The United States-led occupation of Iraq is a dead end, politically, militarily, morally and economically
The national popular resistance in Iraq is the sole legal and legitimate representative of the Iraqi people and the Republic of Iraq
Only the national popular resistance can and has authority to determine a path towards peace and stability in Iraq
In 2005, the Jury of Conscience of the World Tribunal on Iraq stated clearly the illegality and immorality of the US-led invasion, occupation and destruction of Iraq as a state and as a nation.
Legality is with Iraq While the litany of US-authored illegalities in Iraq runs almost beyond measure, international law affirms:
· The US-led occupation of Iraq is explicitly prohibited under international law from instituting changes aimed at permanently altering the foundational structures of the Iraqi state, including its judiciary, economy, political institutions and social fabric.[i] Further, and given that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was unequivocally illegal under international law, not only are the US-designed Iraqi permanent constitution and National Assembly illegal, every law, treaty, agreement and contract signed in Iraq since the illegal invasion and subsequent occupation began is illegal. All states are obliged under international law not to recognize as legal the consequences of illegal acts by other states.[ii] · The US-led occupation is prohibited under international law from establishing any long-term economic contract that has not been agreed upon by a sovereign Iraqi government representing the sovereign Iraqi people.[iii] Since no such government can, by definition, exist under occupation, all attempts to bind the future of Iraqi oil to foreign multinationals — particularly through unfavorable “Product Sharing Agreements” (PSAs) — are illegal and null and void. · The US-led occupation is unequivocally prohibited under international law from seeking or permitting the division of Iraq into three or more federal units. Any such outcome would be a grave breach of the laws of war that govern belligerent occupation. It is equally illegal that the US-led occupation engenders and foments ethnic and sectarian strife in order to realize policies opposed to the interests of the Iraqi people.[iv] · The policies of the US-led occupation having failed, occupation authorities have no right to attempt to subjugate Iraqis by force. Conducting punitive operations that indiscriminately affect civilians across entire cities — e.g., present plans in motion to pacify Baghdad for the fourth time — is illegal and imputable under international law.[v] The US-led occupation and the feudal proxies it established are committing collective punishment, crimes against humanity, using prohibited weapons and violating the laws of war by not recognizing the combatants of the resistance as combatants.[vi] · The ongoing campaign of murder, torture, rape and terror against the Sunni constituency in Iraq, including the operation of death squads financed by the US, constitutes genocide under the 1951 Genocide Convention.[vii] The failure of US-led occupation forces to protect, as they are obliged under international law, the right to life and to ensure the security of all Iraqi citizens — indiscriminate of confessional affiliation or any other distinction — is a war crime and a crime against humanity.[viii] · Only the national popular resistance is legal in Iraq. It’s legality and legitimacy is enshrined in numerous instruments of international law, including foundational and peremptory documents such as the UN Charter.[ix] It should be recognized as a combatant army and as the continuity of the Iraqi state.
Only resistance is legal Only the national popular resistance in Iraq — armed, political and civil — is empowered, both as an objective fact and under international law, to determine a path towards peace and stability in Iraq. No other player, certainly not US-installed stooge politicians in a 10-kilometre square “Green Zone”, can speak on behalf of the Iraqi people or embodies the Republic of Iraq.
Full responsibility for the disasters that have befallen the Iraqi people lies with the US, its failed “political process” and failed security measures. No escalation can provide a solution. The occupation must end and end now.
Abdul Ilah Albayaty Hana Albayaty Ian Douglas
[i] Articles 43 and 55 of The Hague IV Regulations on Laws and Customs of War on Land, 1907; Articles 54 and 64 of The Fourth Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in the Time of War, 1949. [ii] Article 41(2) of the United Nations International Law Commission’s Draft Articles on State Responsibility, representing the rule of customary international law (and adopted in UN General Assembly Resolution 56/83 of 28 January 2002, “Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts”), prevents states from benefiting from their own illegal acts: “No State shall recognize as lawful a situation created by a serious breach [of an obligation arising under a peremptory norm of general international law]” (emphasis added); Section III(e), UN General Assembly Resolution 36/103 of 14 December 1962, “Declaration on the Inadmissibility of Intervention and Interference in the Internal Affairs of States”. [iii] UN General Assembly Resolution 1803 (XVII) of 14 December 1962, "Permanent Sovereignty over Natural Resources". [iv] UN General Assembly Resolution 1514 (XV) of 14 December 1960, “Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples”. [v] Article 50 of The Hague IV Regulations, 1907; Article 33, The Fourth Geneva Convention, 1949: “Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited”; Article 51, the 1st Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions, 1977. [vi] Article 3, The Hague IV Regulations, 1907: “The armed forces of the belligerent parties may consist of combatants and non-combatants. In the case of capture by the enemy, both have a right to be treated as prisoners of war.” [vii] Articles 2 and 3 of Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 1951. [viii] Principle VI, Principles of International Law Recognized in the Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal and in the Judgment of the Tribunal, adopted by the United Nations International Law Commission, 1951. [ix] The right to self-determination, national independence, territorial integrity, national unity, and sovereignty without external interference has been affirmed numerous times by a number of UN bodies, including the UN Security Council, UN General Assembly, UN Commission on Human Rights, the International Law Commission and the International Court of Justice. The principle of self-determination provides that where forcible action has been taken to suppress the right, force may be used in order to counter this and achieve self-determination. The Commission on Human Rights has routinely reaffirmed the legitimacy of struggling against occupation by all available means, including armed struggle (CHR Resolution No. 3 XXXV, 21 February 1979 and CHR Resolution No. 1989/19, 6 March 1989). Explicitly, UN General Assembly Resolution 37/43, adopted 3 December 1982: “Reaffirms the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial and foreign domination and foreign occupation by all available means, including armed struggle.” (See also UN General Assembly Resolutions 1514, 3070, 3103, 3246, 3328, 3382, 3421, 3481, 31/91, 32/42 and 32/154). Article 1(4) of the 1st Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions, 1977, considers self-determination struggles as international armed conflict situations. The Geneva Declaration on Terrorism states: “As repeatedly recognized by the United Nations General Assembly, peoples who are fighting against colonial domination and alien occupation and against racist regimes in the exercise of their right of self-determination have the right to use force to accomplish their objectives within the framework of international humanitarian law. Such lawful uses of force must not be confused with acts of international terrorism.” In the exercise of their right to self-determination, peoples under colonial and alien domination have the right “to struggle ... and to seek and receive support, in accordance with the principles of the Charter” and in conformity with the Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation among States. It is in these terms that Article 7 of the Definition of Aggression (General Assembly Resolution 3314 (XXIX) of 14 December 1974) recognizes the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples under colonial or alien domination. The Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation among States (General Assembly resolution 2625 (XXV)) cites the principle that, “States shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State, or in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations.” Recognition by the UN of the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples under colonial and alien domination or occupation is in line with the general prohibition of the use of force enshrined in the UN Charter foremost because a state which forcibly subjugates a people to colonial or alien domination is committing an unlawful act as defined by international law, and the subject people, in the exercise of its inherent right of self-defence, may fight to defend and attain its right to self-determination. |
| شبكة البصرة |
| السبت 15 رمضان 1427 / 7 تشرين الاول 2006 |
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Sunday, February 18, 2007
Only resistance is legal
Saturday, February 17, 2007
Web of Deceit : Saddam Hussein - The Trial You'll Never See
Made for European television this film was never broadcast in North America.
Barry Lando and Michel Despratx's documentary
The horrifying truth is the extent to which we in the west have been complicit. Check out Lando's new book "Web of Deceit" and his blog at http://barrylando.com/
To See The Video Click on this Part1
Barry Lando and Michel Despratx's documentary
The horrifying truth is the extent to which we in the west have been complicit. Check out Lando's new book "Web of Deceit" and his blog at http://barrylando.com/
To See The Video Click on this Part1
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
The World Can Halt Bush’s Crimes By Dumping the Dollar
By Paul Craig Roberts
What would be the consequences of a US or Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear energy sites?
0212/07 "ICH" -- -- At the 2006 Perdana Global Peace Forum, Australian medical scientist Dr. Helen Caldicott provided an authoritative analysis: [VIDEO] of the devastating impact on human life that would result from the radiation release from such an attack.
Dr. Caldicott described the catastrophic deaths that would result from a conventional attack on nuclear facilities and the long-term increase in cancer deaths from the radiation release.
Should the attack be made with nuclear weapons--as some of Bush’s criminally insane neoconservative advisers advocate--the populations of many countries would suffer for generations from radioactive particles in air, water, and food chains. Deaths would number in the many millions.
Such an attack justified in the name of “American security” and “American hegemony” would constitute the rawest form of evil the world has ever seen, far surpassing in evil the atrocities of the Nazi and Communist regimes.
Dr. Caldicott detailed the horrible long-term consequences for the Iraqi population from the US military’s current use of depleted uranium in explosive ammunition used in Iraq. Caldicott explained that “depleted” does not mean depleted of radiation. She explained that each time such ammunition is used, radioactive particles are released in the air and are absorbed into people’s lungs. We are yet to see the horrific civilian casualty rate of the American invasion--or the true casualty rate among US troops.
Dr. Caldicott expressed bewilderment why the rest of the world does not stand up to the US and force a halt to its crimes against humanity.
One man heard her--Vladimir Putin, President of Russia.
On February 10 at the 43rd Munich Security Conference, President Putin told the world’s assembled political leaders that the US was trying to establish a “uni-polar world,” which he defined as “one single center of power, one single center of force and one single master.”
This goal, Putin said, was a “formula for disaster.”
“The United States,” Putin said, truthfully, “has overstepped its borders in all spheres” and “has imposed itself on other states.”
