two feet in.

Hiroshima and Truman

My friend Sam Husseini asked me to plug Truman's claim that Hiroshima was a "military base" into OMD's Enola Gay (Sash remix).  While my video editing skills were rusty, I hope that the message comes through with power and clarity.

Sometimes We All Lose

Kathy Kelly (who I had the opportunity to meet and spend an afternoon with a few months ago) is back in Amman, Jordan.  She's got a piece out today that tells the story of a family of Iraqi refugees though a lens of Tom and Jerry cartoons:

This week, the U.S. government will continue deliberating over how much money to earmark for particular defense expenditures. They will serve the insatiable demands of the largest lobby on Capitol Hill, the defense lobby, which is asking for a total of $648.8 billion dollars.       

Even Senator Kennedy, one of the few Senators advocating measures to benefit Iraqi refugees, recommends allotting $100 million in the 2008 defense budget for a new General Electric fighter engine. (The Boston Globe recently reported that the Air Force said it didn't even need the item.)

Democratic candidates claim they are interested in ending the Iraq war. They claim concern      for Iraqi victims. I believe these claims. Yet by obediently funding the war machine, most of them play predictable, scripted roles in a dull and murderous war without end. The victors are   always the same, the bloated and menacing producers of weapons,--General Dynamics, Boeing, Raytheon, Lockheed, General Electric,--the fat cats whose menacing force always wins. The losers can watch their children become crippled, starved, maimed or dead. Period.

Tom and Jerry is much loved in Amman because "sometimes Tom wins and sometimes Jerry, and sometimes they both win... you love them both."  As Kelly so eloquently writes, this particular show isn't quite like that.  However, my feeling is that when the victors are always the same bloated and menacing producers of weapons then we all lose, albeit some of us more comfortably than others.  We who can so easily ignore families like Umm Daoud's may have lost our humanity but at least we can still drive our SUV's.

Obama & Occupation

Perhaps you will forgive me if I don’t necessarily tow the line when it comes the Obama-Mania that is currently sweeping my neighborhood.  I’m not saying that Obama wouldn’t be a vast improvement over Bush in significant ways, but just that I’ve yet to see how he is distinguished from main-stream, corporate Democratic line, especially as related to foreign policy. 

And, when it comes to foreign policy, I'm still looking for the difference between that line and the Republican line.  Even, Fred Hiatt, the Washington Post’s conservative editorial page editor points out some of the parallels between Obama and Mitt Romney:

FRED HIATT, WASHINGTON POST - [Barack Obama and Mitt Romney] have laid out their foreign policy visions in parallel articles, released prior to publication in the July/August issue of Foreign Affairs. And after you cut through some of their campaign rhetoric, here's what you find:

(1) The two candidates' programs are strikingly similar to each other.

(2) Both are strikingly similar to Bush administration policy.

(3) And both, far from retreating to isolationism in the face of Iraq and other challenges, set forth their own wildly ambitious calls for American leadership and the promotion of American values. "Boldness" is an operative word for both of them.

You can read more about how the “similarities dwarf the differences” here.

There’s a good interview with Anthony Arnove up on ZNet, “Why Bush Won’t Admit Failure in Iraq,” where, among other things, Arnove speaks to what it will take to end the occupation (no, not electing Barack Obama):

I THINK it will take much more pressure at home and also within the rank and file of the U.S. military in Iraq.

We have to take advantage of the cracks that are opening within the establishment to campaign vocally and publicly against the war, involving greater numbers of the people and communities affected by the war at home--which has gone hand in hand with the war against the Iraqi people.

We need to put pressure on both the Democrats and Republicans, and not simply collapse into a lobbying wing for the Democratic Party.

There will be immense pressure on the antiwar movement to give up its independence and get behind whatever candidate the Democrats put forward in 2008, no matter what their limitations. People will tell us this is how we can be relevant.

I think the antiwar movement would be irrelevant, though, if we did this. We’ll be much more effective if we articulate our own principles and demands--including immediate withdrawal--and fight for them.

And we also need to defend and support those soldiers who in greater numbers are speaking out, refusing service, declaring conscientious objection and, at great personal risk, organizing against the war.

In particular, I think we all need to help build Iraq Veterans Against the War, which is playing a vital role in building a movement of Iraq vets and also active-duty troops who can bring an end to this occupation.

Arnove ends the interview with this thought -- "So there are grounds for optimism, but it will take a lot more than hoping for the best to end the occupation--and also to avert other disasters in Iran and elsewhere."  So, forgive me dear neighborhood, but it's not likely there will be an Obama bumper-sticker on my car in 2008.  When he demonstrates that the differences dwarf the similarities I'll consider it.

Tattoo Identity

A father plants an olive tree when his son is born. 

Years later, that son, now a father himself, has the following words tattooed onto his arm:  "My age is the same as the olive tree."

"My age is the same as the olive tree," reads the blue tattoo on Qaisar Tariq al-Essawi's left shoulder. Al-Eassawi, 36, got the tattoo so his family and close friends could recognize his remains if he ended up in a morgue. "I selected this wording because only my family and close friends know about our olive tree which was planted by my father when I was born," al-Essawi, a father of two boys, told IRIN in Baghdad. One response to sudden and violent death which has become commonplace in Iraq's turmoil, is the emergence of a new subculture - the etching of tattoo identities on people who fear becoming an unclaimed body in a packed morgue. It is more than just another grim footnote in a nation brimming with sad stories. It points to how deeply war and sectarian bloodshed have transformed the way Iraqis live today and confront the constant possibility of death.

This is the world that we create.

Bringing Life to Numbers

On December 31st I took my children to a daytime New Year’s Eve celebration at a local museum.  There were crafts, snacks, and a balloon drop from the roof of the building each hour.  At 1:00 in the afternoon all the kids gathered on the museum lawn and looked expectantly at the employees perched high above, ready to shower them with balloons.  A young man brought out a bullhorn and announced a list of places around the world where it was now 2007 -- various countries in time zones eleven hours ahead of our own:  Russia, Kenya, Madagascar, Kuwait.  As the crowd counted down, balloons were dropped, and kids stampeded, I found myself pondering the countries that were read aloud, and realized that there was, at least to me, one glaring omission:  It was midnight in Iraq, with a new year beginning. 

Later, I looked at the top Google listing for “World Time Zones” and found that when sorted by time zones, Baghdad was indeed on the list with the other countries that had been named.  While I don’t ascribe negative intentions in the failure to announce that it was New Year’s in Iraq, I did feel saddened by the missed opportunity for compassion, for empathy, for connection -- not only with our own American soldiers away from home, but also with ordinary Iraqis.  To me, the incident seemed to illuminate our tendency to shield ourselves from both the bad and the good of Iraq.  It is much easier to deny our own complicity in this illegal and immoral war when real Iraqi lives are reduced to numbers streaming by on the television set:  numbers displaced, numbers dead.  Numbers are easier than names and faces, families and traditions, celebrations and bereavement, change and growth. 

The following day, January 1st, I attended what was to be a walk across the Golden Gate bridge marking the death of the 3000th American soldier, and the hundreds of thousands civilians killed in Iraq.  On my trip to the bridge, about a half-hour before the vigil began, I witnessed what seemed to be a horrible accident, with a woman hit by a car and dead on the freeway.  I thought of her children, her loved ones, her friends, and hoped that they had not had seen the accident, that they might be spared these last images of her.  I thought of the driver of the car that hit her, the image of him with his head in his hands in sorrow and pain.  And I hoped that all would be solaced and ultimately healed by their communities. 

As I walked the bridge my mind moved between these events and images.  I saw faces and families in both celebration and mourning, and tried to imagine the joys and sorrows, the hopes and dreams, the quirky habits, the mundane and intimate details that breathe life into each and every one of the numbers that we see, and too often ignore, day after day.  Had the woman on the freeway toasted in the new year, made resolutions to be kept and broken?  Even amidst the chaos, were Iraqi families able to gather together, to sing and dance, to greet 2007 with the slightest bit of hope shimmering on the horizon?  How many of our soldiers counted down to a long-distance kiss and silent wish to come home?  And then, how many of each of these beings that celebrated (or not) the previous night, would make it through until tomorrow?  In 2007 how many children will watch their parents die needless deaths, how many parents will bury their children?

I soon discovered that the woman on the freeway survived with relatively minor injuries.  Rather than become a statistic, hers was a life returned, renewed.  Will we be able to say the same for the children, the women and men, both Iraqi and American, who daily must live the horrific reality that our imperialism has wrought? 

In the Eyes of Our Children

In his Mideast Dispatches Dahr Jamail and Ali Al-Fadhily have recently reported on what is happening to education in Iraq under war and occupation.  I'll share some of those details in an upcoming post.  For now, here's a bit from a recent piece on children:

Ahmed Ghazi has little reason to stock Christmas toys at his shop in Fallujah. He knows what children want these days.* "It is best for us to import toys such as guns and tanks because they are most saleable in Iraq to little boys," Ghazi told IPS. "Children try to imitate what they see out of their windows."

And there are particular imports for girls, too, he said. "Girls prefer crying dolls to others that dance or play music and songs."

As children in the United States and around the world celebrate Christmas, and prepare to celebrate the New Year, children in Iraq occupy a quite different world, with toys to match.
...
"Children are the most affected by the tragic events," Dr. Khalil al-Kubaissi, a psychotherapist in Fallujah told IPS. "Their fragile personalities cannot face the loss of a parent or the family house along with all the horror that surrounds them. The result is catastrophic, and Iraqi children are in serious danger of lapsing into loneliness or violence."

The difficulties of children have become particularly noticeable this year. "The only things they have on their minds are guns, bullets, death and a fear of the U.S. occupation," Maruan Abdullah, spokesman for the Association of Psychologists of Iraq told reporters at the launch of a study in February this year. The report warned that "children in Iraq are seriously suffering psychologically with all the insecurity, especially with the fear of kidnapping and explosions."

My own daughter is five years old, and yes, inhabits a very different world than the children in Iraq.  However, she is becoming increasing aware of issues surrounding war, peace, and inequity -- that these different worlds exist within our shared world.  She does not see the images on the nightly news, but she does listen to the radio with me (and she listens more closely than I had thought), we attend anti-war events together, and I try to talk openly and honestly with her about my perceptions surrounding justice and injustice. 

A few weeks ago she, on her own, made the picture above and those below.  I was on my way to a peace event, and she asked me to give them to people there.  Here, for the New Year, I give them to you.

 

 

'Tis the Season...

...for yet more adventures in military recruitment.  No space is sacred -- not even your local big box store during the Christmas shopping extravaganza.  Red State Son shares this heart-warming tale:

The teen and I are doing our seasonal, consumerist duty at Best Buy, when to our right, in the DVD section, stand two tall Marines over a smaller teen boy. Back and forth, a well-rehearsed duo, the queries fly -- How old are you? What are your plans after high school? What do you want out of life? Do you want to be successful and respected?

The kid is pretty relaxed. Short, spiky jet black hair. Large silver earring in his right lobe. He keeps browsing the comedies as the Marines make their pitch: The USMC can pay for half of his college tuition; plus, if he enlists now, there may be a large signing bonus. The kid says that he doesn't want to go to Iraq. The Marines tell him that he probably won't go there. The kid smiles, shakes his head, and gently but adamantly says he's not interested. The Marines retreat, split up, and hunt for more possible fodder perusing CDs and cell phones.

