Feb

28

Please Stop the Bloodshed!

February 28, 2006 | Leave a Comment

Toll in Iraq’s Deadly Surge: 1,300
Morgue Count Eclipses Other Tallies Since Shrine Attack

By Ellen Knickmeyer and Bassam Sebti
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, February 28, 2006; A01

BAGHDAD, Feb. 27 — Grisly attacks and other sectarian violence unleashed by last week’s bombing of a Shiite Muslim shrine have killed more than 1,300 Iraqis, making the past few days the deadliest of the war outside of major U.S. offensives, according to Baghdad’s main morgue. The toll was more than three times higher than the figure previously reported by the U.S. military and the news media.

Hundreds of unclaimed dead lay at the morgue at midday Monday — blood-caked men who had been shot, knifed, garroted or apparently suffocated by the plastic bags still over their heads. Many of the bodies were sprawled with their hands still bound — and many of them had wound up at the morgue after what their families said was their abduction by the Mahdi Army, the Shiite militia of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

“After he came back from the evening prayer, the Mahdi Army broke into his house and asked him, ‘Are you Khalid the Sunni infidel?’ ” one man at the morgue said, relating what were the last hours of his cousin, according to other relatives. “He replied yes and then they took him away.”

Aides to Sadr denied the allegations, calling them part of a smear campaign by unspecified political rivals.

By Monday, violence between Sunni Arabs and Shiites appeared to have eased. As Iraqi security forces patrolled, American troops offered measured support, in hopes of allowing the Iraqis to take charge and prevent further carnage.

But at the morgue, where the floor was crusted with dried blood, the evidence of the damage already done was clear. Iraqis arrived throughout the day, seeking family members and neighbors among the contorted bodies.

“And they say there is no sectarian war?” demanded one man. “What do you call this?”

The brothers of one missing man arrived, searching for a body. Their hunt ended on the concrete floor, provoking sobs of mourning: “Why did you kill him?” “He was unarmed!” “Oh, my brother! Oh, my brother!”

Morgue officials said they had logged more than 1,300 dead since Wednesday — the day the Shiites’ gold-domed Askariya shrine was bombed — photographing, numbering and tagging the bodies as they came in over the nights and days of retaliatory raids.

The Statistics Department of the Iraqi police put the nationwide toll at 1,020 since Wednesday, but that figure was based on paperwork that is sometimes delayed before reaching police headquarters. The majority of the dead had been killed after being taken away by armed men, police said.

The disclosure of the death tolls followed accusations by the U.S. military and later Iraqi officials that the news media had exaggerated the violence between Shiites and Sunnis over the past few days.

The bulk of the previously known deaths were caused by bombings and other large-scale attacks. But the scene at the morgue and accounts related by relatives indicated that most of the bloodletting came at the hands of self-styled executioners.

“They killed him just because he was a Sunni,” one young man at the morgue said of his 32-year-old neighbor, whose body he was retrieving.

Much of the violence has centered on mosques, many of which were taken over by Shiite gunmen, bombed or burned.

In the Shiite holy city of Najaf, aides to Sadr denied any role in the killings.

[continue reading article here]

Feb

25

How to Market Your Suffering

February 25, 2006 | 2 Comments

I came across this great article via Idealist which discusses the reasons why some humanitarian crises get more attention than others. I’ve always wondered why we suddenly become so concerned about Darfur for example, and then a week later, when it slips off the tv screens and the newspaper headlines, it’s as if nothing ever happened there. That is part of the problem, as the author points out: the role of the media in publicizing the large numbers of human suffering around the globe. He also focuses on the role that NGOs play and the pressures they face in seeking to help millions of people around the world afflicted with disease, famine, war, and other humanitarian crises. The article is based on a book by the author, Clifford Bob, entitled “The Marketing of Rebellion: Insurgents, Media, and International Activism.”

I like the way the article was introduced by YaleGlobal,

In an era of human rights accords and global benefit concerts, international tribunals and rubber wristbands for any cause, attention to humanitarian crises seems both pronounced and profuse.

Clifford Bob quotes under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland who told The New York Times:

I don’t know why one place gets attention and another not. It’s like a lottery, where there are 50 victimized groups always trying to get the winning ticket, and they play every night and they lose every night. I myself have said that the biggest race against the clock is Darfur, but in terms of numbers of people displaced, there are already more in Uganda and the eastern Congo.