The Russian leader declared: “We see no kind of restraint--a hyper-inflated use of force.”
To avoid catastrophe, Putin said a reconsideration of the entire existing architecture of global security was necessary.
Putin’s words of truth fell on many deaf ears. US Senator John McCain, America’s most idiotic and dangerous “leader” after Bush and Cheney, equated Putin’s legitimate criticism of the US with “confrontation.”
America’s new puppets--the states of central and Eastern Europe and the secretary general of NATO, no longer a treaty for the defense of Europe but a military force enlisted in America’s quest for empire--lined up with McCain’s argument that Russia was in fundamental conflict “with the core values of Euro-Atlantic democracies.”
Even the BBC’s defense and security correspondent, Rob Watson, jumped on the American propaganda bandwagon, tagging Putin’s speech a revival of the cold war.
No delegate at the security conference stood up to state the obvious fact that it is not Russia that is invading countries under pretexts as false as Hitler’s and setting up weapons systems on foreign soil in order to achieve military hegemony.
The reception given to Putin’s words made it clear to Russia, China, and every country not bribed, threatened or purchased into participation in America’s drive for world hegemony that the US has no interest whatsoever in peace. Intelligent people realize that American claims to be a moral and democratic force are mere pretense behind which hides a policy of military aggression.
The US, Putin said, has gone “from one conflict to another without achieving a fully-fledged solution to any of them.”
Putin has repeatedly stressed Russia’s peaceful intentions and desire to focus on its economy and to avoid a new arms race. In his speech on the 60th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany, Putin said: “I am convinced that there is no alternative to our friendship and our fraternity. With our closest neighbors and all countries of the world, Russia is prepared to build a kind of relationship which is not only based on lessons of the past but is also directed into a shared future.”
In his 2006 state of the nation speech, Putin noted that America’s military budget is 25 times larger than Russia’s. He compared the Bush Regime to a wolf who eats whom he wants without listening. Putin is being demonized by US propagandists, because he insists upon Russia being a politically and economically independent state.
The Bush Regime has taken the US outside the boundaries of international law and is acting unilaterally, falsely declaring American military aggression to be “defensive” and in the interests of peace. Much of the world realizes the hypocrisy and danger in the Bush Regime’s justification of the unbridled use of US military power, but no countries except other nuclear powers can challenge American aggression, and then only at the risk of all life on earth.
The solution is nonmilitary challenge.
The Bush Regime’s ability to wage war is dependent upon foreign financing. The Regime’s wars are financed with red ink, which means the hundreds of billions of dollars must be borrowed. As American consumers are spending more than they earn on consumption, the money cannot be borrowed from Americans.
The US is totally dependent upon foreigners to finance its budget and trade deficits. By financing these deficits, foreign governments are complicit in the Bush Regime’s military aggressions and war crimes. The Bush Regime’s two largest lenders are China and Japan. It is ironic that Japan, the only nation to experience nuclear attack by the US, is banker to the Bush Regime as it prepares a possible nuclear attack on Iran.
If the rest of the world would simply stop purchasing US Treasuries, and instead dump their surplus dollars into the foreign exchange market, the Bush Regime would be overwhelmed with economic crisis and unable to wage war. The arrogant hubris associated with the “sole superpower” myth would burst like the bubble it is.
The collapse of the dollar would also end the US government’s ability to subvert other countries by purchasing their leaders to do America’s will.
The demise of the US dollar is only a question of time. It would save the world from war and devastation if the dollar is brought to its demise before the Bush Regime launches its planned attack on Iran.
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Stop Bush Before He Kills Again
By Robert Scheer
01/25/07 "ICHBlog" --- Stop him before he kills again. That is the judgment of the American people, and indeed of the entire world, as to the performance of our president, and no State of the Union address can erase that dismal verdict.
01/25/07 "ICHBlog" --- Stop him before he kills again. That is the judgment of the American people, and indeed of the entire world, as to the performance of our president, and no State of the Union address can erase that dismal verdict.
President Bush has accomplished what Osama bin Laden only dreamed of by disgracing the model of American democracy in the eyes of the world. According to an exhaustive BBC poll, nearly three-quarters of those polled in 25 countries oppose the Bush policy on Iraq, and more than two-thirds believe the U.S. presence in the Middle East destabilizes the region.
In other words, the almost universal support the United States enjoyed after the 9/11 terrorist attacks has been completely squandered, as a majority of the world's people now believe that our role in the entire world is negative.
"The thing that comes up repeatedly is not just anger about Iraq," said Steven Kull, the director of the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland, which helped conduct the global poll. "The common theme is hypocrisy. The reaction tends to be: 'You were a champion of a certain set of rules. Now you are breaking your own rules, so you are being hypocritical.' "
More depressing, that judgment is shared by those who know us best: our allies in Britain, the only country still willing to share our sacrifices in Bush's once ballyhooed "Coalition of the Willing." Despite British Prime Minister Tony Blair's dogged support of his American chum, fully 81 percent of Britons told the BBC they are opposed to U.S. actions in Iraq, while a scant 14 percent still believe the United States is a stabilizing force in the Mideast.
But it is not just our failure in that all-important region that disgraces us. Those around the world who still believe we play a positive global role has dropped to a miserable 29 percent, strikingly similar to Bush's overall performance numbers at home, according to the most recent CBS poll. So it's true: Bush is "a uniter, not a divider" -- uniting people across the world in their opposition to his policies.
With a whopping 71 percent saying in an ABC-Washington Post poll that the country is seriously off track, the Post called it "the highest such expression of national pessimism in more than a decade." And that's at a time when the economy, presumed to be the all-important bellwether, is in halfway decent shape.
It's the war, stupid, and ending it is the major concern of most Americans, while all other issues are in single digits of importance to them.
In a shocking twist, Americans are now turning to the Democrats in Congress for leadership on foreign policy. "Three in 5 Americans trust congressional Democrats more than Bush to deal with Iraq, and the same proportion want Congress to try to block his troop-increase plan," reported the Post. That is a mandate the Democrats ignore at their own peril.
Even an increasing number of congressional Republicans, most recently Sen. John Warner of Virginia, have made it clear that ending this disastrous adventure is vital to their electoral future. Warner, along with several moderates in both parties, proposed legislation on Tuesday opposing Bush's sending of 21,500 additional troops to Iraq.
In fact, it seems as if everyone gets it except the president and those still hunkered down with him in the White House. "They've backed themselves into a tough corner," GOP pollster Tony Fabrizio told the Post, "and the problem is his continued insistence for the troop increase, which flies in the face of what 70 percent of Americans want."
He added that it makes Bush seem to say, "I'll listen to you, but I'll do what I want anyway." Hardly the message that the leader of the world's greatest experiment in representative democracy should be sending to the world. It is a message voters in the midterm election soundly rejected, along with the association of this great country with torture and chicanery, and it is the basis of what the Post calls a mainstream America "honeymoon" with the Democrats.
Americans understand in their gut that the long-term consequences of disillusionment with democracy, here and abroad, would be disastrous. In the same way Congress repudiated an out-of-control president three decades ago, the House and Senate must show the world today that our celebrated system of checks and balances is not just a fanciful mirage.
Spreading the ideal of democracy throughout the world remains a compelling obligation of those who enjoy freedom, making this an excellent occasion to demonstrate that we still possess a system capable of holding a deceitful and egomaniacal leader accountable.
In other words, the almost universal support the United States enjoyed after the 9/11 terrorist attacks has been completely squandered, as a majority of the world's people now believe that our role in the entire world is negative.
"The thing that comes up repeatedly is not just anger about Iraq," said Steven Kull, the director of the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland, which helped conduct the global poll. "The common theme is hypocrisy. The reaction tends to be: 'You were a champion of a certain set of rules. Now you are breaking your own rules, so you are being hypocritical.' "
More depressing, that judgment is shared by those who know us best: our allies in Britain, the only country still willing to share our sacrifices in Bush's once ballyhooed "Coalition of the Willing." Despite British Prime Minister Tony Blair's dogged support of his American chum, fully 81 percent of Britons told the BBC they are opposed to U.S. actions in Iraq, while a scant 14 percent still believe the United States is a stabilizing force in the Mideast.
But it is not just our failure in that all-important region that disgraces us. Those around the world who still believe we play a positive global role has dropped to a miserable 29 percent, strikingly similar to Bush's overall performance numbers at home, according to the most recent CBS poll. So it's true: Bush is "a uniter, not a divider" -- uniting people across the world in their opposition to his policies.
With a whopping 71 percent saying in an ABC-Washington Post poll that the country is seriously off track, the Post called it "the highest such expression of national pessimism in more than a decade." And that's at a time when the economy, presumed to be the all-important bellwether, is in halfway decent shape.
It's the war, stupid, and ending it is the major concern of most Americans, while all other issues are in single digits of importance to them.
In a shocking twist, Americans are now turning to the Democrats in Congress for leadership on foreign policy. "Three in 5 Americans trust congressional Democrats more than Bush to deal with Iraq, and the same proportion want Congress to try to block his troop-increase plan," reported the Post. That is a mandate the Democrats ignore at their own peril.
Even an increasing number of congressional Republicans, most recently Sen. John Warner of Virginia, have made it clear that ending this disastrous adventure is vital to their electoral future. Warner, along with several moderates in both parties, proposed legislation on Tuesday opposing Bush's sending of 21,500 additional troops to Iraq.
In fact, it seems as if everyone gets it except the president and those still hunkered down with him in the White House. "They've backed themselves into a tough corner," GOP pollster Tony Fabrizio told the Post, "and the problem is his continued insistence for the troop increase, which flies in the face of what 70 percent of Americans want."
