There’s nothing like working to destabilizing a country under the cover of darkness, and by that I’m referring to the employment of covert means to do so…

“The governments of Saudi Arabia and the United States are working with other states in the Middle East to sponsor covert action against Iran, according to a report in this month’s edition of The Atlantic. The report also suggests that covert attacks may occur against Iran’s oil sector.

David Samuels, in a lengthy article on Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s diplomatic initiatives in the Middle East, reports that the US is promoting a campaign against Iran that includes covert action.”

[…]

“Samuels suggests that Iran has already faced a variety of internal attacks as a consequence of this covert program.

“They pointed to an upsurge in antigovernment guerrilla activity inside Iran, including a bomb in Zahedan, the economic center of the province of Baluchistan, that killed 11 soldiers in the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on February 14; the mysterious death of the Iranian scientist Ardashir Hosseinpour, who worked on uranium enrichment at the Isfahan nuclear facility; and the defection of a high-ranking Iranian general named Ali Asgari, a former deputy minister of defense who was also the Revolutionary Guard officer responsible for training and supplying Hezbollah during its war against the Israelis in southern Lebanon in the 1980s,” Samuels notes.”

I suppose the days of buying the world a Coke and teaching it to sing in perfect harmony are, alas, spent.

Today, a United States Marine, Capt. Randy W. Stone, will appear in a military court for his role in failing to report and properly investigate the massacre in Haditha in late 2005. The charges arrayed against him and three other officers include dereliction of duty, one also being charged with violating orders, and another with giving false statements and obstructing the investigation into the massacre. Beyond them, three other Marines are being charged with unpremeditated murder.

As has been the case in other incidents involving US personnel in Iraq, none of them have had to worry about facing an International Criminal Court inquiry. In fact, the United States opted out of the ICC specifically so that its personnel could not be tried for war crimes by an international body. Thus, when it comes to investigating the criminal conduct of US soldiers in Iraq, either the Armed Forces or US civilian courts have been relied upon.

In some instances, such as in the case of the rape and murder of a 14 year old girl in Mahmudiya and the killing of three of her family members, hefty sentences were handed out by civilian courts, though parole eligibility, such as in the case of Paul E. Cortez who was sentenced to 100 years in prison, is available within a decade. All of those tried were, of course, discharged from the Armed Forces prior to legal proceedings.

That said, if the following does not constitute a war crime, especially one that should, for the sake of the victims, be referred to the world’s preeminent international criminal court, then I suppose my understanding of what constitutes a war crime is wildly inaccurate…

“Cortez admitted that the plan to rape the girl was hatched as he and his colleagues played cards. He said the girl was an easy target because there was only one male in her house.

“During the time me and Barker were raping Abeer, I heard five or six gunshots that came from the bedroom…After Barker was done, Green came out of the bedroom and said that he had killed them all, that all of them were dead.”

“Green then placed himself between Abeer’s legs to rape her. When Green was finished, he stood up and shot Abeer in the head two or three times.”

The horrible crime lasted about five minutes, and the girl knew her parents and sister had been shot while she was being raped, the hearing heard.”

What’s worse that losing your child in a conflict based on falsehoods? How about having their corpse returned to the United States as commercial airfreight? No honour guard, no flag draped coffin, just the low hum of jet engines as your kid is whisked through the ether like an overnight package.

These days’ freedom smells like fresh flowers in a bullshit factory. As if the Night Of The Living Dead, an entire continent of zombies wander this strip mall landscape in search of brains. We shop at mega-stores that aren’t fond of full time employees because it means giving them proper benefits. These same retailers flood television screens with commercials depicting themselves as community saviors, aligned with the needs of the thinly budgeted, while selling pants purchased in El Salvador for 15 cents for $17 dollars in the US. (more…)

One wonders how long the recent elections in Iraq will be championed as proof positive that the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq was justified. Recently, President Bush went on national television and told the American people that the US mission in Iraq was producing positive results, and, according to a recent ABC/Washington Post poll, some 60% of Americans now believe that the United States will win the war. Mr. Bush also said something else - that the invasion of Iraq was necessary for national security reasons. Given the results of Iraq’s recent election, it’s going to be interesting to see how his administration spins the new definition of victory that they will certainly have to produce sooner than later. Perhaps he’ll evoke the spirit of Richard Nixon and call it something delusional, such as ’victory without retreat’.

