War of the Quailhawks

Don’t imagine for a second that there’s anything idle or far-fetched about connecting the shooting at the Armstrong ranch to the invasion of Iraq: Militarily speaking, top Bush administration officials considered a war against Saddam’s Iraq the equivalent of the sort of farm-raised “hunt” that Cheney (and, among others, Vice-Presidential pal and “cabal” partner Donald Rumsfeld) have engaged in for years.

Let’s recall the basics here. In 1991, after Saddam had sent his army into Kuwait (possibly believing that the U.S. had given him the green light to do so), George H.W. Bush formed a large coalition of nations and launched Operation Desert Storm against Saddam’s forces at a time when they were assumed to be reasonably formidable. In the brief conflict that followed, however, the American military (with its coalition of largely paying, rather than fighting, allies in tow) proved that assessment blindingly wrong by obliterating significant portions of the Iraqi military, while losing hardly a soldier in battle.

Desert Storm was, in truth, less a war than a mass execution (as, historically, colonial wars often were). If Vietnam was America’s first “living-room war,” this was the first screen war at the front. Cameras shooting through the night-vision gun sights of Apache AH-64 attack helicopters, for instance, caught graphic scenes of confused and helpless Iraqi soldiers being blown to bits by unseen attackers. “The Iraqi soldiers looked like ghostly sheep flushed from a pen — bewildered and terrified, jarred from sleep and fleeing their bunkers under a hellish fire,” wrote the Los Angeles Times’ John Balzar, who viewed the film with officers of the 18th Airborne Corps at a briefing tent on the Saudi border. Most of the killing took place this way, from the air or long distance (with the exception of a moment when American troops in bulldozers ploughed-in Iraqi trenches at the Kuwaiti border, burying Iraqi conscripts alive).

The final act of this “war” involved an out-and-out slaughter of Iraqi troops (and the wholesale destruction of their vehicles) as they fled Kuwait City on what came to be known as “the highway of death.” American pilots over that highway famously referred to the battle as “a turkey shoot” or as “shooting fish in a barrel,” though (had they been rich enough) they might, even then, have said, “Like quail at the Armstrong ranch.” Later, Desert Storm Commander Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf would complain that the President had cut off the “turkey shoot” and ended the war too quickly.

Tom Engelhardt | TomDispatch.com (read more. . .)

February 22nd, 2006 || PermaLink

US Force-Feeding Prisoners in Torture Camp

The Bush administration is force-feeding the hunger strikers for political reasons. If any of the Guantánamo prisoners dies as a result of the hunger strike, it would be embarrassing to the Bush administration, which claims it treats the detainees “humanely.”

The Human Rights Commission called on the US government to ensure that the authorities at Guantánamo Bay do not force-feed any detainee who is capable of forming a rational judgement and is aware of the consequences of refusing food. “The United States Government should invite independent health professionals to monitor hunger strikers, in a manner consistent with international ethical standards, throughout the hunger strike,” the commission recommended.

In its report, the commission also recommended that the US government “close the Guantánamo Bay detention facilities without further delay. Until the closure, and possible transfer of detainees to pre-trial detention facilities on United States territory, the Government should refrain from any practice amounting to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment .”

The commission further said that “the United States Government should ensure that all allegations of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment are thoroughly investigated by an independent authority, and that all persons found to have perpetrated, ordered, tolerated or condoned such practices, up to the highest level of military and political command, are brought to justice.”

Not surprisingly, the Bush administration rejected the commission’s report, saying that the rapporteurs who prepared it did not interview people at the prison camp. The commission relied on interviews with former detainees, public documents, media repots, lawyers and questions answered by the US government. The Bush administration invited the rapporteurs to visit the Guantánamo camp, but refused to allow them to speak with the prisoners.

The overwhelming majority of the prisoners our government is holding at Guantánamo are not terrorists or jihadists. Many were picked up in Afghanistan and other countries and sold to the US military by bounty hunters. Of the roughly 500 men there, only 9 have been designated for trial on criminal charges.

Marjorie Cohn | t r u t h o u t (read more. . .)

February 21st, 2006 || PermaLink

I Weep For Our Errors in Iraq

Not many years ago, I used to say that our troops were some of the best peacekeepers in the world. Having learned their lessons in Northern Ireland, their performance in Bosnia, East Timor, and Sierra Leone - and in leading the establishment of the peace-keeping force in Kabul - was exemplary.
The Department for International Development, of which I was Secretary of State, provided some funding, and the troops worked in ways that enabled them to get to know the local people. They helped with emergency repairs, set up football clubs, and got involved in other activities. The secret of the troops’ success was that they treated local people with respect. And so - despite all the deceit on the road to war in Iraq - it was easy to believe the claims that life was better in Basra than Baghdad partly because our troops knew how to behave.

