May 2004

May 25, 2004

Mark His Words

Brig. General Mark Kimmit's reaction to the surfacing of a videotape seeming to demonstrate that the gathering which the "coalition" bombed the shit out of last week was indeed a wedding party -- "There may have been some kind of celebration. Bad people have celebrations, too." -- is the pull-quote of the day (maybe even of the month).

But check out some of Kimmit's other words of wisdom:

• At this point, we have seen really nothing that causes us to change our minds. That's why we need to get as much evidence as possible and hand it to the investigators.

• Day after day after day as we continue to get more evidence in ... it is pretty clear to us that what happened that night -- from after midnight to about 0400 -- that the activities that we saw on the ground were somewhat inconsistent with a wedding party.

In other words, at the time it layed the attack the "coalition" had no idea what was going on at the gathering. (Hell, it even claimed, at the time, that it had blown up a suspected safe house for Syrian fighters.)

Hey, asshole: what the fuck happens if the "investigators" corroborate the survivors' and the videotape's account? Do the 45 people you massacred -- including many women and children -- magically come back to life? No? Then why the fuck didn't you gather your evidence before dropping your bombs?

And what the fuck is "somewhat inconsistent" supposed to mean? That it probably was a wedding party, but we can't be 100% sure yet? That the activities were "somewhat inconsistent" for an American wedding party? Maybe that's because it wasn't an American wedding party. Huhn!

• What we found on the ground and our post-strike analysis suggests that what we had was a significant foreign fighter smuggler waystation in the middle of the desert that was bringing people into this country for the sole purpose of attacking to kill the people of Iraq.

To kill the people of Iraq? The sole purpose? That's the only conceivable purpose for which "foreign fighters" (which even the U.S. military commanders claim to have seen very few of) might enter into Iraq? Not even a stray thought toward attacking the American invaders?

Ooo-kay, dude.

May 21, 2004

Them Niggers Gonna Fly!

George Bush, in a visit to House and Senate Republicans on Thursday, triumphantly announced that it's "time to take the training wheels off" of Iraq. ''The Iraqi people have been in training, and now it's time for them to take the bike and go forward.''

Stay tuned next week as Dubya proclaims the "Iraqi people" capable of wiping their own asses.

Alas, it may be time to put the training wheels back on the President's own addled mind. Despite his oratory having been "interrupted by applause 'probably dozens of times, and several standing ovations'," the events leading up to his Pennyslvania Avenue soujourn just might leave one wondering:

• The head of the Iraqi governing council was blown to smithereens early this week.

• An Iraqi wedding party -- including 15 children and 10 women -- was blown to smithereens by U.S. helicopters, following which the military upbraided critics for their "naivete" while insisting that the choppers had in fact blown up a suspected safe house for Syrian fighters.

• The "coalition" raided neocon-darling-and-heretofore-presumptive-leader-of-Free-Iraq Ahmad Chalabi's whereabouts, "seizing files and computers", and accusing him of having passed U.S. intelligence to Iran. Was it really just last month that Chalabi was receiving $340,000 per month from the American taxpayer? Heh, forget Syria and Iran, Dubya's not finished changing regimes in Iraq yet! He's up to two regime changes so far, and still counting.

• The Washington Post has obtained yet more pictures and videos of those wacky, wacky ne'er-do-well "bad apples" and their Abu Ghraib hijinks. "The new pictures and videos go beyond the photos previously released to the public in several ways, amplifying the overt violence against detainees and displaying a variety of abusive techniques previously unseen."

But never mind that. Thanks to Dubya's masterful stewardship, the brave people of Iraq (and, presumably, Palestine as well) are ready to take up their wings, and the Superbrain can retire to his ranch for several weeks while carving another notch into his magnificently outsized phallus.

Er, George? You absolutely sure you're not still just a fucking dipshit coke-head with connected parents? Because, you know, from where we're sitting, it's not so easy to tell.

Update, 5/22/04: In the few days since his Emancipation Proclamation, Dubya has apparently been stricken with a bit of Empty Nest syndrome; launching homicidal raids in Karbala, Kufa, and Najaf. Don't pack those training wheels into storage just yet.

Additionally, Dubya has demonstrated a personal need of not only metaphorical training wheels, but literal training wheels as well: "President Bush fell off his bicycle Saturday while riding on his ranch, according to White House spokesman Trent Duffy." Talk about Poetic Justice! (And, uh, the President's on vacation again? We were half-joking about the "retiring to the ranch" bit. I mean, god, at least Ronald Reagan pretended to be calling the shots.)

