From The Independent today, in the words of Harold Pinter, new Nobel prizewinner: these are exactly my sentiments, only he can articulate them so much better.
Pinter:
Torture and misery in name of freedom
By Harold Pinter who yesterday won the Nobel Prize for Literature
Published: 14 October 2005
The great poet Wilfred Owen articulated the tragedy, the horror - and indeed the pity - of war in a way no other poet has. Yet we have learnt nothing. Nearly 100 years after his death the world has become more savage, more brutal, more pitiless.
But the "free world" we are told, as embodied in the United States and Great Britain, is different to the rest of the world since our actions are dictated and sanctioned by a moral authority and a moral passion condoned by someone called God. Some people may find this difficult to comprehend but Osama Bin Laden finds it easy.
What would Wilfred Owen make of the invasion of Iraq? A bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of International Law. An arbitrary military action inspired by a series of lies upon lies and gross manipulation of the media and therefore of the public. An act intended to consolidate American military and economic control of the Middle East masquerading - as a last resort (all other justifications having failed to justify themselves) - as liberation. A formidable assertion of military force responsible for the death and mutilation of thousands upon thousands of innocent people.
An independent and totally objective account of the Iraqi civilian dead in the medical magazine The Lancet estimates that the figure approaches 100,000. But neither the US or the UK bother to count the Iraqi dead. As General Tommy Franks of US Central Command memorably said: "We don't do body counts".
We have brought torture, cluster bombs, depleted uranium, innumerable acts of random murder, misery and degradation to the Iraqi people and call it " bringing freedom and democracy to the Middle East". But, as we all know, we have not been welcomed with the predicted flowers. What we have unleashed is a ferocious and unremitting resistance, mayhem and chaos.
You may say at this point: what about the Iraqi elections? Well, President Bush himself answered this question when he said: "We cannot accept that there can be free democratic elections in a country under foreign military occupation". I had to read that statement twice before I realised that he was talking about Lebanon and Syria.
What do Bush and Blair actually see when they look at themselves in the mirror?
I believe Wilfred Owen would share our contempt, our revulsion, our nausea and our shame at both the language and the actions of the American and British governments.
Adapted by Harold Pinter from a speech he delivered on winning the Wilfred Owen Award earlier this year
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/article319540.ece
McTag, Harold Printer said it much better than I ever could, but my thinking has always been along the same lines - especially the responsibility for our military to have killed close to or over 100,000 innocent Iraqis. Why people refuse to see the inhumanity of all this is a mystery for me. It reminds me so much of what the Indians of America called "forked tongue." This president changed the justification for our invasion of Iraq several times, and none have panned out. People's inability for critical thinking in this country scares the bejesus out of me! Our morals have nose-dived based on this illegal war, and not many Americans still understand the consequeces.
From the non-partisan, 9-11 Commission Report, 9/20/2004 , Chapter 2.4, page 63, Note 61,
www.9-11commission.gov/report/index.htm
May 19, 1996: Bin Laden leaves Sudan –after escaping at least one assassination attempt -- significantly weakened despite his ambitious organization skills, and returns to Afghanistan where he establishes al Qaeda training bases.61
………………………………………………………………………..
Note: All the following listed terrorist attacks exclude all the terrorist attacks in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Israel.
………………………………………………………………………..
Quote:From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Terrorist Incidents
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents#1996
1996
June 25: Khobar Towers bombing, killing 19 and wounding 372 Americans.
1997
---
1998
August 7: U.S. embassy bombings in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya, killing 225 people and injuring more than 4,000.
1999
---
2000
October 12: USS Cole bombing kills 17 US sailors.
2001
September 11: The attacks on September 11 kill almost 3,000 in a series of hijacked airliner crashes into two U.S. landmarks: the World Trade Center in New York City, New York, and The Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. A fourth plane crashes in Somerset County, Pennsylvania.
October 12: Bali car bombing of holidaymakers kills 202 people, mostly Western tourists and local Balinese hospitality staff.
October 17: Zamboanga bombings in the Philippines kill six and wounds about 150.
October 18: A bus bomb in Manila kills three people and wounds 22.
October 19: A car bomb explodes outside a McDonald's Corp. restaurant in Moscow, killing one person and wounding five.
October 23: Moscow theater hostage crisis begins; 120 hostages and 40 terrorists killed in rescue three days later.
December 20, 2001: Osama helps establish al Qaeda training bases in Iraq.
