An e-mailer states he can't believe I "ignored Jimmy Carter this week!!!!"
He means an article on Carter that ran nine days ago -- so that was actually the week before last.
We don't have room for everything. That's first and foremost. I'm telling myself that as soon as the elections take place (April 30th), the snapshot's going to be about half the size it is now.
Second, I really didn't care for it. I didn't mind Carter's remarks but David Daley, the interviewer, was a real baiter who kept trying to get Carter to agree with partisan points that he didn't agree with. And if you're at Salon, you really aren't in the place to pretend that you do anything for women. They have repeatedly promoted men, repeatedly hired men and since Daley wanted to make it about White men, I think you'd be hard pressed to find an outlet like Salon that employs more White men.
Daley wanted to finger point at others and project.
The interview got no attention in the US media. Maybe because people were put off by Daley?
Pretty much all of the Iraqi news outlets noted his remark that "The rest of the world, almost unanimously, looks at America as the No. 1 warmonger." We'll come back to that.
Al Mada also noted Carter's remarks on MSNBC that he didn't support an attack on Iran.
If there was a reason to bring up Carter now, it's to note he's the only living living US president -- present or former -- who attracts any kind of respect in the Arab world. Barack doesn't have it -- due to his war mongering and mirroring of Bully Boy Bush's policies in that region. Bill Clinton doesn't have it (he's hindered, in part, by his wife whose war raving tendencies have impacted Bill's standing). Both Bushes lack it. That just leaves Jimmy Carter. If you want, you can toss in all the living former vice presidents including Joe Biden. None of them have Carter's stature.
The Middle East is not composed of groupies for Carter. I'm not saying that. I am saying that when he makes statements, they are taken seriously. He has a stature that the others lack and it's too bad that one administration after another has wasted him. He turns 90 later this year and every administration -- Republican and Democrat -- have failed to utilize him.
Possibly, that's due to the fact that their intentions were much less than honorable and so they couldn't trust Jimmy Carter with them?
"The rest of the world, almost unanimously, looks at America as the No. 1 warmonger."
That statement played very well outside the US.
Because of the ongoing hypocrisy on the part of the US government, the statement played very well.
For example, Al Mada runs an article emphasizing that the White House is demanding that Russia respect the Geneva Accord. And that refers to a recent agreement (April 17th) but also conjures up the Geneva Conventions -- specifically the IV Convention which defines War Crimes.
It defines War Crimes like collective punishment.
That's where you think an enemy or a terrorist or whatever is in a civilian area so you take it out on that area, you target civilian populations. You're not allowed to do that.
But Nouri's been doing that in Anbar Province -- in Falluja especially where he has the residential neighborhoods bombed daily, leaving civilians injured and dead.
Which brings us to Wednesday's snapshot.
There were complaints on it and not just from visitors.
Some community members were bothered by it and felt that we missed a great deal on Iraq by what I chose to emphasize.
No, we really didn't miss anything out of Iraq.
It was the middle of the week, not Friday. Anything that happened that wasn't covered could wait.
And did.
And life went on.
I'm sure some people -- caring people -- were bothered and that's fine. I don't do greatest hits here. What took place Wednesday in the snapshot needed to take place. I don't regret it.
I actually raised what we did a week prior with three activists -- one of whom is Iraqi.
People are dying in these War Crimes and Nouri is using what the US provided him in terms of weapons and what the US provides him in terms of 'intell.'
So it's not just Nouri killing these civilians, it's also the US government.
As I shared in e-mails last week, I feel like a civilian or two or three killed this day and then four the next and then one . . . is allowing a lot of people to look the other way.
So the point of Wednesday's snapshot was to present how these days of death add up.
I was actually hoping someone else was going to grab that and run with it so I wouldn't have to. That didn't happen.
I dictate the snapshots. I generally write a little at lunch and then dictate that around that at night.
I didn't dictate Wednesday.
I had to go through every snapshot since January 1st to get those numbers and quotes for each day.
That snapshot took me three hours plus.
Again, I was hoping someone else would do it.
But it was done and if someone wants to pretend it's not that big of deal -- these War Crimes -- well that's there to dispute that lie.
Every day this is taking place, Nouri is killing civilians -- and he's aided by the US government.
National Iraqi News Agency reports on the civilian dead today. For example, 1 person died and three more were injured in one bombing of Falluja's residential neighborhoods. In another shelling of the residential neighborhoods today, 3 civilians were killed and eight left injured.
Collective punishment is a War Crime. The US government recognized that long ago.
It's over, I'm done writing songs about love
There's a war going on
So I'm holding my gun with a strap and a glove
And I'm writing a song about war
And it goes
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Oh oh oh oh
-- "I Hate The War" (written by Greg Goldberg, on The Ballet's Mattachine!)
The number of US service members the Dept of Defense states died in the Iraq War is [PDF format warning] 4489.
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
iraq
i hate the war
the ballet
