Hannah's Blog

Bush's Brain

Recognizing that I am being totally presumptuous since I have no formal
qualifications for what I am about to suggest, I nevertheless want to
call your attention to a brain disfunction known as pre-frontal lobe
syndrome as the possible explanation for George W. Bush's strange
behavior.

Whether this disfunction is genetic or the consequence of a
slight lesion or other injury in the pre-frontal lobe area of the brain
is unknown. However, the resulting symptoms and characteristics are
quite specific, albeit hard for an observer to perceive. The main
symptom is an inability to correctly related cause and effect. While
these categories may well be addressed in the afflicted person's speech,
the reference does not reflect an awareness of the connection, except by
accident. The failure to appreciate cause and effect as central to
one's behavior may be a consequence of the brain's failure to accurately
record the sequence of the events stored in the memory. In other words,
the person has no difficulty remembering and does so with great
specificity. The problem arises from the inability to keep the order in
which things happened straight. It also interferes with the events
being linked with the right agent or person. Then there is often
confusion over who actually did what when.

To compound the problem, the failure of sequential memory makes it very
difficult for the afflicted person to recognize other people as distinct
individuals (a difficulty often masked by assigning a different identity
to people by devising one's own naming system, i.e. nicknames). When
subjected to psychiatric assessment, a person with this disfunction is
often mis-diagnosed as having a "borderline" personality--one that has
difficulty differentiating between the self and other people.

Psychiatric assessments also focus on what is perceived as persistent
prevarication. But that assumes that the person is conscious of not
telling the truth. A person whose brain does not store experience in
sequence is bound to have variable and unreliable recall.
Unfortunately, every such recall is then stored again to reinforce the
memory as a true experience, even though it is false (could explain why
GWB cannot let go of the phrase "Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass
destruction").

It may well be that the lack of a sequence recording function (which
seems to interfere with reading comprehension) is compensated for by an
excellent memory, in the sense of storing and being able to recall (when
prompted) particular packets of information quite prodigiously, an
ability much prized, no doubt, by someone who aspires to be an actor and
needs to repeat lengthy speeches the same way over and over again.

On the other hand, since the inability to recollect events accurately
obviously interferes with the ability to predict one's own or other's
behavior, the individual's brain may well compensate by relating to
others in a prompt/response kind of situation where the person speaks
and acts as an exact mirror of the person with whom he/she is
interacting. Of course, when there are multiple persons present, that
would probably result in all but one being effectively ignored. (This
may be what O'Neill meant when he said that a cabinet meeting was like a
"blind man in a room of deaf people"--meaning that GWB did not "see"
them as individuals and they did not hear that his pronouncements,
although understandable and even relevant, did not make sense as
accurate analyses of a situation, much less a reasonable prediction of
future events.

If a person is unaware of the relationship between cause and effect,
then, while it is possible to make verbal predictions, it is unlikely
that they are going to be consistent with reality. It isn't a matter of
deception or even self-deception such as wishful thinking, if the person
doesn't know that his brain isn't processing information the same way
other people process theirs. And that's true of us as observers, as
well. It is very difficult to see that another person's brain doesn't
process information the same way as our own. It may even be that this
sequential function, of storing information in such a way that the
relationship between cause and effect becomes apparent is not present in
lots of people, no matter how much we emphasise its importance in a
modern scientific society. This memory function is, after all, not
necessary to human survival. In a society where individual behavior is
largely directed by someone else--i.e. what an individual does in any
particular situation is clearly specified by habit or custom or on the
spot direction--it isn't necessary for the individual to have any
awarenss of the expected results of his actions. Indeed, in a tightly
structured authoritarian culture, such independent evaluation and
calculation may well be perceived as a detriment and be "selected out."
I think perhaps the most poingnant comment I have heard from GWB was his
observation that "being President means I don't have to answer
questions." While that's generally been interpreted as a matter of not
wanting to answer questions, I would suggest that on some level there's
a realization that he CAN"T answer questions, or that whenever he tries, the answers that
come out are often perceived by those who are asking him as wrong. That
is the people who ask him end up being dissatisfied and, since he
mirrors other people's reactions, their dissatisfaction (an emotional
reaction) generates his own and what he'd rather be is an optimist--at
least that's what he's been told. GWB is what those around him tell him
he is. He treats others exactly as they treat him. Which would explain
why it has become so important that no negative encounters happen in his
environment.

What does my musing lead me to suspect is going to happen? I think his
poll numbers are going to be allowed to drop low enough, or he's going
to have some "health problem," that is going to justify the selection of
another candidate by the GOP. That would explain, for example, the
gross expenditure of funds on truly worthless advertising--on mistakes
like putting the "approval" at the front of his ads so that when they
are aired following a Kerry ad, it sounds to the inattentive viewer that
GWB is approving what Kerry just said.

Who? Well, if you consider that he wasn't actually intended to win in
2000, but merely, in losing, provide impetus to the Republican cause and
prepare the way for Jeb in 2004, then that may well be whom they'll call
on in August, after the Democratic nominee is finally set. Jeb, of
course, will have the advantage of having been the governor of a
significant state as well as not having been subjected to close scrutiny
for months like Kerry. And then, of course, you're going to have the
sympathy factor if some significant physical impairment is discovered,
like Graves disease or even a brain tumor to explain his mental
disabilities. Impaired Presidents are obviously very convenient for
power-hungry subordinates, but not if they're too impaired.

If there's going to be a bait-and-switch operation, then that would
explain why it was important that the Democratic candidate be weak. I
have long felt that the strategy was to spring some surprise against
Kerry in the waning days of the campaign, but now I think that the plan
is to switch candidates at the last minute. Which will only work if the
Democrat isn't too popular to begin with. That's why Howard Dean had to
be taken down and quickly. And that's why so many of the Democrats have
been provided with Republican monetary support. Each was considered a
"ringer" to keep the eventual nominee weak. It's still going on with
Nader and Kucinich, neither of whom would have any chance against Jeb.

While this hypothesis may be off the wall, give it a minute and see if
anything fits.

What If?

OK, here's a thought. What if the GWB campaign was just a dry run? What if his supporters also expected that Gore was a runaway sure thing since they couldn't be sure that all their manipulations of the votes would work? What if the plan was to set the ground work for younger brother Jeb, who is, after all one of the subscribers to the Project for a New American Century? What if the reason things are in such a muddle is because the neocons weren't actually prepared to govern?
Could we conclude that we are actually lucky? That it's a good thing the only places that got attacked were Afghanistan and Iraq, countries that the rest of the powerful nations didn't really care about? Think about it? What if Jeb Bush, who's actually got all his marbles, were now vying for the Presidency against a chief executive weakened by the gradual eviceration, "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" perfected during the Clinton administration?
Who would be rising up to give Gore courage? Certainly not Dean. Where would be the impetus for a renewal of the democracy? Certainly not with Dean?
Can we say that we are lucky, considering what might have been?

Bush's Brain

The following are morning musings on the state of our President in a conversation with Oscar--

Hate to disappoint you Oscar, but I am beginning to suspect that the
shrub lacks the capacity to recognize that he's going to "get what he
deserves."

After speculating some more about his mental state, I think he's one of
perhaps many people whose brains do not recognize the relationship
between cause and effect. They know that things happen, but they cannot
figure out why. Perhaps because their brain doesn't keep track of the
sequence of events.

The psychiatric community refers to it as pre-frontal lobe syndrome and
the speculation is that it's a consequence of some physical insult or
injury of apparent insignificance. However, I'm beginning to think that,
given the large number of people who seem to have it, it may well be a
normal genetic variant. Sort of like people having musical talent or
not.

Pre-frontal lobe syndrome is often mis-diagnosed as borderline
personality disorder or even schizophrenia because the people who suffer
from not being able to recognize the relationship between their acts and
the consequences they experience, tend to react to any effort to teach
them with punishment or restrictions as if they were attacked.
All their behaviors are in the moment, prompted by their immediate
environment.
Because of that, they are actually quite easy to handle or manipulate
because they mirror the behavior of those around them. So, when people
are nice to them, they respond in kind.
This mirroring behavior also contributes to the behavior not being
recognized as such because most people like for others to follow their
lead and to repeat what they've told them. That's interpreted as "being
supportive." Problems only arise when there's no follow-through, in
terms of action, to the apparent agreeement. The lack of follow-through
is, however, to be expected since the person doesn't even know that
there's supposed to be a consequence to his agreement.
In a clinical environment, individuals with this syndrome are a source
of much frustration because their mirroring conversation with the
treatment staff gives the impression that they are making progress and,
as soon as they are separated from the staff, the behavior reverts to
mirroring the behavior of other patients, many with much worse problems.
This mirroring behavior may also give the impression of empathy. But
because there is no cause/effect realization, the impression is empty.

