Thursday, September 14, 2006

Iraq snapshot

Thursday, September 14, 2006.  The chaos and violence continues in Iraq, William Caldwell gets lost in his own spin while Harry Reid comes out swinging,  two US soldiers are dead, actions on the part of Suzanne Swift result in some US Congressional support,  Camp Democracy  continues in DC, and 110 Australian soldiers return to Iraq from Australia.
 
William Caldwell IV, the liveliest Gabor in the Green Zone, explained the mounting corpses (about 100 in the last two days) discovered in the capital as "murder-executions" -- as opposed to "group hugs"?  Somebody ask Willie to adjust the bra strap before the commercial break's over.  Not content with being the giddiest Gabor in the Green Zone, Caldwell also told reporters today that another major terrorist had been captured.  CNN reports that the Ethel Mertz of the occupation won't identify the captured but will give lots of non-specific details and, apparently, whine that Fred won't ever take her out anywhere!  The non-specific details will allow gas bags to fill in their own details and a non-story to eat hours and hours of psuedo-commentary and it certainly minimizes the tragic reality that two more American troops lost their lives.
 
CBS and AP report: "Two U.S. soldiers died Thursday in and around Baghdad, the U.S. Command said.  The first soldier died from wounds in the early morning hours after his unit came under attack by small arms.  The second was killed after his vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb south of Baghdad."  AFP notes that the two deaths follow the Wednesday death of a US soldier as a result of "enemy fire" and CNN notes: "He was attached to the 25th Combat Aviation Brigade, 25th Infantry Division." 
 
If it seems like Willie Gabor isn't aware of the body count, the AFP's reporting demonstrates US Senator Harry Reid is: "We have to change course in Iraq, we are approaching 2,700 dead American men and women, more than 20,000 wounded, a third of them greviously wounded, missing arms, and legs, and eyes, paralysis, brain damage.  The cost is three billion a week.  If Iraq is not in a civil war, I don't know what a civil war is, 100 killed yesterday, 100 killed the day before." 
 
Today?
 
Bombings?
 
The Associated Press reports two car bombs in Baghdad that resulted in at least ten deaths and thirty wounded.  CBS and AP note the second blast, outside the passport office, "created a large crater in the street in front of the office, destroyed at least three cars, scattered debris and knocked down the walls of a neibhoring house".
 
KUNA notes four wounded as a result of a bomb in Mosul. Reuters notes a "sucicide bomber" in Tal Afar has left one police officer dead and two civilians wounded; a roadside bomb in Falluja has left five civilians dead and 15 more wounded; and that "[a] bomb struck a U.S. military vehicle in Ur district, northern Baghdad, as the coalition forces were starting a serach operation.  Witnesses at the scene said smoke was rising from the area.  The U.S. military said it was unaware of the incident."
 
 
Shootings?
 
The BBC reports that a police officer "was shot dead on his way to work in Baghdad."
CNN identifies him as Col. Muthana Ali Hussein. Reuters notes that that a family of six ("including a three-month-old boy") "were shot dead in their home" in Baghdad.
CBS and AP note that two police officers were shot dead in a drive-by in Baquba while three people were shot dead in Ghazaniya. KUNA reports that a police officer was wounded in Kirkuk after being shot by "unidentified armed men".  Reuters notes the death of a city council member (Abdulla Khalaf) and his son in Daquq; and "a police lieutenant--colonel" in Mosul.
 
Corpses?
 
CNN reports that 20 corpses were discovered in Baghdad ("most with signs of torture").
 
That's 53 that were reported dead so far today.  (Includes the 20 corpses and the two U.S. soldiers.)
 
In peace news, Haveeru Daily reports that war resister  Mark Wilkerson, "[n]early two weeks after he turned himself in to his unit at Fort Hood in Texas, the baby-faced 22-year-old soldier is still awaiting word on his punishment."  Wilkerson returned from Iraq and attempted to receive conscientious objector status only to be denied and told he was redeploying to Iraq.  Wilkerson then self-checked out and was AWOL for a year-and-a-half.  Writing of Wilkerson's August 31st announcement that he was turning himself in, Aaron Glant (IPS) noted: "Observers say these developments are reminiscent of the Vietnam War, when the refusal to fight by hundreds of thousands of soldiers was a major force toward U.S. withdrawal.  According to journalist and Vietnam War resister Peter Laufer, 170,000 U.S. soldiers filed for conscientious objector status during the Vietnam War. Between 50,000 and 60,000 fled to Canada.  Others deliberately injured themselves or simply went AWOL."  That topic is explored in depth in the documentary Sir! No Sir!, directed by David Zeiger.  Wilkerson himself noted the historical connections writing, before his press conference at Camp Casey III, that "I am joining a long history of war resistors, many of whom have died for their beliefs and I know tomorrow they will be looking down on me and war resistors who are alive hopefully will respect what I have to say and I hope that with as big a stage as I am going to have tomorrow that I can make people proud of my message and that I can say everything I truly want to say."
 
