|
|||||||||
Posted July 18, 2003
Regarding "Casualties in Iraq: The Human Costs of Occupation," edited by Mike Ewens:
Thank you for establishing and maintaining the count of fatalities. I intend to make a sign for our front yard with the current count.
Mr. Bush has a problem now that Americans are no longer a liberation army, but an occupying force. Iraqis are in a position to use guerilla warfare, and the momentum could change very quickly.
Anywhere I can look for injury data?
(Mike, your contact links do not have valid email addresses!)
~ Rand Wrobel, Alameda, California
Mike Ewens replies:
You would have to peruse http://www.centcom.mil/CENTCOMNews/release_list.asp and http://www.defenselink.mil/ for data on injuries.
My email address is like that so it doesn't get spammed. "Spam-bots" search sites for email addresses looking for the @ symbol. Writing the way I do and using my blog as a link, avoids this problem.
You are doing a exceedingly useful task which will help prevent the War Party from getting away with too many lies. However, rather than just tally the deaths, it would be just as useful to tally the wounded. For strictly speaking wounded are also treated as casualties.
Typical KIA to wounded ratio for US Army is to be expected at around 1 to 15-20.
Only counting KIA diminishes the full extent of people who are harmed by this reckless war.
Thanks for helping keep us informed
Mike Ewens replies:
If you know of a reliable source of this info, I will see what I can do. I have had difficulty finding such numbers.
Regarding "The Road to Hell Is Paved With Good Intentions" by Jason Leopold:
I would just like to say that your article was excellent. I have read other article concluding the same arguments as yours, however I do not understand why there have not been any Democrats willing to rise the question of impeachment.
Do you think it is because they are waiting to use this at the proper time? Election time?
~ Awane Jones, Montreal, Canada
Jason Leopold replies:
Unfortunately, sir, the Democrats have an extremely weak leadership and they lack a sound agenda. They are afraid that by questioning the president they risk losing their own reelections into office.
Mike Ewens Replies
Back in the first half of the 1970's, President Nixon was hounded out of office, because a sleazy burglary operation at the Watergate Hotel was bungled and it was traced back to the White House. Compared to the present administration's mendacious and irresponsible foreign policy (based on lies and deceit), which continues to endanger America and brings death to Americans, the Watergate thing was a fraternity prank. Why aren't the media types, as well as Congress, pressing for impeachment of the President and a restoration of the Constitution? It's time.
Associate Editor Mike Ewens replies:
We advocate a focused approach to change: work on the next election, protest against further intervention, etc. The impeachment process – beyond being highly unlikely – will take time (too much time!). If successful, it will result in new and more hawkish president... President Cheney.
I am very concerned about an article in the Arizona Republic published on this Friday, July the 11th of 2003. The article is about a local soldier's experience in Iraq. The article was meant to be picture into the US experience over there, but I believe one quote could be an admission to war crimes, or at the least, needs to be investigated. Here is the quote ... :
"Traveling back through the city, their vehicle came under attack and struck a pole. The men carried the wounded out of the vehicle and to the refuge of a house.
Martin won't talk about what happened inside the house. He says he'll probably never want to talk about that. He says they 'cleared' it."
This incident that this Marine, Jared Martin, is conveniently brushed aside as an incident he doesn't want to talk about. To me it sounds like an admission that they may have killed innocent men, women, and children to occupy a house. I think there should be an investigation into this thing the Marine does not want to talk about. If you agree with me, maybe you have the ability to bring this to light.
Mike Ewens replies:
I can see how you can infer that they killed the whole family, but it just as easy to assume that the troops fired warning shots and scared the family away. I don't want to infer something so drastic from such an ambiguous quote.
David Batlle: Given your position that 9/11 was caused by U.S. interventionism and the embargo of Iraq, how do you explain Islamofascist violence against non-American targets and even against fellow Muslims? How do you explain the massacre in Quetta, Pakistan of 45 Shiites at a mosque WHILE WORSHIPPING? Why does it seem like your brand of enlightened humanitarianism is nothing more than just good old fashioned anti-Americanism? Are the Shiites also as evil as George Bush that they should merit their mosques bombed and people massacred? I look forward to your enlightened response.
Mike Ewens: As you stated, my explanation concerns attacks on America. The story you quote explains:
"The attack on Friday was the first use of a suicide bomber in Pakistan's bitter sectarian conflict between extremist Shiite and Sunni Muslims."
