Bush, a shoe (or two) in? Al-Zaidi beaten and tortured?

Dec 16, 2008
Urgent, just reported: Al-Zaidi in U.S. run Camp Cropper prison
http://www.roadstoiraq.com/2008/12/16/urgent-just-reported-al-zaidi-in-us-run-camp-cropper-prison/

Iraqi TV al-Sharqiya just reported on the news that AL-Zaidi is transferred to Camp Cropper prison [the Airport prison, managed by the American forces].

The TV Channel announced that Al-Zaidi is in a difficult condition, with broken ribs and signs of tortures on his thighs. Also he cannot move his right arm.

Here's Democracy Now's report. According to them Al Zaidi is under Iraqi control, not the USG.
12.16.08
Shoe-Throwing Iraqi Journalist Remains Imprisoned
The International Federation of Journalists has called on the Iraqi government to release the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at President Bush at a news conference on Sunday. Muntadar al-Zaidi has been held without charge for over twenty-four hours and has been reportedly beaten in jail. His brother said al-Zaidi has suffered a broken hand, broken ribs and internal bleeding, as well as an eye injury. Earlier today, al-Zaidi was handed over to the Iraqi military command in Baghdad. Al-Zaidi has become a folk hero in many parts of the Arab world. Demonstrations have been held across the region calling for his release. In Iraq, thousands of protesters rallied in Baghdad and Najaf.
***

Some of us have noticed that even opponents of the Bush administration have deplored Al Zaidi's actions as inappropriate. Is it because they don't want to believe in the exceptional criminality of Cheney and Bush and Rumsfeld and John Yu? One thing we felt about Al Zaidi is that he understood that Bush's intention was and remains to destroy his country and many other countries, and his own country. That's the kind of man he is.

***

I don't watch much mainstream TV, and even less with the sound on. However, from the little that I noticed on CNN, I didn't detect much outrage from the right. I suspect that such a moderate response from those quarters is not typical.


***
After the incident and before I learned of the physical punishment Muntadhar Al Zaidi is undergoing, I wondered what it would be like if it were possible to ask President Bush some of the following questions. In such a world, where such questions were possible, Al Zaidi might not have had to lose his shoes, or have his arms broken.


Question: Did you have any contact or discussion with the Iraqi authorities as to the punishment to be meted out to journalist Muntadhar Al Zaidii who threw his two shoes at you?
Would such a discussion be appropriate on your part?

This question reminds us of the execution of Saddam Hussein.
Question: President Bush: Did you and/or the Vice President's office order the timing of the execution of Saddam Hussein?
Do you regret the timing of the execution before a full history of the crimes of Saddam Hussein could be brought to light?
One final question, Mr. President.
Go right ahead.
Do you believe that those heads of state responsible for crimes greater, much greater, than Saddam Hussein's should be tried and appropriately punished?

Patrick J. Buchanan: Petraeus Points to War with Iran

Robert Stiver wrote:

Here's the latest commentary by an informed, deeply concerned citizen:
http://www.antiwar.com/pat/?articleid=12673 ("Petraeus Points to War With Iran," by Patrick Buchanan, April 11th, 2008)
(I disagree with one element of Buchanan's analysis: "The general's testimony is forcing Bush's hand...." Petraeus is, IMHO, an ambitious, willing military-side stooge for the Cheney-led zionazineocons [note particularly the odious Lieberman in the article] and the dry-drunkenly adolescent, bellicose, irrational Bush. A lethal combination, and Gates and Mullen -- with Fallon gone and no longer providing adult supervision -- today added additional voice to the warmongering set....)
The Evil USrael Empire is on the march to war...Bob
***

Ronald wrote:
It's hard to improve on Bob's comment and Buchanan's short article.. One question that comes to mind: why do Bush and Cheney want to go to war against Iran and use their nuclear arsenal?

Bob suggests that it is for Israel's benefit. But such an adventure is just as dangerous for Israel as it is for the rest of the world, not least the US. (Just imagine what $200-300/ barrel oil will do to the world's economy.)

This reminds me: haven't we read recently that Putin warned Bush not to attack Iran? But if Putin did so, that might only spur Bush and Cheney to go ahead. Once again, we ask for what purpose?