At his own web site, Mark Wilkerson reports his first week at Fort Hood "was a good week. . . . I've spent a lot of time speaking with fellow soldiers about how their experiences were in Iraq.  And while some had better experiences than others, they all expressed how lucky they were to make it back to the U.S. alive.  And some have expressed their anxiety about having to return to Iraq for possibly the third time -- Imagine -- Three year-long deployments to Iraq in 5 years!  For anyone reading this, let that sink in for a moment." 
 
In news of war resister Suzanne Swift, actions on her behalf (a sit-in, phone calls, e-mails and faxes) have resulted in US Rep. Peter DaFazio of Oregon to promise "that he will be initiating a congressional investigation into" her case.  Swift self-checked out of the Army after returning from a tour in Iraq where she has reported she was sexually assaulted.  Supporters are calling for an honorable discharge of Swift.
 
 
In Washington, DC, Camp Democracy continues, free and open to the public.  Today's events includes participation from the Green Party: Joyce Robinson-Paul, Steve Shafarman and Bob Firtakis.  Greens are due to speak "between 4:15 and 5:30 p.m." and will address topics including the 2004 election.  This evening, Danny Schechter  scheduled to be among the participants with a screening of his documentary WMD: Weapons of Mass Deceptions. Friday's topics include election reform, Saturday's peace with Pat Elder, Nadine Bloch, Kevin Zeese and others participating.  And on Sunday, Camp Democracy will host a number of events and the theme will be Impeachment Day.  Among those participating:  Elizabeth Holtzman, Michael Avery, Ray McGovern, David Green, John Nichols, Marcus Raskin, Elizabeth De La Vega, Dave Lindorff, David Swanson, Jennifer Van Bergen, Geoff King, David Waldman, Dan DeWalt, Steve Cobble, Anthony St. Martin, Cindy Bogard, Mubarak Awad, Susan Crane, Frank Anderson.  The camp has daily activities and admission is free.  A complete schedule can be found here. Free and open to the public with daily activites.
 
 
 
In Australia, Security Detachment IX returned from Baghdad.  One member didn't return, Jake Kovco who died in Baghdad on April 21st.  Edmund Tadros (Sydney Morning Herald) reports that Jake Kovco's widow Shelley Kovco was there to greet those returning.  Belinda Tasker (NewsCom) reports that Shelley Kovco "finally had the chance to speak to one of the men who was with him [Jake Kovco] when he died" -- Ray Johnson who has previously been identified as "Soldier 17."  Dan Box (The Australian) reports: "With the unit's return, however, restrictions imposed by the inquiry on reporting the names of soldiers have been lifted.  Although not legally binding, these restrictions were imposed for operational safety and have been followed by The Australian."  While the second half of the last sentence is correct (The Australian and most others have readily followed the restrictions), the first half?  That's the claim by the government, not established fact. Noting that "One of the cornerstones of our justice system is transparency," Anthony McClellan went on to point out (in The Australian, one week ago today): "When the inquiry began, it was set in a small room that could not accommodate all the media who wanted to be there. On occasions such as this, the media are the public representatives. We have a right to know what happened, and why. Was making it harder for the media to report a deliberate decision or an example of military contempt for civilians being privy to this tragedy? Or was it plain incompetence? Whatever the reason, it neatly encapsulates the past five months. The larger issue is the suppression of the identities of many of the key soldiers connected with Kovco's death. We read about them as Soldier 14, Soldier 17 and Soldier 47. Why? If this set of events had occurred in a civilian setting, they would certainly be named. But no, the names are kept from us because the soldiers are serving in Iraq. It was interesting to see defence chief Air Chief Marshall Angus Houston and Defence Minister Brendan Nelson squirming in public this week when asked why the names were being kept secret."
 
 
"Soldier 19" is now identified as Rob Shore.  "Soldier 14"?  Belinda Tasker notes that he is Steve Carr.  Box notes Carr is "a person of interest" to the inquiry into Jake Kovco's death due to his DNA being "found on the barrel of Kovco's pistol".  The Herald-Sun notes: "The Kovco inquiry, at Sydney's Victoria Barracks, resumes on Monday for closing submissions.  Ms. Kovco is to make a statement to the inquiry on Tuesday."
 