He added that it makes Bush seem to say, "I'll listen to you, but I'll do what I want anyway." Hardly the message that the leader of the world's greatest experiment in representative democracy should be sending to the world. It is a message voters in the midterm election soundly rejected, along with the association of this great country with torture and chicanery, and it is the basis of what the Post calls a mainstream America "honeymoon" with the Democrats.
Americans understand in their gut that the long-term consequences of disillusionment with democracy, here and abroad, would be disastrous. In the same way Congress repudiated an out-of-control president three decades ago, the House and Senate must show the world today that our celebrated system of checks and balances is not just a fanciful mirage.
Spreading the ideal of democracy throughout the world remains a compelling obligation of those who enjoy freedom, making this an excellent occasion to demonstrate that we still possess a system capable of holding a deceitful and egomaniacal leader accountable.
Robert Scheer is the co-author of The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us About Iraq.
See more of Robert Scheer at TruthDig.
See more of Robert Scheer at TruthDig.Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Dear Mr. President: Send Even MORE Troops (and you go, too!) ...from Michael Moore
Dear Mr. President,
Thanks for your address to the nation. It's good to know you still want to talk to us after how we behaved in November.
Listen, can I be frank? Sending in 20,000 more troops just ain't gonna do the job. That will only bring the troop level back up to what it was last year. And we were losing the war last year! We've already had over a million troops serve some time in Iraq since 2003. Another few thousand is simply not enough to find those weapons of mass destruction! Er, I mean... bringing those responsible for 9/11 to justice! Um, scratch that. Try this -- BRING DEMOCRACY TO THE MIDDLE EAST! YES!!!
You've got to show some courage, dude! You've got to win this one! C'mon, you got Saddam! You hung 'im high! I loved watching the video of that -- just like the old wild west! The bad guy wore black! The hangmen were as crazy as the hangee! Lynch mobs rule!!!
Look, I have to admit I feel very sorry for the predicament you're in. As Ricky Bobby said, "If you're not first, you're last." And you being humiliated in front of the whole world does NONE of us Americans any good.
Sir, listen to me. You have to send in MILLIONS of troops to Iraq, not thousands! The only way to lick this thing now is to flood Iraq with millions of us! I know that you're out of combat-ready soldiers -- so you have to look elsewhere! The only way you are going to beat a nation of 27 million -- Iraq -- is to send in at least 28 million! Here's how it would work:
The first 27 million Americans go in and kill one Iraqi each. That will quickly take care of any insurgency. The other one million of us will stay and rebuild the country. Simple.
Now, I know you're saying, where will I find 28 million Americans to go to Iraq? Here are some suggestions:
1. More than 62,000,000 Americans voted for you in the last election (the one that took place a year and half into a war we already knew we were losing). I am confident that at least a third of them would want to put their body where their vote was and sign up to volunteer. I know many of these people and, while we may disagree politically, I know that they don't believe someone else should have to go and fight their fight for them -- while they hide here in America.
2. Start a "Kill an Iraqi" Meet-Up group in cities across the country. I know this idea is so early-21st century, but I once went to a Lou Dobbs Meet-Up and, I swear, some of the best ideas happen after the third mojito. I'm sure you'll get another five million or so enlistees from this effort.
3. Send over all members of the mainstream media. After all, they were your collaborators in bringing us this war -- and many of them are already trained from having been "embedded!" If that doesn't bring the total to 28 million, then draft all viewers of the FOX News channel.
Mr. Bush, do not give up! Now is not the time to pull your punch! Don't be a weenie by sending in a few over-tired troops. Get your people behind you and YOU lead them in like a true commander in chief! Leave no conservative behind! Full speed ahead!
We promise to write. Go get 'em W!
Yours,
Michael Moore
mmflint@aol.com
www.michaelmoore.com
Saturday, December 30, 2006
Hanging Saddam
By Mike Whitney
“There’s no way to describe the loss we’ve experienced with this war and occupation. There is no compensation for the dense, black cloud of fear that hangs over the head of every Iraqi. Fear of the Americans in their tanks, fear of the police patrols in the black bandanas, fear of the Iraqi soldiers wearing their black masks at the checkpoints.” Riverbend; blogs from Baghdad
12/29/06 "Information Clearing House" -- -- The execution of Saddam Hussein is another grim chapter in the catalogue of war crimes perpetrated against the Iraqi people. It is a gratuitous act of barbarism devoid of justice.
What right does Bush have to kill Saddam? What right does the author of Abu Ghraib, Falluja, Haditha and countless other atrocities have to pass judgment on the former leader of a nation which posed no threat to the United States?
Let’s be clear, the lowliest, most ruthless Iraqi has more right to rule Iraq than the most upright American. That’s what’s meant by “self determination”. When we honor “self rule” we avoid bloody interventions like the invasion of Iraq.
Bush believes that killing Saddam will achieve the “closure” which has eluded him through 4 years of occupation. But he is mistaken. Saddam’s death will only eliminate any opportunity for a political solution. Reconciliation will be impossible and Saddam will die as a hero.
Is that what Bush wants?
Or does Bush really know what he wants? Perhaps, he is just a war-mongering psychopath completely disconnected from reality.
Capital punishment is a moral evil. The state never has the right to kill its own people regardless of their crimes; Saddam is no exception. But the premeditated murder of Saddam is particularly appalling, because it is stupid as well as unjust. It cuts off dialogue with the very people (the Ba’athist-led resistance) who need to be entered into the political process to achieve normalization. Bush is destroying his last chance for a negotiated settlement and paving the way for America’s total defeat.
It’s complete madness.
The Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, told the Times Online that “the deposed president could be hanged ‘within hours’” and that his death sentence would be executed by Saturday at the latest.
Munir Haddad, the presiding judge on the appeals court, said, “All the measures have been done. There is no reason for delays.”
Plans are already underway to film the entire event.
It’s impossible to imagine a more fitting summary of 6 years of Bush rule than video-footage of Saddam’s limp figure dangling at the end of a rope. The pictures will no doubt replace the iconic photos of the hooded Abu Ghraib prisoner who appeared in headlines across the world.
The United States will pay a heavy price for Bush’s savagery. The war is already going badly and this latest travesty will only quicken America’s inevitable withdrawal.
America has become a moral swamp, its leaders incapable of wisdom or mercy. Hanging Saddam only adds to our mutual disgrace and exposes the real face of American justice.
“There’s no way to describe the loss we’ve experienced with this war and occupation. There is no compensation for the dense, black cloud of fear that hangs over the head of every Iraqi. Fear of the Americans in their tanks, fear of the police patrols in the black bandanas, fear of the Iraqi soldiers wearing their black masks at the checkpoints.” Riverbend; blogs from Baghdad
12/29/06 "Information Clearing House" -- -- The execution of Saddam Hussein is another grim chapter in the catalogue of war crimes perpetrated against the Iraqi people. It is a gratuitous act of barbarism devoid of justice.
What right does Bush have to kill Saddam? What right does the author of Abu Ghraib, Falluja, Haditha and countless other atrocities have to pass judgment on the former leader of a nation which posed no threat to the United States?
Let’s be clear, the lowliest, most ruthless Iraqi has more right to rule Iraq than the most upright American. That’s what’s meant by “self determination”. When we honor “self rule” we avoid bloody interventions like the invasion of Iraq.
Bush believes that killing Saddam will achieve the “closure” which has eluded him through 4 years of occupation. But he is mistaken. Saddam’s death will only eliminate any opportunity for a political solution. Reconciliation will be impossible and Saddam will die as a hero.
Is that what Bush wants?
Or does Bush really know what he wants? Perhaps, he is just a war-mongering psychopath completely disconnected from reality.
Capital punishment is a moral evil. The state never has the right to kill its own people regardless of their crimes; Saddam is no exception. But the premeditated murder of Saddam is particularly appalling, because it is stupid as well as unjust. It cuts off dialogue with the very people (the Ba’athist-led resistance) who need to be entered into the political process to achieve normalization. Bush is destroying his last chance for a negotiated settlement and paving the way for America’s total defeat.
It’s complete madness.
The Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, told the Times Online that “the deposed president could be hanged ‘within hours’” and that his death sentence would be executed by Saturday at the latest.
Munir Haddad, the presiding judge on the appeals court, said, “All the measures have been done. There is no reason for delays.”
Plans are already underway to film the entire event.
It’s impossible to imagine a more fitting summary of 6 years of Bush rule than video-footage of Saddam’s limp figure dangling at the end of a rope. The pictures will no doubt replace the iconic photos of the hooded Abu Ghraib prisoner who appeared in headlines across the world.
The United States will pay a heavy price for Bush’s savagery. The war is already going badly and this latest travesty will only quicken America’s inevitable withdrawal.
America has become a moral swamp, its leaders incapable of wisdom or mercy. Hanging Saddam only adds to our mutual disgrace and exposes the real face of American justice.
To Saddam Hussein
When I hear a piece of news , a verdict, or a story that touches me deeply , I freeze.
I usually can't comment on it straight away nor gather my thoughts and feelings in any coherent form. It takes me time to distill , digest and absorb.
I am not a journalist , I cannot report "things". Reporting takes a certain detachment and when it comes to Iraq , am not detached . I am very attached. Terribly attached.
Such piece of news reached me yesterday . That of your Execution.
I will address you as Saddam Hussein, Sir.
Even though I still consider you to be the legitimate President of Iraq, allow me not to use any formalities here. Let us forget titles , ranks and the rest .
When it comes to Death , all protocols fall. Death has this even power - We are all equal in the face of it. Death knows no kings, no heads of state, no generals. It strikes and it leaves. And you know that too.
What remains though is the Legacy left behind. A Legacy made of words and acts.
When I compare for instance Your Legacy to that of george bush the american , I see that:
You have remained true to your word until your last breath.
