US AND THEM: US, UN & Iraq, version 8.0

Saddam was killing fewer of his people?

It's just a guess.

Thanks for asking.

I have no way of determining whether those particular Britannica statistics are accurate. However, I bet they do accurately show the trend in Iraqi deaths from all causes for the period 1991 through 2003.

Britannica also claims the death rate in Iraq from A&V (i.e., accidents and violence) in 1995 = 0.000653. If that is true, then the total deaths from A&V in Iraq in 1995 were 20,413,000 x 0.000653 = 13,330.

Bitannica hasn't yet provided the death rates due to A&V in any of the other years. Nonetheless, it's my speculation that since 1995 the A&V has decreased such that in 2003, despite the US invasion and the deaths it caused among Iraqis, A&V reached its lowest level. That then could explain why Iraqi deaths in 2003 were 1,965 (i.e., 145,126 - 143,161) less than they were in 2000.

So what could explain a decrease in A&V from the year 2000 to the year 2003? I bet Saddam's regime began murdering fewer Iraqis over that period as the US increased its threat to invade. It suggests that the US invasion killed fewer Iraqis in 2003 due to A&V than Saddam's regime had murdered in each of the previous years.

By the way, Tico, I think your guess was a good one.

US Guantanamo guard kicked Koran
US guards at the Guantanamo Bay detention centre kicked, threw water and splashed urine on copies of Koran.
The Pentagon has released details of five incidents in which the Koran was mishandled by US personnel at the camp, some intentional and others accidental.

In another incident a two-word English obscenity was found written in a Koran.

The Pentagon carried out the investigation after Newsweek published, then retraced, a report that the Koran has been flushed down a toilet.

Water balloons

According to a newly-completed military inquiry into the alleged mishandling of Korans at the high-security detention centre in Cuba, some of the incidents were unintentional.

In one instance, a guard urinated near and air vent.

The wind allegedly blew his urine through the vent, soiling one detainee and his Koran.

According to the report, the guard was reprimanded and sanctioned, and the inmate was given a new uniform and Koran.

Other Korans became wet after night-shift guards had thrown balloons filled with water into a cell block, the report found.

In a third case, an interrogator reportedly apologised to a detainee after stepping on his Koran.

In a fourth incident, a soldier deliberately kicked Islam's holy book.

Finally, a prisoner found a "two-word obscenity" in English written in his copy of the Koran.

Brigadier General Jay Hood, commander at Guantanamo, concluded in his report that the words might have been written by a guard or by the detainee himself.

'Lasting damage'

The Newsweek report sparked protests across the Muslim world. In Afghanistan riots resulted in the deaths of at least 15 people.

Thousands rallied in Egypt, Pakistan, Jordan, Lebanon and Malaysia, demanding apologies from the US and punishment for those involved.

The magazine withdrew its story after saying it could no longer corroborate the report.

The inmate who made the original allegation about the Koran being flushed down the toilet had retracted it, said Brig Gen Hood.

The White House rounded on the magazine, saying its report had done "lasting damage" to the US image in the Muslim world.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/4608949.stm

Published: 2005/06/04 01:04:00 GMT

© BBC MMV

June 4, 2005
Rights Group Defends Chastising of U.S.
By LIZETTE ALVAREZ
LONDON, June 3 - An official of Amnesty International said Friday that the term gulag in its annual report to describe the United States prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, was chosen deliberately, and she shrugged off harsh criticism of the report by the Bush administration.

The official, Kate Gilmore, the group's executive deputy secretary general, said the administration's response was "typical of a government on the defensive," and she drew parallels to the reactions of the former Soviet Union, Libya and Iran under Ayatollah Khomeini, when those governments were accused of human rights abuses.

The report, released May 25, placed the United States at the heart of its list of human rights offenders, citing indefinite detentions of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib in Iraq and secret renditions of prisoners to countries that practice torture. But it is the use of the word gulag, a reference to the complex of labor camps where Stalin sent thousands of dissidents, that has drawn the most attention.

President Bush called the report "absurd" several times, and said it was the product of people who "hate America." Vice President Dick Cheney told CNN that he was "offended" by the use of the term and that he did not take the organization "seriously." And Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld called the comparison "reprehensible."

Amnesty has fired right back, pointing out that the administration often cites its reports when that suits its purposes. "If our reports are so 'absurd,' why did the administration repeatedly cite our findings about Saddam Hussein before the Iraq war?" wrote William F. Schultz, executive director of the group's United States branch, in a letter to the editor being published Saturday in The New York Times. "Why does it welcome our criticisms of Cuba, China and North Korea? And why does it cite our research in its own annual human rights reports?"