I never argued that all violence done by the Islamic world was in response to US military intervention and foreign policy. Terrorism has many roots, and I don't see how this story discredits my explanation of it vis-à-vis the US. With regard to this violence, I have to plead ignorance.... perhaps they hate each other, perhaps they had too much to drink or maybe they thought God told them to do it.
DB: Why does it seem like your brand of enlightened humanitarianism is nothing more than just good old fashioned anti-Americanism? Are the Shiites also as evil as George Bush that they should merit their mosques bombed and people massacred?
ME: How does this follow!?! I am not anti-American, I am ANTI-AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY. Why do you equate patriotism with a blind allegiance to all actions and rhetoric of the State? Patriotism is a loyalty to the country (not the government) and to the ideals on which it was founded.
DB: What policies in particular are you referring to? US troops on "sacred" Saudi soil? bases in the Gulf? Support of non-theocratic governments in the middle east? support Israel? Kicking Saddam out of Kuwait?
WHICH POLICIES ARE SO EVIL THAT THEY DESERVE 9/11? Isn't it true that we had 9/11 "coming to us"?
Regardless, should we allow Islamic blackmail and violence to determine our policies? Does the Phillipines allow such blackmail? India? Egypt? Israel? China?
ME: I never said that we deserved the attacks! As Gene Callahan trenchantly explains:
"The mode of historical discourse is that of just such explanations. The historian qua historian is not concerned with the morality of a course of action. He is concerned with explaining why that course of action, and not some other, actually was chosen. The result of his efforts is a coherent narrative that describes how historical events arose from various actors' understanding of their circumstances.
"Moral justification does not concern itself with such explanations, but, instead, with whether or not some action conformed to a tradition of moral practice. A genuine moral justification must attempt to show that the person defended really was acting in accordance with the relevant moral rules.
"For example, an historical narrative tracing the roots of World War II back to Versailles is not claiming that Hitler was 'caused' to act as he did. History does not deal with cause and effect, categories of the physical sciences, but with understood situations and conscious responses to them. And to construct a coherent historical narrative that explains, for instance, Hitler's hatred of Jews, in no sense excuses his actions toward Jews.
"To attack every effort at historical understanding as moral equivocation is not mere intellectual confusion. If we fail to comprehend our historical situation, we condemn ourselves to fighting with our eyes closed. As Edward Said says, 'Intellectually, morally, politically such an attitude is disastrous since the equation between understanding and condoning is profoundly wrong…'"
Sorry for the long quote, but this article has had a significant impact on my mode of discourse with war-supporters. You appear to believe that the historical explanation should focus on the apparent blind hatred "Islamofascists" (neocon term... please define) have towards the US.
DB: Perhaps if you turned your considerable powers of scrutiny away from "Bush" for just a few moments and instead towards the Islamofascists, then you'd realize that even if America became the Liberal utopia you wished it were (or whatever you are), they'd STILL HATE US because they hate just about everybody. (Yes, I know Antiwar.com is "libertarian.")
ME: I think that last statement is a bit of a hasty generalization (granted I don't understand what an Islamofacists is... is it any Muslim who hates everybody?). I will grant that some militant Arabs hate the US. I have no quarrel with punishing those who aggress or intend to aggress upon us. I do quarrel with indiscriminately bombing Iraq and Afghanistan – subsequently killing innocents – on a supposed mission to rid the world of evildoers.
(I wish that America would become a classic liberal Utopia – tiny government, few taxes, free markets... etc.)
Scott Malensek: I'm working on a book that will highlight the positive and powerful future of nonviolent protest in the present and future.
I've been stumped by an argument that I can't seem to work around, perhaps you can help. It's come up that the Declaration of Independence and the writings of Thomas Paine declare that all men are created equal and endowed by the creator with certain inalienable, basic human rights among them are life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
My book will create a political struggle between Slovenia and Austria in which the human rights mentioned above will become the basis for an argument in support for US intervention. It will be remotely similar to the Iraq war particularly in the media debate presentation. Anyway, I'm having a tough time arguing with that basic human rights thing.
Mike Ewens: Principled/ Historical: The Constitution doesn't give the US government the power or responsibility to "liberate" foreigners. Also, when the US engages in an action abroad, its citizens are implicitly a part of that action (we fund it). Who is to say the government has the right to fight "evils" in my name... with my money?
SM: I don't know how to argue that those human rights only extend to Americans, i.e. the non violent protesting Slovenians in my book should be left to massacre instead of US protection.