I don't care what they say about You . The misuses and abuses of power, the Dujails, the Anfals and the rest of the well knitted pieces of grossly exaggerated melodramas. I know one Truth Sir,You stayed in Iraq and did not run away like the rest. You did not seek asylum in the USA , Egypt or Jordan like others. You did not pack your bags nor your millions. You stayed and that is what matters to me.
Forgive me Sir, I am not a very sophisticated woman. I speak a simple language , the language of the heart. No one hardly ever recognizes this dialect these days. But I have a feeling, that despite all your alleged hardness, You would.
You know, my Dad before passing away said to me a few sentences that have remained with me since. He said : My Daughter, many things will come to pass in this life. You will face many trials and many errors. One thing you need to be certain of though, don't ever loose your integrity nor your dignity. The day you SELL those, you would have sold your soul. And all is downhill from there.
Sir, I am proud that you have not sold neither.
In that you have helped us preserve our "own" intact.
As for the rest , don't worry about them. They will end up in the dustbins of history. They will end up cited as thugs, profiteering, sectarian, opportunistic, hypocrites. I feel sorry to say that about the people you believe in . But that is the Truth.
Sir, take an example . Even your so called tribunal is made of an ex accountant, turned waiter turned thief. This is no verdict , this is a circus, a zoo . And they are the animals.
What pains me most is that they succeeded in massacring yet another TRUE IRAQI.
A true Iraqi amongst many thousands. And this is what You are .
Granted, you had your downsides , your shadow. But it pales in comparison to what the "Land of the Free " is doing to us. Your shadow is like a ray of sunlight, Sir.
A friend who is not an Iraqi, nor an Arab , nor a Muslim wrote to me . She said :
" I feel a pit in my stomach that will not go away. My sister cried upon hearing the verdict. How dare they ? What is this collective punishment by the White Man? I will not stay quiet..."
Another wrote a poem in your honor and she is from England .
And others wrote some more .
Even Iraqis who left the country and had known the coldness of exile , wrote denouncing ...
I am aware that words serve nothing now. But just to let you know that you are not alone.
Sir, If you allow me, try to imagine this. Try to imagine barbaric hordes coming from across oceans . Try to imagine herds of indoctrinated sheep from across borders dressed in black . Try to imagine every single scum bag in the land that you so eloquently praise, rising up and ganging up against you. What does that make You? It makes you a Hero Sir. Yes it does.
If all those armies , sectarians and sellout vermins conspired against You it is because You have stayed True to something. And darkness hates the Truth.
They say you were authoritarian and totalitarian. Come and see them now.
See their Fascism infesting the streets. See it in every neighborhood, see it in every corner .
You said Women are the Pioneers of this Arab Ummah , come and look at us now.
censorship replaced education and forced domestication has replaced public life.
You said Education is the sign of a Progressive Ummah. Our schools and universities are empty.And our Brains drained and killed.
You said Health is Free for all. Our hospitals are dilapidated and our doctors in exode.
You said Kurds are our brothers, they are now being trained as snipers by Israel.
You said Christians and Muslims are part of this mosaic called Iraq. The Christians are fleeing by thousands and the churches are deserted.
Look at me Sir. I am a product of this wonderful mosaic called Iraq. I am half Muslim and half Christian. And the Muslim half has Shi'as and if you dig hard enough you will find
Kurdish, Armenian, Turkish, Chaldean, Arabic roots all the way back...
Where is my place now Sir ?
You are about to find your place soon. Like a bird flying to nest into the arms of the Sky.
Whilst, I am left behind waiting for my turn. And in the meantime, searching , desperately searching for a place to rest my tired head and finding none.
Sir, I heard they will execute You within 36 hours. In time for the Eid. Our sacrificial feast.
You did say you are willing to be sacrificed for Iraq . You still believe they are worth it .
I envy your Faith.
May you go in Peace now, my True Iraqi...
Layla Anwar
I usually can't comment on it straight away nor gather my thoughts and feelings in any coherent form. It takes me time to distill , digest and absorb.
I am not a journalist , I cannot report "things". Reporting takes a certain detachment and when it comes to Iraq , am not detached . I am very attached. Terribly attached.
Such piece of news reached me yesterday . That of your Execution.
I will address you as Saddam Hussein, Sir.
Even though I still consider you to be the legitimate President of Iraq, allow me not to use any formalities here. Let us forget titles , ranks and the rest .
When it comes to Death , all protocols fall. Death has this even power - We are all equal in the face of it. Death knows no kings, no heads of state, no generals. It strikes and it leaves. And you know that too.
What remains though is the Legacy left behind. A Legacy made of words and acts.
When I compare for instance Your Legacy to that of george bush the american , I see that:
You have remained true to your word until your last breath.
I don't care what they say about You . The misuses and abuses of power, the Dujails, the Anfals and the rest of the well knitted pieces of grossly exaggerated melodramas. I know one Truth Sir,You stayed in Iraq and did not run away like the rest. You did not seek asylum in the USA , Egypt or Jordan like others. You did not pack your bags nor your millions. You stayed and that is what matters to me.
Forgive me Sir, I am not a very sophisticated woman. I speak a simple language , the language of the heart. No one hardly ever recognizes this dialect these days. But I have a feeling, that despite all your alleged hardness, You would.
You know, my Dad before passing away said to me a few sentences that have remained with me since. He said : My Daughter, many things will come to pass in this life. You will face many trials and many errors. One thing you need to be certain of though, don't ever loose your integrity nor your dignity. The day you SELL those, you would have sold your soul. And all is downhill from there.
Sir, I am proud that you have not sold neither.
In that you have helped us preserve our "own" intact.
As for the rest , don't worry about them. They will end up in the dustbins of history. They will end up cited as thugs, profiteering, sectarian, opportunistic, hypocrites. I feel sorry to say that about the people you believe in . But that is the Truth.
Sir, take an example . Even your so called tribunal is made of an ex accountant, turned waiter turned thief. This is no verdict , this is a circus, a zoo . And they are the animals.
What pains me most is that they succeeded in massacring yet another TRUE IRAQI.
A true Iraqi amongst many thousands. And this is what You are .
Granted, you had your downsides , your shadow. But it pales in comparison to what the "Land of the Free " is doing to us. Your shadow is like a ray of sunlight, Sir.
A friend who is not an Iraqi, nor an Arab , nor a Muslim wrote to me . She said :
" I feel a pit in my stomach that will not go away. My sister cried upon hearing the verdict. How dare they ? What is this collective punishment by the White Man? I will not stay quiet..."
Another wrote a poem in your honor and she is from England .
And others wrote some more .
Even Iraqis who left the country and had known the coldness of exile , wrote denouncing ...
I am aware that words serve nothing now. But just to let you know that you are not alone.
Sir, If you allow me, try to imagine this. Try to imagine barbaric hordes coming from across oceans . Try to imagine herds of indoctrinated sheep from across borders dressed in black . Try to imagine every single scum bag in the land that you so eloquently praise, rising up and ganging up against you. What does that make You? It makes you a Hero Sir. Yes it does.
If all those armies , sectarians and sellout vermins conspired against You it is because You have stayed True to something. And darkness hates the Truth.
They say you were authoritarian and totalitarian. Come and see them now.
See their Fascism infesting the streets. See it in every neighborhood, see it in every corner .
You said Women are the Pioneers of this Arab Ummah , come and look at us now.
censorship replaced education and forced domestication has replaced public life.
You said Education is the sign of a Progressive Ummah. Our schools and universities are empty.And our Brains drained and killed.
You said Health is Free for all. Our hospitals are dilapidated and our doctors in exode.
You said Kurds are our brothers, they are now being trained as snipers by Israel.
You said Christians and Muslims are part of this mosaic called Iraq. The Christians are fleeing by thousands and the churches are deserted.
Look at me Sir. I am a product of this wonderful mosaic called Iraq. I am half Muslim and half Christian. And the Muslim half has Shi'as and if you dig hard enough you will find
Kurdish, Armenian, Turkish, Chaldean, Arabic roots all the way back...
Where is my place now Sir ?
You are about to find your place soon. Like a bird flying to nest into the arms of the Sky.
Whilst, I am left behind waiting for my turn. And in the meantime, searching , desperately searching for a place to rest my tired head and finding none.
Sir, I heard they will execute You within 36 hours. In time for the Eid. Our sacrificial feast.
You did say you are willing to be sacrificed for Iraq . You still believe they are worth it .
I envy your Faith.
May you go in Peace now, my True Iraqi...
Layla Anwar
A VALEDICTION FOR SADDAM HUSSEIN
Dedicated to President Saddam Hussein, to his daughters Raghad, Rana and Hala and to everyone who loves him
I see vultures already circling
over a lonely patch of earth.
I see vultures scheming,
vultures briefing,
vultures in back rooms,
vultures in suits.
Eyes glistening with malice
they call you evil;
gleefully knotting your noose
they call you cruel.
Painted sepulchres!
The stench of death
precedes them.
I see grown men weeping
and women tearing their hair;
I see a procession of children,
their heads bowed,
their cheeks stained with tears.
They are mourning the brown lion
who was their pride and joy,
the brown lion
who was fierce
in defence of their honour,
yet tenderly nestled his head
in their lap.
I see you dear face,
your captivating smile,
the poignant radiance of your being
undimmed,
even as vultures darken the sky.
I see your soulful eyes,
your expressive hands,
your dignified bearing –
unbowed in captivity,
faithful to your nation
and true to yourself
to the last breath.
Ecce homo!
I see a doomed man,
a living martyr,
flesh of my flesh
and bone of my bone.
The quality of your presence
resonating
deep in my heart,
I see a guardian angel
sheltering your soul
under his wing.
