We had a nice meeting today at the Eastern Maine Labor Council in Brewer with a few peace people. A couple of folks associated with labor were there. We showed THIS Democracy Now! interview with Iraqi union leaders. It was a good event and a very appropriate discussion for the size of the group. But the smallish turnout suggests an uphill struggle in mounting any sort of effective education program on the imperial basis for the war in Iraq.
Same holds true for international protests called for today, the 1st anniversary of presentation of the Iraq Oil Law, called a "robbery" by the union leaders in that Democracy Now! program. Here is the ONE decent report on yesterday's U.S. Labor Against the War press conference I was able to find:
Kicking it Down K Street: Rolling Out the (Oil) In a town awash in irony, this particular example of it couldn't have been more striking
Written by Mike Ferner - Saturday, 23 February 2008
Yesterday, in Washington, D.C., former Marine Corps Sergeant and Iraq War vet, Adam Kokesh, kick-rolled a 55-gallon oil drum lettered "Hands Off Iraqi Oil" across K Street, an avenue that has become synonymous with the power of corporate lobbyists.
Kokesh, former Army National Guard Sergeant Geoff Millard, and former Army Private Marc Trainer, in the center of a knot of demonstrators, took turns kicking the barrel up 16th Street towards Lafayette Park, adjoining the White House, for a protest sponsored by U.S. Labor Against the War (USLAW), Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), and Oil Change International.
The protest and an earlier news conference at the Institute for Policy Studies was called to bring public attention to the Oil Law passed by the Iraqi Cabinet one year ago and now waiting approval by Parliament.
Citing a letter USLAW sent yesterday to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and George Bush, Gene Bruskin, co-convener of USLAW, said that under Paul Bremer, the man Bush put in charge of running Iraq right after the invasion, the Hussein administration laws were wiped off the books, except for Law 150 and Law 151 which prohibit Iraqi workers from organizing unions in the public sector, some two-thirds of the nation's economy. For there to be freedom in Iraq, "Bruskin said, "Working people have to have representation. And not just on labor contracts but on social policy."
He pledged the continuing support of USLAW, whose member organizations represent some three million U.S. workers, to Iraqi oil workers and their union, the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions.
Kokesh, who said his time in Iraq taught him that "we are making enemies faster than we can kill them," called the U.S. presence in Iraq a military and an economic occupation, and that they are "inherently tied."
Excellent. And HERE is a link where you may find USLAW's page for the Action and another link to that open letter, which I will reproduced below the fold.
The sad thing, though, is the list of media covering the event. Truth seeking is not part of the corporate agenda when the event is aimed at revealing the real reasons for the permanent occupation of Iraq.
The always-excellent Rodger Payne provides a valuable link for evaluating claims based on material from alleged Iraqi archives; please see comments in THIS Maine Owl post
Update: New material from the owner of Your Planet is Doomed, cited here, is posted under "Dodgy dossier" a load of crap. Furthermore, I have changed the category to "5 years of war," where I have decided to keep all the Iraq war history posts.
That post a few days back on the "dodgy dossier" attracted a fascinating comment. It was from one Roy Robison who it turns out is author of THIS book: Both In One Trench: Saddam's Secret Terror Documents. According to the author, "secret terror documents" in fact do show Saddam did "support al Qaeda and the Taliban."
To be fair to Robison, and certainly I want to be fair to anyone who takes the time to place a reasonable comment [Update: That particular comment I now considered spam] in this blog, I have not read his material yet. But I have read two other authors claiming these connections: Laurie Mylroie and Stephen Hayes. So, at first, I replied rather sharply to the idea that the fabled 9/11 Commission was wrong when it published its famous conclusion: there existed no "operational relationship" between Saddam and al Qaeda.
My skepticism is reinforced by the voluminous hard evidence to the contrary expertly cataloged over the years by the incomparable Rodger Payne. The author most indictable on the "Saddam & al Qaeda" bandwagon has been Mylroie. Just peruse Rodger's posts and you'll see much of what Mylroie has written to be baseless.