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago we speculated that what we were
considering was narcicism. But I don't think that's right because
Narcisus, although he fell in love with his image, i.e. himself, the
inability to recognize the relationship between cause and effect also
makes it unlikely that the individual can recognize that his interest in
himself has or has not been met. I'm not sure there even is a self.
Which would make sense, for example, of the shrub's apparent
astonishment at the conditions of being president--not having to answer
any questions. That's probably important because it's something he's
never been able to do.
He doesn't answer questions at news conferences not because he doesn't
want to, but because he doesn't know how. Sometimes his brain latches on
to a particular word it recognizes and then it produces a number of
related words that have been stored together with it and which may or
may not make sense in the present situation.
I think the reason the shrub has nicknames for people is because he
doesn't recognize them as individuals and he can't remember their names.
What he can do is repeat what he's been told, as long as the speech
isn't too long. The reason he often stumbles in his speeches is because
he's not actually reading. He's reciting from memory. Probably would
have made a good movie actor who has to be able to repeat the same line
over and over, without much change in inflection, as long as the "takes"
are not too lengthy.

If you look at the "Remind Us" video, you'll see what I mean about his
ability to say the same thing over and over again. He really got hooked
on that "Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction" line.

You know, once you've had an experience, there's a temptation to see the
same patterns again and again and it take a real act of will to view a
new situation objectively. On the other hand, this effort to be
objective may actually blind you to recognizing what you've seen before
as what you saw before.
I had charge as a Guardian ad Litem of a little girl in state custody
for ten years. Because she was in state custody, there was an effort to
address her "problems" with behavior in one institutional setting after
another. As a result I got to be real familiar with various "treatment"
programs and because she had no family, even got to participate in some
"family counselling" sessions that were part of one of the programs.
Anyway, absolutely nothing worked. None of the medications and none of
the restrictive environments. The odd thing was that in the eight years
it took me to catch on, she never ever misbehaved in my presence. That
is, she responded to me just as I treated her. (This, by the way,
annoyed her care-takers because she was often "abusive" with them. They
didn't like my questioning the ability of a patient to be abusive to a
person in authority either).
Long story short, it finally occurred to us (me and child psychiatrist
and psychologist) that perhaps a really supportive environment where all
her behavior was positively directed might do the trick--i.e. let her be
discharged from involuntary confinement when she turned eighteen and the
state could no longer hold her unless they could prove she was a danger
to herself or others. And it worked. Even in a State Mental Hospital
with few resources, she was able to learn to care for herself by rote
and to be peacable long enough to earn her release. That is, when she
was treated kindly, she responded well. You may say, duh. But that's not
how our society is increasingly organized. People tend to be punished
for missteps, rather than rewarded for being nice. Nice is
expected--except of course from the wardens.
Those who are treated well function OK. Those who suffer abuse at an
early age are likely to turn to what we call crime--to become aggressive
when frustrated or punished and to take what they want whenever they
want it.
Since it's quite possible for such people to function in an authoritarian
society, it seems quite reasonable to suggest that this "incapacity"
represents a normal genetic variant.
The mistake lies in trying to make people do things they can't; like
ride a bike when they lack the sense of balance required, or the
capacity to anticipate that if they ride down a steep incline at full
speed, they're likely to fall. Having fallen off a bike many times
myself, I am pretty sure that the Shrub's injuries to his face are the
result of going down hill too fast and then trying to come to a sudden
halt.

If I am correct and there are a lot of people like that out there,
making fun of him is not going to persuade them to vote against him. It
may well be that people recognize themselves in him. Can't figure out
why he should be made fun of since their loved ones have the same
problem and are such good people, in the sense of doing everything they
are told.
He should be rewarded for doing what his mommy and his advisers tell
him.

Iraqi Hard News

Mehdi Army Grows as Tempers Rage Over 'Wedding Massacre'
by Dahr Jamail, The NewStandard
http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_item&itemid=406

Baghdad, May 25 -- While US troops continue to damage mosques in heavy
fighting against resistance forces they say are holed up in holy sites of
Kufa and Kerbala, men in the Sadr City area of Baghdad rushed yesterday to
join the Mehdi Army, a militia force loyal to rebel cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr.
The recruitment surge followed bloody overnight fighting here that left many
Iraqis dead. Not surprisingly, accounts of the overnight battle, as with
most recent engagements, differ greatly depending on whom one asks.

Residents of this vast, impoverished area of over one million saw US troops
battle members of the Mehdi Army early yesterday morning. According to
Agence FrancePresse, hospitals counted 18 civilians killed in the fighting,
but Captain Brian O'Malley of the 1st Brigade Combat Team, operating in the
area, said US forces killed 26 Iraqis, all of them militiamen loyal to
Muqtada Al-Sadr.

The heavily resisted assault on targets in Sadr City by US forces came less
than a day after the US 1st Cavalry Division completed a weapons purchasing
program in the district, through which the Army bought assault rifles,
rocket propelled grenades, mortars and artillery shells, among other
weapons, "at or above market prices." The Army boasted. that thousands of
weapons were turned over by Sadr City residents, but the real effect of the
program was unclear at the end of last yesterday's fighting, which was
possibly the fiercest this neighborhood has seen since tensions between US
forces and Muqtada Al-Sadr escalated in late March.

As men congregated around the newly rebuilt office of Muqtada Al-Sadr in
order to join his militia, Sheikh Hassan Al-Adari, a spokesman for Al-Sadr,
claimed that many of the people killed last night were civilians and said
such a slaughter will only serve to draw angry Iraqis to the resistance.
"It's normal to see people coming here from all over Baghdad to join us in
defending against the occupiers," he said, "especially when the Americans
are killing civilians and attacking our holy places."

Al-Adari also said that followers of Al-Sadr, along with the vast majority
of Iraqis, are enraged at what he and others here call "the wedding
massacre." He was referring to the incident in the tiny village of Makr
Al-Dib last Wednesday, where US gunship crews killed more than 40 Iraqis in
overnight airstrikes. Numerous Iraqi eyewitnesses, as well as home videos
obtained and other footage shot by the Associated Press Television Network,
suggest the victims were civilians who had attended a late night wedding
celebration.

The US military insists the target was a terrorist safe house and has images
it says contradicts the locals' version of events.

Eman Ahmed, director of the Baghdad office of International Occupation
Watch, who visited the site of the bloodbath, located near the Syrian
border, offers an account that supports statements by local residents. "I
saw it with my own eyes," she recounted during an interview at her home in
central Baghdad. "It is only a sheep ranch and there were no fighters there,
nor any evidence of weapons."

Ahmed described a horrendous scene of bullet-riddled musical instruments
from the 13 band members killed in the assault, blood and pieces of flesh
drying in the sand, and mourning neighbors and family members of slain
wedding celebrants.

A list of victims from last week's attack showed that 12 women and seven
children under the age of 18 lay among the dead, including a 4 year-old girl
named Fatima, as well as Ra'ad, a one month-old baby boy. The list was
provided by Dr. Hambdi Al-Rawi, director of the hospital in Al-Qaim.

"Iraqis everywhere are saddened by what happened there," said Ahmed. "But
they are even more enraged at the lying of the American military and their
complete disrespect towards the Iraqi people."

Her outrage is shared by participants of a funeral wake in Sadr City
yesterday for Amir Yassin, a member of the Mehdi Army killed while fighting
US forces Monday morning. "We are fighting to protect our homes here," said
a Mehdi fighter who asked to remain nameless but grew excited as he spoke.
"Even though the Americans only come here at night now, they are still
invading our city and killing our civilians. We are only guarding our homes
and our people."

Yassin is married and has six children, but said he will be honored to
become a martyr if he is killed fighting against foreign troops occupying
his country. "God will save my children if I die because the Mehdi is the
army of the people," he stated. "This is an intifada of the people," the man
continued, using Arabic that roughly translates to "shrugging off." He
added, "Our parents encourage us to get revenge for every death."

A man identified as commander of two brigades of the Shi'ite-run Mehdi Army
in Sadr City, who also asked to remain anonymous, said Sunni Muslims have
joined the Shi'ite-led resistance force. "We have 700 Sunnis fighting with
us here," he said, "because we are fighting so that our holy places aren't
destroyed like they are in Najaf, Kut and Kerbala." He angrily added, "The
Americans invaded us, and now they have made this a holy war."

A spokesperson at the Coalition Press Information Center who refused to
provide a name also declined to relay any information concerning the nature
of the US military operation in Sadr City.

[The above article was a hard news report, not a weblog entry, by
NewStandard Iraq correspondent Dahr Jamail. The notes below are standard.
For reprint and copyright information, see:
http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_reprint_policy]

Approval slide

Something Beautiful

The Blackcommentator has some of the best art work around. It lifts the spirit.

Beautiful Minds

Michael Moore's Candid Camera

Published: May 23, 2004, New York Times

"But why should we hear about body bags, and deaths, and how many, what day it's gonna happen, and how many this or what do you suppose? Or, I mean, it's, it's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that? And watch him suffer."

— Barbara Bush on "Good Morning America," March 18, 2003

SHE needn't have worried. Her son wasn't suffering. In one of the several pieces of startling video exhibited for the first time in Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11," we catch a candid glimpse of President Bush some 36 hours after his mother's breakfast TV interview — minutes before he makes his own prime-time TV address to take the nation to war in Iraq. He is sitting at his desk in the Oval Office. A makeup woman is doing his face. And Mr. Bush is having a high old time. He darts his eyes about and grins, as if he were playing a peek-a-boo game with someone just off-camera. He could be a teenager goofing with his buds to relieve the passing tedium of a haircut.

