Iraq

[Pinball]

So Bush wanted to bomb Al Jazeera in Q'atar for their annoying desire for free speech - I believe Al Jazeera's offices in Baghdad were already bombed.

The US have "secret" torture camps in Poland and other E European countries.

You couldn't write this stuff, man! What really saddens me is how we're the bad guys now (amongst other bad guys - not saying we're the only ones).

[Alberon]

It's amazing how quickly Bush managed to take the global sympathy over 11th September and piss it up the wall.

[Pinball]

It's the degree to which 9/11 was opportunistically used that makes one wonder if the US administration let 9/11 happen despite having knowledge of it. Just as (allegedly) Roosevelt allowed Pearl Harbour to happen so he could change public & US Congress opinion to support US involvement in WW2.

Personally, I think there's a lot more evidence (i.e. written proof) for the latter, but even so, you wonder...

Whatever the bullshit reasons given by the World Leader, the bottomline is that US Empire is growing. I think it's their last desperate attempt to shore up US power and control of world resources before the Chinese dominate the world in 50 years time (or less).

[pillockandtwat]

Torture? Check.
Kidnapping from 'third party' states? Check.
Fraudulent invocation of national security, nay, world peace? Check.
Murdering of journalists? Check.
Use of chemical weapons on civilians? Check.
Use of cluster bombs and mines? Check.
Lucrative contracts for private contractors close to government? Check.
Criticism dismissed as oppurtunism/treachery? Check.
Iraquis to lose an estimated $200billion of their own oil revenue? Check.
Continued support of military dictactorships in other parts of the world? Check.
Reduced civil rights and political freedom at home? Check.
Increased political instability in the Middle East? Check.
Christopher Hitchens? Check.
A body coun in the hundreds of thousands? Check.
That is rising as we sleep? Check.

Well done, chaps.

"We know the total American dead in Vietnam to the nearest man. We do not know the total Vietnamese dead to the nearest million."

[zozman]

On the torture bit, I came across this press conference with Scott McLellan

Q I'd like you to clear up, once and for all, the ambiguity about torture. Can we get a straight answer? The President says we don't do torture, but Cheney --

MR. McCLELLAN: That's about as straight as it can be.

Q Yes, but Cheney has gone to the Senate and asked for an exemption on --

MR. McCLELLAN: No, he has not. Are you claiming he's asked for an exemption on torture? No, that's --

Q He did not ask for that?

MR. McCLELLAN: -- that is inaccurate.

Q Are you denying everything that came from the Hill, in terms of torture?

MR. McCLELLAN: No, you're mischaracterizing things. And I'm not going to get into discussions we have --

Q Can you give me a straight answer for once?

MR. McCLELLAN: Let me give it to you, just like the President has. We do not torture. He does not condone torture and he would never --

Q I'm asking about exemptions.

MR. McCLELLAN: Let me respond. And he would never authorize the use of torture. We have an obligation to do all that we can to protect the American people. We are engaged --

Q That's not the answer I'm asking for --

MR. McCLELLAN: It is an answer -- because the American people want to know that we are doing all within our power to prevent terrorist attacks from happening. There are people in this world who want to spread a hateful ideology that is based on killing innocent men, women and children. We saw what they can do on September 11th --

Q He didn't ask for an exemption --

MR. McCLELLAN: -- and we are going to --

Q -- answer that one question. I'm asking, is the administration asking for an exemption?

MR. McCLELLAN: I am answering your question. The President has made it very clear that we are going to do --

Q You're not answering -- yes or no?

MR. McCLELLAN: No, you don't want the American people to hear what the facts are, Helen, and I'm going to tell them the facts.

Q -- the American people every day. I'm asking you, yes or no, did we ask for an exemption?

MR. McCLELLAN: And let me respond. You've had your opportunity to ask the question. Now I'm going to respond to it.

Q If you could answer in a straight way.

MR. McCLELLAN: And I'm going to answer it, just like the President -- I just did, and the President has answered it numerous times.