"Couldn't help overhear," I say to the kid. "Nice job. You handled that well."

"Thanks." He pauses. "A buddy of mine joined the Marines. I thought about it, but I don't want to go to Iraq."

"And that's where you'd go. Those guys were lying. They want more troops over there."

"I know."

"Well, anyway. Take it easy. Have a nice Christmas."

"You too."

He checks out the teen in an approving way, then heads to the registers, DVDs in hand.

Later, at home, this little scene keeps bugging me. Did the Marines simply enter Best Buy and start hitting on teens without any clearance from the store? Or is Best Buy signed up for the war effort, offering its young customers to the military?

Read about Dennis' pursuit of these answers and more -- here.

Is It For Freedom?

The end of the semester has nearly done me in this year, and I'm not finished yet.  Teaching is over, but now there's all the student projects to read and comment on -- however this work lies more toward the "full" end of the busy - rich/full continuum, and it's nice to have the teaching pressure off for the moment.   

I've also been working on another project that has kept me from writing here.  I created a couple of digital movies for Code Pink, highlighting in images many of the group's anti-war actions from the past year.  You can watch one of them below (though beware that Google Video streaming has been annoyingly jumpy):

Making these was an incredible experience -- sifting through hundreds of images of courageous and righteous people putting themselves on the line for peace and justice helped to re-inspire myself towards the work that we must all continue, and continue, and continue...

In that spirit, I'm back to working more at the rich/full end of things, and will be writing here much more regularly.  Please return.

U.S. Air Force Jet Crash. And...?

I am quite terribly, horribly, behind in my writing here -- many issues that I've had in my head and wanted to get out on (virtual) paper.  Sadly, though, I've been again and again sucked into the mindless internets only to emerge hours later having accomplished nothing. 

This, however, is a crucial perspective on something that happened today (thanks to the Institute for Public Accuracy):

AP is reporting: "A U.S. Air Force jet carrying one pilot crashed in Iraq on Monday, the military said."
Author of the new book Strategic Terror: The Politics and Ethics of Aerial Bombardment, [Beau] Grosscup is professor of international relations at California State University in Chico. He said today: "The silence over the Bush administration's continuing use of air power in Iraq has finally been broken. Not by reports of daily bombing of urban and rural neighborhoods on so-called 'dual use targets' (including medical facilities and shopping malls) or the devastation to Iraqi civilian life and limb. No, it comes with the downing of a U.S. Air Force F-16CG fighter jet outside of Baghdad.

"A military source reported the jet was 'flying on a low level "strafing run" -- firing on targets on the ground at a low altitude.' At this time the fate of the pilot remains unknown but is sure to be investigated and widely reported. Unfortunately the fate of the victims of this 'strafing run' and the thousands before and those sure to come will not be investigated nor reported. After all, official U.S. policy is 'We don't do body counts' -- unless they are North American."

Be truthful with yourself.  Do you read about the downing of a US jet, and immediately also consider the victims of the actions of that jet?  I'm ashamed to admit that too often the answer is no, at least for me.  It's easier to get sucked into the mindless internets and cruise past the headlines, the soundbites, the words coming at us, flowing over us.  It's easier to ignore and forget.

Malachi Ritscher and Alyssa Peterson

Several days ago I learned about the death of Malachi Ritscher, an anti-war activist from Chicago:

In December 2002, the city of Chicago dedicated a statue called "The Flame of the Millennium"-- a seven-ton, stainless-steel, abstract rendering of a flame in high wind, standing over the Kennedy Expressway, just west of the downtown Loop. Last Friday, November 3, the statue appeared to be on fire. When authorities got there, they found a video camera, a canister of gasoline, a sign reading "Thou Shalt Not Kill", and a human body so badly charred that it was impossible to determine its sex. Someone had self-immolated, near a highway off-ramp, amid rush-hour traffic.
 
Over the next few days, members of Chicago's avant-garde music community would be shocked to learn that the person who'd done this was one of their own-- someone many of them had been running into, several nights a week, for more than a decade. Tougher still would be dealing with the reasons behind it. According to the statements left on his website, 52-year-old Malachi Ritscher had set himself on fire to protest the war in Iraq and the politics that allowed it to happen. And thus began the same debate, among his friends, among the public, on blogs, and in comment boxes across the internet-- an argument about which of two pigeonholes we'd slot this into: Was it an important act of political protest, or the tragic end of a mentally ill person?

I didn't know Malachi Ritscher, but I've been thinking about him a lot this weekend.  I'll admit, my first reaction upon reading about what happened was to try and fit my understanding of it into the "pigeonholes" that, Nitsuh Abebe, the writer of the above quote references -- Could Ritscher really have been so serious in his feelings about the war that he set himself on fire?  Or, was he deeply mentally ill?
As I continued reading Abebe's piece, I much appreciated that he complicated these simplistic attempts at explanation and understanding that we all instinctively reach towards:

Was Malachi Ritscher a political martyr or a mentally troubled suicide? Let me tip my editorial hand and claim something: The argument is a distraction, and it's the wrong question to ask. It assumes too much. It assumes that the two things are mutually exclusive, or binaries, and that they can't be jumbled intractably in someone's thinking. It assumes that there's a clear, distinct line between rational politics and personal emotions. And it assumes that a troubled person can't legitimately mean what he says, even if his way of expressing it is tragic.

...there's no reason to believe that politics and mental health don't have anything to do with each other. A person's depression or hopelessness can be exacerbated by any number of events in his personal life: rejection, loneliness, failure. At the same time, that hopelessness can be exacerbated by his experience of politics: The feeling of being alienated, ignored, or powerless to stop injustice. Whether the source is the people around you or the news on the television, the result is the same: You wind up feeling thwarted, frustrated, and weak. And if enough people feel this way, it makes sense that one of them-- possibly one of them with plenty of other issues in his life-- might take the kind of action Ritscher did. It doesn't make him right, or a martyr. It just makes him a piece of very shocking evidence that some of the people around us feel very hurt and marginalized. Most of them, thankfully, have found-- and will find-- much better ways to deal with it.

In reading this, I found myself also thinking about Alyssa Peterson, the US solder who killed herself rather than participate in torture at Abu Ghraib.  Benjamin Greenberg, on the blog HungryBlues, wrote an interesting piece about Alyssa Peterson.  The whole thing is well worth reading, but the end seemed to capture some of the things I've been thinking about:

The environment is as devastating as the individual practices. The abuses and acts of torture are horrific in and of themselves—enough, I believe, to severely traumatize those who witness them. But the broader consequences of the individual abuses—mass, indefinite detention and abuse of people not charged with any particular crime—is also devastating...

Was it a particular incident in an interrogation room? Or was it the stench of humanity left to rot, which pervaded every corner of the air base, from which Alyssa Peterson concluded there was no escape?

Although their circumstances were vastly different, and perhaps not even comparable, I can imagine that similar questions have been asked about Alyssa Peterson's death as with Malachi Richter -- people want, and maybe even need to believe that an action such as there's must be indicative of mental illness.  That simplistic explanation helps to shield each of us from "the stench of humanity left to rot," because to enter into a deeper examination potentially opens up space for empathy and pain that can be overwhelming to contemplate.  Once you deeply feel the weight and pain of the world there is no turning back.  May we all find our own ways, both individually and collectively, to move forward.

If You've Got LITERACY and You Know It, Clap Your Hands!

All righty, I think I've been gone from the world o'blog for long enough.  Not to say that I'm back for good.   It seems that the necessitudes of burstingly full work schedule intersecting with highly unpredictable emotional-spiritual-creative-political vicissitudes have pushed these two feet toward paths unforeseen, but hopefully not permanently away from this wee corner of cyberspace. 

Yes, I may be frustrated with the dearth of public writing that I have engaged in recently, but Thank God Almighty -- I've got LITERACY!

Or, so says George Bush at yesterday's conference on Global Literacy. (via the always laugh-provoking WIIIAI)

And just in case you wonder about the top reasons have literacy, here they are (in the order presented in the LITERACY speech (you'll have to search the speech yourself for all the literacy errors present in said speech, 'cause I'm just focusing on what's most important):  PROSPERITY! 

1. "it's pretty clear; in order to be an informed consumer you have to read"
2. "In order to be able to take advantages [sic] of jobs that may come to your country as a result of expanding economic opportunity, you've got to read"
3. "In order to be a productive worker, you have to be able to read the manual."

Then, of course, he gets on to the stuff of spreading freedom and democracy:

I also strongly believe that those of us who have the benefits of living in free society must help others realize the benefits of liberty. I believe that.  I believe that's part of America's responsibility in the world.  I realize we can't impose our vision of government, nor should we try. But we believe here in America in the universality of freedom.  We don't believe freedom belongs only to the United States of America; we believe that liberty is universal in its applications.  We also believe strongly that as the world becomes more free, we'll see peace. That's what we believe.  And we're going to act on those beliefs.  But one thing that's for certain:  It is very hard to have free societies if the citizens cannot read.

That's right -- it is very difficult to have free societies if the citizens cannot read:

The past two decades of war and sanctions have also taken a heavy toll on Iraq’s education system...  The literacy rate among those between the ages of 15 and 24 is just 74 percent, the survey reveals - a rate researchers note is only "slightly higher than the literacy rate for the population at large." But this figure is lower than literacy rates for those 25-34, "indicating that the younger generation lags behind its predecessors on educational performance." [hmm, I wonder why that could be?]  The survey also indicated that the literacy rate for women in Iraq has stagnated in the past two years.

Which, then, brings us back to PROSPERITY (for the very few).  O.peration I.raqi L.iberation has indeed been a success.  Ah the joys of capitalism, and thank god I've got literacy.

Which War?

The Code Pink Troops Home Fast moved into Oakland, California today with a rally and press conference in front of the Federal Building:

The woman with the microphone is Jane Jackson, a veteran human rights and disability activist.  She has already been fasting for fifteen days, and plans to vigil in Oakland indefinitely:

Human rights activist and Oakland Resident Jane who has engaged in numerous hunger strikes, says she will not set an end date to her fast. “My goal is to bring the troops home. I don’t know how long I can fast, but I’m making this open-ended,” she says. “I plan to take this as far as I’ve ever taken anything in my 72 years. I fear our future is at stake, and I’m ready to make a major sacrifice.”

I was present for the kick-off ceremony today, handing out leaflets and talking to people.  At one point I offered a flier to a young woman wearing a hijab.  She took note of the TV cameras, the gathered people, the signs saying Fasting for Peace and asked, "Which war?" 

She went on to ask again, Which war were we protesting?  The "new ones" (Gaza, Lebanon) or Iraq?  I only managed to say that the Troops Home Fast is focused on ending the war in Iraq, before she turned to leave with a saddened "Too bad."

I wanted to call her back, because I wanted to speak with her from my heart instead of my head.  I wanted to say that I, at least, was there as an affirmation of our common humanity, that these wars of aggression and the atrocities that ensue are all fundamentally related -- that Jane Jackson and others are not just fasting for peace, we are hungry for peace.  For everyone.

Fasting on the 4th of July

Yesterday, when I told a friend that I would be fasting on July 4th, he looked at me and asked. “Why?” 

While I wanted to spill out all of my various personal and political reasons for choosing to engage in a fast, I found that I was unable to respond with anything more than a brief explanation that I was doing it in solidarity with the Code Pink “Troops Home” Fast, that I am anti-war and anti-torture, that I would be fasting for peace.  And, all of that is true. 