One result (if not the only result) will be chaos, destruction, and more war. Does that cohere with wars for oil, for Empire or for Israel? Does that put Cheney and Bush squarely in the tradition of US presidents or does it suggest that they are exceptional, as in pathologically criminal, intent only on the elimination of the possibility of civil life everywhere just as they have succeeded in accomplishing in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Kenya, Palestine, elsewhere? Is Empire strengthened by these disasters? Are we achieving more or less control over ($110/barrel) oil?
Ronald
***



Petraeus Points to War With Iran
by Patrick J. Buchanan

April 11, 2008
http://www.antiwar.com/pat/?articleid=12673
The neocons may yet get their war on Iran.

Ever since President Nouri al-Maliki ordered the attacks in Basra on the Mahdi Army, Gen. David Petraeus has been laying the predicate for U.S. air strikes on Iran and a wider war in the Middle East.

Iran, Petraeus told the Senate Armed Services Committee, has "fueled the recent violence in a particularly damaging way through its lethal support of the special groups."

These "special groups" are "funded, trained, armed and directed by Iran's Quds Force with help from Lebanese Hezbollah. It was these groups that launched Iranian rockets and mortar rounds at Iraq's seat of government (the Green Zone) ... causing loss of innocent life and fear in the capital."

Is the Iranian government aware of this – and behind it?

"President Ahmadinejad and other Iranian leaders" promised to end their "support for the special groups," said the general, but the "nefarious activities of the Quds force have continued."

Are Iranians then murdering Americans, asked Joe Lieberman:

"Is it fair to say that the Iranian-backed special groups in Iraq are responsible for the murder of hundreds of American soldiers and thousands of Iraqi soldiers and civilians?"

"It certainly is. ... That is correct," said Petraeus.

The following day, Petraeus told the House Armed Services Committee, "Unchecked, the 'special groups' pose the greatest long-term threat to the viability of a democratic Iraq."

Translation: The United States is now fighting the proxies of Iran for the future of Iraq.

The general's testimony is forcing Bush's hand, for consider the question it logically raises: If the Quds Force and Hezbollah, both designated as terrorist organizations, are arming, training and directing "special groups" to "murder" Americans, and rocket and mortar the Green Zone to kill our diplomats, and they now represent the No. 1 threat to a free Iraq, why has Bush failed to neutralize these base camps of terror and aggression?

Hence, be not surprised if President Bush appears before the TV cameras, one day soon, to declare:

"My commanding general in Iraq, David Petraeus, has told me that Iran, with the knowledge of President Ahmadinejad, has become a privileged sanctuary for two terrorist organizations – Hezbollah and the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard – to train, arm and direct terrorist attacks on U.S. and coalition forces, despite repeated promises to halt this murderous practice.

"I have therefore directed U.S. air and naval forces to begin air strikes on these base camps of terror. Our attacks will continue until the Iranian attacks cease."

Because of the failures of a Democratic Congress elected to end the war, Bush can now make a compelling case that he would be acting fully within his authority as commander-in-chief.

In early 2007, Nancy Pelosi pulled down a resolution that would have denied Bush the authority to attack Iran without congressional approval. In September, both Houses passed the Kyl-Lieberman resolution designating the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization.

Courtesy of Congress, Bush thus has a blank check for war on Iran. And the signs are growing that he intends to fill it in and cash it.

Israel has been hurling invective at Iran and conducting security drills to prepare its population for rocket barrages worse than those Hezbollah delivered in the Lebanon War.

Adm. William "Fox" Fallon, the Central Command head who opposed war with Iran, has been removed. Hamas and Hezbollah have been stocking up on Qassam and Katyusha rockets.

Vice President Cheney has lately toured Arab capitals.

And President Ahmadinejad just made international headlines by declaring that Tehran will begin installing 6,000 advanced centrifuges to accelerate Iran's enrichment of uranium.

This is Bush's last chance to strike and, when Iran responds, to effect its nuclear castration. Are Bush and Cheney likely to pass up this last chance to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities and effect the election of John McCain? For any attack on Iran's "terrorist bases" would rally the GOP and drive a wedge between Obama and Hillary.

Indeed, Sen. Clinton, who voted to declare Iran's Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization, could hardly denounce Bush for ordering air strikes on the Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force, when Petraeus testified, in her presence, that it is behind the serial murder of U.S. soldiers.

The Iranians may sense what is afoot. For Tehran helped broker the truce in the Maliki-Sadr clash in Basra, and has called for a halt to the mortar and rocket attacks on the Green Zone.

With a friendly regime in Baghdad that rolled out the red carpet for Ahmadinejad, Iran has nothing to gain by war. Already, it is the big winner from the U.S. wars that took down Tehran's Taliban enemies, decimated its al-Qaeda enemies and destroyed its Sunni enemies, Saddam and his Baath Party.