Furthermore, the link Rodger provides does a pretty good job on Robison himself, to which he responds in comments, and to which there are counter-comments. So, I'll repeat, I like to be fair and not pass judgment on this fellow's rightist-friendly work before I read it. Just because wingnuttia likes to pick up these Saddam-as-al-Qaeda stories and run off half-cocked singing them like they're some kind of war canticle doesn't mean it's not worth studying the material. This is not saying that do I in any way buy what Robison says.
The link Rodger provided draws a general picture about Iraqi documents "captured" after the invasion that you won't see in wingnuttia:
Story of driver's travails, $3000 cab rides, and lakes of sewage metaphors for Iraq's destruction during five years of brutal, relentless occupation
The Independent (U.K.) correspondent Patrick Cockburn has a lot to say about the truth of Iraq that we did not hear in the President's State of the Union message, and that we do not read in the Pentagon press releases published in the New York Times under the Michael Gordon byline.
This, which has made the rounds of the papers and wires the last couple of days, is an example of news about the "improving" situation typically we are fed:
UN hints at Iraq refugee returns BBC Feb 16 2008 - Limited numbers of refugees have already returned
The UN's top refugee official has hinted that security in Iraq may soon have improved enough for some of the 4m Iraqi refugees to begin returning home.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, told the BBC the UNHCR and Iraqi government were planning an assessment of conditions.
Some 2m Iraqis have fled abroad, while another 2m are displaced inside Iraq.
In December, the UNHCR said the situation in Iraq was "not yet conducive to large-scale return".
Cockburn has some insight about what "returning" means in two different pieces:
The September 2002 document former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and U.S. President George W. Bush relied upon to frighten the begeesus out of the publics in both America and the U.K. about Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction was "wrong", according to it's principle creator. The Independent (U.K.) reports,
'Dodgy dossier' was 'wrong', its author says By Ian Griggs and Brian Brady - Sunday, 17 February 2008
The government official who wrote the first draft of the "dodgy dossier" that helped propel Britain into war in Iraq today admits, "We were wrong."
John Williams, a former Foreign Office aide, said last night that publication of his document would expose how members of Tony Blair's team were locked in a mindset that made military action inevitable.
On Wednesday, ministers will hit a deadline for publishing the 2002 document, after years of resistance.
The Williams draft was written in September 2002, only days after Mr Blair, then Prime Minister, announced that the Government would publish a dossier of intelligence showing that Saddam Hussein threatened the world with his weapons.
Of course, the admission, damning as it is, carefully avoids contradicting the findings of the Hutton inquiry into the death of Dr. David Kelly. Some may recall the events of late spring and early summer 2003 following a BBC report on May 29 of that year alleging that, "Intelligence sources were unhappy about the prominence given to the claim that Iraq could launch biological or chemical weapons in 45 minutes," and charging the Blair government with "sexing up" British intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war. Leaks behind these reports were traced to Dr. Kelly, who evidently took his own life on July 17, 2003.
On September 28, 2002, President Bush in his radio address to the nation swung some heavy weights in the direction of Congress, including inflammatory false statements, in order to gain authority to wage war, which Congress did in fact give:
President Bush (Sep. 28, 2002): The Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons, is rebuilding the facilities to make more and, according to the British government, could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little as 45 minutes after the order is given. The regime has long-standing and continuing ties to terrorist groups, and there are al Qaeda terrorists inside Iraq. This regime is seeking a nuclear bomb, and with fissile material could build one within a year.
The 45 minutes claim was based on a report which was received by the SIS from a source which that Service regarded as reliable. Therefore, whether or not at some time in the future the report on which the 45 minutes claim was based is shown to be unreliable, the allegation reported by Mr Gilligan on 29 May 2003 that the Government probably knew that the 45 minutes claim was wrong before the Government decided to put it in the dossier was an allegation which was unfounded.
Will additional evidence contradicting Hutton become available following Williams's admission? Williams's draft version of the dossier was not available to Hutton at the time of the inquiry. But, "The Government has yet to decide whether to publish the draft dossier, in line with an information tribunal judgment last month," according to The Independent story.
