bookofdays

war games vs. graveyards

Abu Ghraib is so over. It's so 2004.

That's what Donald Rumsfeld thinks, apparently, as he considers promoting General Sanchez to run the freaking Southern Command. What a brilliant political move, insiders are saying:

Senior Army officers say selecting General Sanchez would reward his loyal service in handling one of the military's toughest assignments in Iraq at a time when the military did not supply him with the full support and personnel required by Army doctrine.

Further, General Sanchez's promotion would showcase the nation's highest-ranking Hispanic officer and his compelling personal story of growing up poor in southern Texas and using the military as an escalator out of poverty, at a time when the Army is struggling to meet its recruiting quotas.

I'm actually speechless. I don't think Eric Schmitt would have written the above if his deep-background folks hadn't mentioned it, this idea of using the promotion as a recruiting tool. And there it is -- even worse (emphasis mine):

when drug company coverups hit close to home

His name is Joseph, and you've seen his face on the cover of the New York Times. His face is beautiful, kissable, with moist eyes and a blissful smile. But often that smile is fixed on nothing, it seems, as he runs across the room in pursuit of something only he can see. Or it's cast, dreamy and unfocused, in the direction of his mother or caregiver.Or it's gone and he's frustrated, unable to communicate what he needs to anyone in the family that surrounds him.

What almost no one has seen is the photo on the wall of his parents' home of Joseph and his brother Nicholas, taken about five years ago. Joey in that photo is looking directly, curiously in the camera, with a half-smile that's as no-nonsense as the current one os dreamy. "Is that from before he went in?" I ask Joey's mother. She nods.

And this is the moment I started to believe all the reports about vaccines and autism.

I was in California when my nephew was born, and never met that sprightly two-year-old. By the time I returned to New York in 2000, he was already "in," behind the veil created by his efforts to process that overlioad of sensory information we call life, and that he would call pain if he had words (or so austistic adults like Temple Grandin have reported).

I'd of course followed and attended to the initial controversies over autism and vaccines; I suspected it was too easy an answer, a kind of "ice cream at the beach causes fainting" conflation of co-incidence with causality. I think I was far too willing to accept the 2002 European study, widely publicized, that stated there was no verifiable link between the vaccines, and the mercury-laden additive used at that point to preserve them, and autism.

Salon reveals this week that those happy headlines were the product of a massive cover-up, one that makes Watergate look like a bar brawl. I'll post the whole article in the link, so you don't have to watch the commercial.

aidan's sergeant

Speaking of updates, I'd promised some people close to Aidan Delgado, the conscientious objector at Abu Ghraib, that I'd post this profile of Aidan's work -- in which, for the first time, an officer confirms that the specific abuses he described were accurate.

the snow globe of liberty

Fighting tears, she fell silent, staring at the shelf of souvenirs her family had sent back over the years: a big apple, a snow globe of the twin towers, a Statue of Liberty.

That's the last line of Nina Bernstein's follow-up piece on Tashnuba Hayder, one of the two girls I first wrote about in April, when I first learned they'd been detained on suspicion of being suicide bombers. She's since been deported to Bangladesh, where her mother begged to bring her for a "voluntary departure," rather than suffer her daughter's continued detention in a juvenile facility:

With no money for a home, Tashnuba and her mother, baby brother and little sister, Tamana, were to share an aunt's bed at her grandmother's apartment, now occupied by nine people.

For Tashnuba and Tamana, an American citizen who speaks only English, more education may be unaffordable, her mother said. Even Tashnuba's piety was challenged. Veiling is taboo among her relatives, and few Dhaka mosques allow women.

While ending with this heartbreaking portrait of a girl whose anger at the U.S. doesn't prevent her from wanting desperately to see her beloved New York again, Bernstein first, finally, lays out the story of how the FBI actually came to focus on her -- and it's not so terribly far from what I speculated back then.

stop taking the names of the dead in vain.

They're stomping on graves to stop us from asking questions.

Of course. Just as members of Congress are finally beginning to wake up about Guantanamo, from  the Senate Judiciary Committee to Patrick Leahy to Chuck Hagel, of all people, startled by news of children at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib and Pentagon admissions that yes,interrogators there do practice religious humiliation.  Just when John McCain, the only ex-P.O.W. in the batch, says clearly: “We are signatories to numerous treaties concerning basic human rights. One of them is that someone can not be held in detention indefinitely without some kind of adjudication of their case."