May he carry you home safely
and gently heal the wounds of sin,
my dearly beloved,
my soul brother,
Saddam.
Alison Gundle (Leicester, UK)
December 2006
اليسون جوندل ترجمة خاصة لدورية العراق
user posted image
مهداة الى الرئيس صدام حسين وبناته رغد ورنا وحلا ولكل من يحبه
ارى جوارح تحوم
على بقعة موحشة من الارض
ارى جوارح يدبرون
جوارح يتداولون
جوارح في الغرف الخلفية
جوارح ببدلات رسمية
عيونا تلتمع بالحقد
ويسمونك شريرا
يضيقون حبل المشنقة بتشفٍ
ويسمونك قاسيا
قتلة مصبوغون
تسبقهم رائحة الموت
ارى رجالا يبكون
ونساء يمزقن شعورهن
ارى موكبا من الاطفال
رؤوسهم منحنية
دموعهم تجري على خدودهم
انهم ينعون الاسد الاسمر
من كان عزهم وفرحتهم
الاسد الاسمر
من كان ضاريا
في الدفاع عن شرفهم
وفي نفس الوقت كان رقيقا
وهو يضع رأسه في احضانهم
ارى وجهك العزيز
ابتسامتك الآسرة
ألقَ كيانك
الذي لا يطفأ
مهما اظلمت الجوارح السماء
ارى عينيك النافذتين للروح
يديك المعبرتين
قامتك المهيبة
التي لم يحنها الاسر
مخلصا لشعبك
وصادقا مع نفسك
الى آخر نفس .
ارى رجلا محتوم المصير
شهيدا حيا
يامن دمه من دمي
يامن عظمة حضورك
يتردد صداها
في عمق روحي
ارى ملاكا حارسا
يحرس روحك
تحت جناحيه
عساه ينقلك بأمان الى بيتك
وبرفق يشفي جروح الخطيئة
أيها العزيز
ياشقيق روحي
صدام .
اليسون جوندل - ليستر - بريطانيا
* ترجمة بثينة الناصري - خاصة لدورية العراق. يرجى الاشارة الى اسم الدورية والمترجمة عند النقل واعادة النشر وشكرا .
I see vultures already circling
over a lonely patch of earth.
I see vultures scheming,
vultures briefing,
vultures in back rooms,
vultures in suits.
Eyes glistening with malice
they call you evil;
gleefully knotting your noose
they call you cruel.
Painted sepulchres!
The stench of death
precedes them.
I see grown men weeping
and women tearing their hair;
I see a procession of children,
their heads bowed,
their cheeks stained with tears.
They are mourning the brown lion
who was their pride and joy,
the brown lion
who was fierce
in defence of their honour,
yet tenderly nestled his head
in their lap.
I see you dear face,
your captivating smile,
the poignant radiance of your being
undimmed,
even as vultures darken the sky.
I see your soulful eyes,
your expressive hands,
your dignified bearing –
unbowed in captivity,
faithful to your nation
and true to yourself
to the last breath.
Ecce homo!
I see a doomed man,
a living martyr,
flesh of my flesh
and bone of my bone.
The quality of your presence
resonating
deep in my heart,
I see a guardian angel
sheltering your soul
under his wing.
May he carry you home safely
and gently heal the wounds of sin,
my dearly beloved,
my soul brother,
Saddam.
Alison Gundle (Leicester, UK)
December 2006
اليسون جوندل ترجمة خاصة لدورية العراق
user posted image
مهداة الى الرئيس صدام حسين وبناته رغد ورنا وحلا ولكل من يحبه
ارى جوارح تحوم
على بقعة موحشة من الارض
ارى جوارح يدبرون
جوارح يتداولون
جوارح في الغرف الخلفية
جوارح ببدلات رسمية
عيونا تلتمع بالحقد
ويسمونك شريرا
يضيقون حبل المشنقة بتشفٍ
ويسمونك قاسيا
قتلة مصبوغون
تسبقهم رائحة الموت
ارى رجالا يبكون
ونساء يمزقن شعورهن
ارى موكبا من الاطفال
رؤوسهم منحنية
دموعهم تجري على خدودهم
انهم ينعون الاسد الاسمر
من كان عزهم وفرحتهم
الاسد الاسمر
من كان ضاريا
في الدفاع عن شرفهم
وفي نفس الوقت كان رقيقا
وهو يضع رأسه في احضانهم
ارى وجهك العزيز
ابتسامتك الآسرة
ألقَ كيانك
الذي لا يطفأ
مهما اظلمت الجوارح السماء
ارى عينيك النافذتين للروح
يديك المعبرتين
قامتك المهيبة
التي لم يحنها الاسر
مخلصا لشعبك
وصادقا مع نفسك
الى آخر نفس .
ارى رجلا محتوم المصير
شهيدا حيا
يامن دمه من دمي
يامن عظمة حضورك
يتردد صداها
في عمق روحي
ارى ملاكا حارسا
يحرس روحك
تحت جناحيه
عساه ينقلك بأمان الى بيتك
وبرفق يشفي جروح الخطيئة
أيها العزيز
ياشقيق روحي
صدام .
اليسون جوندل - ليستر - بريطانيا
* ترجمة بثينة الناصري - خاصة لدورية العراق. يرجى الاشارة الى اسم الدورية والمترجمة عند النقل واعادة النشر وشكرا .
Saturday, December 23, 2006
Is President Bush Sane?
By Paul Craig Roberts
12/02/06 "Information Clearing House" -- -- Tens of millions of Americans want President George W. Bush to be impeached for the lies and deceit he used to launch an illegal war and for violating his oath of office to uphold the US Constitution. Millions of other Americans want Bush turned over to the war crimes tribunal at the Hague. The true fate that awaits Bush is psychiatric incarceration.
The president of the United States is so deep into denial that he is no longer among the sane.
Delusion still rules Bush three weeks after the American people repudiated him and his catastrophic war in elections that delivered both House and Senate to the Democrats in the hope that control over Congress would give the opposition party the strength to oppose the mad occupant of the White House.
On November 28 Bush insisted that US troops would not be withdrawn from Iraq until he had completed his mission of building a stable Iraqi democracy capable of spreading democratic change in the Middle East.
Bush made this astonishing statement the day after NBC News, a major television network, declared Iraq to be in the midst of a civil war, a judgment with which former Secretary of State Colin Powell concurs.
The same day that Bush reaffirmed his commitment to building a stable Iraqi democracy, a secret US Marine Corps intelligence report was leaked. According to the Washington Post, the report concludes: “the social and political situation has deteriorated to a point that US and Iraqi troops are no longer capable of militarily defeating the insurgency in al-Anbar province.”
The Marine Corps intelligence report says that Al Qaeda is the “dominant organization of influence” in Anbar province, and is more important than local authorities, the Iraqi government and US troops “in its ability to control the day-to-day life of the average Sunni.”
Bush’s astonishing determination to deny Iraq reality was made the same day that the US-installed Iraqi prime minister al-Maliki and US puppet King Abdullah II of Jordan abruptly cancelled a meeting with Bush after Bush was already in route to Jordon on Air Force One. Bush could not meet with Maliki in Iraq, because violence in Baghdad is out of control. For security reasons, the US Secret Service would not allow President Bush to go to Iraq, where he is “building a stable democracy.”
Bush made his astonishing statement in the face of news leaks of the Iraq Study Group’s call for a withdrawal of all US combat forces from Iraq. The Iraq Study Group is led by Bush family operative James A. Baker, a former White House chief of staff, former Secretary of the Treasury, and former Secretary of State. Baker was tasked by father Bush to save the son. Apparently, son Bush hasn’t enough sanity to allow himself to be saved.
Bush’s denial of Iraqi reality was made even as one of the most influential Iraqi Shiite leaders, Moqtada al-Sadr, is building an anti-US parliamentary alliance to demand the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq.
Maliki himself appears on the verge of desertion by his American sponsors. The White House has reportedly “lost confidence” in Maliki’s “ability to control violence.” Fox “News” disinformation agency immediately began blaming Maliki for the defeat the US has suffered in Iraq. NY governor Pataki told Fox “News” that “Maliki is not doing his job.” Pataki claimed that US troops were doing “a great job.”
A number of other politicians and talking heads joined in the scapegoating of Maliki. No one explained how Maliki can be expected to save Iraq when US troops cannot provide enough security for the Iraqi government to go outside the heavily fortified “green zone” that occupies a small area of Baghdad. If the US Marines cannot control Anbar province, what chance is there for Maliki? What can Maliki do if the security provided by US troops is so bad that the President of the US cannot even visit the country?
The only people in Iraq who are safe belong to Al Qaeda and the Sunni insurgents or are Shiite militia leaders such as al-Sadr.
An American group, the Center for Constitutional Rights, has filed war crimes charges in Germany against former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. A number of former US attorneys believe President Bush and Vice President Cheney deserve the same.
Bush has destroyed the entire social, political, and economic fabric of Iraq. Saddam Hussein sat on the lid of Pandora’s Box of sectarian antagonisms, but Bush has opened the lid. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians have been killed as “collateral damage” in Bush’s war to bring “stable democracy” to Iraq. Tens of thousands of Iraqi children have been orphaned and maimed. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have fled their country. The Middle East is aflame with hatred of America, and the ground is shaking under the feet of American puppet governments in the Middle East. US casualties (killed and wounded) number 25,000.
And Bush has not had enough!
What better proof of Bush’s insanity could there be?
12/02/06 "Information Clearing House" -- -- Tens of millions of Americans want President George W. Bush to be impeached for the lies and deceit he used to launch an illegal war and for violating his oath of office to uphold the US Constitution. Millions of other Americans want Bush turned over to the war crimes tribunal at the Hague. The true fate that awaits Bush is psychiatric incarceration.