No, it is not Iran that wants a war with the United States. It is the United States that has reasons to want a short, sharp war with Iran.

[Another quibble: Do Bush and Cheney want a short war? Will a short or long war help them stay in power longer? Although I'm wondering if Cheney's health may play a role. He seems to be sounding weaker than ever. --RB]

COPYRIGHT CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

Xymphora: Henry Kissinger: Not so closet a Zionist

Xymphora's hitting the bull's eye consistently these days. (Helps to explain why he's so popular.) Even for veteran Kissinger haters like myself (but who haven't done sufficient reading), there are some eye-opening things here. I knew he was a ruthless Zionist but I hadn't realized how far his power extended and was used.
Xymphora's blog entry also makes a point I hadn't thought of: the obviously wrongheaded war for oil folks--will they finally admit that that's not happening? -- have a tendency to use oil as a way to obscure the war for Israel factor. And even fewer seem to recognize --here I depart from Xymphora -- that devastating Iraq (and Afghanistan, Jordan and Syria and Lebanon, and elsewhere) does not advance Empire or Imperialism either. In that case there would be some advantage to the US, which is not the case. While Bush-Cheney destroy Iraq -- as intended -- they are also destroying the US and the rest of the world -- as intended.
Ronald
***

Xymphora wrote:

December 15, 2007
Henry the K's Noamian moment
http://xymphora.blogspot.com/

International war criminal Henry the K, who is Jewish, has always managed to deflect accusations of being a covert ‘dual loyalist’ Zionist, despite the fact that his advice always seemed to follow the dictates of the Israeli right-wingers, all on the basis of his reputation as the ultimate foreign policy ‘realist’. Since he was such a bastard of an America-firster, it was always assumed that evidence which pointed to his favoring certain Israeli interests was just a coincidence reflecting the Chomskean idea – now known to be largely false, and manufactured to cover secret support for Zionism – that American support for Israel was entirely based on the fact that such support mirrored the interests of the American Establishment. Not only was Kissinger responsible for the ‘special relationship’ which led directly to billions of dollars of military aid to Israel over the years, but he actually delayed telling Nixon about the Yom Kippur war so he could secretly put the U. S. on a full war footing to be prepared to fight for Israel (he no doubt feared that the ‘anti-Semite’ Nixon would nix the idea). Philip Giraldi summarizes what amounts to a treason case against Kissinger:

“In 1972, Kissinger and Nixon ceded to Israel a veto over any peace proposals that Washington might be considering in dealing with the Arab states, basically accepting the principle that Tel Aviv would call all the shots in the region without regard to American interests. In October 1973, the same duo airlifted military supplies to Israel during the Yom Kippur War to the tune of $2.2 billion in impromptu aid, leading to the Arab oil embargo and its catastrophic impact on the U.S. economy, which amounted to nearly $50 billion in 1974 alone (equivalent to $140 billion in 2000 dollars.

In late October 1973 Kissinger was sent to Moscow to negotiate with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev to pursue a comprehensive peace process for the Middle East, but he ignored Nixon's instructions and pressed instead for a cease-fire that left Israel dominant and destroyed any chance for a multilateral peace effort. According to Mearsheimer and Walt, ‘The American-compiled minutes of the three meetings that Kissinger attended with Brezhnev unequivocally show that he accurately and repeatedly represented Israeli interests to Moscow, almost totally contrary to Nixon's preferences.’ When the UN Security Council subsequently passed a cease-fire resolution, Kissinger allowed the Israelis to ignore it for 12 hours so they could consolidate their gains.

In 1975, while secretary of state, Kissinger signed a memorandum of understanding that pledged the U.S. to provide for Israel's oil needs in the event of a crisis and to finance and stock a strategic reserve. He also agreed that Washington would not ‘recognize or negotiate with’ the PLO as long as the group refused to recognize Israel's right to exist. This made it impossible to talk to the only group that represented the aspirations of most Palestinians, a dialogue that the Israelis wished to derail but which would have served America's interests. Kissinger's last year as secretary of state also saw Israel's aid from the U.S. skyrocket from $1.9 billion in 1975 to $6.29 billion for 1976.”

You can thus blame Kissinger for the American oil guarantee to Israel, the continuing failure of negotiations with the Palestinians, the Arab oil embargo, the massive American monetary support to the Zionist Empire, and the beginnings of the United States fighting the Wars for the Jews.