Do you have any suggestions as to how detractors of my fictitious war might argue against US intervention even in the face of the human rights argument?
ME: You don't have to say that, merely say that the US government is not the guarantor of "human rights." If anything, it is the guarantor of American rights. The impracticality (see below) of not using this principle will inevitably lead to never-ending intervention and war, and a US government distracted by foreign intervention will fail at its main task of securing the rights of its own citizens.
Empirical: government fails at everything! How do we know that it effectively solve "human rights violations" in a foreign land? Moreover, government intervention leads to more intervention: occupation and nation-building (read: management of society).
When you begin advocating "liberating" intervention, you encounter a problem of definitions. Is it a "human rights violation" that China is communist? Is it a "human rights violation" that I don't make a "living wage"? etc. ....Obviously a slippery slope...
Regarding William Clough's letter posted July 3:
What you suggest was almost practiced in Firenze, Italy before the Medici family got absolute power over the city. Each of the city's 21 guilds put the names of their member in a sack per guild then they drew two names from each guild for the government for a period of two months.
Regarding the David Batlle/ Mike Ewens dialog posted July 10:
It seems to me that Texan Batlle was treated with excessive, almost conniving, softness by Mike Ewens. Plenty of materials from von Sponeck and Halliday (see e.g.Kathy Kellys' post of February 28, 2002). Indeed, Madeline Albright herself was happy to accept the figure of half a million dead being worth it.
Mr (Dr.?) Batlle seems to think that a state under siege (and sanctions on any scale are an explicit, not an implicit, act of war) has no right or duty to expand its power, or probability of doing so, whether through methods of military defense or increasing its prestige. And this from an unrepentant defender of the US State, one of the most bloated and powerful and omnipresent states in the history of the world.
The trick of Batlle, Blair etc. is to trap your enemy into a corner, force him/ her to do wicked things, and then pretend it is all the enemy's fault. Since 1991 USUK measures constituted Iraq as the largest concentration camp in the world, with Saddam Hussein as the Kapo.
The dead babies parades were a reasonable enough publicity device in the circumstances. Good for the Iraqis for their resilience and imagination.
And if Mr Batlle had listened to American doctors reporting some politically sensitive issue under the 'tyrannical heel' of Sana Anna, he would have automatically supposed they are telling the truth! Has he never heard of 'torture lite' and the policy of referring US-held captives to states still more barbarous, when the US Master Race feels too 'civilized' to use the genital electrodes on its victims for itself? Perhaps he can refer us to reliable reports, since in spite of frequent searches I have seen none of these.
I pay credit to Ewens and Antiwar.com when they reply in such kind and detailed ways to such moral monsters as Mr Battle and others.
Non-Americans do read this site quite carefully (should I write Unamericans?) and support not only for Troops Out of Iraq but also for the Iraqi patriotic resistance forces seems to me to be growing throughout a lot of the world.
The proposed government lynching of Moazzam Beg and Feroze Abbasi is not winning the US or the UK governments any friends in Britain. Perhaps Mr Batlle thinks that if he fawns enough on his government he will be exempt from their persecution.
Regarding "Conscription Is Slavery" by Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX):
I am a lifelong Republican and agree with most of your opinions regarding the takeover by the Neocons. I think that they are a present and real danger to our freedoms and our Country. However, as a World War II veteran of an Infantry division in Europe, I strongly feel that a draft to fill the ranks of our military is very important, for two reasons:
1. An all-volunteer, professional military is considered by many to be the personal property of the Commander-in-Chief, and is his to send where and when he chooses. There is a disconnect between these troops and the typical American, who seems to think "they knew what they were getting to when they joined up", eliminating a lot of the clamor that we saw as helping to end the Viet Nam mess. Would bet that, if the forces in Iraq were mostly conscripts, the howl from our public would be heard loud and clear in Washington, and would get results.
2. I feel that the pain and burden of a war should be felt by all of the People, not just those who, for the most part found the military the best chance for a job or to receive a way to got to college. Many great empires, over the ages, have been done in by professional soldiers, who were the instruments of the State, with no loyalty to their own people back home, but loyal only to those in power.
Citizen soldiers fight, knowing that they will, if they are lucky, return to live in and help govern the nation they are fighting for!