However, I have no illusions that my fasting, more or less on my own, in the progressive mecca of Berkeley, California, is going to end war or bring troops home.  I am not fasting with any hope of bringing about a change of heart or mind on the part of Bush, Cheney, or any of their posse of neocon war-makers.  For, indeed, I am not fasting for them.

In 1924 Mahatma Gandhi wrote the following in a letter to George Joseph:  “I fasted to reform those who loved me. But I will not fast to reform, say, General Dyer who not only does not love me, but who regards himself as my enemy. Am I quite clear?”

In an interview that same year Gandhi explained: 

“Fasting as a weapon can only be used against a lover, a friend, a follower or co-worker who, on account of his love for you and the sufferings you undergo actually, realize his mistake and corrects himself. He purifies himself of an evil that he knows and acknowledges being an evil. You recall him from his evil ways to the correct path.”

It is a privilege to fast, to choose to intentionally go without solid food, and it is an act that I undertake in my own struggle to understand my privilege and role in the suffering, the involuntary fasts, the death and destruction that the maintenance of our privilege inflicts upon so many others in this world that we share.  I am fasting first and foremost to reform myself, and ultimately, our society.   For, in our collective silence, our tacit acceptance of war and occupation, we perpetuate and legitimate the evil that our country’s imperialistic endeavors bring the world over.  I am fasting to acknowledge our common humanity rather than our separation, for in all of our inaction, we only strengthen the walls that divide. 

Imagine if each of us who claim to be against war and occupation, against oppression, against torture, did something daily -- if we engaged in one action every day to heal our world.  Imagine if we all did that today, tomorrow, and onward without fail.  One action by everyone, every day.  I truly believe that change could happen.  But, we don’t.  I know that I don’t.

I begin my fast on the day that we celebrate our country’s independence from domination by a foreign power -- as a statement of my own commitment to walk a more active path, as a way to open dialogue within my community about the paths that we all can take to end the occupation of Iraq, the injustice in Palestine supported by US military aide, as well as the deep inequities that mark our own divided society.  Let us together be reformed as we begin to truly take action towards peace and justice globally, as we tear down the walls of hatred and greed that separate us from our common heart.  Then, we’ll really have something to celebrate.

"I am not here to win hearts and minds. I am here to kill the enemy."

That is one quote from a brigade commander in Iraq, one of many in the must-read piece by Nir Rosen, The Occupation of Iraqi Hearts and Minds -- printed out it is seven pages of observations and stories from one two week period in Iraq.  For those who follow the reporting of people like Dahr Jamail (and there are few such people), these stories are not new.  Read them anyway, and read them from your heart.   

Rosen's piece ends with this...

The American occupation of Iraq has lasted over three years. The above stories are based on my two weeks with one unit in a small part of the country. Imagine how many Iraqi homes have been destroyed. How many families have been traumatized. How many men have disappeared into American military vehicles in the night. How many crimes have been committed against the Iraqi people every single day in the course of the normal operations of the occupation, when soldiers were merely doing their duty, when they were not angry or vengeful as in Haditha. Imagine what we have done to the Iraqi people, tortured by Saddam for years, then released from three decades of his bloody rule only to find their hope stolen from them and a new terror unleashed.

Then, imagine what you will do this July 4th and beyond to end this occupation, this "vast extended crime against the Iraqi people" in which every one of us is complicit.
-----------------------

By the way, after you are done with Rosen's article, I suggest getting caught up on any of Dahr Jamail's Dispatches that you might have missed.  Dahr is requesting financial support so that he can return to the Middle East to continue his independent reporting.  You can make a donation here.

The Heartland Speaks

Voices for Creative Nonviolence is in the midst of a Walk for Justice across the state of Illinois with an emphasis on "ending the war in and occupation of Iraq; securing fully funded high quality health care for veterans and all residing in the U.S.; and the obligation of the U.S. to provide full funding for the reconstruction of Iraq."

During the walk, Voices participants have conducted rigorous statistical analysis of heartland public reaction.  I've heard that support for our illegal and immoral war is waning, but I was still happily surprised at what they found --

Grand Total:

Negative responses: 123
Positive Responses: 1137
Positive to negative ratio about 9:1

Positive responses included honks, positive hand waves, peace signs, favorable comments, etc.  You can probably imagine the negative responses, but if not, go see day-by-day details here. 

My personal favorite was the "new category" of "Violent convulsions/ possible demonic possessions"  -- not one but two occurrences on June 16th!  Amazing what a simple gesture towards peace and justice can inspire.

"Can You Help Me Not Miss Them?"

Stories of life under occupation in Bagdhad -- a journalist, professor, doctor, housewife, and mother reveal just how well we are winning their hearts and minds.  The following is Um Jaafar's story.  She is a woman in her 40's who watched as her sons were killed in a US raid on their home:

At 2.30, the night of 21 January, I woke up to a blast that opened the door of our house in the Al-Huriya Al-Thaniya area, west of Baghdad. A group of American soldiers stormed in.

With them was an Iraqi translator, through whom they asked me about Mohamed. I pointed to my son Jaafar, whom we call Mohamed at home. Without a single comment, they moved to where Jaafar was sleeping and shot him dead. Athir, Jaafar's 28-year-old half-brother, tried to question the translator about the reason. The response was, 'the matter has come to an end.' And when he tried to go upstairs to seek the help of their elder brother Haidar, 29, an American bullet beat him to it, killing him immediately. Haidar's wife tried to defend her husband and their children, Mustafa and Ali, but one of the Americans beat her back -- on the head, with a baton -- to make way for the bullet that was to kill Haidar. The whole process took no more than a few minutes. In the end my daughter Shaimaa lay among the three corpses, injured and bleeding.

Only later did the translator ask me to fetch the identity cards of those killed -- only to realise that there was no Mohamed among them. He said simply, 'sorry, but we have killed them on a suspicion.' And the raiding force left. What happened had not sunk in when they came back, and to this day I still can not believe it; I have not visited the graves of my sons. I lost three sons like that; who would believe me? I do not believe it myself. Trying to comfort me, neighbours and relatives point out that at least I got to bury my dead; there are mothers, they say, who do not even have access to their sons' corpses once they are told they were killed. But I am a mother and my disaster feels the greatest.

Tell me, what should I do when I miss Jaafar and his brothers? I miss them. For how long will we keep losing our sons by mistake? Just tell me what to do. Can you help me not miss them?

May 1 is the three year anniversary of "Mission Accomplished."  After Downing Street has compiled events and ideas for action to "mark the passing of another year of an unclear and unaccomplished mission" including links to a series of video clips and pictures to download and use to get the message across more forcefully.  I went to check out the pictures, and this is what I had to choose from:

Only coffins draped with American flags -- powerful images, yes.  But, every single death must be recognized, and I think that even visually representing the horror and tragedy of this "unclear and unaccomplished mission" in purely American terms limits our potential for achieving humanity.  In that spirit, I'll add a few more pictures of sons lost, daughters lost, humans lost...

Rebranding War

Today I was extra-comforted to hear that the war on terror has ended! --

Deep in the bowels of the Pentagon, some of the country's finest military minds met recently, synthesizing ideas, debating proposals and trading strategies.Their goal — a rebranding for the history books.When they emerged, they had completed their semantic sleight-of-hand.They had simply changed wars, consigning the "War on Terror" to the recycling bin and launching "The Long War."

In a George W. Bush White House well-schooled in the art of propaganda, an administration re-elected for its steely determination to stay on message, renaming a war is a new triumph of marketing.

"The War on Terror brand had gone sour," says Christopher Simpson, an expert on political communications at Washington's American University.

"It connoted abuse of power, an indiscriminate use of violence as much by the U.S. as its opponents; it barely had the support of 50 per cent of Americans and was opposed by a large percentage of the international population."So you rebrand. You rename to try to get rid of the past perceptions. You find a new bumper sticker." (via Undernews)

War as product  -- not a surprise, but I do wonder about the market research focus groups they convened to come up with that "branding."  How long until "long war" product placement in prime time sitcoms?

If you really feel the need for a new bumper sticker, this one made me laugh today:

Two Images

Chris Floyd has set up a page that contains the Abu Ghraib photographs from Salon.com, along with some of their and his commentary, including this reminder to us all...

Of course, these Abu Ghraib photos themselves represent only a small fraction of the atrocities carried out -- in our name -- in secret hell-holes around the globe. The photos depict the raw and brutal dawn of a system that has become progressively more refined, more "professional," now largely removed from the hands of untrained grunts with digital cameras, and instead carried out in secret by CIA agents and other operatives of the America's mammoth "security organs" -- again, acting under presidential orders, and presidential protection.

What shall we say when history asks how such crimes came to be committed in the name of America? Will we say that we stood silently by, shrugging our shoulders, filling our bellies, closing our eyes? Or will we be able to say: We saw. We dissented. We resisted. We condemned.

Earlier today I by chance watched two online "slideshows" in short succession -- the photos on Salon.com...

...followed by the New York Times site that showed a set of relatively recently discovered William Blake watercolors...

To Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
All pray in their distress;
And to these virtues of delight
Return their thankfulness.

For Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
Is God, our father dear,
And Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
Is Man, his child and care.

For Mercy has a human heart,
Pity a human face,
And Love, the human form divine,
And Peace, the human dress.

Then every man, of every clime
That prays in his distress,
Prays to the human form divine,
Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace.

And all must love the human form,
In heathen, turk, or jew;
Where Mercy, Love & Pity dwell
There God is dwelling too.

--William Blake, The Divine Image

We saw, yes.  Will we dissent, resist, condemn?

By the way, the Blake image above is entitled, "The Grave Personified."

Bridges

I am going to continue to post some the Christian Peacemaker Teams Iraq Reflections on this site.  This one is written by Michele Naar:

The Baghdad area has many bridges, because the Tigris River snakes right through the middle of the city. Over the years, these bridges have been blown up, damaged, burned, blocked, and sometimes repaired.

Iraq has many sects.  Over the years the bridges that connect  different groups of people have been blown up, damaged, burned, blocked and sometimes repaired.  Right now, we see that the bridges binding humanity together in Iraq are crumbling.

I have traveled to Iraq four times since 2002.  Each year the rivers of blood that flow under these bridges get deeper. This year, it seems like we're drowning in it. The rivers are overflowing with the blood of the Sunni, Shia, Kurd, Christian, Palestinian, and coalition forces. They are filled with the blood of men and women, children and the elderly. I often feel way over my head and the thought of one more drop of blood added to these rivers is too much to bear.

Recently, two members of the CPT Iraq team met with a number of the Muslim Peacemakers in Najaf who are Shia. They have been strengthening bridges they built with the Sunni in Fallujah.  Now they want to deliver gifts to the poorest families in Kurdistan during their religious holiday.  This simple action has enormous potential for bridge building.

As the Muslim peacemakers shared other ideas for building bridges, the light in their eyes shone so bright and strong one could visualize the rivers of blood beginning to recede.

Two Sentences

Daniel Burns, a US peace activist was sentenced to six months in federal prison for pouring his own blood on the walls of a military recruiting station.

Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer, a US military  interrogator, was sentenced to a reprimand and fine but escaped jail time for killing an Iraqi general by stuffing his head into a sleeping bag.

"Promise me you will tell."