In a telephone interview on Friday, Ms. Gilmore, the second-ranking official in Amnesty, said "gulag" was not meant as a literal description of Guantánamo but was emblematic of the sense of injustice and lack of due process surrounding the prison.
"The issue of the gulag is about policies and practices," she said. "You put people beyond the reach of law, you locate them in facilities where families can't access them, you deny them access to legal representation, you attempt to prevent judicial review."

She added, "This creates the likelihood that the people who are there have nothing to do with criminal conduct or that it is a breach of the Geneva Convention."

In its 308-page human rights report, Amnesty International pointed to an "impunity and accountability deficit," and called on Congress to conduct "a full and independent investigation of the use of torture and other human rights abuses by U.S. officials" as a starting point in "restoring confidence that true justice has no double standards."

Long used to biting criticism, the group said this was the first time one of its reports had drawn the public wrath of the United States president and vice president, its secretary of defense, its secretary of state and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Ms. Gilmore said the response was telling. "When we see a government at this level engaging in rhetorical attacks and avoiding dealing with the details or the facts," she said, "we interpret that as being a sign that we are starting to have an impact."

Ms. Gilmore said Amnesty International has been working on terrorism-related human rights violations for more than two years. It was a natural progression and a predictable course of action, she said, to place the United States, a defender of democracy and human rights, at the forefront of the annual report of human rights violations.

The International Committee of the Red Cross, the F.B.I. and United States courts have criticized the detention policies at Guantánamo Bay, she said. In addition, Ms. Gilmore said, the detention policy has been expanded to apply to jails in countries like Egypt, Uzbekistan and Afghanistan. The creation of an archipelago of detention centers, she said, was another factor in the choice of the term gulag.

There has been no internal discussion about the wisdom of having used the term and certainly no sense of regret, Ms. Gilmore said, although the group has found the unrelenting focus on the word, and not the contents of the report, irritating. "On the other hand," she added, "we're getting more airing of our message than we would have otherwise."

So far, Washington's reaction has galvanized support for Amnesty International, she said. In the past week, the United States branch of the group has reported an increase in memberships, donations and volunteers.

The fact that the United States was prominent on the list came as little surprise internationally, she said.

"I think it's a dangerous game the U.S. administration is playing, to attack civil society in this manner," Ms. Gilmore said. "Civil society is essential to a robust democratic society. For the Bush administration to think that it's a legitimate political strategy to attack a nongovernmental organization of Amnesty's standing signals a ruthlessness that is deeply troubling."

While the substance of the report was defended by human rights organizations and others, several said Amnesty International had erred in using the word gulag, if only because it allowed the Bush administration to change the conversation.

"I think it was a rather serious misjudgment to use the term gulag," said Sir Nigel Rodley, a professor of law at the University of Essex and chairman of the Human Rights Center there. "The basic criticism of some of the problems are very real and it has given the administration the opportunity to divert from the substance of the concern."

Sir Nigel, who said that having been Amnesty International's legal adviser from 1973 to 1990 he represents the old guard, also said that the organization should have avoided using an inflammatory term that did not precisely apply. He also said the "lapse" lent credence to a growing chorus of concerns that Amnesty, which was founded in 1961 to lobby for political prisoners and has since expanded into the areas of poverty, domestic violence and AIDS, had overextended itself and lost focus.

Reed Brody, special counsel with Human Rights Watch in New York, said he thought the Bush administration had taken cover behind semantics. "We're concerned that the debate over the label is obscuring the real issue," he said. "That the United States is locking people up without due process possibly for the rest of their lives."

June 4, 2005
Despite Years of U.S. Pressure, Taliban Fight On in Jagged Hills
By CARLOTTA GALL
GAZEK KULA, Afghanistan - For weeks, sightings of Taliban fighters were being reported all over the rugged mountains here. But when Staff Sgt. Patrick Brannan and his team of scouts drove into a nearby village to investigate a complaint of a beating, they had no idea that they were stumbling into the biggest battle of their lives.

On May 3, joined by 10 local policemen and an interpreter, the scouts turned up at a kind of Taliban convention - of some 60 to 80 fighters - and were greeted by rockets and gunfire. The sergeant called for reinforcements and was told to keep the Taliban engaged until they arrived. "I've only got six men," he remembers saying.

