Iraq Anniversary Passes With Little Attention

With all of the attention that has been given to the health care debate and the potential passage of the current legislation, there wasn't much coverage of yesterday's important anniversary.

Yesterday marked the seventh anniversary of the invasion of Iraq by the United States military.

The folks over at Brave New Films made a video that highlights the numerous costs of the war and urging President Obama to heed the lessons of Iraq in his decision-making in Afghanistan. Here is the video:

Xe, formerly Blackwater, in the Running for $1 Billion Government Contract

Just after the turn of the year, it was reported that two men who work for the private contracting firm "Xe" (pronounced "zee" and formerly known as "Blackwater") would be charged with murder in the death of two Afghan civilians:

Christopher Drotleff and Justin Cannon are charged with two counts of second-degree murder and one count of attempted murder each in connection with the May shootings in Kabul. The 12-count, 19-page indictment returned by a federal grand jury in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia also includes weapons charges against the two men.

[...]

The incident spotlights the issue of the role and conduct of U.S. security contractors in Afghanistan. A similar issue arose in Iraq after a September 2007 confrontation involving then-Blackwater contractors that left 17 Iraqi civilians dead.

Blackwater lost its contract there after Iraq's government refused to renew its operating license. The company then changed its name to Xe, and it continues to receive multimillion-dollar contracts in Afghanistan.

This was not the first incident that has drawn attention to this troubled mercenary firm. You may remember the infamous Nissour Square Massacre in Iraq in 2007 during which it was reported that 17 Iraqi civilians were shot and killed by Blackwater guards. From a 2008 New York Times:

The Sept. 16 shooting in Nisour Square is considered by the F.B.I., the Pentagon and the Iraqi government to be among the most egregious examples of unprovoked violence by private security contractors. It ignited such outrage that the Iraqi government threatened to ban Blackwater from the country.

Since this massacre, former employees of the organization have come forward to tell tales of weapons smuggling by the firm into Iraq and allegations that implicate the founder of the organization, in murder. From an August 2009 piece by Jeremy Scahill:

A former Blackwater employee and an ex-US Marine who has worked as a security operative for the company have made a series of explosive allegations in sworn statements filed on August 3 in federal court in Virginia. The two men claim that the company's owner, Erik Prince, may have murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals who were cooperating with federal authorities investigating the company.

[...]

In their testimony, both men also allege that Blackwater was smuggling weapons into Iraq. One of the men alleges that Prince turned a profit by transporting "illegal" or "unlawful" weapons into the country on Prince's private planes. They also charge that Prince and other Blackwater executives destroyed incriminating videos, emails and other documents and have intentionally deceived the US State Department and other federal agencies. The identities o

f the two individuals were sealed out of concerns for their safety.

In the midst of all of these serious allegations that surround this organization, one would think that it may make the United States Government a little wary of continuing to hire Xe to operate within war-stricken countries, but then there comes this news highlighted by the Huffington Post (emphasis mine):

Now called Xe Services, the company is in the running for a Pentagon contract potentially worth $1 billion to train Afghanistan's troubled national police force. Xe has been shifting to training, aviation and logistics work after its security guards were accused of killing unarmed Iraqi civilians more than two years ago.

Here is a video that was created by ReThink Afghanistan that also outlines how this security firm is still in the running for lucrative government contracts even as there continue to be unsolved questions that surround various legal and moral issues:

Initial Reactions to President Obama's State of the Union Address

I just got done "live-tweeting" during President Obama's first State of the Union Address and am going to give my initial reactions to the speech.

First and foremost I thought that this speech was what President Obama needed to do politically and ended up delivering a strong overall speech that will probably give him a slight boost in the polls. I don't like to dwell on or get lost in the political accomplishments of the speech because I think it can dilute from the overall substance of what was said.

On substance, Obama had a lot to tackle and if you missed the speech, you can read it here. Obama talked about a top priority of creating jobs in 2010:

We should start where most new jobs do - in small businesses, companies that begin when an entrepreneur takes a chance on a dream, or a worker decides its time she became her own boss.

Through sheer grit and determination, these companies have weathered the recession and are ready to grow. But when you talk to small business owners in places like Allentown, Pennsylvania or Elyria, Ohio, you find out that even though banks on Wall Street are lending again, they are mostly lending to bigger companies. But financing remains difficult for small business owners across the country.

So tonight, I'm proposing that we take $30 billion of the money Wall Street banks have repaid and use it to help community banks give small businesses the credit they need to stay afloat.

He went on to talk about energy, the climate and the need to make America more innovative on a global scale. His remarks on Health Care were much much anticipated and here is a clip of what he had to say:

Our approach would preserve the right of Americans who have insurance to keep their doctor and their plan. It would reduce costs and premiums for millions of families and businesses. And according to the Congressional Budget Office - the independent organization that both parties have cited as the official scorekeeper for Congress - our approach would bring down the deficit by as much as $1 trillion over the next two decades.

Still, this is a complex issue, and the longer it was debated, the more skeptical people became. I take my share of the blame for not explaining it more clearly to the American people. And I know that with all the lobbying and horse-trading, this process left most Americans wondering what's in it for them.

But I also know this problem is not going away. By the time I'm finished speaking tonight, more Americans will have lost their health insurance. Millions will lose it this year. Our deficit will grow. Premiums will go up. Patients will be denied the care they need. Small business owners will continue to drop coverage altogether. I will not walk away from these Americans, and neither should the people in this chamber.

and frankly, there was not much more on the topic of health care reform than that. Obama simply put out a call for those in Congress to pass the reforms because they had come too far already. This really leaves us no closer to actually making Congress fix the current version of the bill and Obama did not mention anything about putting things like the public option back into the bill.

A couple of other notable moments from the speech:

1. Obama called for the repeal of the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. This is certainly overdue and I know that many gay activists were very happy that Obama explicitly referenced this during the speech.

2. Obama chided the recent Supreme Court decision that will end up allowing a tidal wave of corporate money into political campaigns. The interesting part came when Justice Sam Alito reacted and verbally responded (what looked like and what is being reported as) "That's not true". Watch:



This is notable because the Supreme Court is usually silent and expressionless during the State of the Union, even refraining from clapping when the President enters so as to continue to express impartiality. Many have already stated that this is Alito's "You Lie" moment.

3. Obama explicitly stated that troops would begin to come home from Afghanistan in July 2011 and that "all combat troops" will be out of Iraq by August 2010. Earlier this week I highlighted the confusion within the Obama Administration surrounding his Afghanistan policy and while Obama reiterated this date, he failed to lay out any specifics regarding an exit strategy or whether this withdrawal is condition-based. More is needed on this topic from the Administration.

4. Obama addressed the partisanship that has plagued his first year in office, at times sounding like a high school principal. For me, the best line during this portion of the speech was:

To Democrats, I would remind you that we still have the largest majority in decades, and the people expect us to solve some problems, not run for the hills. And if the Republican leadership is going to insist that sixty votes in the Senate are required to do any business at all in this town, then the responsibility to govern is now yours as well. Just saying no to everything may be good short-term politics, but it's not leadership.

Nice thought right? Something tells me that tomorrow is going to be the same.

These are my very raw and very rough reactions to the speech and there will be much further discussion on this over the next few days and weeks. Check back for more insight and analysis.


UPDATE: One more item that just came to mind was Obama seemingly denouncing the brand of conservatism that we saw under the Bush Administration:

From some on the right, I expect we'll hear a different argument - that if we just make fewer investments in our people, extend tax cuts for wealthier Americans, eliminate more regulations, and maintain the status quo on health care, our deficits will go away. The problem is, that's what we did for eight years. That's what helped lead us into this crisis. It's what helped lead to these deficits. And we cannot do it again.

I think this was important, but it makes me wonder why he is validating Republican views by calling for a spending freeze if he is so critical of what got us into this mess in the first place.

Obama Dismisses King, Justifies War

Like many over the past week, I have read the words delivered by President Obama as he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway. I was interested to see how he was going to address the apparent conflict of his being awarded a peace prize while presiding over and escalating war. How Obama chose to address this contradiction was both troubling and very telling about how both he and this Administration view the role of war.