~ Ralph Simpson, Tulsa, Oklahoma
Praise to the Protesters
We should all give praise to the protesters, the "Moralists" – who stood against this criminal administration, it took a lot of guts to do this in the face of a media that manipulated our society. Now that the lies are being exposed from the Bush War Party, and investigations are being implemented, it was the protesters who said it all along, "We don't want your war!" Now that Bush and Rumsfeld are on hot seats on the defensive explaining the lies that so fluidly came out of their loose cannon mouths, it was the protesters who said, "No blood for oil!"
The Iraqi civilian death toll is now counted as a legitimate 6,000 men, women and children, and this is not including the civilians dying from starvation, poisoning and disease, from the hell that US bombs turned that country into. Today (July 10, 2003), two more US soldiers were killed in an ambush in Iraq, death toll climbing . Give it up to the Protesters, "the humanitarians, the ones who knew, the ones who were not fooled, the ones who really cared!"
Neocon Funnies
I
just had to share this quote from our Minister of Peace, Herr
Rumsfeld:
Appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Rumsfeld cited "recent reports of Iranians moving some of their border posts along about a 25 kilometre stretch several kilometres inside of Iraq."
He said that was "obviously not being respectful of Iraq's sovereignty. Certainly that is behaviour that is not acceptable and they should be staying on their own side of the border."
Yes, 'they' should respect national sovereignty. We have always respected it, just ask Iran, think 1953 (wink wink).
Regarding "Rumsfeld's Rules" by Heather Wokusch:
Excellent article!
This arrogant secretary of defense is a disgrace! I have a son in Iraq right now and if anything were to happen to him, I can honestly say that I would not know why he was there in the first place. I'm not stupid, naive and ignorant enough to believe all this unbelievable rhetoric coming out of DC. This country is in trouble!
We are headed by a bunch of mean-spirited, phony and secretive megalomaniacs.
Thanks for letting me vent.
Regarding "What Happened to Conservatives?" by Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX):
First, I would like to say that I just visited your forum and realized that as in every forum where the war in Iraq and Bush Administration policies have been discussed in my presence it seems most pro-war/ pro-Bush postings are informed by emotion rather than facts, much like the "information" provided to the public by the Bush Administration itself. I appreciate your well-informed website and will continue to visit often so I am able to converse intelligently with my emotional friends and family.
Concerning the views of Rep. Ron Paul: I wish thousands who consider themselves to be conservatives could read all of his postings on your site. He seems to be the only truly intelligent conservative voice in all of the federal government. Although I do not always agree with him, I always respect his well thought out and well expressed ideas. I look forward to seeing more postings from Ron Paul on your website.
Rep. Ron Paul of Texas asks: “How could liberals be satisfied? They are pleased with the centralization of education and medical programs in Washington and support many of the administration's proposals.”
I’m a liberal, and I don’t support a damn thing this administration has done—not a damn thing. Preemptive wars? No. Privatization of federal services? No. Affronts to civil liberties? No. Huge media conglomerates? No. Fiscally insane tax cuts? No. Bloated deficits? No. This “assault weapons” ban? Having respect for the Constitution and all of its Amendments, I can no more support infringement on free speech as those against the right to bear arms. And privacy and abortion issues—it just goes on and on.
There are more people on your side than you realize. This next election is important. Those that feel the way you do—if we can bear sensible compromise—might look into the candidacy of Howard Dean. He has a libertarian streak which suits me; maybe it’ll suit others, as well.
We may be an odd or unlikely medley of folks, but with the interests of America foremost, here we are.
Regarding "Bogus from the Beginning" by Justin Raimondo:
First, let me say that I, too, am an "old-fashioned Populist", which in real "old" times meant, essentially a Libertarian-Socialist of the Free Market variety. Today, to separate ourselves from the Quixotic Libertarians, and the Dreaming Control Freak Socialists, we believe in Individual Freedom/ Social Responsibility.
Second, let be say again how much I admire Antiwar.com, and Justin Raimondo, right along with Ron Paul and Charlie Reese – perhaps even more because of his unbelievable energy and enthusiasms.
Now to the bricks: To even give credence to Coulter, a Slock [sic] Shock Media Hooker if ever there was one, is appalling. There were, and are, many millions of Socialists in the US from the 1890s to present – of Communists, there were many millions of sympathisers, and hundreds of thousands of actual True Believers in the 1930s, '40s and 50s. Everyone knew this. I knew it as a high school kid in the '50s.
People, believing they had a right of free thought and expression, particularly the Socialists, but even some Communists, openly said so. It is a fact that perhaps the most compelling cause of the creation of Social Security, and many programs was the Establishment fear of these very numbers.