Q -- yes or no --

MR. McCLELLAN: Our most important responsibility is to protect the American people. We are engaged in a global war against Islamic radicals who are intent on spreading a hateful ideology, and intent on killing innocent men, women and children.

Q Did we ask for an exemption?

MR. McCLELLAN: We are going to do what is necessary to protect the American people.

Q Is that the answer?

MR. McCLELLAN: We are also going to do so in a way that adheres to our laws and to our values. We have made that very clear. The President directed everybody within this government that we do not engage in torture. We will not torture. He made that very clear.

Q Are you denying we asked for an exemption?

MR. McCLELLAN: Helen, we will continue to work with the Congress on the issue that you brought up. The way you characterize it, that we're asking for exemption from torture, is just flat-out false, because there are laws that are on the books that prohibit the use of torture. And we adhere to those laws.

Q We did ask for an exemption; is that right? I mean, be simple -- this is a very simple question.

MR. McCLELLAN: I just answered your question. The President answered it last week.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/11/20051108.html

The invocation of September 11th was there, present and correct.

[Leila]

The Mirror claim to have a memo stating that Blair had to dissuade Bush from bombing Al-Jazeera's HQ in Qatar during the US assault on Falluja.

If anything this shows that Blair getting Britain involved in the war was for humane reasons, in that had America been left to their own devices the situation would be ten times as fucked as it is now.

[jutl]

The New York Times is reporting that the US military pay public relations firms to plant pro-coalition stories in the Iraqi free press (quoted because NYT demand login):

December 1, 2005
The Media
U.S. Is Said to Pay to Plant Articles in Iraq Papers
By JEFF GERTH and SCOTT SHANE

WASHINGTON, Nov. 30 - Titled "The Sands Are Blowing Toward a Democratic Iraq," an article written this week for publication in the Iraqi press was scornful of outsiders' pessimism about the country's future.

"Western press and frequently those self-styled 'objective' observers of Iraq are often critics of how we, the people of Iraq, are proceeding down the path in determining what is best for our nation," the article began. Quoting the Prophet Muhammad, it pleaded for unity and nonviolence.

But far from being the heartfelt opinion of an Iraqi writer, as its language implied, the article was prepared by the United States military as part of a multimillion-dollar covert campaign to plant paid propaganda in the Iraqi news media and pay friendly Iraqi journalists monthly stipends, military contractors and officials said.

The article was one of several in a storyboard, the military's term for a list of articles, that was delivered Tuesday to the Lincoln Group, a Washington-based public relations firm paid by the Pentagon, documents from the Pentagon show. The contractor's job is to translate the articles into Arabic and submit them to Iraqi newspapers or advertising agencies without revealing the Pentagon's role. Documents show that the intended target of the article on a democratic Iraq was Azzaman, a leading independent newspaper, but it is not known whether it was published there or anywhere else.

Even as the State Department and the United States Agency for International Development pay contractors millions of dollars to help train journalists and promote a professional and independent Iraqi media, the Pentagon is paying millions more to the Lincoln Group for work that appears to violate fundamental principles of Western journalism.

In addition to paying newspapers to print government propaganda, Lincoln has paid about a dozen Iraqi journalists each several hundred dollars a month, a person who had been told of the transactions said. Those journalists were chosen because their past coverage had not been antagonistic to the United States, said the person, who is being granted anonymity because of fears for the safety of those involved. In addition, the military storyboards have in some cases copied verbatim text from copyrighted publications and passed it on to be printed in the Iraqi press without attribution, documents and interviews indicated.

In many cases, the material prepared by the military was given to advertising agencies for placement, and at least some of the material ran with an advertising label. But the American authorship and financing were not revealed.