We can no longer be under that illusion. The video footage that came to light last week showing the beatings of young men by British troops - and the decision of the people of Basra to refuse all contact with British forces - suggests that all is not as we were led to believe. We can no longer feel the same pride in the performance of our armed forces. And their loss of reputation makes them more vulnerable in Iraq and Afghanistan.

On top of what we have just learnt about British military conduct, we have seen more despicable photographs of the mistreatment by the American military of prisoners in Abu Ghraib. Quite apart from anything else, they are a reminder that at no time since the scandal emerged in 2004 has there been a proper inquiry into it, and that nobody in a position of authority has been held to account.

All this in a week when a UN report called for the closure of Guantanamo Bay, and in which our courts told the Government that it should make representations on behalf of British residents held in Guantanamo Bay.

Clare Short | Independent/UK (read more. . .)

February 20th, 2006 || PermaLink

My Epiphany: From Reaganaut To Anti-War Radical

When I saw that the neoconservative response to 9/11 was to turn a war against stateless terrorism into military attacks on Muslim states, I realized that the Bush administration was committing a strategic blunder with open-ended disastrous consequences for the US that, in the end, would destroy Bush, the Republican Party, and the conservative movement.

…….

Before flinching at my assertion of blackmail, ask yourself why President Bush refuses to obey the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The purpose of the FISA court is to ensure that administrations do not spy for partisan political reasons. The warrant requirement is to ensure that a panel of independent federal judges hears a legitimate reason for the spying, thus protecting a president from the temptation to abuse the powers of government. The only reason for the Bush administration to evade the court is that the Bush administration had no legitimate reasons for its spying. This should be obvious even to a naif.

The United States is undergoing a coup against the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, civil liberties, and democracy itself. The “liberal press” has been co-opted. As everyone must know by now, the New York Times has totally failed its First Amendment obligations, allowing Judith Miller to make war propaganda for the Bush administration, suppressing for an entire year the news that the Bush administration was illegally spying on American citizens, and denying coverage to Al Gore’s speech that challenged the criminal deeds of the Bush administration.

…….

Americans need to understand that many interests are using the “war on terror” to achieve their agendas. The Federalist Society is using the “war on terror” to achieve its agenda of concentrating power in the executive and packing the Supreme Court to this effect. The neocons are using the war to achieve their agenda of Israeli hegemony in the Middle East. Police agencies are using the war to remove constraints on their powers and to make themselves less accountable. Republicans are using the war to achieve one-party rule—theirs. The Bush administration is using the war to avoid accountability and evade constraints on executive powers. Arms industries, or what President Eisenhower called the “military-industrial complex,” are using the war to fatten profits. Terrorism experts are using the war to gain visibility. Security firms are using it to gain customers.

Readers can add to this list at will. The lack of debate gives carte blanche to these agendas.

One certainty prevails. Bush is committing America to a path of violence and coercion, and he is getting away with it.

Paul Craig Roberts | VDare.com (read more. . .)

February 19th, 2006 || PermaLink

The Enemy

We hear a great deal about enemies these days. Don’t criticize the war, or you’ll embolden the enemy. The enemy is clever and cruel. Stick with the White House and we’ll defeat the enemy. Since the Bush administration no longer likes to mention the name Osama bin “Stayin’ Alive” Laden in public, lest everyone remember a dramatic promise long broken, any specific definition of an enemy changes with the moment.

Sometimes, the enemy is in Iraq, and we fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them over here. Sometimes, the enemy is in Iran, allegedly toiling with all its collective might to manufacture nuclear weapons. Sometimes, the enemy is in Palestine, where Hamas used George W. Bush’s exported democracy to take over the government. Sometimes, the enemy is an American face on a television offering criticism of the White House. Last week, the enemy was a blogger making a political expression.

The enemy is never in Saudi Arabia, though that nation is the very birthing bed of international terrorism. The enemy is never in Israel, though that nation’s far-right leadership has been a good deal of the impetus behind the Bush administration’s calamitous push into Iraq. The enemy is never in China, even when they smack our planes out of the sky, because they own a substantial portion of our debt. The enemy is never in Pakistan, though that nation’s fundamentalist wing allies itself with the Taliban, and though they actually do possess nuclear weapons. The enemy is occasionally mentioned as being in North Korea, but not often, because we want no part of that fight.