Beth Pyles of the Christian Peacemaker Team sent the following letter to supporters on 8 January 2006.She has been doing media work in Amman on behalf of the four CPTers missing in Iraq and is preparing to join CPT's Iraq team. 

As I read the New Testament, if I envy Paul anything, it's the way he opens a letter.  I wish it were not so awkward to greet you -- by telling you all how beloved and special you are to me--

--My newest Iraqi friends are a father and his six year-old son.  I teasingly call him Abdul-Fred, remembering my own children when they were small and the many pet names we had for them.  Abdul Fred laughs when he sees me and my heart overflows.  We spent an afternoon in the hotel lobby making paper airplanes, origami creatures and drawing pictures.  The men who stay here, all from the Middle East, joined in.

One of the men, from Syria, told me the story of Abdul-Fred and his family.  Father and son are hoping to travel to the United States, where a charitable group has arranged for Abdul-Fred to have reconstructive facial surgery.  They are from Fallujah and their home was bombed by our military during the fighting there last year.  Abdul-Fred's mother was eight months pregnant and something from the shelling struck her, literally ripping the baby from her flesh.  He did not survive.  She had massive injuries, yet the military would not take her to the hospital; only Abdul-Fred was taken.

--If you see [Abdul Fred] in profile, you see an unmarked face, but when he turns, the other half of his face shows the scars.  One eye is blind and milky white, and the entire half of his face is scarred from the burns.  Half of his mouth will not close, so when he eats rice, his father gently pushes the grains that slip out back into his mouth.  --They are gentle and quiet, the pair of them, with ready smiles, even for strangers.

But as my Syrian friend told me what had happened to them, he almost cried -- and he struggled to say to me, "You must tell them!  You must tell the people of the United States about this!  You must!  Promise me you will tell."  So tonight I not only share my reflection with you; I fulfill a promise to a friend.  Because, you see, my Syrian friend believes that if only you knew what was happening, the United States would stop the war in Iraq.  He believes that we do not know, because if we did, we would not allow it--

Tomorrow is the beginning of second Eid-- a Muslim time of worship and celebration, fasting and prayer. Michele and I plan to join our friends in fasting for the day, as is the custom.  We will spend our time in fasting and prayer for Tom, Jim, Norman and Harmeet, as well as for their captors.  Please join with us.

God's peace to you all.

Both Body and Soul and Red State Son have commented on the photos of Al Franken posing with the dogs of Abu Ghraib, so I'll just say that it is quite difficult to look at this:

and not think of this:

Beth Pyles' Syrian friend felt that if we Americans knew what was happening, we wouldn't allow it.  Well, we do know, and in our silence we continue to allow all of this and more, day after day after day.

A Delight to the Seer

Nedhal Abbas is an Iraqi poet. She published her first book of poetry, Dreams of Invisible Pleasures, in Arabic, in 1999.  The new online journal, State of Nature, has several of her poems translated into English.

Sura-Mn-Ra’a*

On Friday morning
In Sura-Mn-Ra’a
A young man lays in pieces
Torn apart by sniper’s fire

A woman
In Black A’baya
Passes by
Holding her toddler by the hand.

The child
Stares at the remains,
At a hand opened to the sky.
He reaches for a touch,
Wondering
Could it be his father’s?

* Sura-Mn-Ra’a: “A delight to the seer”, the old name of the modern city of Samarra (سامراء), which stands on the east bank of the Tigris, 125 Km north of Baghdad and is famous for its Great Mosque with its unique spiral minaret built in 847. In October 2004, The US occupation forces led an assault on Samarra. Hundreds of people were killed. Bodies were left in the streets and could not be collected for fear of American snipers.

Read more poems by Nedhal Abbas here.

"I hope they keep them long enough to know them like friends."

[NOTE: Maxine Nash, currently working with the Christian Peacemaker Team in Iraq, sent the following letter to her support community on New Year's Day.  Perhaps we can all gain much wisdom from her words.]

1 January 2006

Dearest friends-

First and foremost, Happy New Year to you all!  The celebrations have
started here today in Baghdad with lots of fireworks and joyous noises in
the street.  One such noise was a band that went walking by our building.  I
asked the landlord about that, and he said is a custom here that families or
groups of friends put together a band and go door to door, wishing people
well and asking for small tokens of money.

My friends are still not home today as we wait for the new year.  It's been
hard not to be discouraged.  But, as often happens, the words of a child
brought me new insight.  A friend who has been telling her young daughter
about the situation e-mailed me a letter in which she made an extraordinary
comment.  She said, "I hope they keep them long enough to know them like
friends."

Know them like friends?  Could that possibly happen?

Knowing my colleagues, I think it is.  I can well imagine Tom Fox having
incredible discussions about faith with his guards.  I can imagine Norman
telling about his visit to the Radiation Hospital in Baghdad, how he taught
radiation medicine in England, and how he feels badly that this hospital is
struggling to perform such necessary medical care.  I can imagine Jim
recounting his previous journeys to Iraq and his love of the Iraqi people,
especially his good friend Sa'ad who refused to fight in Sadaam's army
because he couldn't live with killing people.  I can imagine Harmeet talking
about this being his first trip to Iraq, and how much he's seen about [the
difficulty of the] situation even in a such short time.

Yes, I can imagine they've been there long enough now to be friends.

Although I can appreciate the kidnappers may want to keep their new-found
friends close at hand, I'm hoping they will see how precious they are and
return them to us who treasure them so much.

If I knew where they were, I'd get a band together today, walk down the
street, knock on the door and instead of asking for money I'd ask for my
friends back.

May you be blessed with surprises of peace and joy in this new year

Maxine

Comfortable Prisons Redux

Note: This is a rewrite and expansion of a previous posting, which I have sent out into the world beyond cozy little Two Feet In. 

The above image shows California Youth Authority students in their classroom.  The students are the ones inside the cages, and they are being taught to read.  A friend drew my attention to this photo after I shared a story about a similar kind of prison, about kids learning to read in cages, albeit ones where the bars, while not visible, are nonetheless solidly constructed.

Awhile back I was observing in a local urban elementary school classroom -- all kids of color, mostly free lunch, low test scores.  One of those schools that is mandated to use a scripted literacy curriculum for at least 90 minutes a day in order to meet federal testing requirements.  At times when I have criticized such curricula, I've been accused of having an "overly sentimental, humanistic" view of students (god forbid, humanistic) -- I have been accused of the "soft bigotry of low expectations" when I have said that "high expectations" are not necessarily being met by having kids and teachers follow a script.

This point was starkly illustrated as I was sitting in this classroom watching the teacher implement the Open Court literacy curriculum lesson-of-the-day.  Since teachers and students generally don't have much choice in how and when they do different activities, I could hear the same sentences coming out of both adult and student mouths from other classrooms up and down the school hallway.  The teacher I was watching was running a few minutes behind, so I'd hear instruction coming from other classrooms, and sure enough, several minutes later nearly the same words would be replayed in the room where I was sitting.

I thought I might be mishearing things when the kids down the hall started chanting, "It was a comfortable prison!  It was a comfortable prison!"  But no.  Moments later the students in my room were directed to chant the same sentence.  Nobody blinked an eye -- these beautiful, vibrant children who had not moved or been asked, pushed, prompted, or inspired to think an original thought for the entire hour that I'd been sitting there, were chanting "It was a comfortable prison."  Direct from the teacher's manual.

And yet, proponents of these so-called high expectation promoting programs, would claim that such instructional techniques will help prevent today’s chanting and figuratively-caged students from becoming tomorrow’s literally-caged prisoners.  After all, many states predict the number of future prison beds based upon the number of 4th graders who don’t read at grade level.  So, as this reasoning goes, if such practices help to achieve these ends, then chant they must, to the exclusion of much else that constitutes education.  I find this reasoning to be narrow and incomplete if we are to value children as more than labels, test scores, future prison beds, or dollar signs.

I pondered these cages, scripts, figurative and real prisons as I followed the execution last week of Stanley Tookie Williams.  As the debate swirled around issues of guilt or innocence, change and redemption. I couldn’t help but note the lack of attention towards the larger question -- what it means for our society that so many of us unquestioningly watch as state-sanctioned murder becomes the norm.  How much have we all bought into the script that prevents us from recognizing, much less achieving the bigger picture of a more just and moral humanity?  How do we support, through our silence and compliance, the scripts that are created and replayed to legitimate our government's imperialistic world endeavors?

What would it mean to truly have high expectations, not only for other people’s children, but also for ourselves as fellow humans, for our collective redemption and renewal?  Can this vision be scripted, packaged and sold... guaranteed?  Which are the prison walls that need to come down?

“It was a comfortable prison.”  We may never do away with the actual prisons we create for others.  However, those that we fail to acknowledge, those that we tacitly accept for ourselves, these are the scripts and prisons that can hopefully one day be read in the past tense. These cages may have indeed been comfortable, for some.  But at what price for others and for us all?

Call for the Release of Peace Activists Held in Iraq

An Urgent Appeal

Four members of Christian Peacemaker Teams were taken this past Saturday, November 26, in Baghdad, Iraq. They are not spies, nor do they work in the service of any government. They are people who have dedicated their lives to fighting against war and have clearly and publicly opposed the invasion and occupation of Iraq. They are people of faith, but they are not missionaries. They have deep respect for the Islamic faith and for the right of Iraqis to self-determination.

C.P.T. first came to Iraq in October 2002 to oppose the US invasion, and it has remained in the country throughout the occupation in solidarity with the Iraqi people. The group has been invaluable in alerting the world to many of the horrors facing Iraqis detained in US-run prisons and detention centers. C.P.T. was among the first to document the torture occurring at the Abu Ghraib prison, long before the story broke in the mainstream press. Its members have spent countless hours interviewing Iraqis about abuse and torture suffered at the hands of US forces and have disseminated this information internationally.

Each of the four C.P.T. members being held in Iraq has dedicated his life to resisting the darkness and misery of war and occupation. Convinced that it is not enough to oppose the war from the safety of their homes, they made the difficult decision to go to Iraq, knowing that the climate of mistrust created by foreign occupation meant that they could be mistaken for spies or missionaries. They went there with a simple purpose: to bear witness to injustice and to embody a different kind of relationship between cultures and faiths. Members of C.P.T. willingly undertook the risks of living among Iraqis, in a common neighborhood outside of the infamous Green Zone. They sought no protection from weapons or armed guards, trusting in, and benefiting from, the goodwill of the Iraqi people. Acts of kindness and hospitality from Iraqis were innumerable and ensured the C.P.T. members' safety and wellbeing. We believe that spirit will prevail in the current situation.

We appeal to those holding these activists to release them unharmed so that they may continue their vital work as witnesses and peacemakers.

Add your name at: http://www.freethecpt.org

"Clearly following the law..."

So, the topless protesters apparently caused quite a ruckus as they demonstrated against our fine gropenator's ballot measures for today's special election.  As promised, arrests were made:

Both were charged with indecent exposure, disorderly conduct and going beyond the scope of their permit to demonstrate on state property.

"The permit specifically said that nudity would not be allowed," said Tom Marshall, a CHP spokesman. "We're clearly following the law as it was written."

