OH………… MY……….. GOD………. NO………. but yes: IT IS: it is Saddam Hussein.

“Yes,” says Tony Snow. “It is the man formerly known as the President of Iraq, who has agreed, in an act of stunning generosity….

He is interrupted. “Tony — I mean where did you get a name like that, anyway? — Tony, I am not the former President of Iraq. I am simply the President of Iraq. I have been telling you that for years now. And you, sir, are simply a fool. Now get the fuck out of my country.”

Snow sputters; things have again gone off script. Saddam shuts him up with a wave of the hand. “I have arranged for an escort for you and your colleagues as far as precisely half the distance between the last reinforced gates of the Green Zone, and the pitted runway of the Baghdad airport. Good luck to you, Tony, and may the vultures — who are six steps above you in the moral heirarchy because they do not kill the innocent, only clean their flesh from the roadways — not die from eating your lie-poisoned flesh.”

“But you told us….”

“I told you many things, Tony. Now get out. Maybe you will make it. After all, the good news is, there are people in Iraq who love you.”

“Yes?”

“Yes. The bad news, they all are in this room now, and none of them are Iraqis. Go now.”

Chaos erupts. All the Americans realize the jig is way up, and rush for the doors. But in their shock, they move like ants in mollasses. And it is too late, anyway. Always was. The entire rear wall of the press room gently falls flat like the stage set it always has been, to reveal a six-deep cordon of the Republican Guard, with AK-47s leveled at the stunned, panic-stricken, would-be escapees. Just as they all expect to die, and as the unmistakable odor of ca-ca running down Tony Snow’s well-dressed legs begins to permeate the room, alternate rows of the soldiers bend to the right at the waist, while the ones behind them bend to the left, all in highly-choreographed unison worthy of a Vegas chorus production, while huge speakers blast mega-decibel, well-chosen tunes from the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

“Youuuuuuuuuuuuu….. were such foooooooooooools….. Youuuuuuuuuuuuuu…… were such
fo-oooooooooooooooooools…..”

Well, more upon request, but I really am ready for the final surprise now because now I truly have seen it all. The degree to which and the scale upon which George W Bush has been chumped by his handler-in-chief Cheney pales anything seen before in history, I believe. The Bushes do not take this kind of thing lightly, or passively. I believe Dick Cheney has seen his last Easter, if not his last Christmas. In fact, I believe that in the next few weeks, we will see the Slipperiest Dick being given a Hobson’s choice of exquisite design and uniqueness: he can fly to Iraq to participate in that news conference, and be free to go anywhere in the world and live for a year, if he makes it out of Baghdad, or he can take his chances at Bellevue, going the Lee Atwater route, in what will soon be dedicated and built as the Karl Rove Memorial Wing of Bellevue for the Criminally Insane.

Well, it’s late and I’m no longer a night owl.

BAGHDAD, Oct 19 (IPS) – Death squads from the Ministry of Interior posing as Iraqi police are killing more people than ever in the capital, emerging evidence shows.

The death toll is high – in all 1,536 bodies were brought to the Baghdad morgue in September. The health ministry announced last month that it will build two new morgues in Baghdad to take their capacity to 250 bodies a day.

A UN human rights report released September last year held interior ministry forces responsible for an organised campaign of detentions, torture and killings. It reported that special police commando units accused of carrying out the killings were recruited from Shia Badr and Mehdi militias, and trained by U.S. forces.

Retired Col. James Steele, who served as advisor on Iraqi security forces to then U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte supervised the training of these forces.

Steele was commander of the U.S. military advisor group in El Salvador 1984-86, while Negroponte was U.S. ambassador to nearby Honduras 1981-85. Negroponte was accused of widespread human rights violations by the Honduras Commission on Human Rights in 1994. The Commission reported the torture and disappearance of at least 184 political workers.

The violations Negroponte oversaw in Honduras were carried out by operatives trained by the CIA, according to a CIA working group set up in 1996 to look into the U.S. role in Honduras.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (Oct. 21) – A senior U.S. diplomat said the United States had shown “arrogance” and “stupidity” in Iraq but was now ready to talk with any group except Al-Qaida in Iraq to facilitate national reconciliation.

In an interview with Al-Jazeera television aired late Saturday, Alberto Fernandez, director of public diplomacy in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs at the State Department offered an unusually candid assessment of America’s war in Iraq.

“We tried to do our best but I think there is much room for criticism because, undoubtedly, there was arrogance and there was stupidity from the United States in Iraq,” he said.

On October 17th U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul (TX), Chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security Subcommittee on Investigations, released a report on border violence in the Southwest. The bulk of the report – 38 pages out of 39 – deals with the increasing violence and influence of Mexican drug cartels operating on the US southern flank and is obviously of great concern for US security and the health of its population from the increasing “drug menace” which is being pushed by more narcotics consumption at home. (See page 32 of the report, and footnote 117)

On October 17th Fox News interviewed McCaul and the next day CNN followed suit. Both interviews allowed McCaul to bring Venezuela into the mix alleging that the Venezuelan government has been issuing ID documents to potential terrorists from Colombia, Cuba and the Middle East, countries which host foreign terrorist organizations.

The source for these revelations is an article written by one Linda Robinson in US News and World Report on October 6th 2003 and can hardly be classified as ” “intelligence information.” This article is a mix of hearsay and innuendo and when it was published three years ago was part of the campaign to discredit the democratically elected and constitutional government of President Hugo Chávez, who called the article “sewage and disgusting” when questioned about it in 2003.

Robinson provides no hard evidence for her claims in the article which was long since discredited in 2003. The US taxpayer should be asking the question why millions of dollars are spent producing House Subcommittee Reports based on spurious allegations from a paid hack?

At this time in 2003 Venezuelan authorities were issuing ID documents to millions of Venezuelans and foreign residents who did not possess such documents, since it is a constitutional right for everyone to have a legal identity in Venezuela and hence the right to vote in elections. In this context, unidentified US officials stated at that time: “The list easily totaled several thousand,” the official says. “Colombians were the largest group; there were more than a thousand of them. It also included many from Middle Eastern `countries of interest’ like Syria, Egypt, Pakistan, Lebanon.” The official adds: “It was shocking to see how extensive the list was.”

GARDEN GROVE, Calif. (Oct. 21) – State investigators on Friday searched an office of a Republican congressional candidate whose campaign mailed thousands of intimidating letters to Hispanic immigrant voters.

About 10 uniformed California Department of Justice agents arrived with a search warrant and could be seen opening cabinets, scouring desks and packing up a computer inside the storefront campaign office of Tan D. Nguyen, a Vietnamese immigrant trying to unseat a popular Democratic incumbent.

Nguyen has acknowledged that his campaign sent the letter, which wrongly said immigrants could be jailed if they voted. He blamed a campaign worker he said he has fired.

Nguyen has resisted calls from leaders in his own party to quit the race, saying he did not approve the letter and did not know about it.

State and federal officials have been investigating the mailing for possible violations of election or civil rights law. “We’re aggressively pursuing our investigation to determine exactly who is responsible for the letter,” Nathan Barankin, spokesman for the state attorney general’s office, said Friday.

Nguyen was not in the Garden Grove office when agents arrived. A volunteer had said he planned to return for a mid-afternoon news conference, but instead his attorney, David Wiechert, arrived and cautioned against jumping to conclusions.