Of course we have known the dodgy dossier was false since Alan Simpson, MP, Chair of Labour Against the War and Dr. Glen Rangwala Lecturer in politics at Cambridge University, UK published the Counter Dossier in late September 2002: "There is no case for a war on Iraq. It has not threatened to attack the US or Europe. It is not connected to al-Qa'ida. There is no evidence that it has new weapons of mass destruction, or that it possesses the means of delivering them."
Posted by The Owl on Feb 18 at 15:37. Filed under: Iraq
Our big anti-war action will kick off March 15th with Actions statewide. Bangor will have a Chain of Concern at the Paul Bunyan statue, plus a series of other events over the week that follows. These activities, along with the STATEWIDE activities throughout Maine are POSTED HERE at the new version of the From Every Village Green website. Click on the graphic below for a full program of anti-war events in the Bangor area that week and beyond:
Clicking above takes you to From Every Village Green and links to all sorts of local actions around Maine. Below the fold are some comments about the motivation for working hard to stop this war, in many ways the same motivations that existed in February and March 2003.
Clips from ultra-frigid, 500-person anti-war march & rally in Bangor, Maine, February 15, 2003 (Video courtesy Bill Phillips)
Almost ten total minutes of coverage from Ch. 5 and Ch. 2, Bangor, 11 pm reports on February 15, 2003; Be sure to watch through to the end for Ch. 2's "gas mask" story!
This all speaks for itself. Channel 5's reporter had it right: "The message of the Mainers, 'Stop the rush to war, join the 80% of the world's population that disagree with the president's war policy, and disarm Iraq through peaceful, multilateral policies.'"
GO TO THE LINK below for a page of stunning photos showing what a representative sample of that "80%" of the world's population looked like on that day:
This was no failure by any means. Everything we said then about the prevarication of Colin Powell and the rest, and the consequences of the regime going ahead and ignoring us as they did do, sadly, has come true. But Bush did not get his "second resolution," Turkey could not allow the "northern attack." There is no taste today for attacking Iran as Cheney and company dearly wish to do. The American empire, while by no means crippled, took a necessary blow that day that resonates over the five years since. It is a cornerstone day of history that cannot be erased by the forces of revision.
In 2006, Noam Chomsky was asked, "Was the antiwar movement more successful in the '60s than it is today?
Chomsky: I think it's the other way around. The United States attacked Vietnam in 1962. It took years before any protest developed. Iraq is the first time in hundreds of years of European and American history that a war was massively protested before it was launched. There was huge protest in February 2003. It had never happened in the history of the West.
It is up to all of us who care about the future, and all the world's grandchildren, to hold close to the heart the spirit of February 15, 2003.
Posted by The Owl on Feb 15 at 23:49. Filed under: Iraq
Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq (AMSI) condemns government "massacre"
While New York Times writer and Pentagon marionette Michael Gordon describes the case for a "pause" in U.S. troop withdrawals from Iraq, a mutedly-reported major offensive is underway in Mosul.
Gordon writes he's being told the "momentum" the military thinks it has in Iraq demands a "pause" in any thought of withdrawals--that for now "securing Iraq" has won over the "stretched and stressed" effect of "constant deployments."
What winning seems to mean is not just the relentless churning of U.S. troops, as is all that is important to Gordon, but devastation of the the lives of the Iraqis. Gordon has nothing to say on their account.
The U.S. offensives, most recently in the major ethnically-mixed city of Mosul, ostensibly are for rooting out "al-Qaeda strongholds." It's almost throw-away reporting in this country. Even though an article in USA Today a few days ago suggested "challenges" for the US during the Mosul operation, it is running into trouble with leaks that "had come from within the ranks of the 300 Iraqi soldiers working with the Army on almost every mission." The collaborating Iraqis seem not to be so happy to see fellow Iraqis destroyed. The neighborhood under the cross hairs evidently was warned and emptied before it could be properly smashed.