Military spokesmen in Washington and Baghdad said Wednesday that they had no information on the contract. In an interview from Baghdad on Nov. 18, Lt. Col. Steven A. Boylan, a military spokesman, said the Pentagon's contract with the Lincoln Group was an attempt to "try to get stories out to publications that normally don't have access to those kind of stories." The military's top commanders, including Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, did not know about the Lincoln Group contract until Wednesday, when it was first described by The Los Angeles Times, said a senior military official who was not authorized to speak publicly.

Pentagon officials said General Pace and other top officials were disturbed by the reported details of the propaganda campaign and demanded explanations from senior officers in Iraq, the official said.

When asked about the article Wednesday night on the ABC News program "Nightline," General Pace said, "I would be concerned about anything that would be detrimental to the proper growth of democracy."

Others seemed to share the sentiment. "I think it's absolutely wrong for the government to do this," said Patrick Butler, vice president of the International Center for Journalists in Washington, which conducts ethics training for journalists from countries without a history of independent news media. "Ethically, it's indefensible."

Mr. Butler, who spoke from a conference in Wisconsin with Arab journalists, said the American government paid for many programs that taught foreign journalists not to accept payments from interested parties to write articles and not to print government propaganda disguised as news.

"You show the world you're not living by the principles you profess to believe in, and you lose all credibility," he said.

The Government Accountability Office found this year that the Bush administration had violated the law by producing pseudo news reports that were later used on American television stations with no indication that they had been prepared by the government. But no law prohibits the use of such covert propaganda abroad.

The Lincoln contract with the American-led coalition forces in Iraq has rankled some military and civilian officials and contractors. Some of them described the program to The New York Times in recent months and provided examples of the military's storyboards.

The Lincoln Group, whose principals include some businessmen and former military officials, was hired last year after military officials concluded that the United States was failing to win over Muslim public opinion. In Iraq, the effort is seen by some American military commanders as a crucial step toward defeating the Sunni-led insurgency.

Citing a "fundamental problem of credibility" and foreign opposition to American policies, a Pentagon advisory panel last year called for the government to reinvent and expand its information programs.

"Government alone cannot today communicate effectively and credibly," said the report by the task force on strategic communication of the Defense Science Board. The group recommended turning more often for help to the private sector, which it said had "a built-in agility, credibility and even deniability."

The Pentagon's first public relations contract with Lincoln was awarded in 2004 for about $5 million with the stated purpose of accurately informing the Iraqi people of American goals and gaining their support. But while meant to provide reliable information, the effort was also intended to use deceptive techniques, like payments to sympathetic "temporary spokespersons" who would not necessarily be identified as working for the coalition, according to a contract document and a military official.

In addition, the document called for the development of "alternate or diverting messages which divert media and public attention" to "deal instantly with the bad news of the day."

Laurie Adler, a spokeswoman for the Lincoln Group, said the terms of the contract did not permit her to discuss it and referred a reporter to the Pentagon. But others defended the practice.

"I'm not surprised this goes on," said Michael Rubin, who worked in Iraq for the Coalition Provisional Authority in 2003 and 2004. "Informational operations are a part of any military campaign," he added. "Especially in an atmosphere where terrorists and insurgents - replete with oil boom cash - do the same. We need an even playing field, but cannot fight with both hands tied behind our backs."

Two dozen recent storyboards prepared by the military for Lincoln and reviewed by The New York Times had a variety of good-news themes addressing the economy, security, the insurgency and Iraq's political future. Some were written to resemble news articles. Others took the form of opinion pieces or public service announcements.

One article about Iraq's oil industry opened with three paragraphs taken verbatim, and without attribution, from a recent report in Al Hayat, a London-based Arabic newspaper. But the military version took out a quotation from an oil ministry spokesman that was critical of American reconstruction efforts. It substituted a more positive message, also attributed to the spokesman, though not as a direct quotation.

The editor of Al Sabah, a major Iraqi newspaper that has been the target of many of the military's articles, said Wednesday in an interview that he had no idea that the American military was supplying such material and did not know if his newspaper had printed any of it, whether labeled as advertising or not.