Right on schedule, the usual suspects come chanting their mantras, and dishonoring the dead 

I'm not really talking about Cheney, our true president and personal Sith Lord, filling TV screens all weekend.  I've come to almost laugh when I see that characteristic grimace and small-mouthed hiss, the snake whispering over the radio and the Internet that  "the people that are at Guantanamo are bad people."  I'll let Jesurgislac brilliantly refute that lie  (just a taste here):

interrogation unresolved

Like many people,  I was a little startled to see a hood on the cover of the New York Times Magazine. I was immediztely cynical, after post-election cover stories that left the administration line unchallenged -- let alone that love letter to Rick Santorum. I flinched: "What are they going to do now?"  I calmed when I saw they'd brought in Joseph Lelyveld, a giant who's been doing masterful work since around the time I was born. I wish I felt it  had the power of its parts.

Lelyveld has produced an interesting, oddly subdued meditation on torture. "Interrogating Ourselves"  asks a complex, if rather sexy, question:   what is and is not kosher in interrogation of suspects who've been identified as terrorists?  After a brilliant opening that combines a short history of the legal and political contexts (for the latter, see Katherine's explication in her comments from Body and Soul), and lays out  many of the questions whizzing around his topic, Lelyveld works like a jeweler urging all the facets of a diamond into view. Except that he does it by shattering the diamond, and holding up each shard for us to see.

Many of the fragments thus created are true jewels. Lelyveld exhibits a high level of trust in the reader by leaving each aside as he goes on to the next: it's our job to decide what we think of it all. But I kept hoping that he would bring them more closely together, and not leave behind the factual circumstances that spur his explorations, as he sits down with lawyers, interrogators, military officials, and even human rights activists.

For example,  he acknowledges that

it's striking how often the hard men who make the hard decisions to fight it out in the shadows snatch the wrong people, then fail to follow through. Only after a new commanding officer had arrived and official inquiries had issued their reports did we learn that 40 percent of those penned up at Guantanamo never belonged there in the first place. At Abu Ghraib in Iraq, the record was even worse: two-thirds of the detainees were eventually said to have been innocent of terrorist links. At least when they were picked up. Who knows what leanings they developed or links they forged during and after their interrogations?

body counts. mutations. where's Jim Morrison when you need him?

As our Vietnam War flashback, noted below (albeit in rather dry language) evolves, more and more of the previous war's features are emerging from the jungles of Southeast Asia and etching themselves on desert sands. There are the body counts, noted by Hersh and others as early as last fall, and which have escalated since Fallujah, since military victory is almost impossible to measure. There's the corrupt and unreliable indigenous allies, many of whom mourn Saddam openly:, "ization' turned tragicomedy. There's the use of napalm, newly discussed in the wake of the Downing Street Memos, well known as our "fires of hell" from Vietnam.

And for those who have let the memories of Agent Orange fade -- and haven't been to Saigon lately to see a young woman with one arm or a middle-aged-man with a permanently swollen feet beg in the streets -- we'll soon have a generation of maimed babies and achingly sick veterans of our own. The U.S.' s saturation of Iraq with depleted uranium. which already has caused moms to ask doctors tearfully "My baby  -- is it normal?", may add a surreal level of disease to the missing limbs and post-traumatic stress barreling our way.

On the body counts, Mark Benjamin of Salon does some thoughtful digging into the numbers:

An extensive review of combat accounts from military commanders reveals that regular reporting of body counts appears to have begun with the battle for Fallujah in November 2004. U.S. Marines' assault on the insurgent stronghold, launched immediately after the U.S. presidential election, was considered critical to showing progress in the war. The Pentagon estimated 1,200 to 1,600 enemy fighters killed -- though at the time the media noted a large and "mysterious" discrepancy in the body count reported following the battle.

Since Fallujah, headlines from the Department of Defense's American Forces Information Service have touted body counts in articles about apparently successful operations. "IED Kills U.S. Soldier; Nine Terrorists Die in Firefight" read one headline in May from the Pentagon's information service. "Ten Insurgents Are Killed in New Round of Battles in Iraqi City" announced a headline in the New York Times last month, citing information from the U.S. military.

the new viet minh?

I can't believe it took me this long to stumble across the work of Pepe Escobar, "The Roving Eye" for Asia Times Online, whose piece of August 30, 2001 --"Get Osama! Now!" -- feels less prophetic than a channeling of the still-alive-then Hunter Thompson.

Now, he's wandering Iraq and emerging with a report that I found surprising -- more than I likely should have. His sources tell him that the insurgency is developing into a more classic, and perhaps less cancerous form. (Remember, the former Viet Minh now host Mercedes=Benz factories).

The national liberation front                               

The major Iraqi resistance groups are not   in favor of targeting innocent Iraqi civilians.   Many groups have political liaisons who try to  tell the world's media what they are fighting for.   Considering that American corporate media  exclusively reproduce the Pentagon line, there's   widespread suspicion - in the Middle East, Western Europe, Latin America, parts of Asia - of American  media complicity in the occupation, incompetence,  racism, or perhaps all of the above.