William Rivers Pitt | t r u t h o u t (read more. . .)

February 18th, 2006 || PermaLink

Leaving a Permanent Mark on Iraq

Recently, Oliver Poole, a British reporter, visited another of the American “super-bases,” the still-under-construction al-Asad Airbase (Football and pizza point to US staying for long haul). He observes, of “the biggest Marine camp in western Anbar province,” that “this stretch of desert increasingly resembles a slice of US suburbia.” In addition to the requisite Subway and pizza outlets, there is a football field, a Hertz rent-a-car office, a swimming pool, and a movie theater showing the latest flicks. Al-Asad is so large — such bases may cover 15-20 square miles — that it has two bus routes and, if not traffic lights, at least red stop signs at all intersections.

There are at least four such “super-bases” in Iraq, none of which have anything to do with “withdrawal” from that country. Quite the contrary, these bases are being constructed as little American islands of eternal order in an anarchic sea. Whatever top administration officials and military commanders say — and they always deny that we seek “permanent” bases in Iraq — facts-on-the-ground speak with another voice entirely. These bases practically scream “permanency.”

Unfortunately, there’s a problem here. American reporters adhere to a simple rule: The words “permanent,” “bases,” and “Iraq” should never be placed in the same sentence, not even in the same paragraph; in fact, not even in the same news report. While a LexisNexis search of the last 90 days of press coverage of Iraq produced a number of examples of the use of those three words in the British press, the only U.S. examples that could be found occurred when 80% of Iraqis (obviously somewhat unhinged by their difficult lives) insisted in a poll that the United States might indeed desire to establish bases and remain permanently in their country; or when “no” or “not” was added to the mix via any American official denial.

Tom Engelhardt | Tomdispatch.com (read more. . .)

February 17th, 2006 || PermaLink

Unwarranted Violence Can Never be Right

The brutal violence of Muslim radicals is raw, personal and shocking. They blow themselves up; they plant their own improvised explosive devices; they brandish their own swords over the heads of kneeling hostages; they light their own torches to commit arson.

But we were far away when our troops used a gruesome napalm-like chemical weapon on civilians during the assault of Fallujah. The revelations about torture and humiliation of prisoners at Abu Ghraib seemed so distant from our daily reality that conservative talk-show host Rush Limbaugh compared it to a playful fraternity hazing. We shrug to learn our military has imprisoned wives as levers to flush out husbands suspected of working with the enemy. We are unmoved by ”collateral damage,” casually excusing the deaths of uninvolved civilians as a necessary byproduct of war.

We embrace the dialogue of violence as does the enemy. Slash-and-burn columnist Ann Coulter elicited energetic cheering when she disparaged Muslims as ”ragheads” in a speech Friday before the Conservative Political Action Conference. As any propagandist knows, it’s much easier to countenance violence and death delivered against a people once they have been dehumanized to mere slurs.

It’s all violence; it’s all ugly. If you’re inclined to excuse it by saying, ”Look, this is war,” then, Yes, it’s all war. It’s what we asked for when we suspended the justified police action of crushing al Qaeda and took on as our new quest the military reformation of Arab Muslim world. Yet we cry ”foul” when the enemy refuses to play by our rules and capitulate according to our hoped-for script.

This is why our outrage over the embassy burnings borders on fatuous: The majority in America accepted this path of unjustified war, a path with no rules or standards other than those of the jungle. We start wars because we want to. They torch embassies because they can. Tit for tat.

We as a nation have forgotten the importance of engaging in warfare only for the right reasons. There is more at stake than the military contest; there is the need to prove to the uninvolved — and even the enemy — that our side is indeed the righteous side. Succeed in this, and our side not only wins; it earns the authority to lead.

I’m often asked what we should have done after the unprovoked, unconscionable 9/11 attacks. What we should not have done is answer with an unprovoked, unconscionable attack of our own. The illusion that we were getting even for 9/11 felt good for a while, as if we could just win and be done with it. Instead, we now find ourselves trapped in an escalating spiral of unjustified violence. Even if we find a way to ”win” such a contest, we will still lose. We will have lost our souls.

Perhaps that would complete the transit. We lost our minds after 9/11. For one vicious act committed against us, America threw away its centuries-long tradition of hewing to ideals — just when we needed it most — and replaced it with the more primitive notion of domination through violence. We’re no longer campaigning for noble ideals to triumph over deplorable ones. We’re campaigning for us to triumph over them.

When you’re not fighting for, and in accordance with, noble principles, it’s just violence.

Robert Steinback | Miami Herald (read more. . .)

February 16th, 2006 || PermaLink