Now, with his ridiculous dismissal of the NIE on Iran, he finally admits his true colors. Just as Noam’s political philosophy now appears to be a carefully constructed ruse to hide underlying advocacy for Zionism, Henry the K’s Realpolitik has suddenly been shown to be a cover for his real interests, the promotion of a Zionist Empire in the Middle East (and note that his connecting an attack on Iran to oil – not to mention Greenspan’s connection of the attack on Iraq to oil – is intentionally misleading in the usual Zionist way of hiding Zionist interests behind American interests). It is curious that Chomsky was forced to reveal himself by denying the importance of the Lobby, and Henry the K had to come out as a Zionist because of the inconvenience of the NIE for ultra-right-wing Zionist interests. In both cases, the siren lure of a Zionist Empire was so strong that it led directly to the destruction of a lifetime’s reputation. All the books on Henry the K now need to be rewritten to reflect who he is really working for.

A.K. Gupta: Is the US Committing Genocide in Iraq?

Is the U.S. Committing Genocide in Iraq?
By A.K. Gupta
From the October 7, 2007 issue
www.indypendent.org/2007/10/19/is-the-us-committing-genocide-in-iraq/

By A.K. Gupta

There is a simple rule that defines the U.S. occupation of Iraq: no matter how bad a situation may seem the reality is far worse.

Take torture. Individual accounts began surfacing in the fall of 2003 at U.S.-run prisons, but the Abu Ghraib scandal that erupted the following spring unmasked a regime of industrial-scale torture.

Or take the number of Iraqi dead. By 2004 it was believed to be in the thousands but no one thought, as two rigorous studies found, that some 98,000 Iraqis had died by the fall of ’04 or that a mind-boggling 655,000 had died by June 2006.

Or take refugees. The U.S. military and ethnic militias are known to have caused massive displacement, but few could imagine that nearly one in five Iraqis, at least 4.7 million people, would have been driven from their homes by the fall of 2007.

Then there’s “random killings.” Two new revelations point to how many killings stem from systemic forces. Foreign mercenaries are called the most-hated men in Iraq, but who knew that Blackwater, the most notorious hired gun in Iraq, had been involved in “nearly 200 shootings in Iraq since 2005”? Mercenary killings could number in the thousands as Blackwater’s record does not appear to be out of line with the 100 other mercenary outfits in Iraq. The Washington Post reported in June that “one security company reported nearly 300 ‘hostile actions’ in the first four months” of 2007.

And there are killings by U.S. forces, which happen at checkpoints, on patrol and during home raids. Now it seems these killings are a matter of policy in some instances. Reports indicate that military commanders pressed troops to rack up “body counts,” despite declamations otherwise. Some snipers were apparently instructed to leave weaponry lying around and shoot anyone who picked it up.

Despite this hell we’ve created, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obama reject a complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq before 2013 — the end of the next presidential term. They appear committed to ensuring the conflict becomes the longest-running war in U.S. history.

But they couldn’t advocate a never-ending war unless a majority of the public believed G.I.s are there to protect Iraqis. One of the great myths of the Iraq War is that the U.S. military buffers religious and ethnic factions who have been at each others’ throats since time immemorial.

What’s curious is that many opponents of the Iraq War, a group marked by its loathing of Bush, essentially accept his latest rationale for staying the course: that a “humanitarian nightmare” could result if U.S. forces withdrew. They are in effect arguing that we must continue to slaughter Iraqis for years on end lest someone else possibly do so in the future.

To maintain that U.S. troops are there to protect civilians, it is necessary to discredit the enormity of the killing. This is a problem within the peace movement as many shy away from discussing the impact of the Iraq War except to discuss how it affects “us.” For example, United for Peace & Justice has easily accessible information on its website about U.S. casualties and the financial costs of the war, but nothing about the extent of Iraqi deaths.

According to a study published in the British medical journal The Lancet in October 2006, some 655,000 excess Iraqi deaths occurred from the March 2003 invasion to June of 2006. In 45 percent of cases of violent death, the perpetrator was listed as unknown, 31 percent was attributed to “the coalition” and 24 percent to “other.” Thus, U.S. and U.K. forces were responsible for the deaths of 185,000 Iraqis in barely three years. Air strikes were responsible for about 78,000 deaths.

A more recent survey by ORB, a British polling firm, is more shocking still. It reported in September that it polled 1,499 Iraqi adults and came up with a figure of 1.22 million dead. The scale of the killing is so great that it raises the question: Is the United States committing genocide in Iraq?