For Coulter to make of this a great Mystery, like the unsuspected presences of Vampires, is ridiculous. And I am sorry that Mr. Raimondo seems to agree. ...
Dr. Paul has the right of it. He understands the Socialism of the "Grange", and I hope will in future differentiate it from the International Fascist/ Socialism of the Neo Con Elitism of the Chosen Few. I ask that Mister Raimondo dwell on the difference for a while. McCarthy made no distinction. If the Libertarians fail to make this distinction, then Libertarianism, with all its admirable qualities, is doomed to wander forever in the political wilderness. There are few Libertarians. There are millions and millions of Libertarian-Socialists, though they, perhaps, know it not. They only know that neither Libertarians nor Socialists of the Neo-Con variety can govern effectively.
Libertarian-Socialists of the old school, primarily active in the Midwest and to a lesser extent, the South, were not newcomers to America. They were farmers, teachers, workers, doctors and lawyers whose families had dwelt in American for generations.
I honestly thought I would not write a letter even mildly critical of a man whom I truly admire, but the Chasm between the two most needed political groups in the US, if not the world must not be deepened. It must be bridged. It is my earnest hope that Antiwar.com, and its contributors, will help build that bridge.
My congratulations on your recovery, Mr. Raimondo. The country needs you.
Lies? So what?!
There ain't nothin' we're gonna do about it cause there's nothing we can do about it.
Its over, done, stick a fork in it. They got what they wanted and they'll take the heat for it. Which will consist of nothing but a puny lashing by the press.
As I said before, They don't care what you write or, in the case of television, what you say.
They're already laughing there asses-off back at the country club. Nothing/ no one will or can stop "them" now.
Hey, I love the articles, but it's all so boring now. We knew this was a sham from the beginning. So put a cork in it and move on.
(What are we gonna do – elect Democrats?! PO-LEEEEZEEEEE!)
Forget about the "Q" word (quagmire) or the "V" word (Vietnam) – this is more and more bringing back the feelings and memories of the "W" word:
W
Worse than (Slick) Willie
Worse than Watergate
Osama's Demands
A few weeks after 9-11 I suggested that we simply capitulate to Osama's demands. His demands were threefold:
1) Pullback
all US troops from Saudi Arabia
2) Lift Sanctions on Iraq
3) Neutral Stance on Israel-Palestine conflict
Since, the War Party is pulling out our troops from Saudi and has arranged for sanctions to be lifted from Iraq, there is only one outstanding demand to be met. Namely that we take on neutral stance on Israel Palestine conflict.
One may surmise that there is a Al Qaeda mole among the White House neo-cons carefully manipulating Bush 'the lesser'.
~ Max Sinclair, New York, New York
Regarding "We've Been Neo-Conned" by Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX):
Rep. Paul may have a strong case against the neo-cons, but that against Leo Strauss as a promoter of Machiavelli is exceedingly weak. The first sentence of Strauss's Thoughts on Machiavelli reads:
"We shall not shock anyone, we shall merely expose ourselves to good-natured or at any rate harmless ridicule, if we profess ourselves inclined to the old-fashioned and simple opinion according to which Machiavelli was a teacher of evil."
The rest of the book continues in the same vein. To write a book on Machiavelli is not to endorse the thinker, much less the thoughts but to understand their appeal, and thus their danger, to liberty and other important goals of representative government.
Read before you leap, a good piece of advice for the Representative.
Regarding "Mosaic of Lies" by Justin Raimondo:
When oh when do you all wake up, smell the coffee, and realize that you don't go to war without a reason, and you don't lie about the reason unless it shames you to state it?
Saying we went to war to please Israel is as stupid as saying we went to war to get even with Saddam for trying to hit Poppy Bush. And we all know we didn't go to war to rid the world of the threat of Saddam's wmds because there were none.
Sherlock Holmes did the same thing as you people: eliminate everything which is impossible and what you have left is the answer.
I like cutting to the chase and getting on with it myself: oil was, is, and ever will be the only reason for GOP led soldiers to go into battle; every time Clinton or anyone else wanted to do battle for humanitarian reasons, the GOP said no, no, a thousand times no, we have no NATIONAL INTEREST in that region. They then added that we had no plan, and no satisfactory EXIT STRATEGY.
Here's our national interest: oil. Here's our plan: get the oil. Here's our exit strategy: leave when the oil peters out.
~ Sam Snedegar