He goes on to add,

Even cursory observation shows that many of the world’s worst problems remain off the international agenda. Civil and inter-state war in the Congo since the mid-1990s has scarcely registered overseas, notwithstanding millions of deaths. For much of the 1980s and 1990s, Sudan’s North-South confrontation, with similarly horrific casualties, also remained little known. In recent decades, smaller-scale conflicts and human rights violations from Mauritania to Indonesia to Colombia, have likewise remained relatively invisible outside their home states despite large human losses.

It’s really disturbing to know that one has to dig through the news headlines to find anything about the drought crisis in the Horn of Africa that threatens the lives of millions in civil-war-torn Somalia and neighboring countries. The situation is getting worse by the day, and immediate action is needed to stem the possibility of millions of deaths, with some people already forced to drink their own urine to stay alive!

The author continues,

The main reason is that resources devoted to international issues are simply too small to meet the needs of the world’s poor, diseased, and conflicted. Even the largest NGOs complain of too few funds – and constantly campaign for more. For its part, the United Nations annually highlights a handful of “forgotten crises.”

We don’t have enough resources devoted to these crises at the moment, but that does not mean that the nations of the world are incapable of devoting large sums of money to help these millions. In 2004, for example, the United States was ranked #22 in the world for its “Official Development Assistance”, with 0.17 PERCENT of its GNP going to development assistance. Countries such as Greece, Italy, Spain and others ranked way above the most economically powerful country in the world in terms of their contributions to development assistance. More recent figures will show that the US has contributed larger amounts, although this money will by and large go to reconstructione efforts in Iraq, as well as to “allies” in the war on terror, such as Pakistan, Afghanistan, Jordan, and Israel. Indeed, much of this “aid” that the US gives goes to benefit its military and economic interests rather than to assist in humanitarian crises.

And Bob concludes,

In sum, the allocation of international activism has logic. But, contrary to the despair of Jan Egeland and the optimism of NGO cheerleaders, it is grounded in vast differences in power between NGOs and the needy groups they selectively assist. In this context, local groups are far from helpless. Marketing matters - but only a fortunate few will gain major support.

[Read full text here]

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Feb

21

From the Land of the Free: Oppression and Injustice at Its Best!

February 21, 2006 | 2 Comments

I came across this article which includes an interview with the not-yet-convicted-but-still-jailed-because-he’s-Arab/Muslim/Palestinian professor Dr. Sami Al-Arian on the progress of his trial and what he’s been through for the past 3 years.

I highly recommend that this interview be read carefully by anyone interested in human and civil rights violations by the US government since 9/11.

The treatment of this professor is unbelievable… hands cuffed and feet shackled, he was made to walk 1/2 mile bending down with his defense materials balanced on his back so that he could see his lawyer…not allowed to make any calls for 6 months…then one 15-minute call per month….23 hours of solitary confinement everyday for more than 2 years as he awaited his trial…

NO, we’re not talking about an Iraqi prisoner during Saddam’s Baathist regime or an Afghan prisoner under the Taliban. YES, this is in the blessed US of A…
a man guilty until proven innocent (and even when you’re acquitted, we’re still going to try to convict you over and over again because WE CAN!).

If this is happening on mainland USA, what is happening off shore in Guantanamo Bay?

This is the example we set as the world’s superpower. Thank you Bush, Ashcroft, and Gonzalez…what would the American justice system do without you?!

Excerpts from the interview:

“I am allowed a radio, and I do get a newspaper. Of course the conditions of confinement are extremely restrictive, particularly restrictive. I’ve spent three years now in solitary confinement, two of them in one of the most restrictive environments you could ever have in a federal penitentiary. It’s called the special housing unit, and it is no different really from what Guantanamo is. If you know how Guantanamo people are treated, (it’s) pretty similar to it with one exception, and that is that you can get weekly visits.

And when I was there for two years at Coleman, I was the only pretrial detainee in that unit. That unit is designed for federal convicts who have disciplinary problems. That unit is not even designed for normal prisoners. If you are in the general compound and you knife somebody or you have a fight with a guard or you have any other kind of disciplinary problem, they will transfer you to that unit for disciplinary purposes, and normally you stay there for a month or two. I was there for two years. Even those people are allowed contact visits. I was never allowed a contact visit. Normally, if you are in the compound you have about 60 minutes a day of phone call privileges. Over there you have 15 minutes a month. That is one call a month. If you misdial or get the wrong number or don’t find your folks, that’s it and you’re on to the next month. I wasn’t allowed to even make a phone call for six months.

It was designed basically as psychological torture against me. I was the only person who was pretrial in the whole facility of 75,000 people.