The President chose to address this contradiction early on in his speech:

But perhaps the most profound issue surrounding my receipt of this prize is the fact that I....

...am the Commander-in-Chief of a nation in the midst of two wars. One of these wars is winding down. The other is a conflict that America did not seek; one in which we are joined by forty three other countries – including Norway – in an effort to defend ourselves and all nations from further attacks.

Still, we are at war, and I am responsible for the deployment of thousands of young Americans to battle in a distant land. Some will kill. Some will be killed. And so I come here with an acute sense of the cost of armed conflict – filled with difficult questions about the relationship between war and peace, and our effort to replace one with the other.

As Obama continued, he spoke about the idea of a "just war" that has been circulated by various philosophers throughout time and his belief that wars of this nature are necessary to bring about peace. Obama admits that the requirements for fighting a so-called "just war" have often been ignored throughout history, but expressed his view that World War II was such a war that fell under this label.

Using this foundation as a premise and in acknowledging anti-war words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Obama then makes the declaration that: "the instruments of war do have a role to play in preserving the peace." He labels this as a "truth" and while he admits that war produces human tragedy, he paints the efforts of the United States as noble with an end goal of providing security and freedom to the world.

This tale, that the United States is a benign power whose mission is to merely protect its citizens and sow the seeds of freedom, is the same tale that has been told for Centuries. It is the same tale that has been used to drum up Patriotic support for all military conflicts and that leads citizens of the United States to believe that we have been fighting in Iraq to preserve our very freedoms.

President Obama's embrace of an ideology of "just war" not only continues the narrative that has been spoken by many of his predecessors, but ignores other realities that need to be taken into consideration. Obama was quick to label World War II as a war that was needed in order to quell the rise of Fascist Germany, but failed to address actions such as the bombing of Dresden and the release of two atomic bombs on the civilian populations of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Were these actions of a country involved in a "just war" or is it possible that violence will always beget violence? What about the actions of the United States in Iraq, Gaza, Latin America, Vietnam, etc?

It is not only the selective telling of historical events that speaks volumes about this President's view on war and peace, but in his dismissal of the ideas of a past winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Dr. King. Obama says that while King's ideas have had great impact, he cannot rely on his ideas alone and that we must strive for peace while understanding that there will be war. It is disingenuous for President Obama to quote Dr. King while completely ignoring the warnings which King outlined in his own Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech:

So man's proneness to engage in war is still a fact. But wisdom born of experience should tell us that war is obsolete. There may have been a time when war served as a negative good by preventing the spread and growth of an evil force, but the destructive power of modern weapons eliminated even the possibility that war may serve as a negative good.

[...]

I venture to suggest to all of you and all who hear and may eventually read these words, that the philosophy and strategy of nonviolence become immediately a subject for study and for serious experimentation in every field of human conflict, by no means excluding the relations between nations. It is, after all, nation-states which make war, which have produced the weapons which threaten the survival of mankind, and which are both genocidal and suicidal in character.

[...]

So we must fix our vision not merely on the negative expulsion of war, but upon the positive affirmation of peace. We must see that peace represents a sweeter music, a cosmic melody that is far superior to the discords of war. Somehow we must transform the dynamics of the world power struggle from the negative nuclear arms race which no one can win to a positive contest to harness man's creative genius for the purpose of making peace and prosperity a reality for all of the nations of the world. In short, we must shift the arms race into a "peace race". If we have the will and determination to mount such a peace offensive, we will unlock hitherto tightly sealed doors of hope and transform our imminent cosmic elegy into a psalm of creative fulfillment.

These are the ideas that are being rejected by the current President of the United States while we are expected to embrace the mantra that creating war will lead to a peaceful future. Is it not clear that this idea has become, as Dr. King mentions, "obsolete"? In what way is war "just" for the civilians who have been (and will be) killed in Afghanistan and Pakistan?

President Obama's contradictory acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize as well as his contradictory speech have made it clear that it is high time for a re-emergence of the anti-war movement to harness the ideas that King set forth in his 1964 speech. This President and his Administration have made it clear that they view more death and destruction as a viable means to an end and if they are not willing to accept peaceful solutions, then it is necessary for the people to voice this agenda.



This piece is cross posted here.

Obama's Escalation Speech Sings the Same Old Tune

President Obama gave his much anticipated speech this evening in front of a large crowd in West Point New York.

As was leaked ahead of time, Obama announced that he would be sending an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan over the next several months, escalating the conflict and with an end goal in bringing the War to an end.

Obama began his speech by telling the American public that the United States did not choose this war, but that the conflict started on 9/11/01 when the World Trade Center and Pentagon were attacked by Al Qaeda terrorists. Obama recounted how the country was united in the decision to launch attacks against Afghanistan but blamed the invasion of Iraq, which Obama has often called "a war of choice", for taking the necessary resources and attention away from the War in Afghanistan.

The President outlined that he would be sending an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to the region with the continued goals to "disrupt, dismantle, and defeat" Al Qaeda, but also to create a "civilian surge" and build a partnership with Pakistan. He stated that the military will work toward training Afghan forces so that when the time comes for withdrawal (beginning in 18 months), they will be ready to take over providing security for their country.

Obama denounced critics who have said that Afghanistan is another Vietnam as well as those who do not wish to see any kind of time-table set for an end to the fighting. Obama claimed that those who claim that Afghanistan is another Vietnam have a "false reading of history" since the United States now has considerable allies and is not facing an uprising from the general population of Afghanistan.

In other words, the President's speech tonight played like a bad sequel to the speech that President Bush gave in December of 2007 prior to his decision to escalate the troop levels in Iraq. Many of the same themes were covered and even the timetable for withdrawal of forces is not set in stone.

There were a couple of passages in Obama's speech that struck me as I was watching and that I would like to highlight in this posting. Here is the first:

We're in Afghanistan to prevent a cancer from once again spreading through that country. But this same cancer has also taken root in the border region of Pakistan. That's why we need a strategy that works on both sides of the border.

In the past, there have been those in Pakistan who've argued that the struggle against extremism is not their fight, and that Pakistan is better off doing little or seeking accommodation with those who use violence. But in recent years, as innocents have been killed from Karachi to Islamabad, it has become clear that it is the Pakistani people who are the most endangered by extremism. Public opinion has turned. The Pakistani army has waged an offensive in Swat and South Waziristan. And there is no doubt that the United States and Pakistan share a common enemy.

Obama does an interesting word dance around the topic of the "border regions in Pakistan", almost to the point where one tends to ignore the fact that these border regions are actually IN Pakistan. Obama mainly focuses on pressuring the Pakistani Government to continue to do more to fight Al Qaeda in their country and glosses over the U.S. role by using certain code words like the emphasis that Pakistan and the U.S. "share a common enemy".

What must not be lost in this conversation is that the CIA has been fighting a covert war inside the Pakistan border for quite some time now including launching drone attacks that have been known to kill innocent civilians. From a TIME Magazine piece back in June:

The White House routinely dodges questions on the subject, and neither the CIA nor the State Department would talk about the program on the record. But officials familiar with the CIA's operations say at least nine of the top 20 high-value al-Qaeda targets identified last fall have been killed by drone strikes, along with dozens of lesser figures. Many bases and safe houses have been destroyed. On the other hand, Pakistani officials say the majority of strikes have either missed their targets or, worse, killed innocent civilians.

[...]

But in the long term, the Pakistani frontier can be safe only when the tribes are more favorably disposed toward the U.S. and the Pakistani government than toward the militants. The U.S. hopes that can be achieved by supplementing the drones with development aid, much of it earmarked for the tribal areas. But can that money start working its magic before the resentments roused by the drone campaign metastasize into an irreversible jihad? On that question of timing may hinge the success or failure of a modern war fought in an ancient environment.

The second part of Obama's speech that I want to highlight is this passage:

In Afghanistan, we and our allies prevented the Taliban from stopping a presidential election, and -- although it was marred by fraud -- that election produced a government that is consistent with Afghanistan's laws and constitution.

The contradictory nature of this statement is so clear that it barely need mention. In short, the Taliban tried to prevent an election, the election happened but lots of fraud was involved, but since the election produced a government and didn't violate the laws of Afghanistan all is well.