How does all this pitched raiding look from the other side? I'll just run the AMSI press release:
The Raids Campaign in Mosul Thursday, 14 February 2008
AMSI published a press release condemning the campaign of raids and searches carried out by the occupation and puppet government forces in Mosul City.
AMSI carried those forces joined this campaign fully responsible for the consequences of such violations reflecting negative impact on the lives of Iraqi citizens.
Press Release
12 February 2007, Tuesday, Mosul City witness raids and searches campaign carried out by the occupation and puppet government forces in al Wahdah and al Mithak regions imposing curfew to prevent entrance. Eyewitnesses said the residents of the city witnessed during the raids and searches campaign the barbarism and brutality where American occupation forces deliberately removed them from their homes into the streets and entered homes alone destroying everything while the government forces, a Peshmarga forces surrounded the area for protection.
This campaign comes after the initial operations carried out by these forces in each of the areas of Dumez, Palestine and Sumer.
These campaigns come at a time when the city took relief aid after disaster that befell the city by the incident of Zanjeli and others. The occupation and the government apparently moving to destruct which is intended to eliminate areas that rejected occupation and suspicious projects.
The Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq (AMSI) condemns the military campaign on the city of Mosul and carries the occupation and the current government fully responsible for the consequences of such violations reflecting negatively on the lives of Iraqi citizens.
AMSI Press Department
6 Safer 1428 / 12 February 2008
Obviously, the translation is rough. I get the gist of it. You can judge for yourself what it means.
Posted by The Owl on Feb 14 at 23:48. Filed under: Iraq
Patriot Act protest; in many ways, it's worse today
On the steps of the Bangor Public Library, February 12, 2003; Phil Worden: "At least in the Salem witch trials, the witch was put on trial."
Oh, what we did not know on that day five years ago. It would be almost three years before James Risen and Eric Lichtblau of the New York Times would publish their initial story revealing the Bush Administration programs of massive warrantless surveillance.
Five years to the day after this protest, the United States Senate in its wisdom has passed a retroactive free pass to telecom corporations who were willing to go along with official lawbreaking:
WASHINGTON: After more than a year of heated political wrangling, the Senate handed the White House a major victory Tuesday by voting to broaden the government's spy powers after giving legal protection to phone companies that cooperated in President George W. Bush's warrantless eavesdropping program.
The Senate rejected a series of amendments that would have restricted the government's surveillance powers and eliminated immunity for the phone carriers, and it voted in convincing fashion ? 69 to 29 ? to end debate and bring the issue to a final vote. That vote on the overall bill was an almost identical 68 to 29.
From Frank Church and the bipartisan oversight protections of the post-Watergate abuses in the mid-1970s to Jay Rockefeller, Dick Cheney, legalized warrantless eavesdropping and retroactive telecom amnesty in 2008 -- that vivid collapse into the sewer illustrates as potently as anything could what has happened to this country over the last eight years.
Greenwald, of course, has all of the tortured details, suggesting Lichtblau ought to just have a macro key for, "Senate handed the White House a major victory."
On other matters discussed by Phil Worden that day, the Supreme Court Hamdi versus Rumsfeld case would turn out about 1 1/2 years later to be something of a victory for due process afforded to Terror War prisoners, at least giving them a right to council and some sort of hearing. (Decision HERE, pdf) But see below, it's almost like none of us could even have imagined the sweeping Military Commissions Act that would come 3 1/2 years later, now wrapping the notion of a "fair trial" around on its own neck.
Being a U.S. citizen arrested on U.S. soild, Padilla ended up kicked from the military brig into the real court system just before the Supreme Court was about to embarrass the Administration. Just about three weeks ago, 5 1/2 years after his arrest, he finally was sentenced to 17 years. That sentence would have to be considered "light" by terror case standards. Why not death for this broken man? Let's just say Padilla faced some less-than-human treatment by his captors.
The other big detainee case, Hamden, and the subsequent Military Commissions Act of 2006 granting from Congress all sorts of horrendous powers and immunities to Bush was not discussed by us on this day five years ago. I have a couple of posts and an interview with my Maine Civil Liberties Union hero, Shenna Bellows, that covers much of that ground. You can find these HERE and HERE.