Will we see a role reversal in Iraq? Will we awake one morning to discover that it’s in the best interest of the United States to support the Ba’athists because at least they’re secularists? (more…)

When will the War On Terror end? It’s a crucial question, and one that everyone should spend some time seriously considering. Can victory be achieved through the physical eradication of those deemed the enemy? Can it be achieved when a variety of radical and militant ideologies are replaced by others less foreign to us? Will it end when American hegemony, or that of another global power, has wrapped the globe?

One of the greatest dangers facing us today is the ambiguity of this question’s answer. For if there does not exist a reasonable response to it, then we must soberly face the reality that a global war in perpetuity exists, one that could very well become a generational affair and create an atmosphere in which arms proliferation and the decline of the democratic façade outweighs the safeguarding of human rights standards and protections for those regions traditionally exploited by the world’s foremost economic powers. (more…)

The Independent ran an interesting story this morning entitled A War and its Fearsome Consequences: How the World has Changed Post-Iraq which included the following.

Notes: I think civilian casualty estimates given are extremely conservative. Alternative sources have also placed the unemployment rate at above 50% in August, and it is unlikely that it has been halved in three months. The World Bank reconstruction estimate seems wildly inaccurate as well.

“The War in Numbers: From WMD to the Victims

$204.4 billion
The cost to the US of the war so far. The UK’s bill up until March 2005 was £3.1 billion (more…)

For some, the passive genocide taking place in Sudan is rarely thought on by many. I, myself, am guilty of not mentioning it as much as I should, and am, truth be told, extremely disappointed that I was unable to visit Darfur in late September when given the chance to experience it first hand.

For those of you that are unfamiliar with what is happening in Sudan, please feel free to download Darfur in Flames: Atrocities in Western Sudan (PDF) by Human Rights Watch. You might also be interested in visiting the Darfur In Crisis page as well, or investigating Amnesty International’s background page. (more…)

Today in Iraq the new Iraqi parliament was paralyzed by a variety of disagreements, including one concerning the appointment of a parliamentary speaker. Today in Iraq notable Sunni leaders affirmed their support for the insurgency and demanded a timetable for the withdrawal of US forces. Today in Iraq more people died, were injured, and got more comfortable with the realities of lives lived in the rubble.

Today in the United States, despite the fact that a recent CBS poll shows that a majority of Americans consider the war in Iraq to be the most important problem facing the United States, the lead story was Terri Schiavo. And while the cameras rolled, conservative leeches spouted off about Terri’s right to life, a woman that 99% of them have never met but will gladly use in attempt to push various political agendas.

I would like to join the ranks of the leeches and thus use the Iraq war in attempt to promote the rights of those innocents throughout the world that do not have the ability to guard against bombs, bullets, mortars, landmines, and rockets. I would like to remind that percentage of the Western public that has turned the Shiavo case into a theocratic crusade that few in this neck of the woods are campaigning on behalf of those Iraqis that will be forced to spend the rest of their lives as quadriplegics, paraplegics, catatonics, diuretics, and so on infinitum. For that matter, where is the overwhelming commitment to the US veterans of Iraq who, like many Iraqis, will face lives of severe disability? It is one thing to claim that you support them when they’re there, it is entirely another to support them when they come home missing arms, legs, feet, hands, ears, and eyes. They give up body parts and in return they get a day, a parade, and heath care woes. In his inauguration speech this past January, President Bush didn’t even mention US veterans. So I suppose it should come as no surprise to most that in every budget proposed by the current US administration, veterans’ health care costs have been increased. Even The Veterans Of Foreign Wars Commander-In-Chief Edward Banas called the funding package in Bush’s 2005 budget ‘a disgrace and a sham’.

How many active, errant landmines are hidden beneath the feet of civilians in dozens of countries throughout the world? How many lives will they ruin? One wonders how the employees of, for example, Royal Ordnance feel every time one of their creations rips the legs off of a child? Happy that it worked? Upset that it wasn’t ‘applied properly’? How exactly do you properly apply a device specifically meant to kill and maim? Even more, how do you defend the craftsmanship required to produce it with any sort of enthusiasm? How would that read do you suppose? ‘Man! Did you see the legs and torso come off that guy! Damn we’re geniuses!’ Something like that perhaps?