Quote:2003
March 4: Bomb attack in an airport in Davao kills 21.
March 20, 2003: US invades Iraq at the time al Qaeda controls about a dozen villages and a range of peaks in northeastern Iraq on the Iranian border.
Quote:2003
May 12: Bombings of United States expatriate housing compounds in Saudi Arabia kill 26 and injure 160 in the Riyadh Compound Bombings. Al-Qaeda blamed.
May 12: A truck bomb attack on a government building in the Chechen town of Znamenskoye kills 59.
May 14: As many as 16 die in a suicide bombing at a religious festival in southeastern Chechnya.
May 16: Casablanca Attacks by 12 bombers on five "Western and Jewish" targets in Casablanca, Morocco leaves 41 dead and over 100 injured. Attack attributed to a Moroccan al-Qaeda-linked group.
July 5: 15 people die and 40 are injured in bomb attacks at a rock festival in Moscow.
August 1: An explosion at the Russian hospital in Mozdok in North Ossetia kills at least 50 people and injures 76.
August 25: At least 48 people were killed and 150 injured in two blasts in south Mumbai - one near the Gateway of India at the other at the Zaveri Bazaar.
September 3: A bomb blast on a passenger train near Kislovodsk in southern Russia kills seven people and injures 90.
November 15 and November 20: Truck bombs go off at two synagogues, the British Consulate, and the HSBC Bank in Istanbul, Turkey, killing 57 and wounding 700.
December 5: Suicide bombers kill at least 46 people in an attack on a train in southern Russia
December 9: A blast in the center of Moscow kills six people and wounds at least 11.
2004
February 6: Bomb on Moscow Metro kills 41.
February 27: Superferry 14 is bombed in the Philippines by Abu Sayyaf, killing 116.
March 2: Attack on procession of Shia Muslims in Pakistan kills 43 and wounds 160.
March 11: Coordinated bombing of commuter trains in Madrid, Spain, kills 191 people and injures more than 1,500.
April 21: Basra bombs in Iraq kill 74 and injure hundreds.
April 21: Bombing of a security building in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia kills 5.
May 29: Al-Khobar massacres, in which Islamic militants kill 22 people at an oil compound in Saudi Arabia.
August 24: Bombing of Russian airplane kills 90.
August 31: A blast near a subway station entrance in northern Moscow, caused by a suicide bomber, kills 10 people and injures 33.
September 1 – 3: Beslan school hostage crisis in North Ossetia, Russia, results in 344 dead.
September 9: Jakarta embassy bombing, in which the Australian embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia was bombed, kills eight people.
October 7: Sinai bombings: Three car bombs explode in the Sinai Peninsula, killing at least 34 and wounding 171, many of them Israeli and other foreign tourists.
December 6: Suspected al Qaeda-linked group attacks U.S. consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, killing 5 local employees.
December 12: A bombing at the Christmas market in General Santos, Philippines, kills 15.
2005
February 14: A car bomb kills former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri and 20 others in Beirut.
March 9: An attack of an Istanbul restaurant killed one, and injured five.
March 19: Car bomb attack on theatre in Doha, Qatar, kills one Briton and wounds 12 others.
April 7: A suicide bomber blows himself up in Cairo's Khan al Khalili market, killing three foreign tourists and wounding 17 others.
May 7: Multiple bomb explosions across Myanmar's capital Rangoon kill 19 and injure 160.
June 12: Bombs explode in the Iranian cities of Ahvaz and Tehran, leaving 10 dead and 80 wounded days before the Iranian presidential election.
July 7: London bombings - Attacks on one double-decker bus and three London Underground trains, killing 56 people and injuring over 700, occur on the first day of the 31st G8 Conference. The attacks are believed by many to be the first suicide bombings in Western Europe.
July 23: Sharm el-Sheikh bombings: Car bombs explode at tourist sites in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, killing at least 88 and wounding more than 100.
August 17: Around 100 home-made bombs exploded in 58 different locations in Bangladesh, Killing two and wounding 100.
More to come?
More to come since the illegal invasion.
Occupation is universally abhorred.
Ican, have I told you lately, you are a silly cnut?
The war/invasion Iraq is over, we lost. We are now in the "peace with honour" clean-up stage.
America and Iraq lose. Halliburton wins. There dragging both countries around by neck and were all going to watch.
Haliburton is the "only" winner in Iraq.