However, as WIIIAI pointed out, the letter of the law apparently applies only to the female bared breasts.  Naked male nipples, clearly a form of nudity, were not arrested.  Also, if you check out the photo gallery provided by the LA Times, you'll also learn that one of the protesters who "covered her nipples with taped on pieces of felt" was not arrested.  So, the lesson to be learned here... it is only the sight of female nipples that constitutes indecent exposure.  The authorities have not yet decided whether or not to list the arrested women as sex offenders. 

Two Breasts In

Bare-breasted women are soon to be sex offenders in California:

Topless women holding a protest may be ho-hum in San Francisco, but at the state Capitol, police say such a display could corrupt children, prompt drivers to veer off the road and cause sex offenders to run amok.

The California Highway Patrol has warned members of an organization called Breasts Not Bombs that if they dare to take their shirts off during a protest scheduled at the Capitol on Monday, they will be arrested and possibly forced to register with the state as sex offenders.

All of this was a shock to the leaders of the Mendocino-based group, which, according to its website, uses public breast-baring as a "forum to speak about the vulnerability of humanity and the earth." Bay Area protests by Breasts Not Bombs have yet to trigger even a disorderly conduct charge.

"We feel what we are doing is harmless," said Sherry Glaser, speaking for the group on the steps of the federal courthouse in Sacramento where she had gone to try to block the state from making arrests Monday.

"It's a demonstration of what freedom is, what peace is, what liberty is."
...
At the court hearing Friday afternoon, Judge Garland E. Burrell ruled that "there is no 1st Amendment right to bare breasts on the grounds of the state Capitol."

Glaser said group members would consider over the weekend whether to defy the court and remove their tops Monday. She seemed to be leaning against it, especially after the CHP raised the issue of sex-offender registration.

State police say that when the group filed for a protest permit last month, there was no indication that Breasts Not Bombs was going to go topless. But the group's name made them suspicious.

"I decided to conduct some research," CHP Officer Keith Troy wrote in his court declaration. It's unclear what that research involved. But soon Troy called Glaser, who acknowledged that breasts would be bared. (link)

Apparently, Breasts Not Bombs plans to perform a play with such dangerous lines as "Mammaries not Missiles," and "Nipples not Napalm." 

My two breasts are unfortunately not able to travel to Sacramento on Monday, but they stand in solidarity with any breasts that choose to bare themselves -- especially if it gets people to open their eyes to the true nature of indecency and degradation, of the true offenders of humanity.

100,000 + 2,000 Rings, Candles, Lives

Today's SF Chronicle had a short piece that talked about the high numbers of Iraqi civilians that have been "war casualties."  They get their high estimate of 30,000 from Iraq Body Count, and didn't even mention the study by the journal Lancet that calculated Iraqi deaths as around 100,000.  They didn't even mention it, though I guess that should not come as a surprise.

Last May, I wrote about an anti-war vigil held by Scott Blackburn of Voices in the Wilderness (now Voices of Creative Nonviolence), to recognize the deaths of the then 1.594 American troops.  In his vigil, Scott rang a bell once a minute to mark each death.  He was ringing the bell from 8 am on a Friday morning until 10:34 Saturday.  I commented that you would need more than 70 days of bell ringing to reach the numbers in the Lancet study, plus those American deaths. 

This week, in a way, both have happened. 

As you all know, there are many vigils being held around the country tonight to mark the death of the 2000th American in Iraq.  Go here to watch a film that gives a sense of the magnitude of 2,000.  Watch all of it.

Then, you can read about the week-long and transatlantic vigil, 100,000 Rings (1,000 chimes in 100 different locations), which Scott organized as a remembrance to those Iraqis who have been killed.  He scheduled it to coincide with the one year anniversary of the publication of the Lancet study, and perhaps it is a twist that the these different vigils coincide -- hopefully a twist that, as Kathy Kelly wrote today, may raise awareness:

The demonstrations will overlap, but for once we can claim that separate demonstrations, held, simultaneously, can actually raise awareness and hopefully affect change. These protests are after all the same: One life, two thousand lives, one hundred thousand lives, or many, many more - are all too much to pay for the imperial ambitions of the few.

Here's what Milan Rai, of Britain's Justice Not Vengeance, wrote about his participation in the bell ringing ceremony:

There is some deep human need not to be forgotten. We want to be remembered by those who come after us; we want to be remembered and respected.
Those who have died in this war, Iraq and Western, will be forgotten, and their memory not respected, if the leaders of this war have their way.
Reading the names of the dead, marking their passing with each ring of a bell, has been a meditation on the reason why we campaign about Iraq.
It has been a way of insisting that these people matter, that they have not blown away in the wind, that they deserve and will receive respect from those of us who come after.
These hours spent remembering, by the side of a busy city road, outside a military base, opposite the centre of government, have been immensely energising, much to my surprise.
Beforehand, despite being an enthusiastic supporter of the project in principle, I had quailed at the monotony of hours of reading and bell-ringing in practice.
I was a doubter.
As it turned out, this has been one of the finest experiences of my activist career, and one that I would not trade for anything.

Apparently, however, it is not okay to publicly grieve near Downing Street without a permit, as Rai and his comrade Maya Evans, were arrested for their actions.

In his correspondence with me, Scott wrote that "the thing about inspiration, it never comes from one place, it is a two way street--no actually it is more like a roundabout, a great circle."  Hopefully, these various remembrances and actions will widen and strengthen that circle so that all of our voices not only express outrage about this shared loss of humanity, but also bring an end to the lack of humanity that is evident in the imperial ambitions of the few. 

Those Very Dangerous Magical Creatures

There is apparently a controversy brewing at California State University, Northridge.  An ROTC Colonel has issued a formal complaint against the right of art professor, Edie Pistolesi, to  "...to help students develop ...critical and creative abilities, and ethical values of learned persons who live in a democratic society, an interdependent world..."  Here is an account of the situation (via Feminist Peace Network):

The project in a nutshell was for her art students to convert war toys (in this case toy army soldiers) into peaceful creatures.  Some students changed the soldiers into firemen and their rifles into water hoses.  Others were magical creatures, butterflies, movie characters, animals, dancers, chefs, etc.  The students included dwellings for their transformed creatures to live in.  The project reflects part of the mission statement of CSUN, "...to help students develop ...critical and creative abilities, and ethical values of learned persons who live in a democratic society, an interdependent world..."

Colonel Buck took great offense at the placement of the ankle-high art installations around the ROTC building.  He interrogated Edie and demanded to know how she ran her course, whether students were coerced to participate in this art projects that expresses a universal human value of love of peace, rather than lust for war.

He suggested that the art installations be placed "around the Chicano Studies building, or some other department."   The Colonel expressed fear that the morale of his ROTC students at CSUN might be adversely affected by artistic expression of  a culture of peaceful coexistence rather than the glamor of war.

Col. Buck was particularly worried that the art pieces would still be near his building this coming Monday and Tuesday because his ROTC students would then mostly likely see them and presumably then be discouraged from engaging in the mass murder that U.S. wars of aggression demand.

This to me is so indicative of just how aware the military is not only of the changing tide of opinion about the war in Iraq, but also about how that changing tide is affecting their abilities to recruit new soldiers.  They are relaxing standards about recruitment of high school dropouts, and accepting greater numbers of people who score at the bottom of so called military aptitude tests.  (For a sample of the unbiased nature of these tests, go here)

But, more important than all of those measures, the military certainly cannot afford the risk of allowing ROTC students to glimpse war-toys-turned-into-magical-butterflies.  Nope, that's only suitable for those already militant Chicano Studies students.

September 24th

Yesterday I attended the San Francisco anti-war march and rallies.

During the pre-march rally, one of the speakers referenced the following editorial from the Orange County Register:

As opponents of the invasion of Iraq from the beginning, we hope the events are large, peaceful and respectful of those who disagree. Most of all, we hope that they reflect not just a radical fringe group of knee-jerk Bush-haters, but the growing number of ordinary Americans - around 60 percent according to most polls - who have come to see the war in Iraq as a mistake.

Some signs are hopeful. While many of those who came to oppose the Vietnam war, for example, were openly scornful of Americans who served in uniform, the early stages of anti-Iraq war activity have often included military families. This tendency has been highlighted by Cindy Sheehan, whose son Casey was killed in Iraq in April 2004 and who camped out in Crawford, Texas, during President Bush's ranch vacation, and who has organized military families who oppose or are skeptical about the war. Ms. Sheehan will be a speaker Saturday in Washington and has drawn most of the media attention to date.

But Ms. Sheehan's statements have sometimes gone beyond understandable anger about the war to embrace a range of radical causes. We think that is a mistake. Ordinary Americans who love their country and don't see it as the source of most of the evil in the world but are upset about the Iraq war need to see a reflection of themselves, of a broader Middle America, in this weekend's events. Otherwise they are likely to dismiss the protests as the work of people who will leap at any opportunity to "blame America first." 

So, this editorial is suggesting that in order for these marches to be effective, we need to somehow make these idealized, ordinary Americans comfortable (which is code for making white, middle class people comfortable), because otherwise they'll simply write us all off as "the moonbat fringes" and go about their business.  We need to speak out just enough, on the appropriate issues, but heavens sake, don't go too far or we'll scare Middle America away.  (Which, by the way, strikes me as very similar to the tactics that the democratic party used in the last presidential election -- and you see where it got them.)

Yesterday, it seemed that many so-called "ordinary Americans" overcame hypothetical fears of crazy moonbats.  They were there at the marches, and they were angry.  However, I do have to wonder how long they'll hang around, whether or not they'll continue to make their voices heard, whether or not they'll continue to engage in any kind of sustained outcry around issues that may only scratch the surface of their comfort.

Truth is, I don't think that anyone has done enough to make these idealized, ordinary Americans  uncomfortable.  I would hate to think that it might take the needless death of their own child to cause them to wake up, to speak out, with even a fraction of the force that we have seen from Cindy Sheehan. I don't wish that upon anyone, ever.  But I do wish for us all to feel uncomfortable about the role that our silence plays in sustaining the murderous policies of our government.  These policies do go beyond "understandable anger about the war," and do address a range of interrelated "causes" which may only seem "radical" when viewed in isolation.  When we are each able to feel profoundly uncomfortable -- in our hearts, in our bones, in our gut -- then maybe something will change. 

My September 11th

On September 11, 2001, I went shopping. 

I didn't pull close to loved ones, I didn't strive to understand, to educate, to do anything other than watch the twin towers burn, then get in the car and drive out to the suburbs to buy baby clothes.   

I was hugely pregnant, full of expectancy.  That September morning my friend and I drove in silence, listening to endless radio descriptions of the devastation.  Arriving at the store we found that it was, unsurprisingly, closed.  People were burning in New York, the lives of hundreds of thousands more were already numbered as the war gears in Washington churned into action, and we two pregnant woman stared into the window and could not quite understand why the store was not open for us – after all, this horrible tragedy was happening so far away. 

I am not a shopper, never have been, and really, this tale is not about shopping.  It is about knowledge and responsibility, bearing witness and being engaged with the world beyond our own doorstep.  In this, it is a story about how I failed, and about how many of us fail day after day to recognize that we are part of a larger humanity.  And, too often when we do recognize the injustice in the world, regularly perpetrated by the hands of our own government, we remain mute.  We listen to the radio, shake our heads in disbelief and anger, and then go shopping. 