The  antidote to the Iraqi militia inferno should be a  united Sunni-Shi'ite political front. Former electricity minister Ayham al-Samarie told the   Associated Press that at least two guerrilla   groups - the Islamic Army in Iraq and the Army of Mujahideen - were ready to talk with the Jaafari  government and eventually join the political   process. The conditions though are explicit: a set date for the American withdrawal.

Against  all odds, a national liberation front is emerging  in Iraq. Washington hawks may see it coming, but they certainly don't want it. Many groups in this front have already met in Algiers. The front is  opposed to the American occupation and permanent   Pentagon military bases; opposed to the  privatization and corporate looting of the Iraqi  economy; and opposed to the federation of Iraq, ie  balkanization. Members of the front clearly see  through the plan of fueling sectarianism to  provoke an atmosphere of civil war, thus   legitimizing the American presence. The George W   Bush administration's obsession in selling the   notion that Iraqis - or "anti-Iraqi forces", or   "foreign militants" - are trying to start a civil war in the eastern flank of the Arab nation is as  ludicrous as the myth it sells of the resistance as just a lunatic bunch of former Ba'athists and  Wahhabis.

The Bush administration though  is pulling no punches with Iraqification. It's a        Pandora's box: inside one will find the Battle of  Algiers, Vietnam, El Salvador, Colombia. All point to the same destination: civil war. This deadly   litany could easily go on until 2020 when, in a  brave new world of China emerging as the top  economy, Sunni Arabs would finally convince   themselves to perhaps strike a deal with Shi'ites      and Kurds so they can all profit together by selling billions of barrels of oil to the Chinese oil majors. If, of course, there is any semblance  of Iraq left at that point.

Thomas Friedman's nightmare. Wait for Pepe to replace him in the funny papers.

---------

Update: The UAE wire service Gulf News supplements this view in an interview with a general:

Major General Joseph Taluto said he could understand why some ordinary people would take up arms against the US military because "they're offended by our presence".

In an interview with Gulf News, he said: "If a good, honest person feels having all these Humvees driving on the road, having us moving people out of the way, having us patrol the streets, having car bombs going off, you can understand how they could [want to fight us]."

General Taluto, head of the US 42nd Infantry Division which covers key trouble spots, including Baquba and Samarra, also said some Iraqis not involved in fighting did support insurgents who avoided hurting civilians.

He said: "There is a sense of a good resistance, or an accepted resistance. They say 'okay, if you shoot a coalition soldier, that's okay, it's not a bad thing but you shouldn't kill other Iraqis.'"

However General Taluto insisted the US and other foreign forces would not be driven out of Iraq by violence. "If the goal is to have the coalition leave, attacking them isn't the way," he said. "The way to make it happen is to enter the political process cooperate and the coalition will be less aggressive and less visible and eventually it'll go away."

His comments come in stark contrast to the assertions of other top US figures, who persist in claiming all insurgents are either Baathists or Al Qaida terrorists.

It doesn't seem to occur to the (American?) reporter Phil Sands to ask the general why one set of foreign fighters is a cancer and the  other can leave when it feels like  and not before. And both seem less than clueful about how occupations can create their own, oppositional culture, with or without guns.

I make no claims to more than casual knowledge of how insurgencies grow and function, and have spent most of  my "Iraq blogs" focused on the not-collateral damage (torture and bruised GI souls) than on whether the US is "winning."  But I'm more inclined to listen to Seymour Hersh and Mark Danner, who covered the last such US wars, for guidance -- or even Pepe, who seems my age but speaks ftom beyond the Green Zone -- than to those who don't seem to have heard Einstein's definition of insanity.

 

this picture is of an american soldier scooping out the brains of a detainee.

I spent last Memorial Day in what seems to be an annual tradition: an unusual, face to face counseling session with a young GI using her holiday break to sort out her options. A super-intelligent young women who reads Adrienne Rich and Walt  Whitman, and joined the Army from the usual college-money reasons. As we sat in E.J.'s Deli, her face and voice were emotionless as she told me how she can't sleep and contemplates flight because she's so deeply unhappy. "I'm dead inside," she kept saying, and talked about how it had increased after her advanced training. She's afraid that if she takes the time to put together an application for conscientious objector status, her unit will be deployed to Iraq before the process, including the likely appeals, is complete. I told her about people like Aidan Delgado, who declared CO while in-country, and her voice dropped. "I don't think I could handle that."

When I saw Delgado speak about his experience at Abu Ghraib (part two of the videos here), I thought, I don't know if I could handle it, either. The post title is from the talk, where he blames not the soldier in question but the system that desensitized him and promotes "anti-Arab, anti-Muslim sentiment that grew out of September 11."  He didn't ezplicitly blame the generals who ran the gulag (I want credit for using the word that Amnesty should be insisting on with pride, right at the start of this blog) but if accountability is a word that still exists in our dictionaries, we should. Aidan's right in quoting the adage "war makes beasts of men." That's why war crimes laws exist.