From bad to worse? From the NYT:
October 14, 2005
Baghdad Blackout Adds to Tensions Ahead of Iraqi Vote
By EDWARD WONG
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Saturday, Oct. 15 - A blackout plunged Baghdad and nearby areas into darkness Friday evening as electoral workers and American and Iraqi forces readied thousands of polling stations for a nationwide vote on Saturday on a permanent constitution.
The blackout - possibly from an explosion, possibly an insurgent act of sabotage - affected much of Baghdad and some cities to the south, but it was expected to have little impact on the voting, which is to start at 7 a.m. Saturday. Power gradually began returning to Baghdad in the early hours of Saturday, around 1 a.m. Many Iraqi cities suffer from electricity shortages and residents have grown accustomed to long periods without power.
Security rehearsals at the 6,100 polling stations, mostly at schools, and the setting up of ballot boxes marked the final stages in plans by the American and Iraqi governments to try and ensure a smooth day of voting. Voters will simply mark a paper ballot with a "yes" or "no" for the constitution and drop it in a box.
Passage of the document, whose final draft was approved only this week after months of tough negotiations between Iraqi political parties, is seen as crucial for moving the democratic process forward in this embattled country.
The document is expected to serve as a legal foundation for wide-ranging issues, from the Islamic character of the state to the powers of lawmakers and executives, and its approval by a majority of voters on Saturday would lead to elections in mid-December for a full-term parliament that has the power to appoint a government.
Several bombs exploded across Baghdad and other cities on Friday, but those assaults and a handful of potshots and mortar attacks at polling stations resulted in few casualties, and by late afternoon the streets of the capital had mostly emptied of people. The blackout began right as Iraqis were breaking the traditional Ramadan fast.
The occasional police patrol drove down Baghdad's wide boulevards, cloaked in darkness except for homes lit by generator power, and American helicopters buzzed low over the dun-colored rooftops.
Silence blanketed mosques that hours earlier were the sites of fierce exhortations by clerics, their opinions and advice on how to vote generally divided along ethnic and sectarian lines.
At noon, the imam of Baratha Mosque, a prominent Shiite institution west of the Tigris River in Baghdad, stood before a crowd of hundreds gathered beneath the scorching sun and spoke with little subtlety about Saturday's vote.
"Tomorrow, we will have a date with the dawn," the white-turbaned imam, Jalaladeen al-Sagheir, a powerful member of Parliament, told his followers at the Friday sermon. "Tomorrow, we will open the door to freedom."
At moments, the worshippers broke into frenzied chanting, reaching a crescendo with, "Yes, yes to the constitution!"
Across the Tigris, an equally impassioned scene played out, as the imam of Abu Hanifa Mosque, a Sunni Arab stronghold, urged his congregation to reject the document. After the sermon ended, hundreds of worshippers poured into the streets to denounce those few Sunni Arab politicians who had said this week they were supporting the constitution. Iraqi policemen surrounded the crowd and blocked off the streets.
"I haven't read the constitution because it's devoted to sectarianism, denominationalism and the break-up of Iraq according to American and Israeli instructions," said Othman Raheem, 40, a mechanic taking part in the protest. "I'm going to vote against this odious constitution with a 'no.' "
Many Sunni Arabs, who make up about a fifth of Iraq and ruled the country for decades, fear that the constitution will allow the oil-rich Shiite and Kurdish areas to break off into virtually separate regions, leaving the Sunni Arabs with little more than impoverished land.
In the northern oil city of Kirkuk, a car bomb exploded Friday near the offices of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, injuring four people and destroying five cars. At dawn, a bomb detonated at the Baghdad headquarters of the Iraqi Islamic Party, a prominent Sunni group that had said earlier this week that it was supporting the constitution. The party's office was also torched, but no one was hurt in either of the attacks.
The last-minute backing by that party's officials and by the Sunni Endowment, responsible for maintaining Sunni religious sites across Iraq, has given American officials more assurance that the constitution will pass, a likely prospect in any case given that Shiites and Kurds generally support the document and make up about 80 percent of the population. A study released Friday by the International Republican Institute showed that the vast majority of Iraqis planned to take part in the referendum no matter what their views - 87 percent of those polled this week in 17 of country's 18 provinces said they would vote on Saturday.
But even with the constitution's passage, the future of the American enterprise in Iraq faces immense challenges. For one thing, the constitution on which Iraqis will be voting is open to the prospect of far-reaching amendments and does not address the thorniest political issues dividing Shiites, Kurds and Sunni Arabs, including the division of powers between the central and regional governments and the allocation of oil resources and revenues.