That bastardization of the rule of law is coming home to roost as, just this week, ahead of an upcoming Supreme Court ruling on the stripping of habeas corpus rights from Terror War prisoners, the Pentagon has decided to conduct six death trials against "high profile" individuals now housed at the notorious Guantanamo Bay dungeon. In this News Hour piece yesterday, the general shown in the P.R. session and the government apologist struggle mightily to describe the Commissions as something other than a kangaroo court, as Shenna Bellows and I pretty thoroughly established.
If I have to take an honest look at what has followed our good day of protest five years ago, what we were really addressing has turned out to be much, much bigger than only the Patriot Act. Our response since has not grown accordingly to match. We are far too quiet. We have failed to grow our protest against the loss of our American Constitutional rights really at all. This blog and those interviews is what I have to show. Bush, or Collins, or Snowe can just say "terrorist" and the Democrats hide under their chairs. In fact, I saw Senator Harry Reid, the worst single enabler of Republican attack on peaceful protest, actually leaning and cowering under his lectern as I watched on C-SPAN. They think civil liberty is bad politics. I'm not sure I know the answer about how to turn that around.
Correction: I just noticed I had the Military Commissions Act in the wrong decade, should be 2006, not 1996.
Posted by The Owl on Feb 12 at 21:19. Filed under: Iraq
BAGHDAD, Feb 8 (IPS) - Now that the smoke has cleared and the rubble settled, residents of a group of bombed Iraqi villages see the raid as really a U.S. loss.
Many Iraqis view the attack Jan. 10 by bombers and F-16 jets on a cluster of villages in the Latifiya district south of Baghdad as overkill.
"The use of B1 bombers shows the terrible failure of the U.S. campaign in Iraq," Iraqi Major General Muhammad al-Azzawy, a military researcher in Baghdad, told IPS. "U.S. military and political tactics failed in this area, and that is why this massacre. This kind of bombing is usually used for much bigger targets than small villages full of civilians. This was savagery."
The attack on Juboor and neighbouring villages just south of Baghdad had begun a week earlier with heavy artillery and tank bombardment. The attack followed strong resistance from members of the mainly Sunni Muslim al-Juboor tribe against groups that residents described as sectarian death squads. ...
Read the rest HERE. Previous Maine Owl posts HERE and HERE.
Posted by The Owl on Feb 11 at 17:26. Filed under: Iraq
PBS News Hour, on 2/7/03, a Friday in early February and just two days after Colin Powell mocked up anthrax at the U.N.:
JOHN ASHCROFT: Recent reporting indicates an increased likelihood that al-Qaida may attempt to attack Americans in the United States and/or abroad, in or around the end of the Hajj, a Muslim religious period ending mid- February 2003. Recent intelligence reports suggest that al-Qaida leaders have emphasized planning for attacks on apartment buildings, hotels and other soft or lightly secured targets in the United States.
TOM RIDGE: As a result of the increase in the threat level, as a result of going from yellow to orange, "elevated" to "high," specific protective measures will be taken by all federal agencies both to reduce vulnerabilities and many of them actually will, we believe, serve as a deterrent. Increased security personnel at points of entry may in fact limit points of entry and exit; enhanced identification checks, restrictions to travel around federal facilities and airports, among the many augmented security measures that will be implemented.
Now, as the attorney general mentioned, for individual Americans, we ask you... we ask you to remain aware and remain alert. One of the thoughts that I would just simply share with you: It's probably not a bad idea to sit down and just arrange some kind of a contact plan, that if an event occurred, you want to make sure you can... the family wants to get in touch with one another.
PBS correspondent Eric Lichtblau then tells Ray Suarez, "No, not really," when asked, "Were the government officials involved in this briefing very specific about what people should be on the lookout for? What kind of attack do they want us to be worried about?"
A couple of days later, American families run for the closet to tape themselves in:
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Americans have apparently heeded the U.S. government's advice to prepare for terror attacks, emptying hardware store shelves of duct tape.
