Month: October 2004

I have refrained from writing about the stunning conclusions in the Lancet study which claims 100,000 excess deaths since the US/UK invasion of Iraq. Although extensively peer reviewed and done with accepted methodology for war conditions (I’d link to Spencer Ackerman’s Burnham interview, but his blog is currently experiencing some technical problems – read lenin’s excerpt), the number was so much higher than any other figures put forth – albeit with less reliable methods – that some caution seemed appropriate until more critiques were in. One critique that seemed, as lenin put it, damning, was Fred Kaplan’s in Slate. Fortunately for all of us who were so much less enterprising, lenin corresponded with the authors of the Lancet study and obtained a very convincing explanation.

A headless body believed to be that of Japanese hostage Shosei Koda has been found in Baghdad today. The body was found just off Haifa street wrapped in an American flag.

I have no idea what this is all about, but this is the first time I’ve ever heard of “Iraqi forces” responding to a US convoy bombing.

Witnesses told Associated Press Television News that an American convoy was attacked early Saturday near the town of Haswa, about 25 miles south of the capital.

After the U.S. troops pulled out, Iraqi police and National Guards arrived on the scene. Witnesses said Iraqi troops opened fire randomly and used hand grenades, hitting three minibuses and three trucks.

The U.S. military had no immediate comment.

Doctor Salah al-Janabi of Iskandariyah General Hospital said the hospital received at least 11 bodies, and at least another 15 people were injured. He said more casualties could have been taken to other hospitals.

The area is a major insurgent hotspot where ambushes and attacks against U.S. and Iraqi forces are common.

APTN footage showed bloody, dead bodies riddled with bullet holes inside the buses and on the street. Blood and gas was trickling underneath the vehicles. Empty bullet cases were also scattered around.

An APTN cameraman saw at least 18 bodies, while witnesses said there were more than 20 people killed in the incident.

The footage also showed the morgue of Iskandariyah Hospital packed with bodies stacked on top of each other.

This is the area to which the British Black Watch troops were just moved. I’ll update this post if any new information surfaces.

My column reappears just in time for Halloween. Read it and quit bugging us about Pat Buchanan’s endorsement, will ya?

Whatever happened to Osama bin Laden, anyway?

Bin Laden responds:

Bin Laden said he wanted to explain why he ordered the suicide airline hijackings that hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon so Americans would know how to avoid “another disaster.”

“To the U.S. people, my talk is to you about the best way to avoid another disaster,” he said. “I tell you: security is an important element of human life and free people do not give up their security.”

He accused President Bush of misleading Americans by saying the attack was carried out because al-Qaida “hates freedom.” Bin Laden said his followers have left alone countries that do not threaten Muslims.

“We fought you because we are free …. and want to regain freedom for our nation. As you undermine our security we undermine yours,” he said.

In another shocker, he continues his claim that 9/11 was — from his perspective — purely defensive:

He said he was first inspired to attack the United States by the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon in which towers and buildings in Beirut were destroyed in the siege of the capital.

“While I was looking at these destroyed towers in Lebanon, it sparked in my mind that the tyrant should be punished with the same and that we should destroy towers in America, so that it tastes what we taste and would be deterred from killing our children and women,” he said.

That’s called blowback. Antiwar.com and other advocates of non-intervention have stressed these points over and over again: American foreign policy has angered large portions of the world. Bin Laden has found loyal followers because of this shared hatred. How do we stop the resulting terrorism? The Bush/Kerry option maintains that we keep our current stance, with entangling alliances (read: Pakistan, Israel, et al) and US troops stationed throughout the world. The positions only differ in asking the French and Germans to come along for the ride. The second option is one that forms the basis of Antiwar.com’s ideology: non-intervention.

Bin Laden is clearly not a man to trust, but his claim that the events in Lebanon sparked his anger is not surprising. What were American troops doing in that country? They were there at the request of the Lebanese, who were under the seige of the IDF and in the midst of a civil war. James Bovard, in Terrorism and Tyranny explains:

…as the fighting between Christians and Muslims in Lebanon escalated, the original US peacekeeping mission became a farce. The US forces were training and equipping the Lebanese army, which was increasingly perceived in Lebanon as a pro-Christian, anti-Muslim force. By late summer, the Marines were being targetted by Muslim snipers and mortar fire.

On September 13 Reagan authorized Marine commanders in Lebanon to call in air strikes and other attacks against the Muslims to help the Christian Lebanese army. Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger vigourously opposed the new policy, fearing it would make American troops far more vulnerable. Navy ships repeatedly bombarded the Muslims over the next few weeks.

At 6:20am on Sunday morning, October 23, 1983, a lone, grinning Muslim drove a Mercedes truck through a parking lot, past two Marine guard posts, through an open gate and into the lobby of the Marine headquarters building in Beiruit, where he detonated the equivalent of six tons of explosives. The explosion left a 30-foot-deep crater and killed 243 Marines. (page 14)

Many of my war-hawk hate-mailers claim that my attitude is one that excuses the actions of these men. Of course, that is not my intention. Instead, I am merely explaining why such things happen. If the circumstances that caused the problems are things the US government shouldn’t be doing in the first place — in this case non-defensive military intervention — then it is easy to see the solution. Stop intervening. Such a response is not appeasement. Rather, it is a recognition that when the US government takes sides in conflicts that do not threaten it, there inevtiably arise parties who blame us for their losses and who are willing to “pay us back.”