For expediency's sake, the constitution's writers left these up to the next Parliament, whose members will be elected in mid-December should the constitution pass. By one count, at least 55 issues in the constitution are put off for future debate with the following phrase: "And a law shall organize this."
Just as important, the question remains whether the continuing political process will manage to dampen the Sunni-led insurgency, which has been growing in strength and sophistication.
Statistics released by the American command on Thursday show that the number of attacks per week has steadily increased since the fall of Baghdad in April 2003, despite the transfer of sovereignty in mid-2004 and the election of a transitional parliament in January 2005, both major political events that were aimed at co-opting the insurgents. In February and March of 2004, the American military counted just under 200 attacks per week on average; that number doubled a year later; and the week of Oct. 7, the military counted 723 attacks, with 165 of those killing or injuring someone.
"I would not want to say realistically that the referendum is going to deal a death blow to the insurgency," said a Western diplomat in Baghdad who has been closely monitoring the political process and spoke on the condition of anonymity because he wants to play down any perception of foreign involvement. "I don't think that's true."
Fears of the power of the insurgency were reflected in the security preparations being completed around the country on Friday. The constitution can be defeated by a two-thirds vote of "no" in three of Iraq's provinces.
American and Iraqi officials say there is a chance, though slim, that violence aimed at Shiite and Kurdish areas in some provinces could hinder turnout by those voters, allowing Sunni Arabs voters opposed to the constitution in those provinces to achieve the two-thirds benchmark. Officials say this possibility exists in Salahuddin, a Sunni-dominated province, and Ninevah and Diyala, both mixed provinces. (Anbar, an overwhelmingly Sunni Arab province and the heart of the insurgency, is expected to vote down the constitution, whatever the level of violence there on Saturday.)
In Mosul, the ethnically mixed capital of Ninevah Province, Sunni Arab clerics were mobilizing voters to turn out on Saturday and reject the constitution, and many said they would do exactly that.
"I will take part tomorrow and vote 'no,' and the reason for that is the rejection by Sunnis for the draft, despite the approval of the Iraqi Islamic Party," Basil Abdel Mawjood, a 44-year-old former government employee, said as he sat in his home. "I respect clerics a lot, but not all politicians. I think division is Iraq's future. It's obvious in the constitution and in daily life and in the government."
The commander of American forces in western Diyala Province, which includes the provincial capital of Baquba, checked in on security centers near polling stations on Friday and spoke with American officers advising Iraqi troops and police. The commander, Col. Steven Salazar, said that the Iraqis had deployed 8 to 12 police officers to each of western Diyala's 268 polling sites, and that two brigades of the Iraqi Army, totaling 6,000, were on hand in the area. The Americans would act only in emergencies, he said.
Something will happen despite the all the security, he said. Four attacks - three bombings and one mortar explosion - had taken place around polling stations in western Diyala by Friday evening. Still, that was considerably less than on the eve of last January's elections, and the colonel was optimistic: "Is there anything that can threaten the success of this operation?" he said. "No."
Reporting was contributed by Kirk Semple from Baquba, Iraq, Robert F. Worth from Baghdad and Iraqi employees of The New York Times from Baghdad, Mosul and Kirkuk.
I hope the armchair patriots will read this.
Mesopotomac (Daniel Goetz)
Seven months ago, my service in the army was to have terminated. Instead, I am in Iraq for the second time. I sit next to a DOD contractor whose job is identical to mine. Except he makes $120,000 more, works four hours less, and visits home four times more often than I do.
Daniel Goetz is currently serving in Samarra, Iraq. Read his blog here.
I am not alone in my anger and humiliation. When we were here in 2003, there was anger, but there is a difference between anger and bitter hatred. The atmosphere of discontent is thick and contagious. Even soldiers not stop-lossed feel The Betrayal. They know it might be them next time. Dissent will not change anything for us now because our voices are muted. Still, there is hope. It is that in twenty years, it will be these men and women in office. Perhaps, that alone should make me feel better. I don't think it is enough, though, for our wounded and fallen. I can't speak for them, of course. Not yet, at least.
I joined the army soon after I finished college; the decision was an amalgamation of desire to serve, to belong, and to repay student loans. I wanted the challenge to see if I really could be all I could be. Our country was a vastly different place then; one in which policemen, firemen, and servicemembers were no different than any other American. I had almost completed my two years of training to become an Arabic linguist when September Eleventh dramatically changed the nation's climate. I knew my own role would be pivotal, and was eager to see our country avenged on the battlefield.