This issue has dominated the response to the Darfur conflict. In an influential essay last March titled “The Politics of Naming: Genocide, Civil War and Insurgency,” African scholar Mahmood Mamdani likened the violence in the Sudan region to U.S.-occupied Iraq, noting that in Iraq “it is said to be a cycle of insurgency and counter-insurgency; in Darfur, it is called genocide.” Mamdani does not say so, but the implication is clear: If Darfur is genocide, then why not Iraq?

Numbers do not a genocide make. Intent is needed. And that’s where things get fuzzy (and political). According to the U.N. Convention on Genocide, one standard is “intent to destroy, in whole or in part” of a group. Iraq, then, is most definitely genocide — this is what happened in Fallujah. More than that, virtually all the Sunni Arab regions have been subjected to extreme levels of violence.

I contacted some of the researchers involved in the two Lancet studies on excess mortality in Iraq, Gilbert Burnham and Richard Garfield (who was involved in only the 2004 study), and statistician, Shannon Doocy. They found in the second study that the excess death rate amounted to 7.8 per thousand per year in a population of 27 million.

In the 2006 study, they stated “the highest death rates [are] much where they would be expected, in the Sunni Arab provinces.” Garfield, a professor at Columbia University, added the death rates were highest in these provinces because “that’s where most of the military-reported deaths were occurring.”

This backs up reports that it is the U.S. war that has killed more Sunni Arabs. The strategy has been to depopulate towns and cities or at least large swaths — Fallujah, Tal Afar, Al Qaim, Ramadi, Samara and others — through blockades, cutting off food, fuel and electricity, mass arrests and aerial bombardment. The goal was to turn these towns into free-fire zones where anyone left could be killed, no questions asked.

In the case of Fallujah, during the November 2004 razing, an AP photographer watched entire neighborhoods turned to rubble from a bombardment so devastating civilians were too afraid to even step outside — implying many never fled. When he tried to leave the city, he witnessed “U.S. helicopters firing on and killing people who tried to cross the river,” including a family of five. From this and other anecdotal accounts, the goal appeared to be wholesale extermination.

With a scarcity of independent reporting from other towns that the U.S. military turned into battlefields, it’s not known what the effects were. So I asked the researchers to crunch the numbers for 13 “clusters” in the four Sunni Arab-majority provinces — Anbar, Diyala, Ninewa and Salah al-Din.

The researchers used a method called “cluster-sample survey.” Garfield says 20 to 25 are needed “to get a representative sample,” but they choose 50 clusters to give added precision. Iraqi surveyors sampled 40 houses in each cluster, which were spread around the country.

They cautioned a smaller sample meant a larger margin of error. But aggregating the four does reduce some of the added uncertainty. It appears that the excess death rate for the four Sunni Arab provinces is nearly twice the national rate of 7.8 — 14.5 per thousand per year. This may mean that almost 1.5 percent of people in these provinces, mainly Sunni Arabs, are being killed year after year.

It’s also probable that Sunni Arabs are being displaced at a higher rate. Much has been made of an alleged drop in civilian casualties in September, but this maybe more due to widespread ethnic cleansing. One recent report noted that in Baghdad, home to one-quarter of Iraq’s population, “U.S. military officers say [the capital] has gone from being 65 percent Sunni to being 75 percent Shiite.”

Seymour Hersh argues that “The surge means basically that, in some way, the president has accepted ethnic cleansing.” This works two ways. Reporter Rick Rowley, who just returned from Anbar Province, says that some of the Sunni militias being set up and armed by the Pentagon have been violently displacing thousands of Shiites.

This is where intent starts to creep in. Ahmed Hashim, author of Insurgency and Counter-Insurgency in Iraq, writes that the Bush administration “thought that the Sunnis could be treated with disdain, discounted and swept aside with little in the way of adverse reaction.”

This is a long way from genocide, but this is the attitude that defined the beginning of the occupation, which progressed into collective punishment, mass detentions, torture, massacres such as Haditha, “baiting” programs, Fallujah and possibly 1.2 million dead Iraqis.

What many in the antiwar movement fail to see is that by raising the question that the occupation may be genocidal in nature, we allow the myth of U.S. benevolence to live on in future wars, such as the looming one against Iran. Peace activists have shied away from talking about Iraqi deaths; the focus is mainly on U.S. casualties. But this historical narcissism ensures that the public remains primed for war after war.