 
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Other Items

Judith Miller's former partner in 101 Ways to Grudge F**k the UN is back in print today with "Most Mideast Leaders Are Angry About U.S. in Iraq, Annan Says ." It's the sort of non-reporting Warren Hoge's able to do with Miller or on his own. Here's a sample (hold your noses):

Taking issue with Mr. Annan’s comments, Tony Snow, the White House press secretary, said at his daily briefing: "If you take a look at what's gone on in the region, you have attempts to establish democracies in Lebanon, you have an attempt to establish a democracy in the Palestinian areas, you have democracies now up and gaining their footing in Afghanistan and Iraq. And those are developments that are positive. ["]

As noted in yesterday's snapshot:

Kahmenei's opinions are hardly surprising and, Nick Wadhams (AP) reports, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, declared today "that most leaders in the Middle East believe the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and its aftermath" is "a real disaster". Annan: "Most of the leaders I spoke to felt the invasion of Iraq and its aftermath has been a real disaster for them. They believe it has destabilized the region."

Somehow, to Hoge, covering Annan's annoucement means returning to the nonsense he plugged (solo and with Miller) earlier which is why he trots out Norm Coleman. There is, however, no need to discuss the realities of either Iraq or Afghanistan or even allude to them. He just has to quote Tony Snow Job's laughable claims of "democracies" in Iraq and Afghanistan and then, for 'balance,' he needs to toss in Republican Coleman. Hoge's unable to address Annan's statements so, instead, he just offers Republican spin. It's a sick little world that Hoge lives in where a UN statement needs "balance" from a GOP White House spinmeister and propping up by Norm Coleman's baseless charges. (For any who wonder, no Hoge felt no need to seek out any Democratic response but then he wouldn't be Warren Hoge if he had, would he?)

Will you be dining in Baghdad anytime soon (outside the Green Zone -- maybe you're tired of the Chinese food)? If so, Paul von Zielbauer has the hook up for you. And if that seems sarcastic, it is. When you write sentences like "But even bombs cannot stop the rotisserie chickens" you earn the sarcasm. And von Zielbauer writes that and more in what could have been a strong look at life on the ground ("Amid the Chaos of Baghdad, an Oasis for Defiant Diners"). In the meantime, they continue to miss (or avoid) a story that would be very easy to write. Why is that? (Check out The Third Estate Sunday Review this Sunday for that story. And someone explain to von Zielbauer that, while Nora Ephron's op-ed yesterday was funny and amusing, he's no Nora Eprhon.)

KeShawn notes Katrina vanden Heuvel's "Pointing the Way" (Editor's Cut, The Nation):

Last night's primary contests had some highs and lows. [Check out John Nichols's dispatches on the web and in the magazine to get a better sense of what we can take away from September 12th.] But there's one victory in Maryland I'd like to single out for celebration. Last night, Jamie Raskin--Democratic candidate for Maryland's State Senate--won a resounding primary victory in a tough race against a longtime incumbent. He is now virtually assured of winning in November.
Jamie--who ran a smart and creative race, with national support--is a professor of Constitutional Law at American University and a valued contributor to The Nation.
I believe there are four issues in this election year: The Constitution--DEFEND IT; The War --END IT; National Health Care --PASS IT ; Corporate Power--CURB IT. If you believe, as I do, that this nation faces these (and other) critical issues, and that we must confront them with intelligence, sanity, decency--and passion....then all of us won with Jamie's win.

And Molly notes Paul Rockwell's "A Travesty of Justice: Stop The Court-Martial of Lt. Watada" (Common Dreams):

Someone should file a suit against the U.S. Army for plagiarizing George Orwell's novel, 1984.
Orwellian irony hangs over the pending court-martial of Lt. Ehren Watada, the first commissioned officer to refuse deployment to Iraq. The Army is seeking to imprison the Hawaiian soldier of conscience, not for lying, but for telling the truth; not for violating the law, but for upholding it. Watada refuses to carry out illegal orders, to participate in crimes against peace.
Recently the Army charged Watada with "missing movement," use of "contemptuous words for the President," and “conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman." It's true Watada openly denounced the invasion of Iraq. He claimed in public what most of the world already knows--that President Bush manufactured the case for war, that he lied to our troops. That's not really news. But Watada believes that no American soldier should take a life, or give up a life, for a lie. There are many kinds of betrayal in human affairs--theft, adultery, embezzlement. But in the affairs of state, there is no greater disloyalty than to send young men and women to their death on the basis of fraud.
The U.S. Army is putting the wrong person on trial.
In a world of logic and common sense, the truth of a claim is a legitimate defense against the charge of libel.
Not in Orwell's Army, where lying for the President has become a patriotic duty. Just quoting the Geneva Conventions about collective reprisals or the use of indiscriminate weapons can get you busted.
And to date the Army has yet to court-martial a single commander, or any high level personnel (of which there were many), involved in the torture system at Abu Ghraib. This is the same Army that court-martialed Camilo Mejia for disassociating himself from the degradation at Abu Ghraib. Even before the scandal broke, Mejia filed written complaints, protested atrocities that he witnessed, only to be imprisoned for nine months for speaking truth to power.
The court-martial of Watada is simply the Army's latest Catch-22. And the ethos of contempt for international law, combined with the punishment of those who show respect for it, are two phases of one policy that is destroying the morale of American troops.