Until then, I had a rather dim view of the army. Their promise to repay my college loans turned out to be false, and I was left to shoulder the massive burden of debt alone. My dismay melted away in the patriotic euphoria that enveloped the country in the run-up to our invasion of Iraq. Like the rest of the America, I clung fervently to the justifications for it. The underlying righteousness was my source of motivation when we crossed the Kuwait-Iraq border in March of 2003.
In the months that were to follow, those justifications collapsed - and with them, my confidence in a nation. In those days, my colleagues and I would often patrol the streets of Baghdad with the infantry in a bid to quell boredom. We were also looking for hope among the Iraqi people; we could live vicariously through their optimism, and perhaps therein find meaning for our occupation. But hope betrayed us as the insurgency swelled. It was when the fighting began again in earnest that we left Iraq. By the end of August, I was back in The United States, free to pretend Iraq never happened.
But it had. And nothing could wrench the darkest memories from repression like the knowledge that we were to return. Worse, our year in America was wasted. Almost every week, CSPAN would feature one committee or another complaining that our armed forces hadn't enough servicemembers in critical jobs like intelligence and military police. I wanted them to know how poorly we were thought of in our own units, and how little job-specific training we received before we left. At one point, we were told to study Arabic only on our own time. That was hardly possible when we were kept late every night, sometimes doing only menial tasks like weapons-cleaning until three in the morning.
The last straw was "stop loss". My enlistment contract ended in March of this year. It is seven months hence, and I am still in Iraq. I propose that, in order for me to respect my commitment, the army ought to respect the contract we agreed upon. It was for five years, not six. Proponents of this form of conscription argue that I signed it nonetheless, fully aware of possible outcomes. True, I ought to have prepared myself better. But to remain bound to an expired commitment - exposed to prolonged peril in support of an unjustifiable cause - was beyond my expectations.
Today, I find the greatest challenge of the army is to find honor in service. I don't ever regret having joined because I've learned so much about myself and about America. I have faith in both, but yearn for hope to become reality. I want to go home as badly as I want to be proud of my country again.
No polling places? Sounds like Florida, doesn't it?
Haliburton has them on back order .... due in around Feb - March
cicerone imposter wrote:No polling places? Sounds like Florida, doesn't it?
Or Ohio or anywhere else we've fixed elections.
ican711nm wrote:[
boldface added by ican]
www.dni.gov/release_letter_101105.html
Quote:Letter from al-Zawahiri to al-Zarqawi, October 11, 2005
ODNI News Release No. 2-05
Today the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a letter between two senior al Qa'ida leaders, Ayman al-Zawahiri and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, that was obtained during counterterrorism operations in Iraq. This lengthy document provides a comprehensive view of al Qa'ida's strategy in Iraq and globally.
The letter from al-Zawahiri to al-Zarqawi is dated July 9, 2005. The contents were released only after assurances that no ongoing intelligence or military operations would be affected by making this document public.
The document has not been edited in any way and is released in its entirety in both the Arabic and English translated forms. The United States Government has the highest confidence in the letter's authenticity.
Al-Zawahiri's letter offers a strategic vision for al Qa'ida's direction for Iraq and beyond, and portrays al Qa'ida's senior leadership's isolation and dependence.
Among the letter's highlights are discussions indicating:
The centrality of the war in Iraq for the global jihad.
From al Qa'ida's point of view, the war does not end with an American departure.
An acknowledgment of the appeal of democracy to the Iraqis.
The strategic vision of inevitable conflict, with a tacit recognition of current political dynamics in Iraq; with a call by al-Zawahiri for political action equal to military action.
The need to maintain popular support at least until jihadist rule has been established.
Admission that more than half the struggle is taking place "in the battlefield of the media."
Letter in English
www.dni.gov/letter_in_english.pdf
There are a lot of doubts that this letter is authentic.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051014/ts_nm/iraq_usa_letter_dc
Cycloptichorn
Quote:Responding to al Qaeda in Iraq's denial, a spokesman for the U.S. director of national intelligence, John Negroponte, said top officials in the U.S. government are confident the letter is real.
The spokesman said the letter was "verified by multiple sources over an extended period of time."
Source
Might even be, Rice will present this to the UN? I mean, we had had similar before. :wink:
