zeyad at Healing Iraq has a bitter comment about the American version of justice in Iraq.
If you’ve never heard zeyad’s story about the death of his cousin at the hands of American soldiers, it is here.
Instamonger calls this “misconduct,” but because zeyad is generally pro-invasion he generously allows that perhaps a reprimand is not sufficient for murdering an Iraqi by making him jump off Tharthar dam into the Tigris in January.
The only new idea in Duhbya’s latest speech is being rejected by the Iraqi Puppet Council as a “waste of resources.”
“We must not be sentimental,” Ghazi Mashal Ajil al-Yawer told reporters. “As the Governing Council, we do not agree with demolishing it and the matter will be left for the transitional government,” which is scheduled to take office June 30.
He called the idea of destroying the prison “a waste of resources.”
Really, the best idea for what to do with the tainted Abu Ghraib torture facility I’ve seen is William Lind’s:
Colonel John Boyd said that the greatest weakness a person or a nation can have at the highest level of war, the moral level, is a contradiction between what they say and what they do. From that I think follows the basic definition of psyops in Fourth Generation war: psyops are not what you say, but what you do.
If we look at the war in Iraq through that lens, we quickly see a number of psyops we could have undertaken, but did not. For example, what if instead locating the CPA in Saddam’s old palace in Baghdad and putting Iraqi prisoners in his notorious Abu Ghraib prison, we had located the CPA in Abu Ghraib and put the prisoners in Saddam’s palace? That would have sent a powerful message.
How about Abu Ghraib as the new American Embassy? That new castle they’re building in downtown Baghdad (Lounsbury describes it in the linked post) could be the new torture detention facility.
Check out Sydney Blumenthal’s new article in Salon. Blumenthal writes, “FBI agents have begun paying quiet calls on prominent neoconservatives, who are being interviewed in an investigation of potential espionage, according to intelligence sources. Who gave Ahmed Chalabi classified information about the plans of the U.S. government and military?”
Ok, I wouldn’t wish a government thug investigation on anyone, even a neocon. Really. But, as Kos puts it, “So will the neocons get their comeuppance? Probably not. But there is a sort of delicious irony in seeing these assholes, who for so long screamed “treason!” at anyone who opposed their foolish plans, suddenly become the subject of an espionage investigation.
So next time any Bush apologist questions your patriotism, ask right back — ‘Who sold out our nation to an ‘Axis of Evil’ spy? Heck, who invited this spy to the State of the Union Addresss?‘ It wasn’t the anti-war crowd.”
Hesiod on an odd omission from the US “Most Wanted Terrorists” list.
See if you can tell who’s missing before you click here.
From Dahr Jamail’s Iraq Dispatches.
The policeman says that all of them were made to stay inside the station while U.S. soldiers occupied the roof. “This is why I can say definitely yes, it was the Americans who shot Mr. Abrahim, and not Iraqi Police, because none of us were even allowed on the roof,” he says firmly.
He adds that he personally has on his desk between 150-200 files of incidents where U.S. occupation forces have killed innocent Iraqis, and that several other Iraqi Policemen at his station have a similar number. He lets out a deep breath and says, “There are so many people the Americans have shot.”…. read more
The US is apparently going to choose Iraq’s interim government rather than the UN.
Let’s play their game. Asked whether the US would have veto power over the candidates it didn’t like who were presented by Brahimi for the new Iraqi interim govt, a State Department spokesman said that Bremer and Blackwill would make sure those candidates don’t get on the list to begin with!