For the next two and a half hours, he and his small squad, who had a year of experience in Iraq, cut off a Taliban escape. Nearly 40 Taliban and one Afghan policeman were killed. "It's not supposed to be like that here," said Capt. Mike Adamski, a battalion intelligence officer. "It's the hardest fight I saw, even after Iraq."

During the last six months, American and Afghan officials have predicted the collapse of the Taliban, the hard-line Islamists thrown out of power by American forces in 2001, citing their failure to disrupt the presidential election last October and a lack of activity last winter.

But the intensity of the fighting here in Zabul Province, and in parts of adjoining Kandahar and Uruzgan Provinces - roughly 100 square miles of mountain valleys in all - reveals the Taliban to be still a vibrant fighting force supplied with money, men and weapons.

The May 3 battle was part of an almost forgotten war in the most remote corners of Afghanistan, a strange and dangerous campaign that is part cat-and-mouse game against Taliban forces and part public relations blitz to win over wary villagers still largely sympathetic to the Taliban.

An Afghan informer, who did not want his name used for fear of retribution, has told American forces that the Taliban ranks have been rapidly replenished by recruits who slipped in from Pakistan. For every one of the Taliban killed on May 3, judging by his account, another has arrived to take his place.

With a ready source of men, and apparently plentiful weapons, the Taliban may not be able to hold ground, but they can continue their insurgency indefinitely, attacking the fledgling Afghan government, scaring away aid groups and leaving the province ungovernable, some Afghan and American officials say.

Still, the former commander of United States forces in Afghanistan, Lt. Gen. David Barno, described the insurgency as in decline in an interview on April 26 and predicted that a government amnesty offer would fatally split the Taliban in coming months.

In April and May, in a new push to flush out and end the insurgency, American forces began probing the final bastions of Taliban control in this unforgiving landscape. They have succeeded in provoking some of the heaviest combat in Afghanistan in the last three years, killing more than 60 Taliban fighters in April and May, by one United States military estimate.

After a winter lull, the Second Battalion, 503rd Airborne Infantry, which arrived at the Lagman base in Zabul from its base in Vicenza, Italy, found its new post hopping with activity, Capt. Jonathan Hopkins, the battalion adjutant, and others said.

Suspected Taliban fighters burned the district headquarters in Khak-e-Iran in mid-March. An American platoon was ambushed in the Deychopan district on April 15. United States Special Forces were in a sizable fight in the Argandab district on April 18, killing eight men suspected of being Taliban and capturing a mid-level commander. Two Taliban commanders led attacks on the police station at Saigaz, the seat of the Argandab district, on April 21 and 22.

"There are three to four healthy cells, with 30 to 60 fighters in each; that's 120 to 240 people altogether," said Captain Adamski, estimating the total Taliban strength in the area, though accounts from local people indicated higher numbers.

In the battle on May 3, the 60 to 80 Taliban fighters encountered by Sergeant Brannan and his scouts were well armed and well prepared, with weapons caches and foxholes dotting an orchard where the heaviest fighting took place.

The Taliban fought to within 150 yards of American positions and later hit one of two armored Humvees with a volley of rocket-propelled grenades that set it on fire, Sergeant Brannan said. Specialist Joseph Leatham, in the turret, kept firing as the vehicle burned, allowing his comrades to get out alive.

When the first American helicopter arrived as reinforcement, it came under fire and was forced to veer away. "I had one magazine left," Sergeant Brannan said. "I had enough for another 15 to 20 minutes."

In all, the battle lasted seven hours. Ten Taliban fighters were captured, and five Afghan policemen and six American soldiers were wounded.

The Afghan informer, who walked for three hours to see the American troops when he heard in late May that they were in Gazek Kula, said that a local Taliban commander, Mullah Abdullah, had led the Taliban in the fight. The mullah escaped with his deputy, Sangaryar, by jumping in the river and floating downstream, the informer said.

After the battle, he said, the Taliban sent out word that local men should help bury the dead. Mullah Abdullah and his deputy were there as they buried 19 bodies, 14 of them representing the commander's entire fighting unit.

But news of the fight traveled fast, and dozens more fighters crossed from Pakistan to shore up the Taliban ranks, the informer said. Mullah Abdullah now had a new force of 40 men.

Three other leading Taliban commanders in the province - Mullah Muhammad Alam, Mullah Ahmadullah and Mullah Hedayatullah - had more than 200 fighters between them, with more reserves in Pakistan, he said.

The informer said that he knew Mullah Abdullah well and that the mullah had been a guest in his house. But in late April the mullah and his men detained him, accusing him of spying for the Americans. They seized his satellite phone and rifle and threatened to kill him, but let him go because of shared tribal links.