One need only to recount that since the election was marred by fraud, a runoff election was planned and it was only after Hamid Karzai's opponent, Abdullah Abdullah, dropped out of the runoff (citing additional fraud) that Karzai was declared the winner by default. Even though the Obama Administration has accepted Karzai as a legitimate leader, it doesn't rule out the very complicated political situation that still exists in Afghanistan.

Obama also stated:

And we have forged a new beginning between America and the Muslim world -- one that recognizes our mutual interest in breaking a cycle of conflict, and that promises a future in which those who kill innocents are isolated by those who stand up for peace and prosperity and human dignity.

How this statement can even be squared with reality is beyond me. It is no secret that U.S. drone attacks over the past year have killed a large number of civilians. An escalation in U.S. and allied forces and an increase in fighting in the region is all but assured to create more civilian deaths. What happens when "those who kill innocents" are the ones claiming to be "standing up for peace"? It makes you scratch your head almost as much as when a President wins a Nobel Peace Prize while escalating his country's participation in a War.

The final part of Obama's speech that I wanted to touch on was where he stated that he would begin to bring troops home in 18 months:

And as Commander-in-Chief, I have determined that it is in our vital national interest to send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan. After 18 months, our troops will begin to come home.

My first inclination was to ask what exactly it means that "our troops will begin to come home". Luckily, Chris Bowers at Open Left followed up on this point:

I just had a chance to talk with three senior Obama administration officials. In regards to President Obama's statement that "after 18 months, our troops will begin to come home," I asked for clarification on how many troops would be coming home in eighteen months, and at what rate would they be coming home.

The answers made it clear that there is no actual timeline for withdrawing troops from Afghanistan:

* There is no defined rate for, or number of troops involved in, the 2011 withdrawal.

* They will be "taking conditions on the ground into account" in determining the withdrawal.

* The withdrawal is "a goal."

That is not a timeline. At best, it is a message to the Karzai government that the Obama administration doesn't want to stay in Afghanistan indefinitely. However, there was plenty of room open in the response that they could stay there indefinitely, given the vagaries of the timeline.

Does this sound familiar to you? Open-ended commitments that could change depending on how things go on the ground all while sending more troops and money and spilling more and more blood? Sounds much like the last eight years to me and to emphasize that point (h/t Glenn Greenwald) I am going to end this post with several quotes. I wonder if you can tell me which quotes came from President Obama's speech on Afghanistan and which came from President Bush's escalation speech on Iraq from 2007.


1. "A successful strategy [...] goes beyond military operations. Ordinary [...] citizens must see that military operations are accompanied by visible improvements in their neighborhoods and communities. So America will hold the [...] government to the benchmarks it has announced."

2. "I have made it clear to the [...] leaders that America's commitment is not open-ended. If the [...] government does not follow through on its promises, it will lose the support of the [...] people. Now is the time to act."

3. "This effort must be based on performance. The days of providing a blank check are over....going forward, we will be clear about what we expect from those who receive our assistance. We'll support...leaders that combat corruption and deliver for the people. We expect those who are ineffective or corrupt to be held accountable."

4. "Our troops will have a well-defined mission: To help...clear and secure neighborhoods, to help...protect the local population, and to help ensure that the...forces left behind are capable of providing the security..."

5. "They'll increase our ability to train competent...security forces, and to partner with them so that more...can get into the fight. And they will help create the conditions for the United States to transfer responsibility...to ensure that they can succeed over the long haul."


This piece is cross posted here.

Around the Horn: Reactions to Yesterday's Shooting at Ft. Hood

I thought that this would be an appropriate time for us to take a look at a snapshot of reactions on this awful case.

Details are beginning to trickle out to provide a little more clarity as there was much initial misinformation reported yesterday.

The New York Times has a good profile of the shooter, Nidal Malik Hassan, that you can read by clicking here. Here are some reactions from around the blogosphere:

Mitch Berg at "Shot in the Dark":

It’s hard for me to know what to say about atrocities like Fort Hood, other than the obvious; I pray for the people of Killeen, the troops in the First Cav and the Third Armored Cav and the 41st Artillery and the other units stationed there. Getting shot at in a combat zone is something they train for and expect; getting shot at on home turf, allegedly by one of their purported own, is not.

Glenn Greenwald:

Perhaps most irresponsible of all is the unverified claim that Hasan had written on the Internet in defense of suicide attacks by Muslims, even though the origins of those writings are entirely unverified. Similarly, certain news organizations -- like NPR -- used anonymous sources to disseminate inflammatory claims about Hasan's prior troubles allegedly grounded in activism on behalf of Islam. Much of this may turn out to be true once verified, or it may not be, but all of the conflicting, unverified claims flying around last night enabled many people to exploit the "facts" they selected in order to create whatever storyline that suited them and their political preconceptions -- and many, of course, took vigorous advantage of that opportunity.

Larry Johnson at "No Quarter":

The murder and wounding of more than forty soldiers is bad enough. If a cell of muslim extremists have infiltrated the U.S. Army then this is going to cause some major blow back throughout the military. Muslim officers and enlisted personnel will fall under suspicion. Most of this will be unfair and unwarranted. But human nature is what it is and the suspicion engendered by this kind of act will reverbrate for some time and probably hurt our ability to do a better job on winning hearts and minds overseas when there is such distrust in the ranks.

Firehand at "Irons in the Fire":

The L.A. Times will bury this as long as they can — probably until they’re embarrassed into revealing it due to its clear relevance. They will applaud themselves for being sober and cautious — something they would never do if the shooter were an aficionado of Rush Limbaugh instead of Allah and anti-American rants." From what I'm hearing and reading, a lot of other major media is refusing to mention these non-pc things; so much better to blame the Army and the other soldiers for 'bullying', etc.

Arsalan Iftikhar of the "AC 360" blog:

First of all, as an American, my heart broke into two pieces tonight when I heard of the tragic mass murder at Fort Hood, Texas earlier this evening when a U.S. Army soldier opened fire on a military processing center at Fort Hood in Texas on Thursday; killing at least 12 people and wounding at least 31 others, according to Army officials in a report to CNN.

Secondly, as a Muslim, my heart further broke into another two pieces when it was learned that the Fort Hood shooter was a Muslim mental health care professional medical doctor who (similar to the April 16, 2007 Virginia Tech massacre) used two handguns during his mass murder rampage.

Around the Horn: Reactions to the Resignation of the First U.S. Official Over the War in Afghanistan

The first U.S. Official has resigned in protest of the war in Afghanistan. From the National Post:

Matthew Hoh, a 36-year-old former Marine and Iraq war veteran, said he was stepping down as the senior U.S. civilian official in Zabul province, northeast of Kandahar, because he had "lost understanding of, and confidence in, the strategic purposes of the United States' presence."

[...]

Mr. Hoh, who served in military and civilian capacities in Iraq, is thought to be first civilian U.S. official to quit to protest his country's continuing presence in Afghanistan.

In brief remarks to reporters yesterday, he said, "We may be able to stabilize the Afghan government in five to 10 years, but stabilizing the Afghan government will do nothing to defeat al-Qaeda."

You can read Matthew Hoh's letter below:

Matthew Hoh first US official to resign over Afghan War

Here is some reaction from around the blogosphere to Hoh's resignation and the significance of this act during a time when President Obama is being encouraged to escalate the war effort.

Alan Block from Orange Punch:

I don’t know if it was ever as prevalent in reality as in lore, but resignation used to be considered the honorable course of officials who disagreed with policies they were asked to implement. It will be interesting to see whether Hoh gets more publicity as debate over the Afghan war perhaps heats up between now and after Nov. 7, when Obama has said he’ll announce his decision, or becomes a regular presence on cable TV or blog sites. I have no idea how articulate he is, but from the excerpts I’ve seen he writes a pretty good letter.

Joel at Infinite Monkeys:

If Hoh is right -- and there's quite a bit of his analysis that overlaps with Gen. Stanley McChrystal's -- then many of the insurgent groups lumped together under the label of "Taliban" are fighting against the U.S. and NATO because the U.S. and NATO are there. And we are there, fighting these groups, because they're there fighting. We're in a cycle in Afghanistan that we're fighting the war there because we're fighting the war there. That's not really a smart way to protect Americans from terrorism.

Glenn Greenwald:

How long are we going to continue to do this? We invade and occupy a country, and then label as "insurgents" or even "terrorists" the people in that country who fight against our invasion and occupation. With the most circular logic imaginable, we then insist that we must remain in order to defeat the "insurgents" and "terrorists" -- largely composed of people whose only cause for fighting is our presence in their country. All the while, we clearly exacerbate the very problem we are allegedly attempting to address -- Terrorism -- by predictably and inevitably increasing anti-American anger and hatred through our occupation, which, no matter the strategy, inevitably entails our killing innocent civilians.

[...]

Hoh told The Washington Post's Karen DeYoung that he's "not some peacenik, pot-smoking hippie who wants everyone to be in love" and that he believes "there are plenty of dudes who need to be killed," adding: "I was never more happy than when our Iraq team whacked a bunch of guys." Plainly, there's nothing ideological about his conclusions; they're just the by-product of an honest assessment, based on first-hand experiences, of how our ongoing occupation of that country is worsening the very problem we're allegedly there to solve.

Herschel Smith from The Captain's Journal:

The long war. That phrase that so many people are afraid to use, and which has been used so many times here at The Captain’s Journal. Jules understands. And I understand that Captain Hoh is an honorable man for sticking to his principles. He has a right to decide how he wants, just as I have a right to decide against his views. What I don’t get is why Captain Hoh is getting so much attention. So another State employee doesn’t want to see us in Afghanistan. How many more hundreds are there?

Finally, I find it rather embarrassing and gushy that State worked so hard to retain him. If he is so decidedly against the campaign in Afghanistan that he feels that he cannot work at State, then he should go rather than be begged to stay. The fact of the matter is that this thinking is systemic to not only State but the entire administration.

President Obama Wins the Nobel Peace Prize

Like many of you did this morning, I received the news that President Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize, making him the third sitting U.S. President in history to receive this honor. I must admit that when I was initially told of this, I didn't think that I had heard the news correctly. Predictably there has been intense backlash on the right in reaction to this news and there has been reaction from some on the left praising the decision and deriding the detractors on the right. In reality, we should call this decision for what it is, incongruous.

From the AP:

For one of America's youngest presidents, in office less than nine months — and only for 12 days before the Nobel nomination deadline last February — it was an enormous honor.

The prize seems to be more for Obama's promise than for his performance. The Nobel committee cited as his key accomplishment "a new climate in international politics." The president has become "the world's leading spokesman" for its agenda, the committee said.

He has no standout moment of victory. Not surprising. Like most presidents in their first year, Obama's scorecard so far is largely an "incomplete," if he's being graded.

With Obama only being in office for nine months, it is natural that much of his work is still incomplete. The Nobel committee stated that they were honoring his creation of a new climate in international politics and his efforts to strengthen international diplomacy. I think it is notable to mention that this statement has some truth to it. Obama has made quite an effort to change the international climate, he did an interview with al-Arabiya, has reached out to the Muslim world through speeches, and he has made promises to close Guantanamo, end torture, and sit down with foreign leaders with whom he may not always agree. These are positive steps and a notable change in tone from the strategy that was engaged in over the last eight years.

In looking at the actions that have been undertaken by Obama, one needs to look no further than the fact that he is presiding over two wars, one of which he has escalated and one in which we have seen no considerable effort to end. Obama has adopted the war in Afghanistan by ordering air raids and drone attacks that have had large numbers of civilian casualties, including numerous children. Couple this with the protection of the previous Administration despite serious accusations of lawbreaking and his continued policies of extraordinary rendition and can one seriously make the argument that these actions are worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize?

Former peace-prize winner Mairead Corrigan Maguire has expressed her disappointment with this decision for this reason:

Mrs Maguire won the 1976 Nobel award along with fellow Belfast peace campaigner Betty Williams.

"President Obama has yet to prove that he will move seriously on the Middle East, that he will end the war in Afghanistan and many other issues," Mrs Maguire said.

"The Nobel committee is not meeting the conditions of Alfred Nobel's will, because he stipulated that the award is to be given to people who end militarism and war and are for disarmament."

and Glenn Greenwald asks the very stark question:

How can someone responsible for that, and who has only escalated that war, possibly be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in the very same year that he did that? Does that picture above look like the work of a Nobel Peace laureate?

It is ludicrous to think that one who works to escalate war and militarism can win one of the highest honors for promoting peace.


This piece is cross posted here.

What Have We Learned?

With all of the recent discussion on Iran and their nuclear program, including President Obama's statements at the UN, it is only natural to begin to ask what lessons we learned from Iraq and how they are being applied to the current situation with Iran.

Glenn Greenwald has some good thoughts on this topic:

The reason such accusations deserve so much scrutiny is obvious: there is a substantial faction in our political culture which craves a military attack on Iran -- the same faction, more or less, that caused us to attack Iraq -- and will seize on anything to justify that. Anyone who doubts that should look at this creepily excited and chest-beating statement yesterday from Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh, GOP Sen. John Kyl, and Sen. Joe Lieberman: Iraq War supporters all. Contradicting the 2007 NIE, they declare as an "inescapable conclusion" that "Iran is determined to acquire nuclear weapons." Their joint statement threatens "catastrophic consequences" against Iran and vows that "we are prepared to do whatever it takes to stop Iran's nuclear breakout." Just in case anyone is still confused by what they are threatening, they favorably cite a "bipartisan" report from former Senators Chuck Robb (D) and Dan Coats (R) which urges the President to begin preparing for military action against Iran, and lays out a detailed plan for what it would entail, beginning with a naval blockade and extending to "devastating strikes" against "assets" inside Iran that "would probably last up to several weeks and would require vigilance for years to come." That's what three key U.S. Senators are explicitly threatening.

In the absence of what they call "immediate" compliance, the Senators call for "crippling new sanctions against Iran." In The Washington Post today, AIPAC's most trusted House member -- Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman (D) -- similarly recommends sanctions that would "cause the Iranian banking system to collapse" and impose other severe economic hardships. So much for all of that oh-so-moving, profound, green-wearing concern for the welfare of The Iranian People. Time to bomb them or, at best, starve them until their government complies with our dictates. The Post Editorial Page repeats the same claim made for two decades about Iran ("officials say that when it is operational, it could deliver the material for a bomb in a year") and warns: "If it had not been discovered, the Qom plant could have given Iran the means for a bomb by 2011 without the world knowing about it. And if there is one clandestine facility, most likely there are others."

So we can all see where this is headed. Obama, to his credit, is one of the least inflammatory and fear-mongering establishment voices in all of this. And whatever else one might think of the whole Iran question, Obama officials -- just on a strategic level, in terms of negotiating tactics -- are infinitely smarter and more calculating than the ones who preceded them. They seem intent on formulating a negotiation strategy that will be most likely to resolve the matter through mutual agreement.

Jeremy Scahill Discusses the Rise of Private Contractors with Bill Moyers

This past weekend, investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill was on The Bill Moyers Journal to discuss the expansion of private contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan. Their conversation was pretty thorough and included sections that discussed the expansion of contractors under President Obama:

BILL MOYERS: So we're supposed to be withdrawing from Iraq. But you're suggesting, in all that you've written, that I've read lately, that we will be leaving a large mercenary force there.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Absolutely. In fact, you're going to have a sizable presence, not only of U.S. forces, certainly in the region, but also in Iraq. These residual forces... I mean, Bill, you remember, during Vietnam, the people who were classified as military advisors. Or analysts. And, in reality, the U.S. was fighting an undeclared war. So, in Iraq, I think that we've seen reports from Jim Miklaszewski, NBC News' Pentagon correspondent. He's quoting military sources saying that they expect to be in Iraq 15 to 20 years in sizable numbers. Afghanistan, though, really is going to become Obama's war. And, unfortunately, many Democrats are portraying it as the good war.

They also discussed the shoddy electrical work that KBR (a subsidiary of Halliburton) performed in Iraq. What Scahill calls, "one of the greatest corporate scandals of the past decade":

BILL MOYERS: You recently wrote about how the Department of Defense paid the former Halliburton subsidiary KBR more than $80 million in bonuses for contracts to install what proved to be very defective electrical wiring in Iraq. Senator Byron Dorgan himself, called that wiring in hearings, shoddy and unprofessional. So my question is why did the Pentagon pay for it when it was so inferior?

JEREMY SCAHILL: This is perhaps one of the greatest corporate scandals of the past decade. The fact that this Halliburton corporation, which was once headed by former Vice President Dick Cheney, was essentially given keys to the city of U.S. foreign policy. And allowed to do things that were dangerous for U.S. troops. Provide then with unclean drinking water. They were the premier company responsible for servicing the US military occupation of Iraq. In fact, they were deployed alongside the U.S. military in the build up to the war. This was a politically connected company that won its contracts because of its political connections. And the fact is that it was a behemoth that was there. It was it was the girl at the dance, and they danced with her.

BILL MOYERS: Yeah. The Army hired a master electrician, I read, in some congressional testimony, to review electrical work in Iraq. He's now told congress that KBR's work in Iraq was, quote, "The most hazardous, worst quality work he'd ever seen." And that his own investigation, this is not a journalist, this is an employee of the Army, had found improper wiring in every building that KBR had wired in Iraq.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Right. And we're talking about thousands of buildings. And so we've had, U.S. troops that have died from electrocution in Iraq as a result of the faulty work of KBR. This should be an utter scandal that should outrage every single person in this country. And, yet, you find almost no mention of this in the corporate media.

Take a look below for more of the interview:

Extreme Makeover: Occupation Edition

Jeremy Scahill points to two newly released Pentagon reports that show an increase in the number of private military contractors under President Obama:

According to new statistics released by the Pentagon, with Barack Obama as commander in chief, there has been a 23% increase in the number of “Private Security Contractors” working for the Department of Defense in Iraq in the second quarter of 2009 and a 29% increase in Afghanistan, which “correlates to the build up of forces” in the country. These numbers relate explicitly to DoD security contractors. Companies like Blackwater and its successor Triple Canopy work on State Department contracts and it is unclear if these contractors are included in the over-all statistics. This means, the number of individual “security” contractors could be quite higher, as could the scope of their expansion.

[...]

At present there are 132,610 in Iraq and 68,197 in Afghanistan. The report notes that while the deployment of security contractors in Iraq is increasing, there was an 11% decrease in overall contractors in Iraq from the first quarter of 2009 due to the “ongoing efforts to reduce the contractor footprint in Iraq.”

Is a decrease in combat troops while increasing private contractors really a withdrawl of U.S. presence in Iraq or are we merely rebranding the occupation?

General Ricardo Sanchez Calls for a Truth Commission to investigate torture and prisoner abuse

Over the weekend during an event in New York City, former commander of coalition forces in Iraq, Ricardo Sanchez, called for a commission to investigate torture and other abuses.

Sanchez was at an event that is intended to be first in a series produced by the Culture Project. Description of the event from their website:

Culture Project launches a unique, new series Blueprint for Accountability that will convene monthly gatherings to pose these questions and provide concrete tools for taking action. We will invest two years into opening a creative investigation into major themes of government, corporate and individual accountability including war crimes and torture, the economy, the environment, corporate media, criminal justice, immigration, health care, education, and global issues such as genocide and human trafficking. Our intention is to create an architectural plan for the restoration of an interactive population where citizens and their leaders are accountable to and for each other.

Rachel Maddow hosted the event and was joined by author Ron Suskind, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights Vince Warren, Ricardo Sanchez, Liev Schreiber, John Leguizamo, Julianna Margulies, Noah Emmerich, and Ramsey Faragallah. The Huffington Post reports the following on the comments of Sanchez:

The General described the failures at all levels of civilian and military command that led to the abuses in Iraq, "and that is why I support the formation of a truth commission."

The General went on to say that, "during my time in Iraq there was not one instance of actionable intelligence that came out of these interrogation techniques."

I interviewed General Sanchez after the event and asked him to elaborate on why he felt the US needed such a commission. "For the American people to really know what happened, " he replied, "...this was an institutional failure, a personal failure on the part of many...."

"If we do not find out what happened," continued the General, "then we are doomed to repeat it."

In other news that happened over the weekend and regarding torture, Retired Army Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba is claiming that this quote in Britain's Daily Telegraph:

"These pictures show torture, abuse, rape and every indecency."

has been wrongly labled as meaning that he had seen the photographs that the Obama Administration is currently trying to keep secret. From Salon:

"The photographs in that lawsuit, I have not seen," Taguba told Salon Friday night. The actual quote in the Telegraph was accurate, Taguba said -- but he was referring to the hundreds of images he reviewed as an investigator of the abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq -- not the photos of abuse that Obama is seeking to suppress.

While Taguba claims that he wasn't referring to the suppressed images, we still have Scott Horton's report that the images on these unseen photographs depict both sexual abuse and humiliation.

McChrystal's Appointment Signals Obama's Adherence to Failed Bush Era Policies

President Obama recently appointed Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal to head up the U.S. military command in Afghanistan, replacing Gen. David McKiernan.

McChrystal's selection immediately raised red flags over questionable conduct that has surrounded him regarding prisoners that were tortured under his command in Iraq and his role in covering up the friendly-fire death of former Arizona Cardinals star turned military hero, Pat Tillman. From Registan:

General McChrsytal carries with him a dark side as well. One unit under his command, the now-notorious Task Force 6-26, which was assigned to find HVTs, or High Value Targets in Iraq, is credited with the ultimate death of Zarqawi. The problem is, along the way they faced accusations of running a secret camp that tortured prisoners, and they were implicated in at least two detainee deaths during torture sessions. Their camp, called Camp Nama, became something of a lightning rod after a “computer malfunction” destroyed upwards of 70% of their records and an investigation into their conduct stalled out.

More relevant to Afghanistan is GEN McChrystal’s involvement in the shameful coverup of Pat Tillman’s friendly-fire death. While he was named among the list of high-ranking military personnel believed to have covered up the circumstances of Tillman’s death, GEN McChrystal was “spared because he had apparently drafted a memo urging other officials to stop spreading the lie that Tillman died fighting the Taliban. He drafted that memo, however, after signing the award for Tillman’s posthumously-awarded Silver Star, the commendation for which claims, in part, that he was leading the charge against a Taliban assault. GEN McChrystal has never clarified why he signed an award for Tillman dying under enemy fire right before begging his colleagues and superiors to stop lying about Tillman dying under enemy fire.

As the Tailban continues to control various regions around the Afghanistan/Pakistan border and frustration grows in Washington over the effectiveness of airstrikes in the region, it is apparent with the appointment of McChrystal that the Obama Administration is turning the focus of the fighting to the type of covert operations that McChrystal is known for. James Petras uses language that is more blunt in his most recent piece:

McChrystal’s rise to leadership is marked by his central role in directing special operations teams engaged in extrajudicial assassinations, systematic torture, bombing of civilian communities and search and destroy missions. He is the very embodiment of the brutality and gore that accompanies military-driven empire building.

Petras goes on to say that the very point of these special operations teams is that they do not distinguish between civilian and military opposition. That the very purpose of these groups is to "terrorize communities, neighborhoods, and social movements" underneath the surface and work to disband all forms of opposition that may have a hand in feeding ideas and motives to those who actively take up arms.

This conscious choice by Obama to put McChrystal in charge of these operations should be understood within this context. It is fair to ask whether the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan will have a chance of improving under the leadership of a Lieutenant General who has been surrounded by allegations of torture, murder, and covering up the truth. It would seem as though the United States is "changing direction" by taking a step backward in putting the military operations of the region under the command of someone who was a favorite of former Vice President Dick Cheney and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. As Obama continues to embrace the failed policies of the Bush Era it is certainly necessary for the progressives who believed that they would get change by electing Obama, to voice opposition to the continuation and expansion of failed ideas and policies.

Jason Petras is correct in observing that:

By focusing all resources on successful military conquest, scant attention is paid to the costs borne by the people targeted for conquest or to the US treasury and domestic American economy. This has been clear from the start: In the midst of a major recession/depression with millions of Americans losing their employment and homes, President Obama increased the military budget by 4% - taking it beyond $800 billion dollars.

This continual foreign policy wheel-spinning will end up doing two things:

1. Continue to dig the United States into greater financial turmoil by spending dollars on a bloated military budget while domestic services continue to suffer and,
2. Continue to isolate populations of people who already view the United States as a country determined to solve issues through militarism.

These policies centered around militaristic objectives have shown their ineffectiveness in combating terrorism and extremism in the past and will continue to only re-enforce the viewpoints that the United States is trying to combat. It is a cycle of madness that fails to critically address any of the fundamental issues and can only result in more bloodshed for Americans and the Afghani people.



This piece is crossposted here.

A Great Reference on Torture and Rumsfeld's Bible Quotes

There are two things worth mentioning this morning to start the week.

First as we continue the conversation surrounding torture, Batocchio has an extremely comprehensive and well-written piece on this topic. It provides links to a lot of relevant blog entries as well as many other sources. You will find that this is well worth your time. You can find the piece here and here is a snippet:

This is not a game. These torture "debates" should not be thought experiments divorced from objective reality, history, the known timeline and the very real and deadly consequences of these policies. It's one thing for members of the general public to be confused or not be up to date on the general timeline and key details, or be swayed by fantastical ticking time bomb scenarios. It's one thing for the bloodthirsty chickenhawks who assume every Muslim or Arab prisoner is a guilty terrorist to indulge in their ignorant, self-flattering Jack Bauer fantasies of living in the "real world" of tough decisions. It's inexcusable that so many members of the media still - still - know and/or report these matters so poorly. We deserve and need better.

[...]

We have failed as a nation in allowing torture. We will fail again if we don't learn the full story and prosecute where appropriate as many of the guilty as possible. The perpetrators and their allies say they've done nothing wrong, so why would they stop should they re-gain (or maintain) power? The specific abuses of power may change, but the pattern of abuse will not. There's a direct line from Watergate through Iran-Contra to the Bush administration's abuses. As the recently-released Senate report shows, there's also a direct connection from trying to sell an unnecessary war with Iraq to torturing prisoners to make them "confess" to a non-existent Iraq-al Qaeda/9-11 link.

[...]

Torture is immoral and illegal. The road to hell may be paved with good intentions, but there's more than one road, and the price of doing nothing is just too damn high. It's a radical stance to be sure, but: Let the truth come out, and justice be done.

Also noteworthy this morning is the news that during his tenure as Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld delivered intel briefings to the President with Bible verses printed over top of military imagery. These Bible versus began appearing on the cover sheets of the intel briefings around the time of the U.S. invasion of Iraq and were delivered to a President who once referred to the mission of the United States as a "crusade". You can view the cover sheets of the intel reports here and here is a sample of some of the Bible versus that were used:

“Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.” [The quote appears over an image of a tank at sunrise]

“Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and your plans will succeed.” [The quote appears over an image of a soldier in Baghdad]

“It is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men.” [The quote appears over an image of Saddam Hussein]

“Open the gates that the righteous nation may enter, The nation that keeps faith.” [The quote appears over an image of tanks entering an Iraqi city]

Colin Powell's Former Chief of Staff: Torture Was Used to Link Al Qaeda to Saddam

Former Chief of Staff to then Secretary of State Colin Powell, Lawrence Wilkerson, was recently on "The Rachel Maddow Show" discussing the various comments made in the media by Former Vice President Dick Cheney:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Wilkerson then posted an entry on the website of the Washington Note in which he stated:

Likewise, what I have learned is that as the administration authorized harsh interrogation in April and May of 2002--well before the Justice Department had rendered any legal opinion--its principal priority for intelligence was not aimed at pre-empting another terrorist attack on the U.S. but discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and al-Qa'ida.

So furious was this effort that on one particular detainee, even when the interrogation team had reported to Cheney's office that their detainee "was compliant" (meaning the team recommended no more torture), the VP's office ordered them to continue the enhanced methods. The detainee had not revealed any al-Qa'ida-Baghdad contacts yet. This ceased only after Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, under waterboarding in Egypt, "revealed" such contacts. Of course later we learned that al-Libi revealed these contacts only to get the torture to stop.

There in fact were no such contacts. (Incidentally, al-Libi just "committed suicide" in Libya. Interestingly, several U.S. lawyers working with tortured detainees were attempting to get the Libyan government to allow them to interview al-Libi....)

The seriousness of what went on over the last eight years under the leadership of the Bush Administration cannot be stressed enough. Claims that torture was being applied to detainees to elicit false information on a non-existant link between Al Qaeda and Iraq remind me of the words of another former Administration official.

Take a journey with me back to 2004 when President Bush's top adviser on terrorism, Richard Clarke, made the following claims on 60 Minutes (emphasis mine):

Clarke says that as early as the day after the attacks, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was pushing for retaliatory strikes on Iraq, even though al Qaeda was based in Afghanistan.

Clarke suggests the idea took him so aback, he initally thought Rumsfeld was joking.

[...]


After the president returned to the White House on Sept. 11, he and his top advisers, including Clarke, began holding meetings about how to respond and retaliate. As Clarke writes in his book, he expected the administration to focus its military response on Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. He says he was surprised that the talk quickly turned to Iraq.

"Rumsfeld was saying that we needed to bomb Iraq," Clarke said to Stahl. "And we all said ... no, no. Al-Qaeda is in Afghanistan. We need to bomb Afghanistan. And Rumsfeld said there aren't any good targets in Afghanistan. And there are lots of good targets in Iraq. I said, 'Well, there are lots of good targets in lots of places, but Iraq had nothing to do with it.
"Initially, I thought when he said, 'There aren't enough targets in-- in Afghanistan,' I thought he was joking.

"I think they wanted to believe that there was a connection, but the CIA was sitting there, the FBI was sitting there, I was sitting there saying we've looked at this issue for years. For years we've looked and there's just no connection."

Clarke says he and CIA Director George Tenet told that to Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Clarke then tells Stahl of being pressured by Mr. Bush.

"The president dragged me into a room with a couple of other people, shut the door, and said, 'I want you to find whether Iraq did this.' Now he never said, 'Make it up.' But the entire conversation left me in absolutely no doubt that George Bush wanted me to come back with a report that said Iraq did this.

"I said, 'Mr. President. We've done this before. We have been looking at this. We looked at it with an open mind. There's no connection.'

"He came back at me and said, "Iraq! Saddam! Find out if there's a connection.' And in a very intimidating way. I mean that we should come back with that answer. We wrote a report."

Clarke continued, "It was a serious look. We got together all the FBI experts, all the CIA experts. We wrote the report. We sent the report out to CIA and found FBI and said, 'Will you sign this report?' They all cleared the report. And we sent it up to the president and it got bounced by the National Security Advisor or Deputy. It got bounced and sent back saying, 'Wrong answer. ... Do it again.'

"I have no idea, to this day, if the president saw it, because after we did it again, it came to the same conclusion. And frankly, I don't think the people around the president show him memos like that. I don't think he sees memos that he doesn't-- wouldn't like the answer."

Clarke's statements were made five years ago. Seems like some of the puzzles pieces are beginning to fit together to bring things full circle.

More Reaction to Obama Suppressing Torture Photos

President Obama's decision to try and block the release of photographs that depict the abuse of detainees has sparked a vocal chorus of opinions in the blogosphere.

Glenn Greenwald follwed up his initial reaction with today's entry in which he states:

We're currently occupying two Muslim countries. We're killing civilians regularly (as usual) -- with airplanes and unmanned sky robots. We're imprisoning tens of thousands of Muslims with no trial, for years. Our government continues to insist that it has the power to abduct people -- virtually all Muslim -- ship them to Bagram, put them in cages, and keep them there indefinitely with no charges of any kind. We're denying our torture victims any ability to obtain justice for what was done to them by insisting that the way we tortured them is a "state secret" and that we need to "look to the future." We provide Israel with the arms and money used to do things like devastate Gaza. Independent of whether any or all of these policies are justifiable, the extent to which those actions "inflame anti-American sentiment" is impossible to overstate.

And now, the very same people who are doing all of that are claiming that they must suppress evidence of our government's abuse of detainees because to allow the evidence to be seen would "inflame anti-American sentiment." It's not hard to believe that releasing the photos would do so to some extent -- people generally consider it a bad thing to torture and brutally abuse helpless detainees -- but compared to everything else we're doing, the notion that releasing or concealing these photos would make an appreciable difference in terms of how we're perceived in the Muslim world is laughable on its face.

Meanwhile Andrew Sullivan backtracks somewhat on his initial outrage and now is asking that we give Obama a break:

When you have inherited a policy of war crimes, and you are still fighting a war, balancing accountability with responsibility is tough. I think, having made our point, we should cut the man some slack on this. What matters is holding those who destroyed America's moral standing responsible. That is a struggle for patriots to engage, a Truth Commission to study, and the attorney-general to pursue, while allowing the president to do his job as commander-in-chief.

I am in agreement with Greenwald on this one. If Obama is serious about accountability (which does not necessarily conflict with responsibility) then he would not be making efforts to suppress these images, continue to argue for indefinite detention, and actively try to continue and expand Bush-era policies.

Indeed, what matters is holding those "who destroyed America's moral standing responsible", but in all of these instances Obama has showed by his actions that he is not willing to move this country closer toward doing so. It is disingenuous to continue to hold one's breath for the moment where Obama will decide to emerge as the Progressive that many of his supporters thought he would be.

Maybe if President Obama is so concerned over sparking anti-American sentiment, he should be more concerned with acts such as these:

American soldiers opened fire and killed a 12-year old boy after a grenade hit their convoy in Mosul on Thursday.

The boy was found with ten thousand Iraqi dinars in his hand - worth less than $9. U.S. officials said the money is evidence of a disturbing new trend.

"We have every reason to believe that insurgents are paying children to conduct these attacks or assist the attackers in some capacity, undoubtedly placing the children in harm's way," a U. S. military spokesman wrote in an email on Saturday.

But eyewitnesses said the boy, identified as Omar Musa Salih, was standing by the side of the road selling fruit juice - a common practice in Iraq -- and had nothing to do with the attack.

Selling Torture

Roy Eidelson has an interesting piece posted on CommonDreams today that discusses the American public's perception of torture. I am in agreement that when we discuss this issue, we also must take a look at how torture has been sold to the public by its proponents. Just as marketing has had an effect on selling the public everything from the latest soft drink to the latest war in the Middle East, it is essential to look at the message that has been, and continues to be, emphasized.

Eidelson does a good job in boiling this message down to five main points that the Bush Administration and other torture supporters have used:

1. Instilling fear into the minds of Americans by perpetuating the post-9/11 fears that this country is in imminent danger.

2. Torture is necessary in keeping Americans safe.

This second point is interesting because when the interrogation policies of the Bush Administration were still under lock and key, we didn't really see this strategy being used publicly. Only now, after more details continue to emerge, do we see the likes of Dick Cheney and other torture apologists coming out and saying that these polices were instrumental in keeping Americans safe. I would amend this point slightly to say that pre-emptive war policy (torture is included in this) was sold to Americans as necessary in keeping American's safe.

3. Those who are being tortured are monsters and do not adhere to the normal conduct of war.

4. The United States does not want to use torture, but only uses it for the greater good and to save American lives.

5. Critics of interrogation policies (including human rights groups, leaders, and activists) can not and should not be trusted.

I would also say that this fifth point was coupled with labeling the opposition to these policies as being stuck in a "pre 9/11 mindset". That somehow on 9/11 everything, including the lengths that we were willing to go to as a moral country, were forced upon us by an unconventional enemy.

I think that these points are important and necessary to understand in looking at the ongoing debate over the interrogation policies of the Bush Administration. These points continue to be used, most notably, by former Vice President Cheney in defending the Administration's role in approving these policies. Cheney continues to claim that President Obama is making the country less safe by discontinuing torture...an argument that he deduces directly from his flawed premised outlined in point number two above.

Also, today we have learned of the suicide of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi. Al-Libi ran an Al-Qaeda training camp and after his capture in 2002 by the United States, was tortured. During his interrogation he stated that Saddam Hussein was working with Al-Qaeda and these claims were echoed by President Bush in a speech in Cincinnati and Colin Powell in his infamous speech to the United Nations to make the case for an invasion of Iraq. This information, was obviously wrong and according to the Senate Intelligence Committee's September 8, 2006 report (emphasis mine):

Postwar findings support the DIA February 2002 assessment that Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi was likely intentionally misleading his debriefers when he said that Iraq provided two al-Qa'ida associates with chemical and biological weapons (CBW) training in 2000… Postwar findings do not support the CIA's assessment that his reporting was credible… No postwar information has been found that indicates CBW training occurred and the detainee who provided the key prewar reporting about this training recanted his claims after the war… CIA's January 2003 version of Iraqi Support for Terrorism described al-Libi's reporting for CBW training "credible", but noted that the individuals who traveled to Iraq for CBW training had not returned, so al-Libi was not in position to know if the training had taken place… In January 2004, al-Libi recanted his allegations about CBW training and many of his other claims about Iraq's links to al Qa'ida. He told debriefers that, to the best of his knowledge, al-Qa'ida never sent any individuals into Iraq for any kind of support in chemical or biological weapons. Al-libi told debriefers that he fabricated information while in U.S. custody to receive better treatment and in response to threats of being transferred to a foreign intelligence service which he believed would torture him… He said that later, while he was being debriefed by a (REDACTED) foreign intelligence service, he fabricated more information in response to physical abuse and threats of torture.

Torture is necessary to keep Americans safe, or manipulate their opinion to get them to support invading a country that the Bush Administration already had their sights set upon attacking.

Same thing.

Trickle-Down Hypocrisy

After the story broke surrounding the abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, former President Bush gave an interview to Al Arabiya television. Here is a portion:



Considering our recent discussion surrounding issues of torture and detainee abuse, it certainly puts into context just how deceptive and untruthful the previous administration was. Even after this story broke in 2004 there were people writing about just how absurd it was for the Bush Administration to claim that these were just a "few bad apples". Now you have a situation where, like Bush, you have those who feigned outrage over this "isolated incident" in 2004, lining up to defend these tactics today.

Take Charles Krauthammer on May 14, 2004:

This panic is everywhere and now includes many who have been longtime supporters of the war. The panic is unseemly. The pictures are shocking and the practices appalling. But how do the actions of a few depraved soldiers among 135,000 negate the moral purpose of the entire enterprise — which has not only liberated 25 million people from 25 years of genocidal dictatorship but has included a nationwide reconstruction punctuated by hundreds, thousands, of individual acts of beneficence and kindness by American soldiers?

Krauthammer called these acts "appalling" in 2004 so naturally he would be outraged to see that this was not an isolated incident, but the actual policy of the United States right? From an April 17, 2009 FoxNews Transcript:

BAIER: Charles, let's start with these documents, their release. What does it mean?

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: I think it does harm the United States. It gives away a lot of our techniques. And I disagree. I don't see it as a dark chapter in our history at all.

You look at some of these techniques — holding the head, a face slap, or deprivation of sleep. If that is torture, the word has no meaning.

I would concede that one technique, simulated drowning, you could call torture, even though the memos imply that legally it didn't meet that definition. I'm agnostic on the legalism.

BAIER: You're talking about waterboarding?

KRAUTHAMMER: Yes. But let's concede that it's a form of torture. I think it's perfectly reasonable to use it in two cases, that the ticking time bomb, if an innocent is at risk and you've got a terrorist that has information that would save that innocent and isn't speaking. That's an open and shut easy case.

A second case is a high-level Al Qaeda operative, a terrorist, who knows names and places and numbers and plans and safe houses and all that, and by using techniques to get information, you're saving lives.

If I have to weigh on the one hand the numberless and nameless lives saved in America by the use of these techniques, and we had a CIA director who told us that these techniques on these high-level terrorists was extremely effective in giving us information.

If you have to weigh on one hand that the numberless and nameless lives saved, against the 30 seconds or so of terror in the eyes of a terrorist who is suffering this technique, I think the moral choice is easy.

It's not a dark chapter in our history. It is a successful one. We have not had a second attack, and largely because of this.