The editor, Muhammad Abdul Jabbar, 57, said Al Sabah, which he said received financial support from the Iraqi government but was editorially independent, accepted advertisements from virtually any source if they were not inflammatory. He said any such material would be labeled as advertising but would not necessarily identify the sponsor. Sometimes, he said, the paper got the text from an advertising agency and did not know its origins.

Asked what he thought of the Pentagon program's effectiveness in influencing Iraqi public opinion, Mr. Jabbar said, "I would spend the money a better way."

The Lincoln Group, which was incorporated in 2004, has won another government information contract. Last June, the Special Operations Command in Tampa awarded Lincoln and two other companies a multimillion-dollar contract to support psychological operations. The planned products, contract documents show, include three- to five- minute news programs.

Asked whether the information and news products would identify the American sponsorship, a media relations officer with the special operations command replied, in an e-mail message last summer, that "the product may or may not carry 'made in the U.S.' signature" but they would be identified as American in origin, "if asked."

Eric Schmitt contributed reporting from Washington for this article, and Kirk Semple and Edward Wong from Baghdad.

[Alberon]

A free and independent press is a vital part of democracy, isn't it. I find it sickly funny that we seem to be going about setting up a democracy in Iraq in the most undemocratic way we can.

[slim]

The Guardian[/url]"]Iraq bombers kill 43 at police academy

At least 43 people were killed and 73 injured today when two suicide bombers blew themselves up in a police academy classroom in east Baghdad.

I know there's a lot of poverty and disillusionment out there, but really, where the fuck do they get all these willing suicide bombers from? It's easy to get lost in the number of injured and dead reading these reports, but also each time this happens it takes one or more people willing to give up their life for their belief in politics and/or religion.

Why don't I care that much?


(Answer: because I'm on the relatively better end of the deal, I suppose)

[Frinky]

The Guardian[/url]"]Iraq bombers kill 43 at police academy

MAHONEEEEEEY!

[Wilbur]

care becuse we get  "war weary". It is every fucking day. They see that they are defending their country. Which we should respect. There is a n almost unlimited supply of fundamentalists ready to blow themselves up (and that is in no way a defense of the war, we just made it ten times worse).

What makes me despair is that so many ordinary people suspected this disaster but  we were ignored.

Oh well.

[slim]

I meant why don't I care enough about anything to blow myself up for it?

Heh, Frinky, you're funny, man. :)

[Frinky]

No I'm not. I regret it already.

It's indoctrination, isn't it? You could have believed, very easilly, if it was around you and you'd been brought up (or at least invigourously educated) to believe.

[slim]

No, really, it was on the money.

Nah, I'm too much of a coward. I suppose I could've had that beaten/brainwashed out of me though, with enough work.

[Wilbur]

Well I suppose if your family had been killed and you had no prospects and  chuck in some religion your views might be different.

[mayer]

That isn't the profile of all or even most suicide bombers, though.

[Wilbur]

source for that please.

[mayer]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_bomb#Profile_of_a_bomber

A common reaction to a suicide bomber is to assume that he (or rarely she) was motivated by despair, and probably hailed from a poor, neglected segment of society. Both President George W. Bush and the Dalai Lama have made this claim. However, anthropologist Scott Atran found in a 2003 study that this is not a justifiable conclusion. A recently published paper by Harvard University Professor of Public Policy Alberto Abadie "cast doubt on the widely held belief that terrorism stems from poverty, finding instead that terrorist violence is related to a nation's level of political freedom." [4] More specifically this is due to the transition of countries towards democratic freedoms. "intermediate levels of political freedom are often experienced during times of political transitions, when governments are weak, political instability is elevated, so conditions are favorable for the appearance of terrorism" Quote Original Paper.

In fact, most bombers are educated, many with college or university experience, and come from middle class homes. Most suicide bombers do not show signs of psychopathology. Indeed, leaders of the groups who perpetrate these attacks search for individuals who can be trusted to carry out the mission; those with mental illnesses are not ideal candidates. They often find solace in the ritualistic communion found in extremist circles, which are often headed by charismatic individuals looking for new recruits.