No offense to those of you out there that passionately believe that Terri Schiavo’s death represents a dangerous precedent with regards to US law and morality. I’m just one of those dumb bastards that likes to point out what US law and morality gets up to outside of the continental United States. In fact, what much of the products of many hypocritical Western nations result in. The United States is by no means alone when it comes to exploiting the most lucrative of all things – death. It just happens to have been the home of Henry Ford is all.

From Control Arms…

From 1998 to 2001, the USA, the UK, and France earned more income from arms sales to developing countries than they gave in aid.

So who profits most from this murderous trade? The five permanent members of the UN Security Council – the USA, UK, France, Russia, and China. Together, they are responsible for eighty eight per cent of reported conventional arms exports.
“We can’t have it both ways. We can’t be both the world’s leading champion of peace and the world’s leading supplier of arms.�? Former US President Jimmy Carter, presidential campaign, 1976

Please visit Control Arms and get involved.

The trial of Saddam Hussein seems to be the subject du Jour, or at least in several phone conversations I had with various people. I’m well aware of the crimes committed by Hussein’s regime, just as I am aware of who supported his regime and who chose to continue doing business with it even after the gassing of Halabja, for example. But the popular point of today’s debate was the authority of the court trying Hussein given the fact that he is still technically the President Of Iraq, and, so far as I understand it, has the right to refuse to acknowledge the authority of the court trying him. For his trial to be seen as anything but a show trial he has to be tried by an international body, as denying his referral to such a body only lends support to the possibility that the entire affair is a sham, or that he has cut a deal with the Americans in exchange for either shutting his mouth or clemency.

Now, before everyone gets themselves worked up, and, by some strange osmosis, convinces themselves that I am defending the man’s actions, let’s be clear about the distinction between the legality of the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq and the crimes of Hussein’s regime. The invasion of Iraq wasn’t a particularly legal act, so I see no reason why Saddam Hussein couldn’t refuse to adhere to the authority of the court, especially being that it couldn’t realistically operate beyond the boundaries of the Green Zone, an area wholly controlled by the American military. Of course, given the fact that he is a prisoner leaves him little choice, but that should not be the material point. If Saddam Hussein is to be tried for crimes against humanity it must be in an international court governed by an international body. If not, he is nothing more than this decade’s Noriega, the only difference being that, unlike Noriega, George Bush Sr. isn’t the godfather of one of his children.

I was emailed earlier today by a reader that admonished me for what they viewed as my lack of understanding about the realities of terrorism and the reasons why the Arab world is rife with anti-Western sentiment. Human rights, claimed the email, have been denied so many in the Middle East that it is the duty of Western counties to work to influence change, even if it means the use of military force.

Rather than respond to the email privately, I thought I would do it here, so hopefully its author will read this.

First, let me say that we should peacefully work to influence change in the Middle East with regards to human rights standards. It is precisely our support for those government that deny their citizens proper rights that fuels anti-Western sentiment and protects the status quo. Given the inseparability of culture and religion in the region, including political culture, it is to be expected that, at some point, spirituality will be radicalized and co-opted by those that would use violent means to counteract what they view as the diminishment of their rights, culture, and religion by both foreign influences and those that are supported by foreign powers. If the region’s history did not paint such a blatant picture of Western exploitation, perhaps that wouldn’t be the case.

If the majority of those that visit this website lived in a county in which they were denied a wide variety of rights, rights that most of us take for granted, how would they view those foreign powers that supported the very government that denied them those rights? Even more, when those foreign interests claim liberty and justice among their most precious virtues? Because that is precisely what numerous Western governments are guilty of, Canada included. The reason? Because economic and military considerations are more important to the industrialized world than human rights.

Be it Western support for Saudi Arabia’s corrupt regime, or turning a blind eye to the criminality of governments with control over potentially exploitable resources (such as Sudan), when it comes down to the choice between the economics of oil, for example, and human rights, human rights lose. And that reality has been made possible by the very nations that claim human rights paramount.