That's why an independent prosecutor is so important: and why the current lawsuits against these generals, not getting near enough play in the press, are so important.

fascist picture story time

Speaking of what the press isn't covering....a  quick meander from Kos led me here. Many thanks to the Lebanese/Iraqi Christian blogger liminal catharsis;  this is a psycho mix of the medieval Passion Play, the Army Adventure Van, and  all this talk of "patriot pastors" and other bashes at the fragile church-state wall. Pseudo-Christian politics, with a militaristic cast that looks like "Team America" on some very bad mescaline. I'm importing the whole post, which liminal put up in February, and will comment very briefly after.

              

Holy S**t! It's fascist picture story time!! 

So people don't think I'm independently inventing anything. I still had the window open when I noticed the whole thread went down. So I took screen shots as proof. Here's where these pictures originate via locomono's post on Fark.com :

1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14


I'm just going to post two pictures first and the story. I'll comment more later; one thing though: What is the difference between Muslims trying to defend their homeland by recruiting from mosques and Christians trying to defend their homeland by recruiting from churches? And this is coming from an old school Iraqi Assyrian Orthodox Christian. In plain speak, I think both are wrong any way you cut it. This absolutely blows my mind. This is another one of those whatever happened to the separation of church and state moments.  Onward Christian soldier.


This first picture is the American flag clearly covering up the cross.


This picture apparently shows banners of the various branches of American Armed Forces hanging from the pews.

Now here's the story told by a self-proclaimed Republican, remember...locomono, whom I completely agree with besides the fact he supports the war:

First off, this is absolutely true and only happened about an hour ago. I am a Christian, a republican and support the war in Iraq, but this pisses me off in ways I cannot explain even to myself. This is not a debate thread, after you read this and look at the pictures, if you post anything it will be reactions, advice, or simple opinion. I know there are a lot of military personal in this forum and I would love to here what you have to say about this but if this turns into a flame war I will be extremely upset with whoever's involved. Now on to the story

The other day my dad tells me we're going to a "guy's night out" banquet. Innocent enough sounding, right? Well I haven't done anything that could be considered a favor for him in a long time, and it seems important to him if incredibly boring so, what the hell I'll go. He picks me up at the house around six. I nearly walk out the door about 5 times each time remembering something I've left behind, the last thing I go back for is my camera.
In the car conversation goes as awkwardly as it usually does with my dad,
"What is this thing anyway? Just sitting around card tables talking about good ‘ol days?"
"Probably not they've got one of the guys from the battle in black hawk down to talk about his time there"
Thinking to myself, at least that doesn't sound too bad, "Cool enough. Where is it, are we gonna get there on time?"
"Oh, it's right up the street at porter memorial"
So, that's kinda weird that it's at a church, but whatever. Churches are relatively cheap to rent out during the week.

When we get there traffic is crazy, there must be two thousand people coming to this one church. It's kind of odd that there are three squad cars just to stop traffic and let us all in, but you know what they say, "when enough people gather together in harmony, the fuzz come to break it up"

There's a humvey and black hawk helicopter sitting outside with corresponding units, half the people that are walking in with us are wearing service shirts. Whether air force, army, marines, coastguard, ambulance driver or fireman, all these guys get a check from Uncle Sam. Ok, I don't have any problems with men in uniform, unless I'm drunk outside and they're cops. A door opens and we're headed into the basement for pork barbeque sandwiches, chicken quarters, refried beans and slaw. On the way I glance guardsmen setting things up with that military motion you don't lose in civilian life until about a year out of boot camp. We tell old war stories full of gore and glory and times we almost bought the farm, as we eat. Without any of that kind of story of my own I told him about a PI named John Landrith killing three armed kidnappers with a rusty old meat cleaver to save a seven year old. It's well received in the basement of a church while we eat our Oreo minis. When our meal is done the mass is herded to the sanctuary were we watch the history channel's documentary on the events of black hawk down. When the lights come up my earlier discomfort is redoubled. I realize something is very ********ed up, and start taking pictures. What I see reminds me of footage from the third right the way patriotic imagery is thrown around bugger all. What you’re looking at is government mesh thrown over the steps to the balcony, and a huge flag covering up all but the tip of a huge cross in the first picture, and the huge amount of people sitting below various armed forces banners in the second. There was a nice POW one behind me. I apologize for the poor quality but it’s a new camera, and I’m still learning how to use it, especially in low & mixed light conditions

So, I can't help myself.  I'd like to share locomono's utter disbelief and completely repost the thread in this discussion forum.

They were ready to start the show, so after a raffle for all five branches of the military t-shirts, UK basketball tickets, and Famous Dave’s BBQ coupons(the caterer), we were subjected to a really shitty Rockapella group wearing camo with cackies, and singing mixed Christian rock and patriotic numbers.