On Tuesday, less than 24 hours after U.S. Fire Administrator David Paulison described a list of useful items, stores in the greater Washington, D.C. area reported a surge in sales of plastic sheeting, duct tape, and other emergency items.
These items, Paulison said, can be helpful after a biological, chemical or radiological attack.
A Lowe's hardware store in Alexandria, Virginia, said every roll of duct tape has been sold. Another Alexandria Home Depot store reported sales of duct tape tripled overnight.
"Everything that was on that newscast, we are selling a lot of it," said Rich Pierce with a Home Depot in the D.C. area.
Damn, I missed my chance to invest in the home entombment boom.
Posted by The Owl on Feb 08 at 16:49. Filed under: Iraq
I've been so heartened by the blogging threads that are recognizing and analyzing the history of how the Iraq invasion and occupation happened five years ago. I especially want to thank Vastleft at Corrente for assembling the Day of Shame project and including Maine Owl's Five years ago in war... with a highly complimentary "highly recommended."
What's the point of doing all this? I have a brief answer: This history must not flush down the memory hole. Media never connects its responsibility for elevating as "compelling" the case Powell presented with the disaster of Iraq that has followed, even though the case was known to be faulty at the time. Vastleft has a good rundown of examples of this HERE.
And, I have an even briefer answer for why this history should be traced from our perspective: For the children. People will grow up not knowing how this war happened, but just accepting it as a horrible continuing fact of their lives. If the postings I have put up and others, like Vastleft, have put up can help just a few people peel back the veneer and gain insight based on analysis of real documents and real reporting, it will have been worth it. Mainstream media will be little help for the most part. It's up to us.
Posted by The Owl on Feb 07 at 10:19. Filed under: Iraq
This is just a brief observation, a deep thought if this was Atrio's site. Everything we hear about Iraq and America's wars in general should be processed with everything we know about Powell in mind.
Some other five-year commemorations are HERE, HERE, and HERE. Jonathan Schwarz is wonderful and I'm especially impressed by the daily commemoration at Day of Shame.
Wow. Some bloggers are moved, and very moving to read today. This post by Driftglass especially got to me. You'll just have to go over there and read it...
"These tragic ghosts that cannot sleep, though poppies grow
In Colin?s fields."
Posted by The Owl on Feb 05 at 20:28. Filed under: Iraq
February 5, 2003: "Secretary of State Powell, using a mock-up of anthrax during a Security Council presentation, believes weapons will be found." (Photo and caption, CBS News)
I've written extensively over at the old blog on the Iraq presentation former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell gave on February 5. I am placing a time line of selected highlights below the fold.
I do want to recommend THISDemocracy Now! program from just a few days ago too. It featured Los Angeles Times reporter Bob Drogin talking about his new book, Curveball: Spies, Lies, and the Con Man Who Caused a War. Here's Drogin:
I think this is sort of the defining case of how we got led down the rabbit hole in Iraq. Curveball is the codename of an Iraqi?Rafiq Alwan is his name?who was a chemical engineer who defected to Germany, fled to Germany in 1999 and told the German intelligence authorities that Saddam?that he had helped mastermind a scheme to build biological weapons for Saddam Hussein. That information was never confirmed. It was never vetted. It was just sort of put out there and handed over to the Americans. ...
When you go back and you look at Colin Powell?s speech?we?re coming up to the fifth anniversary of it next month?and you go back and you read it now, and it?s entirely based on this document that the CIA put out a couple months earlier, this National Intelligence Estimate, it?s wrong on almost every single level. And that?s based on what the CIA gave him. So, you know, I don?t think it?to me, it?s not the issue of a couple of guys, it?s that this system was so utterly corrupt.
Curveball? CURVEBALL! CURRRVVVVEEBBBALLLLL!!!!
That's what the American people believed when they believed Powell. They believed in Curveball, who Powell said conveyed information that was "backed up by sources, solid sources." Powell went on, "These are not assertions. What we are giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence." These statements earn Powell a resting place in hell.