"In your wildest dreams you couldn't imagine Franklin Roosevelt behaving this way 30 seconds before declaring war, with grave decisions and their consequences at stake," said Mr. Moore in an interview before his new documentary's premiere at Cannes last Monday. "But that may be giving him credit for thinking that the decisions were grave." As we spoke, the consequences of those decisions kept coming. The premiere of "Fahrenheit 9/11" took place as news spread of the assassination of a widely admired post-Saddam Iraqi leader, Ezzedine Salim, blown up by a suicide bomber just a hundred yards from the entrance to America's "safe" headquarters, the Green Zone, in Baghdad.

"Fahrenheit 9/11" will arrive soon enough at your local cineplex — there's lots of money to be made — so discount much of the squabbling en route. Disney hasn't succeeded in censoring Mr. Moore so much as in enhancing his stature as a master provocateur and self-promoter. And the White House, which likewise hasn't a prayer of stopping this film, may yet fan the p.r. flames. "It's so outrageously false, it's not even worth comment," was last week's blustery opening salvo by Dan Bartlett, the White House communications director. New York's Daily News reported that Republican officials might even try to use the Federal Election Commission to shut the film down. That would be the best thing to happen to Michael Moore since Charlton Heston granted him an interview.

Whatever you think of Mr. Moore, there's no question he's detonating dynamite here. From a variety of sources — foreign journalists and broadcasters (like Britain's Channel Four), freelancers and sympathetic American TV workers who slipped him illicit video — he supplies war-time pictures that have been largely shielded from our view. Instead of recycling images of the planes hitting the World Trade Center on 9/11 once again, Mr. Moore can revel in extended new close-ups of the president continuing to read "My Pet Goat" to elementary school students in Florida for nearly seven long minutes after learning of the attack. Just when Abu Ghraib and the savage beheading of Nicholas Berg make us think we've seen it all, here is yet another major escalation in the nation-jolting images that have become the battleground for the war about the war.

"Fahrenheit 9/11" is not the movie Moore watchers, fans or foes, were expecting. (If it were, the foes would find it easier to ignore.) When he first announced this project last year after his boorish Oscar-night diatribe against Mr. Bush, he described it as an exposé of the connections between the Bush and bin Laden dynasties. But that story has been so strenuously told elsewhere — most notably in Craig Unger's best seller, "House of Bush, House of Saud" — that it's no longer news. Mr. Moore settles for a brisk recap in the first of his film's two hours. And, predictably, he stirs it into an over-the-top, at times tendentious replay of a Bush hater's greatest hits: Katherine Harris, the Supreme Court, Harken Energy, AWOL in Alabama, the Carlyle Group, Halliburton, the lazy Crawford vacation of August 2001, the Patriot Act. But then the movie veers off in another direction entirely. Mr. Moore takes the same hairpin turn the country has over the past 14 months and crash-lands into the gripping story that is unfolding in real time right now.

Wasn't it just weeks ago that we were debating whether we should see the coffins of the American dead and whether Ted Koppel should read their names on "Nightline"? In "Fahrenheit 9/11," we see the actual dying, of American troops and Iraqi civilians alike, with all the ripped flesh and spilled guts that the violence of war entails. (If Steven Spielberg can simulate World War II carnage in "Saving Private Ryan," it's hard to argue that Mr. Moore should shy away from the reality in a present-day war.) We also see some of the 4,000-plus American casualties: those troops hidden away in clinics at Walter Reed and at Blanchfield Army Community Hospital in Fort Campbell, Ky., where they try to cope with nerve damage and multiple severed limbs. They are not silent. They talk about their pain and their morphine, and they talk about betrayal. "I was a Republican for quite a few years," one soldier says with an almost innocent air of bafflement, "and for some reason they conduct business in a very dishonest way."

Of course, Mr. Moore is being selective in what he chooses to include in his movie; he's a polemicist, not a journalist. But he implicitly raises the issue that much of what we've seen elsewhere during this war, often under the label of "news," has been just as subjectively edited. Perhaps the most damning sequence in "Fahrenheit 9/11" is the one showing American troops as they ridicule hooded detainees in a holding pen near Samara, Iraq, in December 2003. A male soldier touches the erection of a prisoner lying on a stretcher underneath a blanket, an intimation of the sexual humiliations that were happening at Abu Ghraib at that same time. Besides adding further corroboration to Seymour Hersh's report that the top command has sanctioned a culture of abuse not confined to a single prison or a single company or seven guards, this video raises another question: why didn't we see any of this on American TV before "60 Minutes II"?

Don Van Natta Jr. of The New York Times reported in March 2003 that we were using hooding and other inhumane techniques at C.I.A. interrogation centers in Afghanistan and elsewhere. CNN reported on Jan. 20, after the Army quietly announced its criminal investigation into prison abuses, that "U.S. soldiers reportedly posed for photographs with partially unclothed Iraqi prisoners." And there the matter stood for months, even though, as we know now, soldiers' relatives with knowledge of these incidents were repeatedly trying to alert Congress and news organizations to the full panorama of the story.

Mr. Moore says he obtained his video from an independent foreign journalist embedded with the Americans. "We've had this footage in our possession for two months," he says. "I saw it before any of the Abu Ghraib news broke. I think it's pretty embarrassing that a guy like me with a high school education and with no training in journalism can do this. What the hell is going on here? It's pathetic."

We already know that politicians in denial will dismiss the abuse sequence in Mr. Moore's film as mere partisanship. Someone will surely echo Senator James Inhofe's Abu Ghraib complaint that "humanitarian do-gooders" looking for human rights violations are maligning "our troops, our heroes" as they continue to fight and die. But Senator Inhofe and his colleagues might ask how much they are honoring soldiers who are overextended, undermanned and bereft of a coherent plan in Iraq. Last weekend The Los Angeles Times reported that for the first time three Army divisions, more than a third of its combat troops, are so depleted of equipment and skills that they are classified "unfit to fight." In contrast to Washington's neglect, much of "Fahrenheit 9/11" turns out to be a patriotic celebration of the heroic American troops who have been fighting and dying under these and other deplorable conditions since President Bush's declaration of war.

In particular, the movie's second hour is carried by the wrenching story of Lila Lipscomb, a flag-waving, self-described "conservative Democrat" from Mr. Moore's hometown of Flint, Mich., whose son, Sgt. Michael Pedersen, was killed in Iraq. We watch Mrs. Lipscomb, who by her own account "always hated" antiwar protesters, come undone with grief and rage. As her extended family gathers around her in the living room, she clutches her son's last letter home and reads it aloud, her shaking voice and hand contrasting with his precise handwriting on lined notebook paper. A good son, Sergeant Pedersen thanks his mother for sending "the bible and books and candy," but not before writing of the president: "He got us out here for nothing whatsoever. I am so furious right now, Mama."

By this point, Mr. Moore's jokes, some of them sub-par retreads of Jon Stewart's riffs about the coalition of the willing, have vanished from "Fahrenheit 9/11." So, pretty much, has Michael Moore himself. He told me that Harvey Weinstein of Miramax had wanted him to insert more of himself into the film — "you're the star they're coming to see" — but for once he exercised self-control, getting out of the way of a story that is bigger than he is. "It doesn't need me running around with my exclamation points," he said. He can't resist underlining one moral at the end, but by then the audience, crushed by the needlessness of Mrs. Lipscomb's loss, is ready to listen. Speaking of America's volunteer army, Mr. Moore concludes: "They serve so that we don't have to. They offer to give up their lives so that we can be free. It is, remarkably, their gift to us. And all they ask for in return is that we never send them into harm's way unless it is absolutely necessary. Will they ever trust us again?"

"Fahrenheit 9/11" doesn't push any Vietnam analogies, but you may find one in a montage at the start, in which a number of administration luminaries (Cheney, Rice, Ashcroft, Powell) in addition to the president are seen being made up for TV appearances. It's reminiscent of Richard Avedon's photographic portrait of the Mission Council, the American diplomats and military figures running the war in Saigon in 1971. But at least those subjects were dignified. In Mr. Moore's candid-camera portraits, a particularly unappetizing spectacle is provided by Paul Wolfowitz, the architect of both the administration's Iraqi fixation and its doctrine of "preventive" war. We watch him stick his comb in his mouth until it is wet with spit, after which he runs it through his hair. This is not the image we usually see of the deputy defense secretary, who has been ritualistically presented in the press as the most refined of intellectuals — a guy with, as Barbara Bush would have it, a beautiful mind.

Like Mrs. Bush, Mr. Wolfowitz hasn't let that mind be overly sullied by body bags and such — to the point where he underestimated the number of American deaths in Iraq by more than 200 in public last month. No one would ever accuse Michael Moore of having a beautiful mind. Subtleties and fine distinctions are not his thing. That matters very little, it turns out, when you have a story this ugly and this powerful to tell.

G-8 Summit for What?