The president of the United States is so deep into denial that he is no longer among the sane.
Delusion still rules Bush three weeks after the American people repudiated him and his catastrophic war in elections that delivered both House and Senate to the Democrats in the hope that control over Congress would give the opposition party the strength to oppose the mad occupant of the White House.
On November 28 Bush insisted that US troops would not be withdrawn from Iraq until he had completed his mission of building a stable Iraqi democracy capable of spreading democratic change in the Middle East.
Bush made this astonishing statement the day after NBC News, a major television network, declared Iraq to be in the midst of a civil war, a judgment with which former Secretary of State Colin Powell concurs.
The same day that Bush reaffirmed his commitment to building a stable Iraqi democracy, a secret US Marine Corps intelligence report was leaked. According to the Washington Post, the report concludes: “the social and political situation has deteriorated to a point that US and Iraqi troops are no longer capable of militarily defeating the insurgency in al-Anbar province.”
The Marine Corps intelligence report says that Al Qaeda is the “dominant organization of influence” in Anbar province, and is more important than local authorities, the Iraqi government and US troops “in its ability to control the day-to-day life of the average Sunni.”
Bush’s astonishing determination to deny Iraq reality was made the same day that the US-installed Iraqi prime minister al-Maliki and US puppet King Abdullah II of Jordan abruptly cancelled a meeting with Bush after Bush was already in route to Jordon on Air Force One. Bush could not meet with Maliki in Iraq, because violence in Baghdad is out of control. For security reasons, the US Secret Service would not allow President Bush to go to Iraq, where he is “building a stable democracy.”
Bush made his astonishing statement in the face of news leaks of the Iraq Study Group’s call for a withdrawal of all US combat forces from Iraq. The Iraq Study Group is led by Bush family operative James A. Baker, a former White House chief of staff, former Secretary of the Treasury, and former Secretary of State. Baker was tasked by father Bush to save the son. Apparently, son Bush hasn’t enough sanity to allow himself to be saved.
Bush’s denial of Iraqi reality was made even as one of the most influential Iraqi Shiite leaders, Moqtada al-Sadr, is building an anti-US parliamentary alliance to demand the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq.
Maliki himself appears on the verge of desertion by his American sponsors. The White House has reportedly “lost confidence” in Maliki’s “ability to control violence.” Fox “News” disinformation agency immediately began blaming Maliki for the defeat the US has suffered in Iraq. NY governor Pataki told Fox “News” that “Maliki is not doing his job.” Pataki claimed that US troops were doing “a great job.”
A number of other politicians and talking heads joined in the scapegoating of Maliki. No one explained how Maliki can be expected to save Iraq when US troops cannot provide enough security for the Iraqi government to go outside the heavily fortified “green zone” that occupies a small area of Baghdad. If the US Marines cannot control Anbar province, what chance is there for Maliki? What can Maliki do if the security provided by US troops is so bad that the President of the US cannot even visit the country?
The only people in Iraq who are safe belong to Al Qaeda and the Sunni insurgents or are Shiite militia leaders such as al-Sadr.
An American group, the Center for Constitutional Rights, has filed war crimes charges in Germany against former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. A number of former US attorneys believe President Bush and Vice President Cheney deserve the same.
Bush has destroyed the entire social, political, and economic fabric of Iraq. Saddam Hussein sat on the lid of Pandora’s Box of sectarian antagonisms, but Bush has opened the lid. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians have been killed as “collateral damage” in Bush’s war to bring “stable democracy” to Iraq. Tens of thousands of Iraqi children have been orphaned and maimed. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have fled their country. The Middle East is aflame with hatred of America, and the ground is shaking under the feet of American puppet governments in the Middle East. US casualties (killed and wounded) number 25,000.
And Bush has not had enough!
What better proof of Bush’s insanity could there be?
Friday, December 22, 2006
America Loses Another War
Iraq: a shameful ass-whupping, or just a pathetic trouncing? Ugly disgrace? Choices, choices
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
12/15/06 "SF Gate" - -- - The good news is, we're all back in harmony. All back on the same page. No more divisiveness and no more silly bickering and no more nasty and indignant red state/blue state rock throwing because we're finally all back in cozy let's-hug-it-out agreement: The "war" in Iraq is over. And what's more, we lost. Very, very badly.
Sure, you already knew. Sure, you sort of sensed from the beginning that we couldn't possibly win a bogus war launched by a nasty slew of corrupt pseudo-cowboys against both a bitterly contorted Islamic nation and a vague and ill-defined concept that has no center and no boundaries and that feeds on the very thing that tries to destroy it. It was sort of obvious, even if half the nation was just terrifically blinded by Bush administration lies and false shrieks of impending terror.
But now it's official. Or rather, more official. Now it's pretty much agreed upon on both sides of the aisle and in every Iraq Study Group and by every top-ranking general and newly minted defense secretary and in every facet of American culture save some of the gun-totin' flag-lickin' South. We lost. And what's more, we have no real clue what to do about it.
After all, it's not easy to accept. It's the thing we do not, cannot easily hear, the thing most Americans, no matter what their political stripe, just can't quite fathom because we're so damned strong and righteous and handy with a gun and we are the superpower and the God among men and the bringer of light to the world and therefore we never lose. Except, you know, when we do.
It's not like we were overpowered. We weren't outmanned or outgunned or outstrategized and hence we weren't defeated in any "traditional" kick-ass take-names sign-the-peace-accord way.
Nor was it because our beloved, undefeatable, can't-lose military doesn't have the latest and greatest killing tools of all time, the biggest budget, the most heroic of baffled and misled young soldiers sort of but not really willing to go off and fight and die for a cause no one could adequately explain or justify to them.
We still have the coolest, fastest planes. We still have the meanest billion-dollar technology. We still have the most imposing tanks and the most incredible weaponry and the badass night-vision goggles with the laser sights and the thermal heat-seeking readouts and the ability to track targets from two miles away in a dust storm. It doesn't matter.
What we don't have is, well, any idea what the hell we're doing, not anymore, not on the global stage. We lost this "war" and we lost it before we even began because we went in for all the wrong reasons and with all the wrong planning and with all the wrong leadership who had all the wrong motives based on all the wrong greedy self-serving insular faux-cowboy BS that your kids and your grandkids will be paying for until about the year 2056.
Maybe you don't agree. Maybe you say wait wait wait, it's not over at all, and we haven't lost yet. Isn't the fighting still raging? Can't we still "win" even though we're still losing soldiers by the truckload and thousands of innocent Iraqis are being brutally slaughtered every month and isn't Dubya still standing there, brow scrunched and confounded as a monkey clinging onto a shiny razor blade, refusing to let go and free us from the deadly trap, ignoring the Iraq Study Group and trying to figure out a way to stay the course and never give in and "mission accomplished" even as every single human around him, from the top generals to crusty old James Baker to the new and shockingly honest secretary of defense, says we are royally screwed and Iraq is now a vicious and chaotic civil war and it's officially one of the worst disasters in American history? Oh wait, you just answered your own question.
Yes, technically, the "war" is still on. The fighting is not over. And yes, you can even say we (brutally, tactlessly) installed ourselves with sufficient ego to give us a modicum of violent, volatile control over the Gulf region's remaining petroleum reserves -- which was, of course, much of the point in the first place.
But the nasty us-versus-them, good-versus-evil ideology is over. Ditto the numb sense of Bush's brutally simpleminded American "justice." Any lingering hint of anything resembling a truly valid and lucid and deeply patriotic reason for wasting a trillion dollars and thousands of lives and roughly an entire generation's worth of international respect? Gone.
What's left is one lingering, looming question: How do we accept defeat? How do we deal with the awkward, identity-mauling, ego-stomping idea that, once again, America didn't "win" a war it really had no right to launch in the first place? After all, isn't this the American slogan: "We may not always be right, but we are never wrong"?
It's still our most favorite idea, the thing our own childlike president loves to talk most about, burned into our national consciousness like a bad tattoo: We always win. We're the good guys. We're the chosen ones. We're the goddamn cavalry, flying the flag of truth, wrapped in strip malls and Ford pickups and McDonald's franchises. Right?
Wrong. If Vietnam's aftermath proved anything, it's that we are incredibly crappy losers. We deny, we reject, we evade and ignore and refuse responsibility until it becomes so silly and surreal even the staunchest warmonger has to cringe in embarrassment. At this point, it seems nearly impossible for America to accept defeat with anything resembling perspective and dignity and the understanding that maybe, just maybe, we ain't all that saintly and ain't all that perfect and maybe God really isn't necessarily on our side after all, because if God took sides she wouldn't actually be, you know, God.
But what happens to a country if they lose the thing that supposedly defines them most? If we don't have our bogus "victory," if we don't always win, if we don't have a sense of righteousness so strong and so inflated and so utterly impenetrable that even when it seems like we've lost, we still stumble through some sort of offensive end zone victory dance, well, what's left?
What, conscience? Humility? Humanitarianism? Or how about the realization that we could maybe, just maybe learn to be defined by something other than rogue aggressiveness and the vicious need to win? Something like, say, a mindful, flawed, difficult but oh-so-incredibly-essential move toward that most challenging and rewarding of human ideals, peace?
Yeah, right. Who the hell wants that?
Thoughts for the author? E-mail him.
Mark Morford's Notes & Errata column appears every Wednesday and Friday on SFGate and in the Datebook section of the SF Chronicle
©2006 SF Gate
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
12/15/06 "SF Gate" - -- - The good news is, we're all back in harmony. All back on the same page. No more divisiveness and no more silly bickering and no more nasty and indignant red state/blue state rock throwing because we're finally all back in cozy let's-hug-it-out agreement: The "war" in Iraq is over. And what's more, we lost. Very, very badly.