So how should the majority in the Middle East react to the hypocrisy of foreign powers that claim to stand for equality, liberty, and the rule of law, yet support the very governments that deny their citizens proper rights? How would you? It’s not enough to say that things will change but that right now the fuel needs of soccer moms in North America are worth supporting regimes that willfully deny their citizens rights. While the United States condemns Syria, it supports Saudi Arabia. While it condemns Iran, it trades nuclear technologies with India, a country that hasn’t signed the Non Proliferation Treaty. Business is business, and human rights are bad for business. And until the people of the United States, of Canada and Great Britain, among many others, wake up to that fact, then nothing is going to change, be there military action or not.

With a federal election looming, this is precisely what Canadians should be thinking about, not lower taxes, and not the falsehoods of men that, when in power, will do nothing to realistically address it. Mr. Martin’s government certainly did not, and I can assure you that there will be Canadian combat troops in Iraq long before any government led by Mr. Harper even dares dream about it. We, as a people, must choose how we wish to represent ourselves to those that have lost faith in us, and for good reason. If we choose to continue this love affair with apathic resigntaion then we cannot claim ourselves shocked if, and when, the sky falls.

It falls to us to bridge the gap, to show those half a world away that we, like them, are not willing to put up with such a disastrous double standard. Call me crazy, but I was raised to believe that in a civilized society people treat others as they, themselves, expect to be treated. Thus, given the evidence, I can only proclaim us Neanderthals, and look to the hopeful possibility of evolution to translate the difference.

Today, speaking at Annapolis in front of yet another controlled audience, George Bush finally addressed the issue that’s been on everyone’s mind of late – does the United States have a realistic exit strategy and will they put it into motion?

According to today’s speech, President Bush’s position is that a US withdrawal from Iraq will only happen after a defined victory has been achieved, which is detailed in the National Security Council’s National Strategy For Victory In Iraq, which, not surprisingly, includes the use of human rights as justification for continued US occupation. From Part 1: Strategic Overview - Victory in Iraq is a Vital U.S. Interest…

“Middle East reformers would never again fully trust American assurances of support for democracy and human rights in the region – a historic opportunity lost.�?

One first has to define what is meant by ‘Middle East reformers’. Given the context of the strategy, and US hegemony to this point, one can only assume that it is referring to those that adhere to a marginalized democratic understanding wholly based on a US model.

This statement is also a prime example of how those who abuse human rights attempt to use them to support their own agendas when convenient. Were the Bush administration truly concerned about human rights it would conduct its own affairs accordingly. It would not maintain secret locations for purposes of detention and interrogation (without informing the International Red Cross), nor would it deny those captured their rights under international law and the Geneva Conventions. There is little doubt that a structured policy resulted in the abuses at Abu Ghraib, FOB Tiger, and Bagram, among others, just as there is little doubt that the US has used rendition in its efforts to acquire intelligence.

The US is no example to anyone when it comes to the safeguarding of human rights, and by the precedents it has set over the last four years, has seriously damaged global human rights standards.

This strategy does nothing more than placate the continued fantastical perceptions of those minds in Washington that have supported this agenda since the early 90’s. It does nothing to soberly address the complexities of present day Iraq whatsoever, and strangely suggests that the Iaqi army, which is currently fraught with complications, is to be employed as the primary deterrent in what President Bush has referred to as ‘the central front in the war on terror’. By way of this assertion, the Bush administration places itself in what it must surely view as a ‘win - win’ situation.

In Cairo recently, the government of Ibrahim Jaafari accepted the demand for a call to withdrawal coalition forces. One wonders how the United States will react. It certainly doesn’t fit into the National Strategy For Victory’s framework, yet presents a serious challenge to US assertions that they support the democratic sovereignty of the new Iraqi government.

Today’s speech was simply another example of President Bush talking tough, leaving an overstretched, undermanned, and battle fatigued military, primarily populated by the nation’s impoverished, to pay the price.

As an interesting aside, the following from the LA times might interest you…

“As part of an information offensive in Iraq, the U.S. military is secretly paying Iraqi newspapers to publish stories written by American troops in an effort to burnish the image of the U.S. mission in Iraq.

The articles, written by U.S. military “information operations” troops, are translated into Arabic and placed in Baghdad newspapers with the help of a defense contractor, according to U.S. military officials and documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times.”