It should be noted, finally, that while we can't help giving Dubya the needle as frequently as humanly possible, the latest developments in Iraq are far from a laughing matter, as Juan Cole concludes:

I said the other day I thought Bush was pushing Europe to the left with his policies. I think he is at the same time pushing the Shiite world to the radical Right, and I fear my grandchildren will still be reaping the whirlwind that George W. Bush is sowing in the city of Imam Husain. I concluded in early April that Bush had lost Iraq. He has by now lost the entire Muslim world.

May 19, 2004

Uncle Dubya Wants You...

...to get your ass blown off in Iraq. And he's going to scour the country to find that ass.

After issuing stop-loss orders to prevent enlistees from retiring, extending tours of duty time and time again, increasing the frequency of those tours, and borrowing from the Korean garrison, the Bush Administration still doesn't have enough cannon fodder for its Iraq meat-grinding operations.

Now, the Bush Administration is proposing to call upon the IRS to help it "locate out-of-touch reservists":

Those in the Individual Ready Reserve are people who have completed their active-duty tours but are subject to involuntary recall for a certain number of years. For example, a soldier who serves four years on active duty remains in the IRR for another four years. The whereabouts of about 50,000 such veterans are unknown.

And the IRS, under the Pentagon's plan, would hand over their current addresses. Another triumph of small government!

What's truly amazing, though, is the incongruity with the Bush Administration's righteous rhetoric. If the Administration's "War on Terror" (of which, Iraq "was" just "one battle") were as crucially important and momentous as the Administration wants us to believe -- the very existence of Western "civilisation" at stake, yes yes -- you'd think that people would be lining up around the block to take part, right?

That we'd be a nation of Pat Tillmans, the new World War II generation. Instead, we're a nation of fucking chicken-hawks: "Track down and then send the 20-year-old wetbacks and niggers [who only joined up Uncle Sam in the first place in order to pay for college -- "No Child Left Behind", indeed] to kill and be killed, to torture and be tortured; so long as you don't interrupt my fat-assed lifestyle. God Bless America!, and wake me when it's over."

May 13, 2004

A Meeting of the Minds

It's been a really long time since the Wall Street Journal and Tricky Dick were pimping AEI-sponsored polls showing how much Iraqis love the American occupation of their country. For good reason, since, according to CPA staffer Donald Hamilton, "generally speaking, the trend is downward."

No one should ever accuse the CPA folks -- or at least Donald Hamilton -- of not having have a sense of humor. According to the latest poll conducted for the occupation, "80 percent of the Iraqis questioned reported a lack of confidence in the Coalition Provisional Authority, and 82 percent said they disapprove of the U.S. and allied militaries in Iraq."

Combine this poll with last week's Independent poll (55% of Brits in favor of pullout), and the recent NYT/CBS poll (46% of Americans in favor of a pullout), and I think I see a solution here.

May 09, 2004

The Confession

From Donald H.'s testimony:

RUMSFELD: Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, in recent days there has been a good deal of discussion about who bears responsibility for the terrible activities that took place at Abu Ghraib. These events occurred on my watch. As secretary of defense, I am accountable for them and I take full responsibility.

In the real world (especially the one promulgated by the Republican Party), taking "full responsibility" for a crime means accepting punishment. TheTaguba report explicitly references the Geneva Conventions in outlining the crimes committed in the U.S.-run "prison" system in Iraq.

Donald H. Rumsfeld has accepted "full responsibility" for these crimes -- war crimes, that is. Crimes for which responsible parties have in the past been hanged.

This blogger is opposed to Capital Punishment. But here we have, by his own admission, the man responsible for the commission of war crimes. Somehow, the debate over whether Rumsfeld should resign, as opposed to being packed off to gaol, seems a little inappropriate.

When somebody admits to having committed a horrifying and brutal crime, it isn't exactly standard operating procedure to say, "Well, thank you for your honesty. Have a nice day."

Okay, well, it kind of is standard operating procedure for white collar criminals, or progeny of powerful people, or Rush Limbaugh. But this is a new era, dammit! We believe in morals, now. We believe in family values, now. We're tough on crime, now. We don't coddle criminals, now. We left all that shit behind when we ran the liberals out of office.

Uh, right?

May 06, 2004

Chastened?