Truth is, I'd been tuning out, in slow progression, for many years, as I became increasingly cynical and wrapped up in my own life.  I wanted the best for my child, just like any parent.  However, I failed to recognize that I not only hold responsibility for my own, but for all.  I failed to see how the best for my own child has nothing to do with baby clothes, and everything to do with confronting our fears, fostering human connection, and building solidarity across fault lines of race, class, gender, nationality, religion.  It has everything to do with recognizing the continuity between one’s own family and our responsibility towards the creation of a loving human family.

I view my shopping trip on September 11th as a personal failure, but I also increasingly see how the failure was not just my own, but one that lives in each of us.  As long as we allow the existence of near and far, of nation-states, and borders – as long as we stay within our own zone of knowledge, comfort, and understanding, those fault lines will remain.  Fault lines that crack and splinter, rifts that eventually rupture to tear us apart.  What will it take for us to see humanity as a whole, rather than as subdivided entities, as “us” and “them,” as one or another person being wronged?

We are all wronged until we are able to collectively recognize and articulate the continuity of tragedy, which stretched long before September 11th, and lives on today in Iraq, in Niger, in the destroyed lives of New Orleans’ Ninth Ward.  This continuity of tragedy is fueled by Martin Luther King’s interrelated triple evils of poverty, racism, and war, and by each of our blindness and indifference to our role in this poisonous relationship.  In his Beyond Vietnam address, King spoke of the need to send a message to the world, one of longing, of hope, of solidarity, and commitment:  “The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise, we must choose in this crucial moment of human history.”  This is a choice that requires we do more than bring our bodies to the streets as we did on February 15, 2003, and then retreat back within our own lives, back to our own form of shopping trips for baby clothes.

Not long ago I had a dream in which I was searching for an orb, a smooth, unfractured sphere – for a wholeness that I, and we, have not yet achieved.  As I searched, I became increasingly fearful that I wouldn’t be able to find this orb, or perhaps that if I did, I would not have the strength or courage to carry it home.  For to find that orb, and hold it in our hands with awe and reverence, requires that we take action.  We must bring our bodies to the streets on September 24, 2005, and then keep them there as we each strive to understand, to educate, and to express not only our outrage but also our love.  The time to break silence is now.

"Shoot to Kill" Comes Home

Woke up today to this:

Iraq-tested US troops with shoot-to-kill orders were deployed in New Orleans to restore law and order after days of chaos and looting in the hurricane-devastated city.

Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco said the 300 troopers from the Arkansas National Guard had been authorized to open fire on "hoodlums" who have been terrorizing the flooded city in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Their deployment came amid intense criticism of the government for a tardy response to the disaster, which is feared to have killed thousands of people and left hundreds of thousands more stranded and homeless.

"These troops are fresh back from Iraq, well trained, experienced, battle tested and under my orders to restore order in the streets," Blanco said.

"They have M-16s and they are locked and loaded.

"These troops know how to shoot and kill and they are more than willing to do so if necessary and I expect they will," said Blanco.

Shoot to kill, now paired with the "zero tolerance" policy for "looters" -- even when those so-called "hoodlums" are seeking food and water to save themselves and their families. 

"These troops know how to shoot and kill and they are more than willing to do so if necessary and I expect they will..."   
Just like in London...  Just like in Falluja and Baghdad...

And as usual, the suspected hoodlums/looters/terrorists are not going to be the white people who happened to find some bread on their way home through the flood.

Many, Many Casualities Today as a Result of the War in Iraq

Via This Modern World... Here's the whole thing:

Horrible.  Unthinkable.  But read the article.  (I've added emphasis to a few lines below.)

When flooding from a massive rainstorm in May 1995 killed six people, Congress authorized the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, or SELA.

Over the next 10 years, the Army Corps of Engineers, tasked with carrying out SELA, spent $430 million on shoring up levees and building pumping stations, with $50 million in local aid. But at least $250 million in crucial projects remained, even as hurricane activity in the Atlantic Basin increased dramatically and the levees surrounding New Orleans continued to subside.

Yet after 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA dropped to a trickle. The [U.S. Army Corps of Engineers] never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security -- coming at the same time as federal tax cuts -- was the reason for the strain.

And this was reported at the time.  Not as a partisan attack.  As a public safety issue.

At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars.

In early 2004, as the cost of the conflict in Iraq soared, President Bush proposed spending less than 20 percent of what the Corps said was needed for Lake Pontchartrain, according to a Feb. 16, 2004, article, in New Orleans CityBusiness.

On June 8, 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, told the Times-Picayune: "It appears that the money has been moved in the president’s budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that’s the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can’t be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."

This is not a left/right issue. The Army Corps of Engineers, who described the reasons for the money shift, are hardly a left-wing organization. This is not a partisan issue. Plenty of Democrats bought into the war wholesale, and plenty of them still do.

Here it is: the money to maintain the levees was apparently yanked away for the same reason half the Louisiana National Guard was.

We may never know if the levees would have held if the funding hadn't been shifted to Iraq. But if so, there would be only one conclusion:

New Orleans has become a casualty of the war in Iraq.

And, just in case it escapes the radar screen -- more than 800 people died today in Iraq. 
More than 800. 
More than 800. 
I repeat, more than 800. 

How Do You Define Global Responsibility?

Here's a bit on the Army Chief of Staff, Peter Shoomaker, speaking at a military event in San Francisco:

He spoke of the difficulty in recruiting new soldiers, of retaining troops, of rotating active Army and Reserve troops into combat zones in Iraq and Afghanistan. He spoke of goals and values and reorganization of the Army to meet new commitments.

"I'm on the supply side of the equation,'' he said more than once. The combat commanders, he said, were doing the fighting.

A lot of the personnel in Afghanistan and Iraq  --  over 55 percent  --  were citizen soldiers, National Guard and Reserve personnel, Schoomaker said.

"We would not be able to fulfill our global responsibilities without the National Guard and the Reserve,'' he said.

He went on to say:  "Every soldier we lose tears me up..."

I find it difficult to comprehend how one can speak of "the supply side of the equation" in one breath, and say that losing soldiers tears him up in the next.  It is not a coincidence that Shoomaker didn't even the "every soldier we lose tears me up" line until he was asked about Cindy Sheehan.  His type of business model talk reduces all humans to supply sides and more and less important inputs, and it is only with the rest of us raising our voices that they actually become people with lives and history that have meaning (at least in the eyes of the Army Chief of Staff).  Even then, it is only the deaths of American soldiers that seem to give him pause. 

Were he to allow himself to get torn up about the deaths of citizens of Afghanistan and Iraq, or anyone else whose mother was not relentlessly speaking out for justice, then I imagine he'd have a very different definition of "global responsibility." 

"Its a full time job getting through the day when you've had to bury your child."

Your child, any child. 

If you have not seen it, watch the Grace at Camp Casey video with Cindy Sheehan and Celeste Zappala.

Candle-light vigils are fine, they're important.  But, our government will continue to get away with anything it desires unless we all start backing up those vigils with action.  As Celeste Zappala says in the video, "The only title greater than president is citizen.  It is time to get out from behind your computers... Be bold.  Be Visible.  Be vocal."  That includes me, who is currently sitting behind a computer.

To contact your governmental representatives including the White House, as well as the media, go to         http://www.congress.org/congressorg/dbq/media

To contact various media outlets, you can also go to   http://www.democraticunderground.com/cu/cu.php?az=blaster

Let the fire spread.

 

Cindy Sheehan is Not the One Uttering Pifflely Bunk

I learned a new word today!  Piffle! 

I suppose it is not completely new, as I've probably come across it at various points in my life.  However, today I read it in Christopher Hitchens' rather nonsensical gabbling as he added to the right-wing attempt to slander Cindy Sheehan (he referred to her work as "sinister piffle"), and was actually driven to seek a definition.  Here's what I found:

Noun 1. piffle - trivial nonsense
balderdash, fiddle-faddlehokum, meaninglessness, nonsense, nonsensicality, bunk - a message that seems to convey no meaning

Verb 1. piffle - speak (about unimportant matters) rapidly and incessantly
blabber, palaver, prate, prattle, tattle, tittle-tattle, twaddle, gabble, gibber, blab, clack, maunder, chatter

mouth, speak, talk, verbalise, verbalize, utter - express in speech; "She talks a lot of nonsense"; "This depressed patient does not verbalize"

blather, blether, blither, smatter, babble - to talk foolishly; "The two women babbled and crooned at the baby"

My first reaction was that I don't think that I have ever before come across such truly excellent synonyms for a word. 

So, Hitchens is saying that Cindy Sheehan's effort and message is balderdash and hokem.  That holding Bush, our government, and ourselves accountable for the deaths of nearly 2000 Americans, and tens of thousands of Iraqis is prattle, blither, smatter and babble. 

This, I would say, is the fiddle-faddle of those among us who have somehow been brainwashed by the blathering and blethering of our so-called mission to spread freedom and democracy throughout the world.  Too bad that Hitchens is not able to recognize that piffle becomes sinister when people die horrible and needless deaths as a result of our imperialistic endeavors, not when Cindy Sheehan acts from a place of moral clarity.  Anything outside of that place, be it twaddling or action, is just bunk.  Extremely sinister bunk.

We killed your child, so here's how to claim your compensation.

Robert Fisk has been reporting from Iraq:

In this part of Baghdad, you avoid both the insurgents and the Americans - if you are lucky.

Yassin al-Sammerai was not. On 14 July, the second grade schoolboy had gone to spend the night with two college friends and - this being a city without electricity in the hottest month of the year - they decided to spend the night sleeping in the front garden. Let his broken 65 year-old father Selim take up the story, for he’s the one who still cannot believe his son is dead - or what the Americans told him afterwards.

"It was three-thirty in the morning and they were all asleep, Yassin and his friends Fahed and Walid Khaled. There was an American patrol outside and then suddenly, a Bradley armoured vehicle burst through the gate and wall and drove over Yassin. You know how heavy these things are. He died instantly. But the Americans didn’t know what they’d done. He was lying crushed under the vehicle for 17 minutes. Um Khaled, his friends’ mother, kept shouting in Arabic: "There is a boy under this vehicle."

According to Selim al-Sammerai, the Americans’ first reaction was to put handcuffs on the two other boys. But a Lebanese Arabic interpreter working for the Americans arrived to explain that it was all a mistake. "We don’t have anything against you,’’she said. The Americans produced a laminated paper in English and Arabic entitled "Iraqi Claims Pocket Card" which tells them how to claim compensation.

And, compensation for a human life would be? 

Yassin was seven, and he liked swimming, and his head was "crushed flat as if an elephant had stood upon it, blood pouring from what had been the back of his brains."  That's what Fisk wrote after seeing the second copy of a photo that Yassin's brother took with his cell-phone.  The first copy had been borrowed, and not returned, by American soldiers.

Fisk's essay was titled:  How can the US ever win, when Iraqi children die like this?  I am wondering how we all can continue to live with ourselves as we stand by and watch Iraqi children die like this, or any other child die like this, or anyone at all for that matter. 

August 6th: Hiroshima and Iraq

Swallows
coming again and flying
not forgetting Hiroshima

A-bomb blast center
no human shadows at all
the winter full moon

--Yasuhiko Shigemoto

Today is the 60th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, and in a few days, the 9th, we'll commemorate Nagasaki.  A few hundred thousand people dead.

Today is also another anniversary.  On August 6, 1990, the UN Security Council imposed comprehensive economic sanctions on Iraq:

Economic sanctions against Iraq were waged simultaneously by the United Nations and the United States, resulting in the most comprehensive siege against a country, targeting civilians while strengthening the regime of Saddam Hussein. Economic sanctions claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of children, through water borne disease and through the denial of medical care and humanitarian infrastructure.