What exactly can we expect George W. Bush to tell the leaders of Canada,
Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the European Union when
they come calling at that posh resort off the coast of Brunswick, Georgia
this June 8th-10th? Will he tell them he's sorry about the weapons of mass
distruction fiasco in Iraq? Will he tell them not to worry about the low
yield nuclear weapons the US is gearing up to develop?Will he ask them
for more money for the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank?
Will there be an opportunity for the press to explore these questions with
our guests?
And what entertainments will George W. Bush provide? Will he take the
leaders on a tour of the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center where our
intelligence/torture experts are trained? Will he take them to see those
nuclear submarines down at St. Mary's?Will they all take a tour of the
contaminated sites in Glynn County or up the Savannah River? Or will he be
content to just parade some of his African friends in order to demonstrate,
once again, his compassion and concern for countries whose populations are
being decimated by HIV/AIDS?
Would it be reasonable to suspect that President Bush invited the leaders
of Algeria, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Uganda to the posh
Sea Island resort as a distraction so he won't have to answer the hard
questions about his administration's aggressive actions and intentions?
Finally, are all of these "leaders" actually going to come and participate
in the charade?

Iraq Diary

"The Seeds Have Been Sown"
weblog entry by Dahr Jamail, NewStandard Weblogs
http://blog.newstandardnews.net/iraqdispatches/archives/000423.html

Haditha, May 21 - "Iraq is sitting atop a volcano," says a school teacher in
Haditha. "The Americans are aggravating people here, trying to get a
reaction. Everyone in this province is against them now!"

Most Iraqis I speak with nowadays are seething with rage towards the
occupiers of their country. With their mosques being raided, damaged or
destroyed on what has become a nearly daily basis, they have had enough.

Then, as if the unremitting stream of horrendous photographs documenting the
widespread torturing of Iraqis within Abu Ghraib prison (among other
detention facilities throughout Iraq) are not enough, the recent wedding
party massacre has brought the fury to an entirely new level.

The continuing cultural insensitivity and unwillingness to take
responsibility for the slaughter by the U.S. military is not helping ebb the
rage felt by Iraqis about the incident.

While Arabic media has shown footage of the mangled bodies of the 25 women
and children killed by U.S. helicopters, Marine General James Mattis in
Fallujah responded:

"Ten miles from Syrian border and 80 miles from nearest city and a wedding
party? Don't be naïve. Plus they had 30 males of military age with them. How
many people go to the middle of the desert to have a wedding party?"

Someone should inform General Mattis that most of Iraq just happens to be
located in a desert, and that celebrations of all kinds in the desert are
not uncommon here.

On the banks of the Euphrates River inside a humble home in Haditha, Mr.
Tahrir, a manager of one of the local schools, is unable to contain his
anger while discussing the countless atrocities committed by the U.S. and
British militaries as of late.

"So a few soldiers get court-martialed for abusing Iraqis. They get a fair
trial, then maybe a year in jail. Is this fair? Iraqi civil rights lawyers,
human rights organizations, and released detainees who were tortured werent
even allowed inside of the show trial!"

Mr. Tahrir, and all of the other men and women I am drinking tea with, is
unable to accept the incongruity of justice as applied to soldiers vs.
detained Iraqis. Most detained Iraqis have never been charged with anything,
have no access to a lawyer or their families, no phone calls, and as we can
see every day now, are being treated horrendously.

How would people in the US react if shown pictures of Americans imprisoned
by a foreign military that showed the detainees being forced to simulate
degrading sex acts, being covered in feces, ridden like animals, handcuffed
to their beds with underwear on their heads and being attacked by guard
dogs?

The signs of continued violent resistance to the occupation are obvious even
as one drives out of the quiet town of Haditha, beautifully set amidst palm
trees, green fields of vegetable crops and the mighty Euphrates flowing
past. For the road just outside of the city has huge craters along the
sides, blasted by Improvised Explosive Devices detonated while U.S. convoys
passed.

Iraqis arent the only people suffering. Just in the last two days, five
more U.S. soldiers have been killed, and at least twice that number wounded.
Heavy fighting rages throughout southern Iraq, which of course is claiming
even more civilian casualties than fighters on either side.

Driving back to Baghdad finds the usual delays from military convoys and
checkpoints. Iraqis are not getting used to being delayed by the foreign
militaries in their country, as cars honk and tempers rise with each passing
minute. In Baghdad, according to General Kimmitt, currently 76 roads are
blocked for "security reasons." Snarled traffic in the capital is a daily
fact of life, people sitting in their cars, their anger rising along with
the 100 degree temperatures.

West of Fallujah on the main highway, while racing towards Baghdad alongside
the setting sun, there are countless military vehicles sitting sporadically
along the sides of the road.

We pass a few small cemeteries, which oddly enough have Humvees and soldiers
sitting beside them. Not good PR with the Iraqis.

Even though the military claims that an "attacker fired on the patrol from a
cemetery" north of Baghdad in Miqdadiya recently, most Iraqis are unaware of
this; only seeing Humvees parked atop the bodies of their dead; Humvees from
the same military that is regularly damaging and raiding mosques in Baghdad
and southern Iraq. Humvees from the same military which just slaughtered 40
people at a wedding celebration.

Shortly after passing these, Fallujah is on our right -- along with the
token US checkpoint on the main street that enters the city from the
highway. While members of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps actually operate the
checkpoint, a few Humvees are parked off to the side under camouflage
netting, discreetly incognito.

The checkpoint maintains the US military illusion of control over the one
truly liberated city in occupied Iraq, as their patrols no longer enter
inside.

Recently Mr. Bush said, "And I believe the Iraqi people don't want to be
dominated by anybody. They want the United States to be a friend, but the
United States to not dominate."

His quote reminds me of something Mr. Tahrir told me earlier in Haditha
whilst speaking of the US occupation of his country. "They promised
prosperity, yet they have destroyed everything. They said theyd bring real
freedom; but we see our people in prison, tortured, looted and homes
raided."

Tassin Awad, sitting nearby, nodded in agreement and added, "I would like to
see Mr. Bush and tell him that Saddam is better than he is."

----------------------------------------------
Dahr Jamail is Baghdad correspondent for The NewStandard. He is an Alaskan devoted to covering the untold stories from occupied Iraq. You can help Dahr continue his crucial work in Iraq by making donations. For more information or to donate to Dahr, visit http://newstandardnews.net/iraqdispatches .

From the City of Brotherly Love

Security Blanket?

So, Deputy Secretary of Defense Wolfowitz has no idea when the American troops are going to leave Iraq because it all depends on when Iraqis "are" or "feel" secure. I can't quite remember which it is. But, while I personally doubt that Iraqi security is the issue, whether they "are" or "feel" secure obviously makes a difference.
As anybody knows who's made preparations for a hurricane, for example, things are secure when they are either tied up or locked down, or both. Same goes for people. And it doesn't make a whole lot of difference whether they do it to themselves or let others do it to them. Things and people are secure when they can't move around freely.
If that's the criterion, then the residents of Fallujah who hunkered in their houses while the Americans, secure in their tanks, paraded through the city, have gotten the message and were obviously convincing.
But, when the Americans left, the Iraqis came rushing out of their houses and swarmed through the streets. And that was not reassuring. After all, a goodly number of our soldiers probably joined up so they wouldn't be "hanging out" on the streets or at the mall. Americans consider themselves secure when they are locked in their homes, their places of business or their cars. Iraqis, on the other hand, seem to feel secure when they are not being bombed or shot at.
So, what kind of security does Secretary Wolfowitz have in mind? Considering that the leader of the most powerful nation on earth still needs a National Security advisor at his side, actually feeling secure seems to be about as ellusive as getting rid of terror.

There's a little video making the rounds; a compilation of how many ways George W. Bush was able to repeat "Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction," without making it sound redundant. The title of the video is "Remind Us;" an obvious allusion to the rationale for why people are still being killed in Iraq.
When one views "Remind Us" in tandem with the video from Booker Elementary School, where the President was hanging out with the children that morning, learning to read about a goat while the towers in New York were under attack, one wonders how different things might have turned out, if they had read him the story of the little boy who cried wolf.
And then one has to wonder if what little boys who cry wolf really want is to keep the night terrors away and what they really need is just a little blanket to make them feel safe and secure. If so, then I sure hope it doesn't turn out that little Dubya's got "lost" in the wash!

Iraqi Dispatch

"Ramadi -- A Delicate Lid"
a weblog entry by Dahr Jamail, NewStandard Weblogs
http://blog.newstandardnews.net/iraqdispatches/archives/000402.html

May 17, 2004; Ramadi, Iraq - The city of Ramadi, about 120km west of
Baghdad, appears to be much more stable than nearby Falluja, where the U.S.
military currently won’t enter the city after the failed siege of April.

Here U.S. military patrols still roam the streets and attacks seem to be
down. Both the Governor of the vast Al-Anbar Province and the Commander of
the Iraqi Police (IP) are hopeful about the recent calming throughout the
area.

In the heavily fortified building in central Ramadi which houses the
Governor of the Al-Anbar Province Mr. Ezzedin Abdul Kareem, he is upbeat
about the situation, despite having had three assassination attempts in the
last year.

“Both Ramadi and Falluja are extremely tribal,” he explained while
discussing why things have gone more smoothly as of late in Ramadi. “But
Ramadi is closer to Baghdad and the people of Ramadi are more influenced by
their religious leaders.”

He stated that there are good relations between the Coalition Provisional
Authority (CPA), and the government structures of Ramadi, and that in
addition to the $500 million the CPA plans on spending to rebuild in Ramadi,
there is now another $70 million earmarked for Ramadi and Falluja.

While he said the payment is to be issued in one lump sum, the actual
delivery of this money has yet to occur.