As always, more information on Ehren Watada can be found at Courage to Resist and ThankYouLt.org. And remember that among the scheduled events today for Camp Democracy
in DC is an evening presentation by Danny Schechter and a screening of his documentary WMD: Weapons of Mass Deceptions.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.








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NYT: "On Another Grim Day, Bodies Lie Everywhere in Baghdad"

At least 60 bodies were found throughout Baghdad between 6 a.m. Tuesday and 6 a.m. Wednesday, the ministry official said. Forty victims were unknown; 20 were identified.
Nearly all were shot in the head, had clear signs of torture, or were blindfolded, bound or gagged, and most were discovered in neighborhoods of western Baghdad with heavy Sunni Arab populations, he said. The other deaths reported by the ministry were in bombings and other attacks on Wednesday.
American military officials, who have been more aggressive in challenging body counts if they consider them inaccurate, disputed the number found, saying the actual number was roughly half what the ministry had reported.

The above is from Richard A. Oppel Jr.'s "On Another Grim Day, Bodies Lie Everywhere in Baghdad" in this morning's New York Times. And? That's all I'm saying. Yesterday, I pitched an idea to Dona, Jim, Ty, Jess and Ava for Sunday's The Third Estate Sunday Review. We'll be doing that there and the thing that stands out about this article today is what we'd already agreed to address there. If the article had appeared before that, there'd be more to say here. Instead, its main weakness fits with an overall pattern so timing spares Oppel a critique.

Martha notes Amit R. Paley and K.I. Ibrahim's "Nearly 100 Killed In Baghdad Over 24 Brutal Hours: Scores of Corpses Dumped in Streets" (Washington Post):

Nearly 100 people were killed or found dead in the Iraqi capital over the past 24 hours, authorities said Wednesday, continuing a wave of sectarian violence that has defied American efforts to thwart the carnage.
[. . .]
As the violence flared, leaders of the country's main political parties met to seek agreement on a politically explosive plan to carve the country into a federation of three autonomous regions. The federalism plan would create a Shiite Muslim region in southern Iraq much like the autonomous zone in the north controlled by the Kurds. Sunni Arabs would be left with vast swaths of desert in the middle of the country, an area that lacks the oil reserves in the other regions.
Khalaf Olayan, leader of the Iraqi National Dialogue Front, a Sunni group, said the meeting "focused on the question of time limitations and how we could delay the matter for the time being."
"We believe that a majority of our people do not understand federalism and some believe that if approved, it would lead to the division of the country," he said. "Besides, people now need services first and want things that will help them in their daily lives."
The leaders of all the political blocs will meet again on Saturday to try to resolve the issue, he said.

If you haven't already, check out Gregg Zoroya's "Soldier describes anguish in revealing murder allegations" (USA Today). Marci is among the ones who already has checked out the story online and she wondered about the photos mentioned last night? I didn't look at the online piece. What it offers is the two photos from the front page. In the print edition, on 5A (inside), they offer a better photo of Justin Watt (credited to him), a map, an AP photo of Abeer's home ("charred and bloodstained walls of the girl's house"), the photo of Abeer from the official government document and the AP photo of her two surviving brothers.

Anyone (any member) who missed yesterday's copy, can e-mail and note that you'd like a scan of A5 and we'll e-mail it out to you. I didn't see the story until Kat and I got back from speaking yesterday and were walking through the airport.

On today's violence, USA Today carries an AP story online:

Car bombs and drive-by shootings killed at least 10 people and wounded dozens of others Thursday in a series of attacks around central Iraq, officials said.
The attacks followed a day that was bloody even by Baghdad's standards, with car bombs, mortars and other attacks killing at least 39 people and wounded dozens. Police also uncovered the tortured bodies of 65 men dumped in and around the capital.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.










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