More than 500,000 children dead.  Or, as Mairead Maguire, Nobel Peace Laureate, said upon returning from a March 1999 visit to Iraq:  "Sanctions are the economic nuclear bomb."

And we continue to exert our dominance by any means necessary.  Do you think that 60 years, or 15 years, from today we'll actually be able to celebrate August 6 (2005), as the day that everyone decided to give a damn and try to change things for the better?  Just a thought.

We Kill One British Unarmed Civilian = Big News. We Kill Untold Number Unarmed Iraqi Civilians = Huh?

The British seemingly have little intention of reexamining their shoot-to-kill policy:

Police leaders say they will not abandon their "shoot-to-kill" policy and warn more innocent people could be killed in the fight against terrorism.

The message came after Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes, 27, was shot dead by officers in London after being mistaken for a suicide bomber.

Met Police Chief Sir Ian Blair said "shoot-to-kill in order to protect" would continue, despite the "tragedy".

So, as Alexander Cockburn put it:  "I guess the lesson of the week is, Don't run away from an English cop in the London Underground, or anywhere else, particularly if you're brown or black. This means, don't     run for a train or a bus, particularly with a bag in your hand. If you want to run, or even surrender to the cops, take all your clothes off and put all your hands up, as Eldridge Cleaver recommended in Soul on Ice. One in every ten of these London cops is heavily armed and will kill you without compunction."

However, tragic as this case is, we've got to remember that shoot-to-kill without compunction is already modus operendi in our so-called "war against terror".  However, as usual, deaths in places like London make more prominent headlines than others:

Three men in an unmarked sedan pulled up near the headquarters of the national police major crimes unit. The two passengers, wearing traditional Arab dishdasha gowns, stepped from the car. At the same moment, a U.S. military convoy emerged from an underpass. Apparently believing the men were staging an ambush, the Americans fired, killing one passenger and wounding the other. The sedan's driver was hit in the head by two bullet fragments. The soldiers drove on without stopping. . .

Angered by the growing number of unarmed civilians killed by American troops in recent weeks, the Iraqi government criticized the shootings and called on U.S. troops to exercise greater care.

U.S. officials have repeatedly declined requests to disclose the number of civilians killed in such incidents. Police in Baghdad say they have received reports that U.S. forces killed 33 unarmed civilians and injured 45 in the capital between May 1 and July 12m an average of nearly one fatality every two days. This does not include incidents that occurred elsewhere in the country or were not reported to the police.

The continued shooting of civilians is fueling a growing dislike of the United States and undermining efforts to convince the public that American soldiers are here to help. The victims have included doctors, journalists, a professor, the kind of people the U.S. is counting on to help build an open and democratic society.(link)

There rightly should be shock and outrage about the police killing in London, but sadly it seems to stop there.  As for the civilians that are being killed daily in Iraq, the attitude seems to be one of out of sight, out of mind.  Why can't that shock and outrage extend beyond our own borders?

They Have Their Orders: Shoot to Kill

By now you've probably heard about the supposed "terrorist" killed in the London Tube a few days ago:

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair has said the shooting of the man at Stockwell Tube station was "directly linked" to anti-terror operations.

Sir Ian said his officers hunting the bombers were now facing "previously unknown threats and great danger".    

Scotland Yard said: "A man was challenged by officers and subsequently shot. London Ambulance Service attended the scene. He was pronounced dead at the scene."

Witnesses said the man was shot five times at close range after he had jumped on a train.    
Passenger Mark Whitby said: "As the man got on the train I looked at his face. He looked from left to right, but he basically looked like a cornered rabbit, like a cornered fox. He looked absolutely petrified
...

"He half-tripped, was half-pushed to the floor. The policeman nearest to me had the black automatic pistol in his left hand, he held it down to the guy and unloaded five shots into him."

And so, today, we find out more about that supposed "direct link" to terrorism:

A young Brazilian man, living and working in London as an electrician, emerged last night as the innocent victim shot dead by police in their hunt for the suicide bombers targeting the capital.

The dead man, killed at Stockwell tube station on Friday after fleeing from armed police, was named as 27-year-old Jean Charles de Menezes. His body was identified by Alex Pereira, a cousin who lives in London and who afterwards told The Observer: 'I can't believe they shot him, because he was not a terrorist. He was an honest man.

'We [the family] are still too shocked to talk about it. But I am sure [that] he didn't do anything wrong. It was not right for the police to do that.'

Pereira said that the most upsetting part of identifying his cousin was 'to see bullet wounds in his back and his neck when I went to the mortuary in Greenwich.'

Now, I have not seen any pictures of Jean Charles de Menezes.  However, I would venture to guess that he would not have been shot, five times, even after being cornered and falling to the ground, had he looked like a white man in a business suit. 

Just a hunch. 

Let's please be honest about just who faces "previously unknown threats and great danger" in this new world order.

All Lives are "Diverse and Promising"

Side by side headlines in today's New York Times:  Lost in Bombings, Diverse and Promising Lives; and, Suicide Bomber Ignites Tanker, Killing 59 Iraqis. 

55 dead Londoners last week, and, today, 59 more dead Iraqis.  The article about the London deaths was similar to many such pieces that came out after 9/11 -- it tells the stories of those individuals who died, gives glimpses and details about their lives and their passions.  Here is just one example:

Ciaran Cassidy was an unusual combination, a hard-core Arsenal soccer fan who also seemed to be one of Earth's cheeriest shop assistants. Along Chancery Lane, where he worked in the Bridge & Co. stationery store, Mr. Cassidy, 22, was known as a young man who could chat about anything to anyone, who enthusiastically made copies of even the most tedious documents, and who invariably urged customers to partake of the free jelly beans in the jar on the counter...

Mr. Cassidy, the son of an Irish postal worker and a teacher's assistant who grew up in London, had been saving for his dream trip: a year's working holiday in Australia. He spent the night before he died discussing his plans with his sister, Lisa.

I must admit that I read pieces like this with mixed emotions.  It is important to put a human face on these deaths -- each and every person who died deserves individual recognition, honor, and remembrance. 

However, articles like this one also perpetuate the us versus them mentality.  I don't think that I need to point out that it is unlikely we'll be reading stories in the mainstream media about each of the 59 Iraqis killed today, or any of the tens of thousands of others who have died as a result of US sanctions and war.  Theirs will not be characterized as "diverse and promising lives," and we will only occasionally see pictures of family members in grief.  We won't learn about their hopes and dreams, their quirky habits, the mundane and intimate details of their lives.  For to do so would require a recognition that we are one humanity, that we are all diverse and promising.  And that would be dangerous.

Just What Are Those "Less Important" Inputs, Donald?

On March 19th, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld discussed the"metrics" of measuring success in Iraq with Steve Inskeep of National Public Radio's "Morning Edition." Here is part of that interview:

"NPR: I want to start, Mr. Secretary, with something you said recently. You were at a meeting with troops, taking questions from troops. You talked about measuring progress in Iraq. Metrics as you called them, that were important to you. And you said what you measure improves. How are some ways that you are measuring progress in defeating insurgents in Iraq?

"RUMSFELD: Well, we've got literally dozens of ways we do it. We have a room here, the Iraq Room where we track a whole series of metrics.  Some of them are inputs and some of them are outputs, results, and obviously the inputs are easier to do and less important, and the outputs are vastly more important and more difficult to do.

"We track, for example, the  numbers of attacks by area. We track the types of attacks by area. And what we're seeing, for example, and one metric is presented graphically and it shows that we had spiked up during the sovereignty pass to the Iraqi people and spiked up again during the election, and are now back down to the pre-sovereignty levels which are considerably lower…

[W]e track a number of reports of intimidation, attempts at intimidation or assassination of government officials, for example.

We track the extent to which people are supplying intelligence to our people so that they can go in and actually track down and capture or kill insurgents.

We try to desegregate the people we've captured and look at what they are. Are they foreign fighters, Jihadist types? Are they criminals who were paid money to go do something like that? Are they former regime elements, Ba'athists? And we try to keep track of what those numbers are in terms of detainees and people that are processed in that way…. 

No one number is determinative, and the answer is no. We probably look at 50, 60, 70 different types of metrics, and come away with them with an impression. It's impressionistic more than determinative."

Death and brutality become "inputs" and "metrics" to measure "improvement".  We are just so 21st century. 

Fox Covers Downing Street

Fox News has covered the Downing Street Memo.  You can read their coverage here.  There's one crucial bit at the end, worthy of your immediate attention:

Several popular left-leaning blogs have taken up the cause to keep the story alive, encouraging readers to contact media outlets. A Web site, DowningStreetMemo.com, tells readers to contact the White House directly with complaints.

"This is a test of the left-wing blogosphere," said Jim Pinkerton, syndicated columnist and regular contributor to FOX News Watch, who pointed out that The Sunday Times article came out just before the British election and apparently had little effect on voters' decisions.

"In many ways that memo might prove all of the arguments the critics of the war have made," he added. "But the bulk of Americans don't agree, or don't seem that alarmed, so it is a power test to see if they can drive it back on the agenda."

Go ahead and do your part -- contact the White House with your complaints.  They'll probably just write you off as a focus group, and Bush "does not decide policy based upon a focus group."  Instead, he fixes the facts and intelligence around the policy.  So, contact Congressional reps here.  Demand an investigation.

An "American Soldier" Goes to School

And you thought that military recruitment just goes on in high schools and colleges:

LOS ANGELES [April 19, 2005]  A small but militant group of anti-war protesters confronted retired Iraqi war general Tommy Franks this morning as he left a student assembly at Logan Street Elementary School in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles.

General Franks, attempting to leave the school in an SUV with tinted windows, was totally blocked by protesters who climbed onto the hood and body of the car and blocked his departure with banners, signs and their own bodies. "War criminal! Murderer of the Iraqi People!" and other chants were directed at the car as it remained immobilized in the middle of the street.    Parents and community people, outraged by the appearance of the general, joined in the direct confrontation which came as the vehicle was leaving campus.
...
   The protest, called and organized in a three-hour time frame, came about when parents, teachers and community members learned of the appearance of General Franks at the school.  The school's administration and Los Angeles Unified School District officials kept the appearance a secret from the community.  "We had no idea this was going to happen," a veteran teacher told reporters.  A parent commented, "I didn't know a military man was speaking to our children today; we should have been told," she told KNX Radio News in an interview. Many parents, speaking in Spanish, told protesters they did not like the idea of the military being on campus promoting that option to their young people.

Logan Street is a grade school in a working class, heavily immigrant community just west of downtown Los Angeles.  The general was brought to the campus by a non-profit pro-military foundation which arranges celebrity appearances.

The "non-profit, pro-military" organization that sponsored Franks' secret (without family consent or knowledge) presentation to the school's fifth graders was actually U.S. Trust, a private investment firm with $102 billion dollars in assets.  Logan Street school is 89% Latino, and 93% of the students receive free or reduced lunch.  This is exactly the population that is heavily targeted by NCLB-related recruitment efforts.  I guess that US Trust and Franks were there to encourage the students to be all they can be?

We don't know what actually went on during Franks' performance/presentation for the fifth grade students, because apparently the video of the event has been destroyed by the school district.  However, one parent speculated:  "Rumor is that he took pictures with our community youth to be used in a future run for office bid on the republican ticket."