What is worth noting as another reason why the situation in Ramadi remains
relatively stable as of late is that on April 11, 2003, Governor Abdul
Kareem was elected as governor by a council of Sheikhs. In addition, he is
extremely well respected throughout Ramadi.

Nevertheless, he was surprised at how well the formation of the councils in
the cities and villages throughout Al-Anbar had gone this past January. Even
though the caucuses were set up by the CPA, many people have still felt a
fair degree of autonomy in that it was their own tribal leaders selecting
their governor and other council members. This differs greatly from the
appointing of the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) members by the CPA.

In sum, the governor said, “The people asked me to be in this position.”

It is safe to say that in Iraq today, I’ve been hard pressed to find anyone
who supports the IGC. If you want to anger an Iraqi, mention the occupation
or the IGC.

Jaadman Ahmed Al-Awany is the Commander of the Iraqi Police of Al-Anbar
Province, and in charge of 10,850 IPs. He agrees with the governor that the
sheikhs and religious men have helped to calm the volatile situation in
Ramadi. “There have been less attacks on IPs here the last few months
because so many of them come from this area, and are being better equipped
than before,” he said.

Nevertheless, two IPs had just been killed in Ramadi prior to our interview.

One must not forget that calm is a relative term in occupied Iraq.

Today was the meeting of all the city IP commanders from throughout the
province. Colonel Sabar Fahdil is the Commander of the IPs of Falluja, and
openly expressed his anger towards what occurred in his city during April.

“The Americans used the execution of the four American contractors there as
an excuse to surround and attack Falluja,” he said angrily. He lamented over
how helicopters and warplanes were used to bomb civilians and homes. “They
killed over 1200 Fallujans!” He continued, “I was there negotiating with the
Americans, but they broke the ceasefire so many times.”

After a huge lunch and pleasant goodbyes, out on the street the mood was
anything but calm.

One shop owner named Sfook, when asked if he felt things in Ramadi were more
stable nowadays said, “It’s not safe here, for Iraqis or Americans. The
Americans attack our homes so much, whether there is a reason or not. The
problem is the Americans’ presence here. We will never accept the
occupiers!”

He was asked what would happen in Ramadi if the US military attempted to do
what it did in Falluja. “This would be worse than Falluja,” he replied.
“Even now they are hit 3-4 times each day. We are honored by the resistance
here.”

Another man, Abdul Ahab, a 21 year-old student at the Economics College,
said, “Security is worse. All Ramadis are against the Americans. I used to
think they were different, but after seeing the torturing, I hate them.”

A 24 year-old student of the Science University here, listening to the
conversation, added, “The Americans are invaders. They took their authority
by invading, and it is worse here than before they came.”

All of the men I spoke with were extremely angry. Each question was like
taking another lid off of a boiling kettle.

The student continued, “They came with a mask of freedom, but we are not
free. They brought torture, worse security, and terrorism. They are the
terrorists!”

As an afterthought he added, “Saddam never closed hospitals to prevent
injured people from reaching them. Saddam never killed 2 year-old children!
They invaded Falluja because General Abizaid was almost killed there.”

As news of the assassination via car bomb of the current leader of the IGC
in Baghdad flashed across the television in another shop we were in, people
began celebrating.

I asked one man what the cheering was about, and he said, “They are not the
Iraqi Governing Council. They are the Prostitution Council!”

Outside, the main street of Ramadi was filled with countless cars honking
their horns in celebration of the bombing.

The impromptu poll continued on the sidewalk, and another man, when asked
how he felt about the situation in Ramadi, stated firmly, “Today is much
better than tomorrow. It is getting worse everyday because of the Americans.
I challenge the governor if he thinks things here are good.”

----------------------------------------------
Dahr Jamail is Baghdad correspondent for The NewStandard. He is an Alaskan devoted to covering the untold stories from occupied Iraq. You can help Dahr continue his crucial work in Iraq by making donations. For more information or to donate to Dahr, visit http://newstandardnews.net/iraqdispatches .

Wiliam w. Posse

Star Wars Redux

Misleading Intelligence

I may be incredibly naive, but it seems to me that the problem with extracting information from Iraqi war prisoners via torture and intimidation isn't that these same tactics will be employed against our own soldiers should they be taken captive. Rather, it's that whatever information is finally extracted is very likely to be either false or intended to lead those who act on it into traps.

In other words, these tactics increase the risk that our soldiers will be ambushed and killed.
While the current administration seems incapable of planning ahead, I am almost daily reminded of the last press conference by the Iraqi Minister of Information when the Americans were already "at the gates," so to speak. He predicted that our troops would be sucked into the center of Iraq and then attacked from all sides.
Most of the attendant press seemed to be amused. But it struck me at the time that he gave no timetable when this would happen. We should not be surprised that the citizens of Mesopotamia have a much longer time horizon.

Project cont'd

Dear Editor,

How silly of us to think that Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz and Stephen Cambone would have time to pay attention to the incarceration and torture of a couple or a couple thousand Iraqis. These people have many more important things to think about, as outlined in the Project for a New American Century.

In addition to establishing a "substantial American force presence in the Gulf, there's the need to control space and the internet, to keep our allies from getting more powerful, and to promote regime change in China, North Korea, Libya, Syria and Iran, to name just a few.

Then, of course, there's the possibility that "advanced forms of biological warfare" will be able to "target" specific genotypes and "transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool." Which, I guess, lets us know that the definition of terror depends on who's doing the dirty deed.

Since George W. Bush ran on a platform calling for an American pull-back from its global involvement, while William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is listed right along with the other proponents of the Poject for a New American Century, maybe the mess in Iraq is Clinton's fault, after all. But then, how come George W. Bush has brought all those other people into his Administration? Did he not know what they were up to?

Project for a New American Century

The neoconservative think tank Project for the New American Century writes a ?blueprint? for the ?creation of a ?global Pax Americana? ? (see also June 3, 1997). The document, titled, Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategies, Forces and Resources for a New Century, was written for the Bush team even before the 2000 Presidential election. It was commissioned by future Vice President Cheney, future Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, future Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Florida Governor and President Bush's brother Jeb Bush, and future Vice President Cheney's Chief of Staff Lewis Libby.

The report calls itself a ?blueprint for maintaining global US preeminence, precluding the rise of a great power rival, and shaping the international security order in line with American principles and interests.? The plan shows that the Bush team intended to take military control of Persian Gulf oil whether or not Saddam Hussein was in power and should retain control of the region even if there is no threat. It says: ?The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.? The report calls for the control of space through a new ?US Space Forces,? the political control of the internet, the subversion of any growth in political power of even close allies, and advocates ?regime change? in China, North Korea, Libya, Syria, Iran and other countries. It also mentions that ?advanced forms of biological warfare that can ?target? specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool.? (see also Spring 2001 and April 2001 (D)). [Sunday Herald, 9/7/02 Sources: Rebuilding America's Defenses] However, the report complains that these changes are likely to take a long time, ?absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event?like a new Pearl Harbor.? [Los Angeles Times, 1/12/03] In an NBC interview at about the same time, Vice Presidential candidate Cheney defends Bush Jr.'s position of maintaining Clinton's policy not to attack Iraq because the US should not act as though ?we were an imperialist power, willy-nilly moving into capitals in that part of the world, taking down governments.? [Washington Post, 1/12/02] This report and the Project for the New American Century generally are mostly ignored until a few weeks before the start of the Iraq war (see February-March 20, 2003).

People and organizations involved: Abram Shulsky, Robert Martinage, Paul Wolfowitz, Lewis Libby, James Lasswell, Mark Lagon, Phil Meilinger, Robert Killebrew, William Kristol, Mackubin Owens, Steve Rosen, Gary Schmitt, Robert Kagan, Barry Watts, Dov Zakheim, Michael Vickers, Fred Kagan, Donald Kagan, Dan Goure, William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney, Lewis Libby, Thomas Donnelly, David Epstein, David Fautua, Jeb Bush, Devon Gaffney Cross, Stephen Cambone, Eliot A. Cohen, Roger Barnett, Alvin Bernstein

Iraqi Dispatch

http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_item&itemid=323

View image

Iraqi Dispatch

http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_item&itemid=323

Incarceration Rate

The President's effort to characterize the abuse and torture of Iraqi citizens in American prison camps in Iraq as the behavior of a few "bad apples" or misguided individuals is an insult to Iraqis, who obviously know better, and to Americans who continue to be blind to the fact that the incarceration rate in their own country is out of sight.

Since military officials have now admitted that fully ninety percent of their captives were innocent of any wrong doing and were eventually released after being tortured for weeks and even months, it seems appropriate to refer to them as citizens, or at least civilians, in order to put the American behavior in the proper light.

Of course, when we do that, it becomes apparent that this pattern of behavior is entirely consistent with what is happening, and has been going on for a long time, in our own country. In no other "developed" country is the per capita prison population larger. Nor is the execution rate as large in other countries because most "civilized" nations do not set an example for their people by putting some of them to death.

That we are making some progress in this country is evidenced by the fact that some states have taken it upon themselves to rule out official murder and others have placed a moritorium on the practice after they became convinced that far too many innocent people had been convicted of things they didn't do.