On a personal note, I recall the day well. I had textbook work going and I was in the Bat Cave punching stuff into the computer. It was entirely obvious that the whole thing was completely fitted up, as Robert Fisk and the media watch group FAIR reportedon that day and shortly thereafter, Fisk likening the absurdity of the performance to something out of Beckett.
I spoke with a old friend from Minnesota that evening. As I recall we were not so stunned that Powell had spewed baloney, but that the media case was "open and shut," as FAIR put it, "a failure of skepticism." That failure was what was truly astonishing.
Washington and its messengers obviously wanted a war for the purpose of taking and controlling Iraq. But to this day you know what? That notion, that the war was about taking an oil-rich country by force, is still little examined in media and academic circles, unless you count the "far out" statements last fall by former head banker Alan Greenspan.
Below are some key stops on the time line from February 5, 2003 on. They are just a few highlights of a much larger story. Many of the references comes from archives of the old blog, Deep Blade, where lots of good information on this still exists. [The time line is now final.]
The Turkish air force bombed 70 targets
inside Iraq in Kurdistan, which they allege are bases for the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) guerrilla group. The PKK has killed scores of Turks in recent months, before retreating to safe haven in Iraq.
The US military on Monday mistakenly bombed a home in Iskandariya
south of Baghdad, killing 13 persons including women and a child, according to Iraq police. They blamed indirect and faulty communication with the local Awakening Council. There will be more outrage about this incident in Iraq than will be reported in the US press....
Meanwhile, the horse race sucks all of the air out of every other story.
If you don't get the pop culture reference, in the first season of Fox's reactionary-minded thrill show "24" had all of its secret dealings while the clock was ticking "between x am and y am on the day of the California presidential primary."
Posted by The Owl on Feb 05 at 10:30. Filed under: Iraq
Latest U.S.-led Iraq offensive said to be aimed at "al Qaeda" -- just like the big one last month
You tell me, Does this sound like an Iraq where "violence, is improving, and life is returning," as President Bush likes to present these days?
It's been three weeks now since the U.S. rained bombs on the Arab Jabour district, where Arabic-language reports suggested something other than a surgical cleansing of "al Qaeda" had been the result. According to these reports, the concept of pre-bomb warning by the Americans being some sort of absolution of responsibility for civilian destruction appears to have been a P.R. sham:
An initial report from Al-Hayat says many innocent residents of Arab Jabour who didn't leave following a warning were killed in the bombing, and other innocent residents' homes and lands were destroyed, but on the other hand a local Awakening person said only terrorist hideouts were targeted. The reporter summarizes the state of the question as "murky"....
Many residents who escaped were unable to return to their homes, but some who did return affirmed the destruction of their homes and agricultural lands, while the American forces and the Iraqi government have released no report on the killed and wounded or on material damage.
Ayad al-Ubeidi, 35, a resident of Arab Jabour, said the American forces did not allow the families in the target area sufficient time to leave, and that led to the killing of many of them. He said the Americans distributed leaflets some hours before the attack, asking residents to leave their homes. However, Saif Salman, a member of the Arab Jabour Awakening, said the Americans asked the area residents to move to a secure area 10 days before the attack, but not all of them were able to do that.
These are heavy-handed, military "solutions" that are not properly reported to the American people. This allows President Bush, Senator McCain, and many other U.S. officials to describe an Iraq that is a pure fantasy. Sadly, they are lying, as should be no surprise to anyone familiar with how they got us into this in the first place.
Independent reporter Dahr Jamail is a lonely voice these days pointing out the realities. He can be heard on this excellent edition of the syndicated radio program, Counterspin, telling it like it is. The Jamail interview begins about 10 minutes into the 28-minute AUDIO FILE, PLAY IT HERE:
Maine Owl is a news, comment & nature photography blog. The Owl is proprietor. He is a long-time peace & justice activist now residing in the Bangor, Maine area. Ms. Owl occasionally blogs here as Tammy. Our team also is enhanced by Gerald, formerly of Turn Maine Blue and now of the smashing blog Dirigo Blue.