Sure, you already knew. Sure, you sort of sensed from the beginning that we couldn't possibly win a bogus war launched by a nasty slew of corrupt pseudo-cowboys against both a bitterly contorted Islamic nation and a vague and ill-defined concept that has no center and no boundaries and that feeds on the very thing that tries to destroy it. It was sort of obvious, even if half the nation was just terrifically blinded by Bush administration lies and false shrieks of impending terror.
But now it's official. Or rather, more official. Now it's pretty much agreed upon on both sides of the aisle and in every Iraq Study Group and by every top-ranking general and newly minted defense secretary and in every facet of American culture save some of the gun-totin' flag-lickin' South. We lost. And what's more, we have no real clue what to do about it.
After all, it's not easy to accept. It's the thing we do not, cannot easily hear, the thing most Americans, no matter what their political stripe, just can't quite fathom because we're so damned strong and righteous and handy with a gun and we are the superpower and the God among men and the bringer of light to the world and therefore we never lose. Except, you know, when we do.
It's not like we were overpowered. We weren't outmanned or outgunned or outstrategized and hence we weren't defeated in any "traditional" kick-ass take-names sign-the-peace-accord way.
Nor was it because our beloved, undefeatable, can't-lose military doesn't have the latest and greatest killing tools of all time, the biggest budget, the most heroic of baffled and misled young soldiers sort of but not really willing to go off and fight and die for a cause no one could adequately explain or justify to them.
We still have the coolest, fastest planes. We still have the meanest billion-dollar technology. We still have the most imposing tanks and the most incredible weaponry and the badass night-vision goggles with the laser sights and the thermal heat-seeking readouts and the ability to track targets from two miles away in a dust storm. It doesn't matter.
What we don't have is, well, any idea what the hell we're doing, not anymore, not on the global stage. We lost this "war" and we lost it before we even began because we went in for all the wrong reasons and with all the wrong planning and with all the wrong leadership who had all the wrong motives based on all the wrong greedy self-serving insular faux-cowboy BS that your kids and your grandkids will be paying for until about the year 2056.
Maybe you don't agree. Maybe you say wait wait wait, it's not over at all, and we haven't lost yet. Isn't the fighting still raging? Can't we still "win" even though we're still losing soldiers by the truckload and thousands of innocent Iraqis are being brutally slaughtered every month and isn't Dubya still standing there, brow scrunched and confounded as a monkey clinging onto a shiny razor blade, refusing to let go and free us from the deadly trap, ignoring the Iraq Study Group and trying to figure out a way to stay the course and never give in and "mission accomplished" even as every single human around him, from the top generals to crusty old James Baker to the new and shockingly honest secretary of defense, says we are royally screwed and Iraq is now a vicious and chaotic civil war and it's officially one of the worst disasters in American history? Oh wait, you just answered your own question.
Yes, technically, the "war" is still on. The fighting is not over. And yes, you can even say we (brutally, tactlessly) installed ourselves with sufficient ego to give us a modicum of violent, volatile control over the Gulf region's remaining petroleum reserves -- which was, of course, much of the point in the first place.
But the nasty us-versus-them, good-versus-evil ideology is over. Ditto the numb sense of Bush's brutally simpleminded American "justice." Any lingering hint of anything resembling a truly valid and lucid and deeply patriotic reason for wasting a trillion dollars and thousands of lives and roughly an entire generation's worth of international respect? Gone.
What's left is one lingering, looming question: How do we accept defeat? How do we deal with the awkward, identity-mauling, ego-stomping idea that, once again, America didn't "win" a war it really had no right to launch in the first place? After all, isn't this the American slogan: "We may not always be right, but we are never wrong"?
It's still our most favorite idea, the thing our own childlike president loves to talk most about, burned into our national consciousness like a bad tattoo: We always win. We're the good guys. We're the chosen ones. We're the goddamn cavalry, flying the flag of truth, wrapped in strip malls and Ford pickups and McDonald's franchises. Right?
Wrong. If Vietnam's aftermath proved anything, it's that we are incredibly crappy losers. We deny, we reject, we evade and ignore and refuse responsibility until it becomes so silly and surreal even the staunchest warmonger has to cringe in embarrassment. At this point, it seems nearly impossible for America to accept defeat with anything resembling perspective and dignity and the understanding that maybe, just maybe, we ain't all that saintly and ain't all that perfect and maybe God really isn't necessarily on our side after all, because if God took sides she wouldn't actually be, you know, God.
But what happens to a country if they lose the thing that supposedly defines them most? If we don't have our bogus "victory," if we don't always win, if we don't have a sense of righteousness so strong and so inflated and so utterly impenetrable that even when it seems like we've lost, we still stumble through some sort of offensive end zone victory dance, well, what's left?
What, conscience? Humility? Humanitarianism? Or how about the realization that we could maybe, just maybe learn to be defined by something other than rogue aggressiveness and the vicious need to win? Something like, say, a mindful, flawed, difficult but oh-so-incredibly-essential move toward that most challenging and rewarding of human ideals, peace?
Yeah, right. Who the hell wants that?
Thoughts for the author? E-mail him.
Mark Morford's Notes & Errata column appears every Wednesday and Friday on SFGate and in the Datebook section of the SF Chronicle
©2006 SF Gate
Saturday, November 25, 2006
Soldier Home From Iraq Can't Find Comfort
DEAR ABBY: I'm a man who feels all alone in the world. My mother once told me I was the “experimental child” ( I'm the oldest of two).
My girlfriend doesn't understand the living hell of post-traumatic stress from a tour in Iraq, and every time I need comforting, I am pushed away. The only friends who I'm in contact with are her family. Support from my family isn't easy to get.
My father, a Vietnam veteran, understands what I'm going through, but has told me he chooses to stay away because he's afraid of a possible relapse. Help!
— STRESSED IN PENN.
DEAR STRESSED: Consider this: You may have been the “experimental child,” but the outcome was obviously a success because your mother went on to bring another child into the world.
I'm not sure anyone who hasn't been through it — or isn't a trained psychotherapist — can understand post-traumatic stress.
More than in wars past, the military medical system seems to appreciate that a large number of vets returning from Iraq and Afghanistan will need professional help. Help is available, so please don't wait to reach out for it. And while you're at it, take your father with you.
Please let me hear from you again in a few months, because I care. And I have a strong hunch you will have started healing.
COPYRIGHT 2006
UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE
My girlfriend doesn't understand the living hell of post-traumatic stress from a tour in Iraq, and every time I need comforting, I am pushed away. The only friends who I'm in contact with are her family. Support from my family isn't easy to get.
My father, a Vietnam veteran, understands what I'm going through, but has told me he chooses to stay away because he's afraid of a possible relapse. Help!
— STRESSED IN PENN.
DEAR STRESSED: Consider this: You may have been the “experimental child,” but the outcome was obviously a success because your mother went on to bring another child into the world.
I'm not sure anyone who hasn't been through it — or isn't a trained psychotherapist — can understand post-traumatic stress.
More than in wars past, the military medical system seems to appreciate that a large number of vets returning from Iraq and Afghanistan will need professional help. Help is available, so please don't wait to reach out for it. And while you're at it, take your father with you.
Please let me hear from you again in a few months, because I care. And I have a strong hunch you will have started healing.
COPYRIGHT 2006
UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Secret US Iraq Plan: Go Public, Go Home, Go Mecca
By James Joyner
WaPo fronts a piece by Thomas Ricks on the Pentagon’s long term strategic planning for Iraq.
The Pentagon’s closely guarded review of how to improve the situation in Iraq has outlined three basic options: Send in more troops, shrink the force but stay longer, or pull out, according to senior defense officials. Insiders have dubbed the options “Go Big,” “Go Long” and “Go Home.” The group conducting the review is likely to recommend a combination of a small, short-term increase in U.S. troops and a long-term commitment to stepped-up training and advising of Iraqi forces, the officials said.
“Go Big,” the first option, originally contemplated a large increase in U.S. troops in Iraq to try to break the cycle of sectarian and insurgent violence. A classic counterinsurgency campaign, though, would require several hundred thousand additional U.S. and Iraqi soldiers as well as heavily armed Iraqi police. That option has been all but rejected by the study group, which concluded that there are not enough troops in the U.S. military and not enough effective Iraqi forces, said sources who have been informally briefed on the review.
“Go Home,” the third option, calls for a swift withdrawal of U.S. troops. It was rejected by the Pentagon group as likely to push Iraq directly into a full-blown and bloody civil war.
The group has devised a hybrid plan that combines part of the first option with the second one — “Go Long” — and calls for cutting the U.S. combat presence in favor of a long-term expansion of the training and advisory efforts. Under this mixture of options, which is gaining favor inside the military, the U.S. presence in Iraq, currently about 140,000 troops, would be boosted by 20,000 to 30,000 for a short period, the officials said.
Setting up two strawmen so that the alternative preferred all along looks great by comparison is a classic bureaucratic strategy. Both “Go Big” and “Go Home,” in their purest forms, as non-starters for reasons outlined above. That leaves “Go Long.”
As noted in the longer piece, that option is hardly without risks.
That combination plan, which one defense official called “Go Big but Short While Transitioning to Go Long,” could backfire if Iraqis suspect it is really a way for the United States to moonwalk out of Iraq — that is, to imitate singer Michael Jackson’s trademark move of appearing to move forward while actually sliding backward. “If we commit to that concept, we have to accept upfront that it might result in the opposite of what we want,” the official said.