How this could have happened may be puzzling to some people, but obviously not puzzling enough. Indeed, there are many who do not believe that those who have been "proven" innocent (instead of having merely proven to be not guilty), actually are. The reason for this lack of confidence is quite simple. It grows out of the widespread belief, not just in the law enforcement and judicial community, that "everybody is guilty of something."

It is this prejudice that "everybody is guilty of something" which logically leads to the conclusion that everybody deserves to be punished, if not for the behavior they are actually arrested for and charged with, then for something else.

How, you may ask, does this prejudice about other people's guilt arise and how does it come to be supported by so many people? Well, to a certain extent, this belief is actually central to fundamentalist christian religion. If everyone has to be "saved," then they are obviously sinful to begin with and in failing to choose to be "saved" they are admitting that they deserve to be punished. So, the believers, who do the punishing perceive themselves to be doing God's will.

Which would explain why our President is more exercised by the pictures than the behavior they represent. And why some people prefer to believe that the pictures were "staged" just to embarass the American people. Embarassment being the natural response to other people seeing what we'd rather they not observe--i.e. our bare behinds.

In our President's mind, it isn't the color of their skin that makes the Iraqi people inferior; it's their failure to embrace the "freedom" and "salvation" they are being offered. Indeed, every act of rejection of the "benefit" he brings them is evidence of their moral failing and the need to be "corrected."

It is this mindset which the founders of our nation recognized and why they made the presumption of innocence, as well as the separation of church and state, central to our Constitution. Unfortunately, we again have a President who doesn't get it.

Blacklist is Back

Kalamazoo Students Refused Entrance to Bush Cheney Campaign Stop

In an effort to expose ourselves to the wider spectrum of politics in our country and educate ourselves for the election this coming fall, a group of students from Kalamazoo College obtained tickets and went to see President Bush speak Monday, May 3rd, at Wings Stadium. Our group includes coordinators of a bilingual mentoring program, members of the non-violence student organization, athletes, and work-study employees. On the 3rd of May, we canceled our work-study hours, moved up exams, and missed classes to hear the President speak.

Unfortunately, our group was denied entrance to the event after being identified by members of the Kalamazoo College Republicans (who were volunteering at the event) as "potential threats." Our classmates knew that we were not Bush supporters and that many of us have engaged in non-violent political protest. Because of their suspicion of our political histories and motivation for attending the event, they refused to allow us to enter, and the police forcefully removed us from the site.

In a functional democracy, individuals from all perspectives are involved in debate and discussion so that solid policy can be formed. The way to form solid policy is not to surround oneself with only likeminded citizens, but rather to interact with a wide range of people and opinions. It was in this spirit of open debate that we sought to hear our president speak.

We showed the event organizers our photo IDs and learned that we were on "the list" to attend the event. As we approached, several Kalamazoo College Republican members acted astonished that we had tickets and asked us how we got them. We replied that we had obtained the tickets from the Chamber of Commerce in downtown Kalamazoo.

The Kalamazoo College Republicans then alerted the event security staff about our presence. We waited in line to enter and event security told us that we had been identified as "potential threats" and had to leave. Their excuses were numerous-- they said we failed background checks, that we were planning to protest, and that we were on a Secret Service list of people who were likely to cause a "disturbance." We all demanded to see this "list" and wanted to know who told them this information. They told us "hearsay is enough to be escorted from the premises." The event security proceeded to tell us that we would be arrested if we did not leave immediately.

We remained and again demanded to see this "list," saying that we had never been informed the President's speech was a "private" event and that, as citizens, we merely sought to hear our President speak. We inquired why we were considered "threats." The police arrived, and under the threat of arrest, we allowed them to escort us down the road and out of sight of Wings Stadium.

What is truly frightening about this incident is that we were "blacklisted" by our college peers. Furthermore, we feel misled and misinformed because we had no prior knowledge that the event, for a sitting president, was private and that the Republican event organizers held the right to deny us entry. On our liberal arts campus, which promotes community-building and open political discussion, these acts illustrate a shocking example of a blind loyalty and obedience to the Republican Party and, ultimately, the President. The Republican Party succeeded in socializing these College Republican volunteers to enforce the "blacklisting" and profiling of their own college classmates. Unfortunately, this event highlights a trend towards extreme political polarization and blind party loyalty in the United States-no matter the party affiliation. The same unfounded fear and suspicion that led to "blacklisting" people in the past is starting to become a regular trend once again in our own backyards.'

Laura Lonneman (Cincinnati, OH), Ted Hufstader (Toledo, OH), Leah Busch (Cincinnati, OH), Shanna Barkume (Detroit, MI), Lisa Dallacqua (Detroit, MI), Julia VanAusdall (Cincinnati, OH)

Iraqi Dispatch

"Human Shields, Fighting, More Bombs"
a weblog enty by Dahr Jamail, NewStandard Weblogs
http://blog.newstandardnews.net/iraqdispatches/archives/000356.html

Baghdad, May 9 (TNS Blogs) -- With the horrendous security situation
limiting movement of the media in Iraq more than ever before, many of the
attacks and bombs against the occupiers are going unreported.

Everyday now in Baghdad I hear bombs going off, along with the usual
sporadic gunfire in the streets. The majority of the explosions come from
inside the so-called Green Zone.

The U.S. military in Iraq, apparently determined to keep as many fronts open
as possible in their war, attacked the office of Muqtada Al-Sadr in Sadr
City yesterday afternoon. Of course this was followed by fighting last
night, and yet more today.

Fighting continues to spread throughout the south today in Basra, Najaf,
Kerbala, Amarra -- many people now feel the situation is headed back to
where it was a few weeks ago: rampant fighting, and an even further
deteriorating security situation for foreigners.

My friend Sheikh Adnan from Baqubah told me that three days ago in his city,
the office of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) decided to fly the new
flag of Iraq, which has only one of the four colors of Islam (lacking
black, green and red). It was decided upon behind closed doors by the
U.S.-appointed Governing Council, with no vote of the people. It bears a
light blue crescent, two light blue lines representing the Tigris and
Euphrates, and a yellow line between them to represent the Kurdish
population.

There is nothing in the flag which represents the Arab population, who
comprise the majority of Iraq. The Sheikh has written in his new book that
the Kurdish certainly have a right to be represented in the flag, but only
if the Arabs are as well.

I have yet to talk with one Iraqi who is happy with the new flag.

So the flying of the new flag in front of the PUK building of Baqubah went
over well -- within 24 hours a car bomb destroyed much of the building, and
of course the flag.

I have yet to see the new flag anywhere, aside from seeing it burned in
Fallujah. Anywhere it is flown, it is promptly torn down. Nobody would dare
hang one in their car.

The residents of Al-Adhamiya, Baghdad, responded to the new flag by
hanging countless flags (the real flag) all over their neighborhood. A huge
version, over 20 meters long, was hung near Abu Hanifa Mosque. Smaller
versions of the flag are fluttering from buildings, homes, and even paper
versions are hung inside cars.

The U.S. military responded by coming to the area and tearing down as many
of them as possible. One was rolled over by a tank. As usual, dissent in
occupied Iraq is dealt with by tanks and guns.

This is the freedom. This is the democracy.

Of course the people of Al-Adhamiya responded by hanging even more flags up.
My translator and I decided it was a good time to pick one up for each of us
as well.

Another development of note is that recently U.S. patrols and convoys have
allowed cars to drive near them, as well as between their Humvees and
Bradleys. This was never allowed before previously, when they were on the
streets you could always expect a traffic jam, as they would not let a
single car pass, or even get near them.

So now the military is using Iraqis as human shields on the streets and
highways in an effort to protect themselves from attacks by the resistance.
Everyone Ive spoken with about this is aware of the militarys tactics.

This is just as they intend to do in Fallujah when U.S. patrols are resumed
there: to use the Iraqi Police (IP) and Iraqi Civil Defense Corps (ICDC) to
buffer themselves against the attacks that are sure to come, even worse than
before.

I saw them use this method in Samarra last January. A U.S. military patrol
creeping down the main street towards the Golden Mosque, with soldiers
walking behind Humvees. On the sides of the soldiers, literally walking
between them and the people on the sidewalks, were Iraqi Policemen.

Ever wonder why so many IPs have died during the occupation?

----------------------------------------------
Dahr Jamail is Baghdad correspondent for The NewStandard. He is an Alaskan devoted to covering the untold stories from occupied Iraq. You can help Dahr continue his crucial work in Iraq by making donations. For more information or to donate to Dahr, visit http://newstandardnews.net/iraqdispatches .

Resistance is not Futile

In the Washington Times

Moving America's armies
While Sen. John Kerry's call for a U.N. and NATO presence in Iraq may appear reasonable to some ("Kerry wants NATO role in Iraq as a 'last chance to get it right,' " Page 1, May 1), it continues to ignore the elephant in the room, which is the long-term strategy of repositioning American military assets that are no longer welcome in Saudi Arabia or needed in Western Europe to establish a broader Middle East presence.
It would seem that the thinking behind Mr. Kerry's proposal is that if the Americans aren't welcome in their own name, perhaps they'll be accepted under the aegis of NATO or the United Nations. But that ignores the fact that the American people haven't decided that they want their military assets distributed around the globe, that they want bases closed at home so they can be reconstructed in Iraq.
I know I don't. If American principles and business practices are not welcome in their own right, I don't want them supported by our military might.
Given the gravity of this situation, it almost seems that the issues of universal medical care, education and support for our elderly population are, like religion, homophobia and the war on terror, merely distractions from what ought to be front and center in the campaign for the presidential election.
Mr. Kerry needs to be asked: "What are your plans for the long-term positioning of our military assets? Will we bring them home or keep them dispersed around the globe to generate antagonism and resentment?"