Sgt. First Class Kyle Shuttlesworth, 45, a veteran soldier who is counting the days to retirement, said that the American forces here had tracked many men infiltrating from Pakistan, but that since they crossed unarmed, the Americans had no cause to detain them. "We are trying to work out where they get their weapons," he said.

Some in the area accused Pakistan of fueling the insurgency. Though ostensibly an American ally, Pakistan is viewed with suspicion here by some American military and Afghan officials for its failure to stem the flow of Taliban recruits.

"The Taliban will be finished when there is no foreign interference," said Mullah Zafar Khan, the Deychopan district chief. He blamed mullahs and others in Pakistan for inveigling young people into join the fight. "Pakistan is giving them the wrong information and telling them to go and do jihad," he said.

The governor of the province, Delbar Jan Arman, said the answer was to unite the local tribes and strengthen the government, since the Taliban were profiting from a power vacuum. "The reason is not that the Taliban are strong," he said. "The government is not so strong in these areas."

Sergeant Shuttlesworth said part of the American strategy was to engage the local people. Distributing aid and providing jobs in reconstruction projects were paying dividends in the next district, he said, with many people coming forward to offer intelligence on the Taliban.

The soldiers have to learn to switch from aggression to friendliness, he said, "like turning off and on a light switch." It is a slow and tricky job. At Gazek Kula, the American forces at first encountered a wary, silent population that shut itself indoors and turned out the lights.

After bunking in a deserted farmhouse, Sergeant Shuttlesworth and the unit's commander, First Lt. Joshua Hyland, still pale from his recent desk job, chatted with villagers for hours the next day in the small bazaar, joking with children, who at first would not accept even a cookie.

"The Taliban are not here, so there will be no fighting," Sergeant Shuttlesworth told the villagers. "We are here to talk to the people, see if you have enough food, if the children are healthy. We are here for a few days, not to harass the people."

The villagers said the Taliban passed through every so often and demanded food. "The Taliban come only for one night," Wali Muhammad, 33, a wheat trader, said. "They are not a security problem."

Others complained that the Taliban had gathered them in the bazaar and warned them not to run a school, support the government or accept foreign aid. The children said the Taliban had warned them that school would turn them into infidels.

"Twenty days ago there were 10 Taliban in this room," a former policeman, Abdul Matin, 40, told the Americans sitting on the floor over a glass of tea in his home.

They came in a group of 100, he said, and spread out around the village. They had satellite phones and plenty of money, offering one man $2,000 to work as an informer. They were gone before dawn and have not been back since, Mr. Matin said.

"The people support the Taliban because they don't loot and they respect the women," he said. But he added, "The whole district wants to help the Americans, because our country is destroyed."

Lieutenant Hyland urged the villagers to vote in the parliamentary elections scheduled for Sept. 18 and elect someone honest. "Power for the people comes through democracy," he said. "It has to start with the strength of the people, even if it is dangerous for you."

American units have encountered Taliban every few days since the May 3 battle, Sergeant Shuttlesworth said. The battalion suffered its first fatality on May 21, when Pfc. Steven C. Tucker, 19, of Grapevine, Tex., was killed by a roadside explosion in the south. It is there that insurgents cross on their way from Pakistan to join up with the Taliban in the mountains.

The American forces keep probing, hoping to lure the Taliban out of the craggy mountain passes. On a recent five-hour trek, Sergeant Shuttlesworth took his men, along with 10 local police officers, down the narrow river valley near here, trying once again to tempt the Taliban into revealing themselves.

"We are the bait," he told the local police chief. "Are you ready to fight?"

Those were a couple of informing articles. I thought the Afghan war was pretty well over myself.

I am wondering if since there seems to be an ever widening gap between the ordinary citizens of Arab/Muslim countries and the US, if all of them have kind of just mentally sided against the US and are always ready to fight? (thinking of Pakistan sending men over to replenish the taliban and other countries sending men over to fight in Iraq) If all of these fighters are AQ, AQ must be a monstrously huge outfit to be able to keep replacing fighters. I am beginning to think it just that a lot of Arab/Muslims have just turned so against us since the Iraq war that ordinary Arab/Muslims have joined AQ. Just thinking outloud though.