And these kinds of restrictions, I can tell, you were designed to hamper my defense. When I was in the federal system for two years, I wasn’t allowed at the beginning even to have much legal material in my cell, and whenever I would meet with my lawyers, they were not allowed to bring in a lot of material when they met with me. And when you go to them, you really had to walk a lot of distance (with) legs shackled, hands cuffed behind your back, and they would refuse to carry your legal material. So for a couple of months, I had to carry them on my back. So I had to bend over with my legal material on my back and walk all the way from my cell to where my lawyer would be, which was about close to half a mile of walking distance. I walked like that for two months until the captain saw me one day and was extremely angry with the guards for the way they had been doing it. Then they changed it, and at that time they started hand cuffing me from the front with a chain around the waist where I could carry my legal stuff with my hands. All these were unnecessary, but it’s part of the system, I guess, to put whatever pressure they can on you.”
——-

More on this issue:

Growing Up Al-Arian
Vigil in Support of Arian
Amnesty International on the acquittal
Free Sami Al-Arian
St.Petersburg Times Coverage

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Feb

21

China, Microsoft, and the Bloggers

February 21, 2006 | Leave a Comment

Bloggers Who Pursue Change Confront Fear and Mistrust

BEIJING — When Zhao Jing moved his blog to Microsoft’s popular MSN Spaces site last summer, some users worried the Chinese government would block the entire service. The censors had blacklisted the last site where the young journalist had posted his spirited political essays, and he seemed unwilling to tone down his writing at the new address.

But Zhao, better known by the pen name Anti, told fellow bloggers not to worry. If the government objected to his blog, he predicted, Microsoft would “sell me out” and delete it rather than risk being blocked from computer screens across China.

He was right. Four and a half months after he began posting essays challenging the Communist Party’s taboo against discussing politics, Zhao published an item protesting the purge of a popular newspaper’s top editors. Officials called Microsoft to complain, and Microsoft quickly erased his blog.

The December incident sparked outrage among bloggers around the world, and in Washington, members of Congress vowed to scrutinize how U.S. firms are helping the Chinese government censor the Internet. But the reaction inside China’s growing community of Internet users was strikingly mixed…

Continue reading full here.

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Feb

20

In Honor of President’s Day

February 20, 2006 | Leave a Comment


In recognition of everything that you have given to this country, Mr. President, the least we can do is thank you. Thank you for the laughs that you provided for us over the past 5 years.

But more importantly, thank you for making us cry.

Thank you for making Iraqi men, women, and children cry over the thousands of innocents killed by your “moab’s” and “precision bombs.”

Thank you, Mr. Commander-in-Thief, for liberating them and then leaving their timeless, priceless artifacts to be looted by thugs while your boys were guarding the Oil Ministry.

Thank you for staining the history of ancient Mesopotamia with your dirty wars.

Thank you for defiling the image of America by hiring security contractors and allowing torture in Abu Ghraib and other secret prisons around the world.
Thanks for flicking off the international community when you brushed off Kyoto and the International Criminal Court.

Oh, and thanks for spreading democracy across the Middle East and then punishing citizens for who they voted for because you “misunderestimated” them.

THANK YOU!

Bush’s Speech Writer [by way of Nas].

Bush’s Escape Plan

“I think we are welcomed. But it was not a peaceful welcome.” —George W. Bush, defending Vice President Dick Cheney’s pre-war assertion that the United States would be welcomed in Iraq as liberators, NBC Nightly News interview, Dec. 12, 2005 [photo link]

“Wow! Brazil is big.” —George W. Bush, after being shown a map of Brazil by Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Brasilia, Brazil, Nov. 6, 2005

“If it were to rain a lot, there is concern from the Army Corps of Engineers that the levees might break. And so, therefore, we’re cautious about encouraging people to return at this moment of history.” —George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., Sept. 19, 2005

“Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job.” —George W. Bush, to FEMA director Michael Brown, who resigned 10 days later amid criticism over his job performance, Mobile, Ala., Sept. 2, 2005

“It seemed like to me they based some of their decisions on the word of — and the allegations — by people who were held in detention, people who hate America, people that had been trained in some instances to disassemble — that means not tell the truth.” —George W. Bush, on an Amnesty International report on prisoner abuse at Guantanamo Bay, Washington, D.C., May 31, 200

“See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda.” —George W. Bush, Greece, N.Y., May 24, 2005

“I can only speak to myself.” —George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., April 28, 2005

“In this job you’ve got a lot on your plate on a regular basis; you don’t have much time to sit around and wander, lonely, in the Oval Office, kind of asking different portraits, ‘How do you think my standing will be?’” —George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., March 16, 2005

“You work three jobs? … Uniquely American, isn’t it? I mean, that is fantastic that you’re doing that.” —George W. Bush, to a divorced mother of three, Omaha, Nebraska, Feb. 4, 2005

I don’ t know if I will ever take the American presidency seriously again.