If you ever had any doubts about the interrelationship of empire, racism, and poverty when it comes to education and schooling in our country, then things like this begin to put it all in perspective.

From Disneyland to our Newest Gated Community!

So, Fallujah has transitioned from "just like disneyland," to America's newest gated-community! 

Now a tour of Fallujah, once feared by foreigners as the headquarters of the most militant of the Islamic insurgents, is akin to visiting a violent psychiatric patient after a lobotomy. Children wave, shopkeepers smile, and it is even possible at dusk to walk through a residential neighbourhood with only the odd crack of distant gunfire punctuating an otherwise calm evening.

By the standards of Iraq today, Fallujah is peaceful. Where other cities are subjected to suicide car bombs, Fallujans stop meekly to allow US military convoys to overtake or wait for hours in long queues to be searched and checked before entering the municipal boundaries.

The reason for the city's passivity is the thousands of US Marines who have built such a tight security cordon around it that it is jokingly referred to by the Americans as "Iraq's largest gated community".

However, you won't be finding spotless streets and lush landscaping here, and you'll need more than the approval of the homeowner's association to get through the gate:

Only about half of Fallujah’s 250,000 population have returned home; large residential and commercial areas lie in ruins and basic services such as water and electricity are patchy at best. For those who do live in Fallujah, life is made even more difficult by the draconian security measures that make it difficult to conduct business and trade, the lifeblood of the city.

Each resident must obtain a security pass from the US military. The pass contains the holder’s names, other personal details, a photograph, fingerprints and an iris scan, which is fed into a computer and can be cross-checked with the names of suspected insurgents and former detainees. The cutting-edge biometic technology may give the Americans a security edge, but it has won them few friends.

Now, I just can't imagine why we Americans have won few friends -- I mean, what more could you ask for after Disneyland and a gated community?  Maybe we'll finally win hearts and minds if we throw in a Mall of America as well.

Every Minute, Without Fail, Another Ding.

Here is a write-up of a rather beautiful anti-war-vigil-of-one in Chicago:

He considered using a foghorn but decided on a bell because of its simplicity.

A solitary ding every minute for more than 26 hours, one ring for each of the 1,594 U.S. soldiers who have died in Iraq.

“This is kind of my solidarity, to say I’m with [the soldiers],” said Scott Blackburn, 34, of Chicago, who started his anti-war vigil at 8 a.m. Friday on a wooden seat near Water Tower Place, and calmly rang his bell, day and night, until 10:34 a.m. Saturday.

“I’m just trying to give people the idea, without shoving it down their throats, that there are too many people dying,” said Blackburn, a part-time Web designer. “I just kind of got fed up with it.”

And so he sat there through the wee hours of the morning, through intermittent rain showers, through catcalls from drunks. He sat there while passersby patted him on the back, gave him nods of approval or shouted derogatory comments.

Every minute, without fail, another ding.

If we take the minimum estimate at Iraq Body Count, 21,523, Scott Blackburn would have been dinging his bell once each minute for 14.94 days, rather than for one day plus a few hours. 

Or, we can use the estimated number of civilians who have probably died as direct or indirect consequences of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, based on the Lancet study: 100,000.  Add on the deaths of American troops, 1,594, and you will be ringing a bell once a minute for 70.55 days.

Then, we can add on the 500,000 or so children who died as a result of U.S. sponsored sanctions under Clinton's watch.  We'll be ringing that bell every minute for 417.77 days -- more than a year. 

I could go on, but you get the picture.  "Too many people dying," indeed.   

Update:  I did the above arithmetic last night, during particularly tired-brain time.  Have not checked my calculations, so  if  I  have made errors, then, well, you still get the point.

Here are some School Supplies and Beanie Babies. Mission Accomplished.

The other day I came across the website for the organization Operation Iraqi Children -- a "grassroots effort" to get school supplies sent to the children of Iraq. 

The organization's website starts off with the following headline quote:

"I have seen their smiling faces and their attempts to say 'I love you' in broken English...I saw hope in their eyes and gratitude in their hearts for what was done for them."

The group's Mission Statement says: During and after Operation Iraqi Freedom, American soldiers passing through Iraqi villages were horrified at the squalor of Iraqi schools, which had been severely neglected under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein.

Hope in their eyes?? Gratitude in their hearts?!   Let's look at just what has been done for those Iraqi children:

Since 1991, the US, Britain and their allies in the UN have misled the world about Iraq weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in order to continue the genocidal sanctions and wage wars against the Iraqi people. According to several credible reports, including the UNICEF report, the US-British sponsored sanctions and wars against Iraq have killed more than 2 million Iraqi civilians, a third of them were children under the age of five. The health and education systems of Iraq were deliberately targeted for destruction.

The UN own report stated that before the Gulf War, "Iraq had an extensive national health care network. Primary care services were available to 97% of the urban population and 71% of the rural population". Every Iraqi citizen had the right to free health care provided by the government.

Since the US War on Iraq, more Iraqi children are malnourished and fewer Iraqi children protected from infectious diseases, stated the new UNICEF report.  The report added that since the War on Iraq there has been an increase  in the incidence of infectious diseases such as cholera, typhoid, malaria, polio, and hepatitis resulting from the destruction of Iraq's infrastructure.       Drugs and medical equipments are in short supply today than before the War.

The War and the Occupation have increased the number of patients and victims and put   pressure on the health system. Furthermore, lack of drinking water supply  and sanitation has added a much bigger problem on the health system, and contributed to an alarming increase in the under-five mortality.   In addition to the destruction of the Iraqi health system, the US-British sponsored sanctions and wars against the Iraqi people have destroyed Iraq's education system.

According to UNESCO fact sheet on Iraq released on 28 March 2003, "Iraq used to have one of the finest school systems in the Middle East, with over 100% Gross Enrollment Rate for primary schooling and high literacy, both of men and women". It stated that, "[t]he Higher Education, especially the scientific and technological institutions, were of an international  standard, staffed by high quality personnel". Until 1989 Iraq had  been allocating 5% of its budget to education. This is higher than the maximum rate in developing countries, which stands at 3.8% (UNESCO).

The recent UNICEF-supported survey stated that since March 2003, over 700 primary schools -a third of those in Baghdad - had been damaged by bombing with more than 200 burned and over 3,000 looted. "The current system is effectively denying children a decent education," said the survey.

Prior to the 1991 US Gulf War and the genocidal sanctions, Iraqis enjoyed one of the highest rankings in the Developing World in terms of the Human Development Index, which measures nutrition, health care, housing, education, and other  human needs.

The greatest and most vulnerable victims of the US War on Iraq are the Iraqi children.  The effect of the War on the country's 17 million children has been devastating. "When you factor in the loss of education and psycho-social trauma, there is no question that war takes its greatest toll on children", ; said UNICEF chief Ms. Carol Bellamy. Iraqi children are living with  the nightmares of daily US bombardments of towns and neighborhoods. As a result of years long Western terrorism, a generation of Iraq's children have been lost.

Just in case you are wondering, here's some detail about recent shipments sent out by Operation Iraqi Children:

Shipment #23:  2,304 School Kits, 320 boxes of Beanie Babies

Shipment #22:  2,560 School Kits, 160 boxes of Beanie Babies

Shipment #21:  768 School Kits, 224 boxes of sports equipment and Beanie Babies

Now I am certainly not against school supplies for kids who need them, but I also see this effort as yet another propagandistic way for many Americans to cross off Iraq in their mind's checklist of things to think about.  Create my kit**, ship it to Iraq, done.  Hearts and minds are won.  Mission accomplished.

I'm sure that many people involved in this effort are genuinely trying to do something good for the children of Iraq.  So, send off those school kits, but please do so in full knowledge that paper, pencils, beanie babies, and not even Bechtel, are going to be able to fix the generation of children that have been lost thanks to our sanctions, our war, our occupation. 

**Here's the list of required items in each school kit:   One pair of blunt-end scissors, One 12-inch ruler with metric markings, 12 new pencils with erasers, One small pencil sharpener, One large eraser, One box of colored pencils (Crayons melt in the Iraqi summer heat!), One package of notebook paper, One composition book Three folders with inside pockets, One zippered pencil bag.

No substitutions allowed.  So don't even try to sneak in a pair of non-blunt-end scissors, because we certainly can't be sending dangerous weapons into the hands of Iraqi youth.

And you call this a "balanced" presentation?

This probably wasn't, but could have been, an example of the "balanced" materials that the military recruiters that I wrote about yesterday are handing out in the Tennessee school:

If you are wondering about exactly how (un)balanced this is, then read on...

The image you see here might lead you to believe that the child in the picture has been made "glad" and secure thanks to the U.S. troop presence in Iraq...  The original photo, taken by a journalist, depicted a young girl who had just received bullet wounds during a firefight in which her mother was killed and her father was wounded. Eddy doctored the photo by erasing the little girl's own face (which carries the listless expression you would expect from an injured child) and replacing it with someone else's face to make her look positively radiant and adoring.

I don't even know where to start writing in order to express my disgust.  So, I'll just virtually wonder out loud if the Tennessee principal would find these materials offensive?  Even if he did (which I doubt), he would not be able to ban the military from his school as he did with the Quakers.  Because, the law of our land mandates that the military be there, or at least that they have contact information for all students -- so that they can, of course, give a "balanced" presentation about military career options. 

Fallujah: just like disneyland?

This probably belongs in the too-obscene-for-comment category, but I haven't set that one up yet...

In an aged amusement park in the Jolan district, near the center of Falluja, the marines have established one of several aid centers. Against the incongruous backdrop of an idle Ferris wheel and a lime-green octopus ride, residents, most of them in just for the day, line up for food, water and bed sheets. Marines hand candy and toys to the children.

The intent is friendly but security concerns are overriding: the people have to file through huge coils of razor wire and a gantlet of armed marines to pick up their supplies.

On the road out front, Lt. Col. Patrick Malay, who is running military operations in the northern half of Falluja and led fierce combat through this neighborhood, watched the scene with satisfaction. "This is how I like it, just like Disneyland," he said. "Orderly lines and people leave with a smile on their face."

His units killed hundreds of insurgents sweeping through this area but also lost several men, he said. "I'm proud of these marines," he said, pointing to the aid station. "To see them turn off the kill switch and help people is a great thing."

Yesiree, just like Disneyland:

 

"He's dead now."

This morning when I dropped Rosie off at her preschool, her teacher Laraine and I had our usual morning commiseration on the state of the world.  She talked about going to Target over the weekend and seeing that they were fully stocked for Christmas -- with rows and rows of war toys, more than she has seen at any time in the past.

Then I came home to read today's news:

The US Marine Corps launched an investigation into possible war crimes last night after video footage taken inside a mosque in Fallujah apparently showed a Marine shooting dead an unarmed Iraqi insurgent who had been taken prisoner.

The footage showed several Marines with a group of prisoners who were either lying on the floor or propped against a wall of the bombed-out building. One Marine can be heard declaring that one of the prisoners was faking his injuries.

"He's fucking faking he's dead.  He's faking he's fucking dead," says the Marine.   At that point a clatter of gunfire can be heard as one of the Marines shoots the prisoner.  Another voice can then be heard saying:  "He's dead now."

This is all connected, and we are all connected, and I have to wonder what will become of us?