It has also been observed that some suicide bombers were coerced or possibly deceived about the nature of the operation. Japanese kamikaze pilots were sometimes forced to drink poison before their mission so that they would have no second thoughts about surviving. Some counter-intelligence specialists believe that a number of the September 11th hijackers may not have known that they were embarking on a suicide mission. Cases of Middle Eastern suicide bombers being chained or tied to the steering wheel of vehicles carrying bombs or remotely detonating the said vehicles with drivers inside, and also of outfitting developmentally disabled individuals (specifically those with Down's syndrome) with suicide bomb vests, are hotly debated issues.

[slim]

Whoops, I take back my point about poverty then. Thanks for the info.

[Wilbur]

Well taking that with the healthy distrust that it it deserves. And I am tempted to edit this one.

We are not talking about Japan.

If you did not realise japan has a rather...eeeerm. Special set of rules.

Not applicable in even the smallest way.

Japanese culture is fascinating as an asside.

[mayer]

Well, plenty are poor, no doubt (the society they live in is relatively poor, and poor relative to their neighbours often enough), some have had family killed, but that isn't typical.

And the real point is that there are plenty of people with no prospects who have had family killed who don't become suicide bombers, so it isn't an inexplicable causal link, there has to be other factors.

[mayer]

Well taking that with the healthy distrust that it it deserves. And I am tempted to edit this one.

We are not talking about Japan.

If you did not realise japan has a rather...eeeerm. Special set of rules.

Not applicable in even the smallest way.

Japanese culture is fascinating as an asside.

Sorry to bring this up yet again, what about the middle class chaps from Derby who went to Israel to blow themselves up? A specific instance, sure, but an example which doesn't fit in with your profiling that you haven't sourced.

I've had family killed in war, and I'm on five pounds seventy five an hour, much less than my neighbours, but I'm not going to strap on a bomb.

Why?

[Frinky]

what about the middle class chaps from Derby

Yes, what about me?

[mayer]

( :-) at Frinky)

Japan was, of course, merely an aside in that article, rather than the thrust of it as you've tried to make out, Wilbur.

[Wilbur]

Oh

I'm sorry abou your family losses for a first off

I was not trying to do a profile rather than to point out that if you have been invaded as a country you will feel wronged.

My wife asked me the other week if I would die for my beliefs.

My reply was that if it saved 50,000 people then yes.

She then said "well what about me?"

I  suppose it depends on your  value of life (including your own).

My wife is not happy with that answer, but it is me.

[Frinky]

As an aside, the sister of one of those guys was a teacher at the roughest school in the roughest part of town (I'd suggest looking it up on the internet, but you'll only find 4 bricks holding up a blank page). She was fired, apparently, for making smug remarks about what her relatives had done, as well as allegedly knowing what they were up to and saying nothing beforehand.

[mayer]

Thankyou, it was before I was born so y'know. But thanks anyway.

Again, I'd have to say that being invaded and feeling wronged is fair enough, but the world is filled with invasions, but only parts of it are filled with suicide bombers. It doesn't add up.

And suicide bombing:

- especially in Iraq, doesn't save lives. Simple as that. Not long term, not anything. I'm not suggesting it's wrong... that;s not the point, but it isn't about saving anyone's life.

- is about killing people as much as it is yourself. It's one thing to proudly die for your beliefs, or your wife, it's quite another to proudly kill.

[Wilbur]

OK

Yes there are special aspects.

Try trawling through Fisks latest attempt. Sorry I cannot summarise 1400 pages in one post.

[mayer]

*shudders*

I still have nightmares from that month I lived with Pity The Nation for an extended essay.

Fisk, in my considered opinion, is a weird man.

[Wilbur]

has it's place. In the fucking bin as far as I am concerned.

Having said that there is one I respect.

Different thread needed there.