MONICA SMITH
Durham, N.H.

Timeline

TIMELINE: What was known, and when.

Fall 2003 Bremer repeatedly raises issue of prison conditions with Rumsfeld and the President's inner circle according to LA Times: "Bremer repeatedly raised the issue of prison conditions as early as last fall -- both in one-on-one meetings with Rumsfeld and other administration leaders, and in group meetings with the president's inner circle on national security. Officials described Bremer as 'kicking and screaming' about the need to release thousands of uncharged prisoners and improve conditions for those who remained." (Washington Post, Graham, 5/7/04)

November 5, 2003 Maj. Gen. Donald J. Ryder files report concluding that there were potential human rights, training, and manpower issues -- system wide -- that needed immediate attention. Discussed serious concerns about tension between missions of the military police assigned to guard prisoners and intelligence teams who interrogate them. (New Yorker Magazine, Hersh, 5/5/04

January 2004 Rumsfeld learns of photographs showing prisoner abuse according to the Washington Post: "...Rumsfeld has known of the photographs since January, when they came to the attention of U.S. commanders in Iraq, he had not seen them, and he was not aware that CBS was about to air them until just hours before they were broadcast last week." (Washington Post, Graham, 5/7/04)

Mid-January, 2004 Bush told about the photo of abuse according to the Washington Post: "Marine Gen. Peter Pace...said Wednesday on CBS's "Early Show" that beginning in mid-January, everyone "up the chain of command . . . was kept apprised orally of the ongoing investigation." Asked if Bush "was well aware of the situation," Pace replied: "Yes."" (Washington Post, Allen, 5/7/04)

Late February 2004 Major General Antonio M. Taguba issues 53-page report concluding that between October and December 2003 there were numerous instances of "sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses" at Abu Ghraib. Report was not meant for public release. (New York, Hersh, 5/5/04 and LA Times, McDonnell, 5/3/04)

March 2004 Six enlisted personnel charged with prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib. One is court marshaled. (AP, Burns, 5/3/04)

Mid-April, 2004 Military learns CBS has pictures of prisoner abuse in Iraq. General Abizaid and General Myers ask CBS to post-pone broadcast of the photos. (NY Times, Schmitt, 5/4/04)

April 28, 2004

Graphic photos of abuse of Iraqi prisoners are shown on CBS 60 Minutes 2. (AP, Crary, 4/28/04)
* Rumsfeld provides classified briefing to Congressional leaders on situation in Iraq, fails to mention that photos of Iraqi abuse victims will be aired that evening on television. (Senate Armed Services Committee Testimony, Levin, 5/7/04)
* May 3, 2004 Spokesman McClellan says that Bush still hasn't seen or been briefed on the Taguba report. (WH Briefing, McClellan, 5/3/04).
*

May 4, 2004

Rumsfeld says he disagrees with critics who have said the Pentagon moved too slowly. Defense Department officials have moved correctly and efficiently, he said. "The system works," he said. "The system works." Admitted he had not read the whole Taguba report or seen the photos. (DoD Briefing, Rumsfeld, 5/4/04)
* Military discloses Army has conducted 30 criminal investigations into misconduct by American captors in Iraq and Afghanistan, including 10 cases of suspicious death, 10 cases of abuse, and two deaths of Iraqis already determined to have been criminal homicides. (NY Times, Neilan, 5/5/04)
* General George Casey, Army's Vice-Chief of Staff, refers to a "complete breakdown in discipline." (NY Times, Reuters wire, 5/5/04)
*

Iraqi Dispatch

Iraq Dispatches

Correspondent Dahr Jamail reports from Baghdad
May 07, 2004
"We will fight them again!"
by Dahr Jamail | Posted May 07, 2004 at 08:58 PM Baghdad time

An older Iraqi man is wailing near the grave of a loved one in the dusty heat of a football stadium converted into a cemetary. Between wails he raises his fist and yells, “Allahu akbar!” (God is great).

We wait outside until he slowly exits the new cemetery with his brothers holding him.
The Martyrs' cemetary in Falluja -- filled with nearly 500 bodies from recent U.S. aggression in the city.

Rows and rows of fresh graves fill the football stadium in Falluja. Many of them are smaller than others. My translator Nermim reads the gravestones to me: “This one is a little girl.” We take another step. “And this one is her sister. Next to them is their mother.”

We walk slowly under the scorching sun along dusty rows of humble headstones. She continues reading them aloud to me: “Old man wearing jacket with black dishdasha, near industrial center. He has a key in his hand.” Many of the bodies were buried before they could be identified. Tears are welling up in my eyes as she quietly reads: “Man wearing red track suit.” She points to another row, “Three women killed in car leaving city by American missile.”

One of the football stadiums in Falluja has become a Martyr Cemetery due to the hundreds of deaths caused by the fighting throughout April. U.S. marines eventually surrounded the main cemetery, so the residents of Falluja had to bury their dead here. Iraqi doctors estimate that over half of the dead Iraqis are women, children and elderly, and the graves I view seem to confirm this. There are nearly 500 graves here today, and counting...

As we walk back to the car the loudspeaker of a nearby mosque is blaring the words of an Imam: “We have two reasons to be happy this month. One is the birthday of our prophet. The second is our victory over the Americans!”

I weep at the cost.

Over at another mosque a little earlier, under the constant buzzing of unmanned military surveillance drones, the mood was more defiant. The rumor is going around that the Marines will resume patrolling the streets of Falluja this coming Monday, along with Iraqi Police (IP) and the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps (ICDC). Yet this rumor is being widely circulated by both the IP and ICDC.

Abdul Muhammed tells me, “When the Americans start patrolling on Monday, even more people will fight them this time because so many people need revenge now.”

Another man angrily states, “They try to cover their failure by these patrols. We will fight them again!” He continues sternly, “We don’t want them in our city! Nobody in Falluja wants to see them in our streets! Everyone who lost family to them will avenge them!”

This discussion takes place standing in the rubble beneath a minaret that has been blasted by either a missile or tank -- a gaping hole just below the top. After climbing up the spiral stairs as high as possible, two men join me to look out over the city that resembles more of a ghost town. There is so much more destruction than the last time I was here a few weeks ago.

One of the men, who speaks English, says, “I saw American snipers shoot a woman on her roof while she was hanging her clothes. This was during their cease fire.”

I hear more horrible stories of snipers killing civilians today than I can keep track of. After carefully making my way back down the rubble covered steps, we drive to the Julan area of Falluja, which was very heavily bombed during the fighting in April.

The tight streets and numerous alleys of Julan are mostly empty after we pass through two mujahedeen checkpoints. So many homes are bombed, others riddled with bullets. Date palms are torn down and the stench of rotting bodies hangs in the air.

There is a huge crater, at least 8 feet deep and three times that at its diameter, just in front of a small mosque. The hole is partially filled with water from a leaking pipe below. People sit inside the mosque listening to their Imam. As I take photos several men gather around.
Mosque in Falluja bombed by U.S. pilots in April.

One of them states, “I hope the Americans come back on Monday. They killed my cousin and burned my house. God gave us the victory, and He will give us another when they come back!”

Another man points to the mosque and says, “Marines entered this mosque before they bombed it and slit the throats of refugees. This is their democracy? This is their freedom?”

One of the other stories going around Falluja is that of Marines using mosque minarets to shoot at people. Every group of people I speak with at each location is stating this. True or not, it is what people here believe. The damage is done. These beliefs, cemented by the recent photos coming out of Abu Ghraib, have melded distrust and hatred into a long sword which is now held against the occupiers.

Driving a little further into Julan we pass a scorched ambulance on the side of the road.
Destroyed ambulance in the Julan area of Falluja.

At yet another mosque I am shown a copy of the Holy Koran which has two bullet holes through it. Another man, walking from a minaret that has been completely demolished, shows me casings from a tank shell.

Aziz Hussein, who was in Falluja for much of the fighting, tells me of the horrible bombings by U.S. war planes, but that all of Falluja was together in supporting the mujahedeen. He says, “When someone lost one of their family or their home, they didn’t blame the mujahedeen. Most of the people killed by bombings were civilians. Americans said the civilians were killed by mujahedeen, but this is just not true.”

He too tells the story of Marines shooting people from minarets, “When we tried to go to our mosque, the snipers shot at us.”

I hear more horrendous stories: Marines occupying people’s homes and looting them of money and gold, leaving feces in their foodstuffs, butchering their cows, chickens and dogs.

Later as we prepare to leave, a man tells me, “The mujahedeen will shoot the Americans as soon as they start their patrols here. Falluja is our city, not the Americans’!”

Dahr Jamail is Baghdad correspondent for The NewStandard. He is an Alaskan devoted to covering the untold stories from occupied Iraq. You can help Dahr continue his crucial work in Iraq by making donations. For more information or to donate to Dahr, visit The NewStandard.

Mayhem is Useful

My letter of the day.