Mujahidin don't need to be members of either al Qaeda nor the Taliban. Mehmet Ali Agca, who attempted to assassinate Pope John Paul in 1981, initially told the Italian police that he had wanted to kill the leader of the Crusades. Many Muslims have exactly the same attitude toward Christians as many conservatives in the U.S. display toward Muslims--they are by definition the enemy. Many Muslims feel that Christianity has been attempting to obliterate Islam for a thousand years. What the truth of the matter is means no more to them than it does to the irrational Muslim-haters in this country. The perception is all that matters, and it would be awfully damned hard to convince the average poor Muslim, who basically has little to lose, that he risks everything with little prospect of hurting the United States. Getting a shot at us, that's all that matters. Thanks, Georgie-boy, for making the world such a congenial place for Americans.

You should give credit where it's due.

Thank Osama Bin Laden.

And the major difference in the Christians you try to equate with the Muslims--is the Christians didn't go looking for Muslims to kill.

You've got your story backwards.

If you want to blame Osama, then you need also blame Central Intelligence, who set up the entire operation for him. Muslims would say you've got your story backwards--the Iraqis didn't come looking for us, we went after them. Once again, it's never the truth of a situation which matters--the truth can often never be known--it's the perception that matters. As far as a great many Muslims are concerned, you are the one who has got it backwards.

When did you adopt the posture of spokesman for Muslims?

That was YOU blaming Bush, not them.

They came over here to kill us in 2001.

What do you think we did to deserve it?

And, if we didn't deserve it, you can see why it is completely their responsibility.

Yes, i certainly do blame the raving idiot for getting us involved in an unnecessary war which makes us less secure in this world. That does not change, however, the perception of Muslims in this world that Christians in general, and the United States in particular are out to get them. Once again, try to get it through your intentionally dense comprehension that the perception is all that matters. "They" did not come over here in 2001 to kill us. Twenty men who were notional members of a group which has had it in for us ever since 1991 came over here. You've got the "us and them" thing goin' on really well, don't ya Lash?

Setanta's insult--the first one in this discussion, as usual--

Once again, try to get it through your intentionally dense comprehension
-----------------
You really should try to converse without relying so quickly on the personal insult.


And, those 19 terrorists did not exist in a vaccuum. Or, are you denying the overwhelming percentages of Muslims who support OBL and his methods?

It wasn't us and them until they made it so.

It's not an insult, it's an observation that you, an intelligent person, are willfully refusing to understand the point i'm making. You know exactly what i mean when i say that it is the perception that matters. This is how Muslims see the situation. What anyone claims the truth to be does not matter at all. This is also another example of your willfulness--you are so eager to assert that you've been insulted. The only insult here is being done to you by you. You know quite well what i mean.

With more than one half billion Muslims in the world, you have absolutely no basis for a contention that "the overwhelming percentages of Muslims" support al Qaeda and its methods. But of course, that does fit nicely with your anti-Muslim hate screed.

That's a lame dodge. You are aware this only applies to the Muslims who support Bin Laden and terrorism.

The fact is--the perception they have cannot be indulged because it is psychotic. It will be to our detriment to act as though their psychosis is legitimate.

You know history and realities on the ground in the ME. You know they are all crazy as **** house rats.

The ONLY thing that will change them is what Bush is currently doing....dragging them kicking and screaming into the 21st Century. Once this is accomplished, we won't have to fight them, or kill them, or worry so much about them.

Bush has done you a great favor, whether you know it or not. Done them a favor, as well.

Anatomy of an Insane Population.

You are completely correct, this statement on your part is a lame dodge. You've been slamming Muslims consistently, and you have not been specific about any particular group of Muslims, nor any category.



This statement is completely without merit. You have offered nothing which supports a contention that this attitude on the part of Muslims constitutes psychosis. But it does dovetail nicely with all the other hate you've pedalled here about Muslims.



On the contrary, i know them to be no more and no less crazy that the wacko christians of this world. The middle east is also not the only part of the world in which Muslims may be found, as you well know.



This is utter fantasy. It is also another hateful stereotype of Muslims. Do you contend that satellite news channels and internet news sites in Arabic are there to cater to eleventh century minds? Just more evidence of the hateful attitude you cherish toward Muslims.



The Shrub and his Forty Thieves have made this world far more dangerous than it previously was, and they have made it so for many long years to come--whether or not you are willing to admit it.

If I meant all Muslims--I'd say all Muslims, and you know it.

It would be senseless to characterize a garden variety Muslim with one who applauds terrorism. Of course, you are fully aware of this, and to pad your lame argument, you try to take the focus off of the valid discussion and hide behind some fake bigotry charge.

Aren't you secure enough in your opinion of the subject to stay on it?

Name a Christian group that equates with the pro-OBL Muslims, and their effect on society...? (And don't even think of reaching back to the 17th century. We are talking about TODAY.)