Here you have a clear case of trickle-down hypocrisy. President Bush and his Administration authorized these techniques, feigned outrage, and isolated blame when exposed 5 years ago. Today, these same players defend these policies all while some members of the media (like Krauthammer) eat it up and spit it back out. "Appalling" in 2004 when the President and his Administration says it is and "necessary" in 2009 because the President's Administration says it was.

Connecting Past With Present: Judith LeBlanc and Moving Beyond War

As the sixth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq approaches and the majority of the media coverage is focused on domestic economic woes, it may be tempting for many to let March 19th come and go without much thought. This was not the case this past Saturday on the campus of Xavier University.

The Intercommunity Justice and Peace Center along with Xavier University's Peace and Justice Programs co-sponsored a program entitled Beyond War: A New Economy is Possible that was open to the public and discussed various issues surrounding the conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, and beyond. In addition to various workshops that were available to the community, Judith LeBlanc, internationally renowned speaker and co-chair of United for Peace and Justice, spoke to those who gathered in the Hailstone's 2 building on Xavier's campus.

LeBlanc spoke following a replaying of Martin Luther King Jr.'s Beyond Vietnam speech from 1967 and discussed familiar themes between his speech and today's movements for peace and justice. She spoke of the need for the three core principles of education, public witness, and collaborative effort to move society forward at this moment of opportunity.

The election of 2008, LeBlanc believes, has opened up the political space for a dialogue on issues that surround war and social justice. She believes that peace and justice activists have a valuable opportunity to move from practicing "no" activism to practicing "yes" activism. In other words, moving away from an activism that focused on opposing and resisting the backward policies of the Bush Administration and seizing upon this opportunity to engage in a dialogue while believing that a new way forward is possible. LeBlanc called for a new kind of social movement that resurrects Dr. King's legacy and accentuates just how connected the problems of racism, poverty, and militarism continue to be today.

While this election has allowed for a new opportunity of dialogue it is still important for peace and justice movements to move forward with a healthy skepticism. As I have written previously, it is absolutely necessary for these movements to not only stay organized, but to join with other movements that share areas of common ground in order to combat the big money influences that put pressure on the Obama Administration. Change is not going to come from within Washington, people must create change and force the existing institutions to adapt to the demands of the people. This is not a new idea, but rather a foundation to which these movements must return in order to achieve lasting progress.

Judith LeBlanc was right to connect the continued struggles of today with the words and lessons of our past. Dr. King's speeches on the connection of racism, poverty, and militarism are just as relevant today as they were when he first gave them voice. As we approach the sixth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq and we prepare for an escalation in the occupation of Afghanistan, take a moment and listen to King's words that hold continued relevance.

Camilo Mejia, Ending the Occupation, and Regaining Our Collective Sense of Humanity

The story of Camilo Mejia is recognized by many in the anti-war movement as a story of one man standing up against the injustice of war. Mejia was the first conscientious objector of the Iraq War and has been a leading voice for the organization Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) where he was named Chair of their Board of Directors in 2007. Mejia has been traveling to cities as part of the Resisting the Empire Tour and this tour is what brought his story to the University of Cincinnati's campus last week.

Camilo Mejia was stoplossed in January 2003, only months away from graduation from the University of Miami. He was shipped out to Iraq in April 2003 and returned in October on a two week furlough. It was during this time away from the battlefield that Mejia was able to collect his thoughts and listen to his conscience. When his plane took off to go back to Iraq, Mejia was not aboard. He decided that he could no longer take part in fighting an unjust and illegal war and he decided that he could not take part in abusing the Iraqi people anymore. Mejia laid low for several months while he worked on putting together a case so that he could file for conscientious objector status and in March 2004, he turned himself in and submitted such an application. He was charged with desertion, convicted by a military court, court marshaled, and sentenced to one year in prison. From prison, Mejia wrote a piece entitled "Regaining My Humanity" in which he stated:

Today, as I sit behind bars I realize that there are many types of freedom, and that in spite of my confinement I remain free in many important ways. What good is freedom if we are afraid to follow our conscience? What good is freedom if we are not able to live with our own actions? I am confined to a prison but I feel, today more than ever, connected to all humanity. Behind these bars I sit a free man because I listened to a higher power, the voice of my conscience.

Mejia has been listening to the higher power of his conscience ever since and feels that it is a privileged to be a part of the growing anti-war movement. During his talk at the University of Cincinnati, he shared with us stories of frustrated soldiers, torturous interrogation techniques, and the provoking of civilians. Mejia told the story of when he first arrived in the Iraqi city of Ramadi. There was little resistance from the population at first, but Mejia said that they would often "fish for missions". In one instance an 8-10 year-old boy threw a rock at a Lieutenant and the Lieutenant told his soldiers, "I'm going to make an example of him". The Lieutenant proceeded to grab the boy and begin to take him with the group of soldiers. "Me no Ali Baba mister" the boy would yell as some soldiers tried to convince the Lieutenant to let the boy go. An old man came running from a near-by house, Mejia gathered that this man could have been the boy's father, and passionately tried to communicate with the Lieutenant. The Lieutenant asked the man "What are you going to do? This kid threw a rock at me." The old man slapped the kid in the face. This did not satisfy the Lieutenant as he kept the child in his grasp and continued to move along. The old man continued to plead his case as the Lieutenant demanded more of a punishment for the child. The old man then began to beat the child in order to show the Lieutenant that he was being taught a lesson and it was only then did the Lieutenant let the child go. "This is the reality of an occupation," Mejia said to us, "this is how you win the hearts and minds."

After this incident the attacks increased on the U.S. soldiers in the area and Mejia stated that they responded by purposely conducting missions around mosques, hospitals, schools, and public squares. "We were doing things in a way that led to the killing of civilians," he stated. He spoke of instances in which he was ambushed and though he was opposed to the war, Mejia says that his survival instincts took over and he shot in any direction from which gunfire was coming. "You don't have the luxury to think morally when you are thinking, how do we get out of this place alive." he stated.

Mejia did make it out alive and when he returned home in October of 2003 for a two week furlough, he began to try and justify his participation in a war in which he didn't believe. Often times his justification would be that he was doing it for the man sitting next to him in Iraq, but when he dug deeper within himself he couldn't justify the broader question of why. It was then when he decided to speak out and take a stance despite the fear of a court marshal and being labeled as a deserter. After Mejia turned himself in and was sentenced to a year in jail, Amnesty International labeled him a Prisoner of Conscience and he was supported by many organizations through the website FreeCamilo.com.

As he travels around the country and continues his work with IVAW, he stresses the importance of building a larger anti-war movement. He speaks of the importance that antiwar organizations on college campuses join with groups like IVAW to not only give speakers like himself a platform, but to build a broad coalition from coast to coast to pressure leaders to end the occupation of Iraq. This task, that of ending the occupation, is an uphill climb to say the least. From the invasion, to the implementation of torture, to the scores of civilians killed, the task of repairing what has been so badly damaged can seem insurmountable. It is almost as if we, as a nation, must reclaim our own humanity much like Camilo did during his own personal journey. It was this thought that led me to ask Mejia this question:

"In interviews and in your piece that you wrote from jail in 2005, you often speak of the dehumanizing factors of war and of your personal journey to regain your own humanity. Considering we live in a society in which war is very profitable for various sectors of society and corporate interests and government are becoming more and more aligned, do you feel that the United States has sold or lost its collective sense of humanity and if so, how do you think we can get it back?"

Mejia responded:

"I don't think that we have lost our humanity, we just haven't been able to experience it. Think back to Vietnam and the iconic images of the little girl who was burned and running away from the napalm. Now it is different, we are not allowed to see it. If people don't experience the pain then they won't be as willing to change it. We haven't lost our sense of humanity, we need to reclaim it."

We stand at a moment in time where there is an opportunity to reclaim our collective humanity. The people of this country have voted for a change and we must continue to demand that such change is implemented. We need to think outside the box in our organizing efforts in order to continue to join together and turn this hope into momentum. Camilo Mejia's journey to reclaim his personal humanity was not easy just as the journey to reclaim our collective humanity will not be easy. To undertake this challenge, it was imperative for Mejia to listen to the higher power of his conscience and for the rest of us, it is going to be essential.

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