And, of course, even aside from the perception issue, it might not work. Providing interim security while training up a competent Iraqi defense force who would take over the job has always been the plan. We got off to a poor start and rebooted that effort under the command of Dave Petraeus and appear to have made substantial progress. Still, it has been maddeningly slow and it has proven virtually impossible to prevent the infiltration of the security forces by the enemy.
The U.S. Special Forces managed to square that circle in El Salvador, ultimately defeating the insurgency while maintaining a very small footprint. The operation was, to say the least, not without controversy and there are myriad operational and practical differences with the situation in Iraq. Still, it is doable.
WaPo fronts a piece by Thomas Ricks on the Pentagon’s long term strategic planning for Iraq.
The Pentagon’s closely guarded review of how to improve the situation in Iraq has outlined three basic options: Send in more troops, shrink the force but stay longer, or pull out, according to senior defense officials. Insiders have dubbed the options “Go Big,” “Go Long” and “Go Home.” The group conducting the review is likely to recommend a combination of a small, short-term increase in U.S. troops and a long-term commitment to stepped-up training and advising of Iraqi forces, the officials said.
“Go Big,” the first option, originally contemplated a large increase in U.S. troops in Iraq to try to break the cycle of sectarian and insurgent violence. A classic counterinsurgency campaign, though, would require several hundred thousand additional U.S. and Iraqi soldiers as well as heavily armed Iraqi police. That option has been all but rejected by the study group, which concluded that there are not enough troops in the U.S. military and not enough effective Iraqi forces, said sources who have been informally briefed on the review.
“Go Home,” the third option, calls for a swift withdrawal of U.S. troops. It was rejected by the Pentagon group as likely to push Iraq directly into a full-blown and bloody civil war.
The group has devised a hybrid plan that combines part of the first option with the second one — “Go Long” — and calls for cutting the U.S. combat presence in favor of a long-term expansion of the training and advisory efforts. Under this mixture of options, which is gaining favor inside the military, the U.S. presence in Iraq, currently about 140,000 troops, would be boosted by 20,000 to 30,000 for a short period, the officials said.
Setting up two strawmen so that the alternative preferred all along looks great by comparison is a classic bureaucratic strategy. Both “Go Big” and “Go Home,” in their purest forms, as non-starters for reasons outlined above. That leaves “Go Long.”
As noted in the longer piece, that option is hardly without risks.
That combination plan, which one defense official called “Go Big but Short While Transitioning to Go Long,” could backfire if Iraqis suspect it is really a way for the United States to moonwalk out of Iraq — that is, to imitate singer Michael Jackson’s trademark move of appearing to move forward while actually sliding backward. “If we commit to that concept, we have to accept upfront that it might result in the opposite of what we want,” the official said.
And, of course, even aside from the perception issue, it might not work. Providing interim security while training up a competent Iraqi defense force who would take over the job has always been the plan. We got off to a poor start and rebooted that effort under the command of Dave Petraeus and appear to have made substantial progress. Still, it has been maddeningly slow and it has proven virtually impossible to prevent the infiltration of the security forces by the enemy.
The U.S. Special Forces managed to square that circle in El Salvador, ultimately defeating the insurgency while maintaining a very small footprint. The operation was, to say the least, not without controversy and there are myriad operational and practical differences with the situation in Iraq. Still, it is doable.
Friday, November 17, 2006
She Survived Iraq - Then Shot Herself at Home
By Greg Mitchell
Editor and Publisher
Monday 13 November 2006
New York - Her name doesn't show on any official list of American military deaths in the Iraq war, by hostile or non-hostile fire, who died in that country or in hospitals in Europe or back home in the USA. But Iraq killed her just as certainly.
She is Jeanne "Linda" Michel, a Navy medic. She came home last month to her husband and three kids (ages 11, 5, and 4), delighted to be back in her suburban home of Clifton Park in upstate New York. Michel, 33, would be discharged from the Navy in a few weeks, finishing her five years of duty.
Two weeks after she got home, she shot and killed herself.
"She had come through a lot and she had always risen to challenges," her husband, Frantz Michel, who has also served in Iraq, lamented last week. Now he asks why the Navy didn't do more to help her.
Michel's story has now been probed by reporter Kate Gurnett in today's Albany Times-Union. It's headlined, "A casualty far from the battlefield."
And yet, in many ways, not far at all.
Why did it happen? "Like thousands of others returning from Iraq, her mental state was fractured," Gurnett explains. "And it went untreated. Within two weeks, Linda Michel would become a private casualty of war. Re-entry into the world of peace can be harder than deployment, experts say. Picking up where you left off doesn't just happen...."
Women experience stronger forms of post-traumatic stress disorder and have higher PTSD rates, experts say. In response, the Veterans Affairs Department launched a $6 million study of female veterans.
Seeking treatment - seen by some as a weakness - may be even tougher for women, who still feel the need to prove themselves to men in military service.
In fact, this past August, three veterans in New York's Adirondack region committed suicide within three weeks, according to Helena Davis, deputy director of the Mental Health Association in New York.
Michel has served under extremely stressful conditions at Camp Bucca in southern Iraq, a US-run prison where guards shot four inmates dead in a 2005 riot - and an episode of female mudwrestling drew headlines. Michel was treated for depression and prescribed Paxil, but they took her off that medicine when she returned home. Her husband was not informed.
"I just wish the Navy would have done some more follow-up, instead of just letting her come home," Frantz, who is on the division staff of the Army National Guard, told the reporter. "If somebody needs Paxil in a combat zone, then that's not the place for them to be. You either send them to a hospital or you send them home and then make sure that the family members know and that they get follow-up care."
He has pressed the Navy for answers: "Why wasn't she sent to a facility to resolve the issues? Not keep her in Iraq and give her some antidepressant medication and then just send her home. So those are the answers that I don't have. Which makes me a little angry because I know what is supposed to occur."
The Times Union carried another lengthy story on Sunday, by Dennis Yusko, on post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD) and Iraq veterans. "The number of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans getting treatment for PTSD at VA hospitals and counseling centers increased 87 percent from September 2005 to June 2006 - to 38,144, according to the US Department of Veterans Affairs," Yusko revealed.
"At least 30 percent of those who fought in Iraq or Afghanistan are now diagnosed with PTSD, up from 16 percent to 18 percent in 2004," said Charlie Kennedy, PTSD program director and lead psychologist at the Stratton Veterans Affairs Medical Center. "Of the 400 Capital Region vets in the program, 81 served in Iraq or Afghanistan," Kennedy said, and that number is growing. "This kind of warfare is devastating," Kennedy said. "You don't know who is your friend and who is your enemy."
Editor and Publisher
Monday 13 November 2006
New York - Her name doesn't show on any official list of American military deaths in the Iraq war, by hostile or non-hostile fire, who died in that country or in hospitals in Europe or back home in the USA. But Iraq killed her just as certainly.
She is Jeanne "Linda" Michel, a Navy medic. She came home last month to her husband and three kids (ages 11, 5, and 4), delighted to be back in her suburban home of Clifton Park in upstate New York. Michel, 33, would be discharged from the Navy in a few weeks, finishing her five years of duty.
Two weeks after she got home, she shot and killed herself.
"She had come through a lot and she had always risen to challenges," her husband, Frantz Michel, who has also served in Iraq, lamented last week. Now he asks why the Navy didn't do more to help her.
Michel's story has now been probed by reporter Kate Gurnett in today's Albany Times-Union. It's headlined, "A casualty far from the battlefield."
And yet, in many ways, not far at all.
Why did it happen? "Like thousands of others returning from Iraq, her mental state was fractured," Gurnett explains. "And it went untreated. Within two weeks, Linda Michel would become a private casualty of war. Re-entry into the world of peace can be harder than deployment, experts say. Picking up where you left off doesn't just happen...."
Women experience stronger forms of post-traumatic stress disorder and have higher PTSD rates, experts say. In response, the Veterans Affairs Department launched a $6 million study of female veterans.
Seeking treatment - seen by some as a weakness - may be even tougher for women, who still feel the need to prove themselves to men in military service.
In fact, this past August, three veterans in New York's Adirondack region committed suicide within three weeks, according to Helena Davis, deputy director of the Mental Health Association in New York.
Michel has served under extremely stressful conditions at Camp Bucca in southern Iraq, a US-run prison where guards shot four inmates dead in a 2005 riot - and an episode of female mudwrestling drew headlines. Michel was treated for depression and prescribed Paxil, but they took her off that medicine when she returned home. Her husband was not informed.
"I just wish the Navy would have done some more follow-up, instead of just letting her come home," Frantz, who is on the division staff of the Army National Guard, told the reporter. "If somebody needs Paxil in a combat zone, then that's not the place for them to be. You either send them to a hospital or you send them home and then make sure that the family members know and that they get follow-up care."
He has pressed the Navy for answers: "Why wasn't she sent to a facility to resolve the issues? Not keep her in Iraq and give her some antidepressant medication and then just send her home. So those are the answers that I don't have. Which makes me a little angry because I know what is supposed to occur."
The Times Union carried another lengthy story on Sunday, by Dennis Yusko, on post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD) and Iraq veterans. "The number of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans getting treatment for PTSD at VA hospitals and counseling centers increased 87 percent from September 2005 to June 2006 - to 38,144, according to the US Department of Veterans Affairs," Yusko revealed.
"At least 30 percent of those who fought in Iraq or Afghanistan are now diagnosed with PTSD, up from 16 percent to 18 percent in 2004," said Charlie Kennedy, PTSD program director and lead psychologist at the Stratton Veterans Affairs Medical Center. "Of the 400 Capital Region vets in the program, 81 served in Iraq or Afghanistan," Kennedy said, and that number is growing. "This kind of warfare is devastating," Kennedy said. "You don't know who is your friend and who is your enemy."
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