Feb

17

Shutdown the Gitmo!

February 17, 2006 | 2 Comments


The past week was the 4th anniversary of the opening of the controversial Guantanamo Bay security prison by the US. From the beginning, this highly secured detention facility has been under scrutiny by various human rights organizations and has faced a lot of criticism from the international community. However, none of the pressure has been enough to shut down the prison or even bring that possibility to serious consideration by US officials.

The problem with the prison facility (Camp Delta) is that it is located off the coast of Cuba, not on US territory and not really international territory either. Its a “black hole” in terms of the American judicial system, in addition to the fact that detainees are listed as “enemy/illegal combatants” and not “prisoners of war”, which the US claims do not have the same rights under international law (this is disputed).

This naval base is not new. It was 1898 when the US obtained control of Cuba from Spain, and occupied this bay area. Although the Cuban and US government signed a treaty on the issue of Gitmo bay, the Cuban government says it was forced into signing this treaty and that it should be considered null and void. Ironically, Cuba is one of the few countries that does not have diplomatic ties with the US.

In 2002, the US began using part of the Camp Delta prison facility to hold suspected al-Qaeda militants captured in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and later in Iraq. Prisoners in this facility are being held without any charges, and until now do not have the right to a military or judicial hearing.

As of July 2005, the US was holding 510 “foreign terrorism suspects”– 100 or more are from Saudi Arabia, about 80 are from Yemen, about 65 are from Pakistan, about 50 are from Afghanistan, and 2 from Syria (Wiki). Some are citizens of the UK and other European countries were detained without charges and some later released.

Many prisoners have attempted suicide in protest of the inhumane treatment they have been facing. Various human rights organizations have attempted to visit prisoners and find out more about the conditions which they live in, but US officials have prevented most from entering the facilities. Nevertheless, the UN (pdf), ICRC, and Amnesty International have all released reports condemning the facility, decrying its ‘black hole’ status, and calling for the immediate closure of the camp.

Camp Delta on Gitmo Bay should be close immediately. The nature of the detentions and the ambiguous legal status of detainees is an embarassement at the least and a human rights violation at best. It is a sad fact that the world’s superpower and the champion of democracy and human rights continues to operate such a facility that is marred by accusations of torture and other HR violations. The American PR machine should remember the influence that such images have on the rest of the world, and specifically the Arab and Muslim world, before pouring millions into projects such as failed radio and tv stations which are seen as American propaganda machines. The Bush administration needs to wake up! Rumsfeld has disgraced this country for the past 5 years and needs to be fired.

Enough is enough! But it’s not enough to just read this post, or sing a petition on Amnesty’s website. We need to speak out. Those who ’support the troops’ need to know that these images hurt the troops and put them in danger. The credibility of the US is on the line. Our senators and congressman need to step up the plate, and *check* the power of the executive branch that is taking our country down a dangerous path. Call them, email them, fax them, and write to them. They need to know that we care. We need to know the truth. This has to stop…or else every American will be responsible for the consequences of these shameful policies…and it will be too late anyway.

Resources:
BBC Q&A on Gitmo Bay
BBC Anniversary Report
Amnesty International– Guantanamo Page
Wikipedia Guntanamo Bay
JURIST article–Why Americans Should Care About Gitmo
Kuwaiti Prisoners in Gitmo Bay
Photos from Gitmo Bay

Feb

16

More on the Cheney Fiasco

February 16, 2006 | 2 Comments

The problem with the Bush administration tends to be that when they make a mistake, they don’t admit it right away. They attempt to cover it up for a while. Then when they talk about it, they do something really stupid that makes it an even bigger scandal!

After mistaking his 78 year old lawyer friend for a quail and spraying him in a hunting accident, Cheney’s press office took its time before letting the public know. Then when pressure mounted on the Dickmeister, he decided to TALK! To none other than the eminent FOX NEWS…hip hip hooray! What kind of statement does that show other than the fact that he is too scared to talk to the whole press corps? If you had the urge to feel bad for this idiot, then please remember how much he made fun of other people (ie: John Kerry) for not knowing how to hunt.

Grow up Dick, and for God’s sake just admit you were wrong for once, it might help your heart problem!

On a lighter note, here’s the spoof on this drama.

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