Dear Editor:

Many people are probably inclined to think that the latest news coming out of Iraq is just another example of the current administration's incompetence. I disagree. I think they're doing it on purpose.
Why else was General Garner, the administrator replaced by Bremer. gotten rid of so quickly, if not because he promised to have the United States military out of there in ninety days.
Obviously, he wasn't with the program. But, once that deadline was spoken, even if the speaker is gone, it became necessary to DEMONSTRATE that it can't be kept. What better way to do that than be creating one "security" situation after another to justify keeping the military there longer? After all, isn't the plan to keep them there permanently?
Where else are we going to base our military assets now that Saudi Arabia doesn't want them, Western Europe no longer fears Russia and its client states are melding into the European Union?
If there were peace in the Middle East, what reason would there be to maintain a military presence in that part of the world?

Posted by Monica Smith at May 6, 2004 09:12 AM

Mind Boggling

Iraq Dispatch

Dahr's latest weblog post...
"Tortured Souls"
http://blog.newstandardnews.net/iraqdispatches/archives/000314.html

I haven't written anything to my blog for several days now. Stories in Iraq have a tendency towards determining themselves, and the one I've been working on has taken on new meaning this second time around.

It was last January when I came upon the horrendous story of Sadiq Zoman. In short, he was detained by U.S. soldiers last July from his home in Kirkuk. While in U.S. military custody, he was beaten, tortured with electric shock, whipped, one of his hands was broken, his head was bludgeoned, and he was dropped off comatose to the General Hospital in Tikrit a month later.

I wrote a very rough version of the story in my diary which was posted on electronicIraq.net
http://electroniciraq.net

My hopes in doing so, aside from attempting to bring attention to what most Iraqis already know about the atrocities committed against detainees in Abu Ghraib Prison and many of the other U.S. detention facilities in occupied Iraq, was to bring some attention to his family in the form of compensation.

This time around, rewriting the story now that more media have finally chosen to show these International Crimes, my hope is the same.

So I poured much of myself into more deeply researching the story. Collecting documents, calling people, and most importantly, getting to know his wife and 9 daughters while doing so. Because behind every torture victim there are loved ones. Behind every hooded Iraqi you see in those horrific images there are wives, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers.

Behind those pictures you see of Sadiq Zoman's bludgeoned head and comatose eyes is a wife who is weeping every day as she fans him to keep him cool when there is no electricity for 18 out of every 24 hours in their bare home. It is bare because nearly all of their possessions have been sold to purchase his medicines.

Behind the photos of electrical burns on the bottoms of his feet are 9 daughters who work to care for their father. Mr. Zoman, who was once a large, strong man, lies in his meager bed, his wife and daughters taking turns manually pumping mucus from his stomach, or blending his food to feed him when the electricity is on.

Most of the rooms in their home in Al-Dora, Baghdad are literally completely bare. There is no car, there is no phone. There is simply no money. If nothing changes for them, they could be on the street soon.

Yesterday evening in their home, one of his daughters said, "Even if millions of people read this story, what will they do? It can't bring my father back. They will be sad and upset to read it, but what will it change?"

Another of his daughters who is in the college of medicine in Baghdad, continuing her studies until her paid tuition expires, told me, "You see our life here. How can we keep living like this? Where is the hope?"

I'm not under the illusion that writing this story can change anything. But I'm an idealist, and I want to bring...what? Justice? Hope? Help for them? Accountability? An end, or at least an ease to this suffering?

All of these. But hope is in short supply in occupied Iraq. And bringing that word up to people in such a horrendous situation is a dangerous prospect.

I don't know what else to do beyond writing this story that you will soon read. But what I am doing is helping them to go through the process of filing compensation request forms through the CPA...in hopes that the U.S. military will provide some financial compensation for this family who so desperately needs it. The odds are very much against them that they will receive one Iraqi Dinar for this hell they've been living through for nearly a year now.

So I put it out to whoever might read this, and the story. Will you be outraged? Upset? Angry? Saddened?

Probably.

My next question then, is this:

What are you going to do about it?

----------------------------------------------
Dahr Jamail is Baghdad correspondent for The NewStandard. He is an Alaskan devoted to covering the untold stories from occupied Iraq. You can help Dahr continue his crucial work in Iraq by making donations. For more information or to donate to Dahr, visit http://newstandardnews.net/iraqdispatches .

==============================================
The Iraq Dispatches list exists to keep readers of The NewStandard updated on reports by Baghdad correspondent Dahr Jamail. To manage subscriptions, or for more information and an archive of Dahr's writings and photographs:
http://newstandardnews.net/iraqdispatches

To contribute to The NewStandard and support Dahr Jamail's crucial work in Iraq, go to:
https:/secure.peoplesnetworks.net/estore/?action=show_donation_registration

DFA Works

Getting Down to the Nitty Gritty

Last week we re-launched the Democracy for America website and blog, and asked for your help getting this organization moving. Now it's time to let you know why we need your help.

In a few weeks we will host, in conjunction with 21st Century Democrats, our first of many campaign trainings -- teaching the techniques of organizing, developing, and executing comprehensive campaign plans. Our goal is to recruit and train as many people as possible. We will teach them campaign and grassroots organizing techniques and place them with progressive-minded candidates who will fight for our values. You can make it happen -- contribute now:

Our goal is to provide these trainings to every DFA-related organization willing to help us organize them locally. We will work to ensure that all interested parties receive this training -- especially those who might not otherwise be able to afford it. The success of nearly every campaign -- whether it's a local city council race or for the U.S. Senate -- is determined by its ability to execute an effective campaign strategy. With your help, we will provide the tools and resources to empower these campaigns to be successful:

Your contributions will also send Governor Dean around the country campaigning on behalf of local candidates who stand up for what's right. During his travels Governor Dean will continue to meet with the local grassroots groups like Latinos for America, whom he spoke with last week in Los Angeles.

We will work not only to rebuild but to attract new grassroots supporters -- Americans who want our country back. We will empower the grassroots by expanding and improving the Project Commons area on the website, assembling an effective "campaign in a box" organizing kit, revitalizing Democracy for America's Meetups, and improving communication channels with supporters.

These projects and others will be the nuts and bolts of our movement -- and we must build them together. Please contribute today:

The primary goal of Democracy for America is to build a long-term plan to elect progressive-minded individuals at every level. Success begins today by planning for elections that are 6 or 8 years away. Together, we are building a movement in the common interest -- and it will require resources that Democracy for America does not currently have.

Governor Dean continues to have a powerful, important voice in America, and we must ensure that his voice continues to be heard. I am excited to work with you to make it happen.

Thank you.

Tom McMahon

Adjustment Needed

Dear Senator Biden:

If you have been accurately quoted that

"This is the single-most significant undermining act that's occurred in a decade in that region of the world in terms of our standing. . . .Everybody understands the phenominal damage this accusation has caused in that part of the world"

then you need to undergo some severe attitude adjustment. Aside from the fact that the murder of thousands of Iraqis and the destruction of their cities has surely done enough to bring America's moral standing to the bottom of the scale, "this accusation" cannot logically be cited as a "cause" of damage.
Do you have a problem telling the difference between cause and effect? What has caused additional damage to the Iraqis and our reputation is the mistreatment of prisoners, the perpetuation of torture by those who claimed to be bringing it to an end--NOT the accusation and the presentation of pictorial evidence.
I am left speechless by the report that a "senior administration official said the timing of the photos was awful for the White House."

When our soldiers are instructed to provide no information but their name and serial number in the event of capture, this is done in the expectation that the adherents of international conventions on the treatment of war prisoners will respect that position. Why then is the United States military engaging in interrogation and torture of war prisoners? Also, why are "suspects" who are being rounded up blind-folded in addition to being handcuffed? Is it so they will be less likely to be able to identify their captors? And why are captives being hooded? Never mind being stripped of their clothing?
All of these behaviors need to be investigated by Congress immediately.

Belly dancers for Democracy

Congressman Jim Mc Dermott being a good sport

SHAME

"the American people are valuing life more and realizing that we need policies to value the dignity and worth of every life"

Karen Hughes, Counselor to the President of the United States

My rsponse to the author of the Riverbend blog:

http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com

No, this isn't going to be an email asserting that the behavior by
American and British troops that they were proud enough of to take
pictues are "isolated incidents." Rather, I'm going to suggest that
this behavior is characteristic and, in a way, traditional. Forcing
(via peer pressure) the members of a group to participate in personally
disgusting and unlawful behavior is a bonding mechanism. The result is
an "association by guilt" from which it is hard for the individual to
extract him/herself because of the fear of being punished for what
he/she did. In milder forms of this pattern of behavior, when
individuals are constrained to eat or drink to the point of nausea, they
are bound to the group by the fear of ridicule. In a life or death
situation, that's obviously not enough. Also, it may well be that the
participants excuse their behavior on the basis of "this is what they
would do to me, if I were caught." To a certain extent, they are
engaging in a preemptive defense. Which, of course, is how the whole
operation in Iraq has been characterized by their commander-in-chief.
This is what happens when people attack because they expect they
might be attacked. That the pattern of behavior would be exhibited on the lowest levels of the organization should not come as a surprise.
The only way to counteract this behavior is to bear witness. Which may be why some of the participants took pictures. They want this behavior to be stoppped.
We'll do all we can to bear witness.