After three-plus years of never having to say it was sorry, never having to acknowledge having made a mistake, never having to listen to "focus groups" when formulating policy, one would have thought that the Bush Administration would finally, now, exhibit some modicum of contrition -- if only for political purposes.

Instead, what has been the Administration's reaction to the Abu Ghraib scandal?

• Insisting that the abuses were localised events, the work of a few bad apples, which does not represent the "99%" of the military which has comported itself with the utmost honor and dignity. This despite the now-infamous (and now widely available) report from on of the military's own generals decrying the systemic and widespread nature of the abuses. And this despite the many testimonials from former detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo evidencing the widespread nature of the Americans' "interrogation" techniques.

• Lecturing "people in Iraq" that they "need to understand" that "what took place in that prison does not represent America that I know," while self-righteously proclaiming that U.S. military "justice" hasn't sunk to the level of Saddam's depravities (there's setting yourself a lofty standard!) -- even while Iraqis themselves attest that, "Saddam Hussein may have oppressed us but he was better than the Americans. They are garbage," and that, "We now look back at Saddam's era with nostalgia. He was a good leader. There was security. We hope he comes back," and that, "I hated Saddam so much that when the Americans came, I viewed them as liberators. I was happy and supported them. But soon it became clear that they are no liberators but occupiers."

• Refusing even to apologise for the indignities. Here's Scottie McClellan explaining, to an unusually hostile White House Press Corps, why not:

Q Scott, getting back to the apology issue that Mark raised, did you mean to say that the President didn't apologize because -- he didn't address that issue because no one brought it up in either interview?

Q Shouldn't an apology be at the President's forethought, not you saying it?

• Trying to downplay the magnitude of the crimes. In the words of Donald H. Rumsfeld: "I think that -- I'm not a lawyer. My impression is that what has been charged thus far is abuse, which I believe technically is different from torture."

• Apparently determined to prove McClellan's profundity, from the same Press Conference noted above, that, "There are people in this world who are killers," launching its "first major assault against Shiite insurgents" in the hoping "we can put enough pressure on them to break their will to stay in Karbala," while killing 40 people.

• Playing election-year politics even while the world reels in the wake of the torture revelations.

• Refusing to acknowledge the deep wellspring of resentment of the American adventure in Iraq. Let's return to McClellan one last time.

And I would remind you that what we are accomplishing in those countries is providing people with hope and opportunity, and it's going to the root causes of terrorism, which thrives on despair and poverty. And we're working on those fronts to bring about more stability in that region and bring about hope for people in those regions, so that we can win the war on terrorism.

The general impression of the Administration's crisis "management" is that it was too little too late. More like rubbing salt in the wounds, wouldn't you say?

May 04, 2004

They Could Be Heroes

This blogger has previously dealt with the absolute absurdity of the unchallengeable supposition that American troops engaged in overseas wars are "defending our freedoms". By my estimation, such a claim could not reasonably be made regarding any of this country's overseas wars.

But you know who might be "defending our freedoms", even while our fat asses sit on the sofa and imbibe in the likes of Janet Jackson and American Idol? How about the Iraqi resistance?

The resistance has stopped the Empire cold in its tracks. What was expected to be the easiest of routs has instead turned, with head-spinning rapidity, into the stickiest of quagmires.

One year ago, the only talk on the lips of the chicken-hawk elite was, "Who's next?" Should we go after Syria first, then Iran -- or the other way around? Should we pick off Castro before the election, or after? Another try at toppling the democratically elected government of Venezuela?

Now, of course, the only talk is of how well and truly fucked is the occupation of Iraq.

Had the Iraqis lain down in the face of the overwhelming onslaught of the Empire, allowing the United States to then attempt to tighten and extend its grip upon the Middle East, one can assume the Bush Administration would have been emboldened to try the same on the home front following the simple formality of the November '04 plebiscite. Even more eviscerations of civil liberties, even more tax cuts, even more environmental depredations, even more niggers locked up in prison, even more insipid triumphalism.

The Administration instead finds itself embroiled in a seemingly endless series of scandals, and sees its attempts at socio-cultural engineering blocked at many turns while it fights for its very political life.

This is not to say that it won't be able to tighten its grip over the "homeland". The power of the state is still pretty enormous, and if nothing else, the Bush-ites do still control the voting machines.

But one sure couldn't blame members of the Iraqi resistance for replying to this argument by belting out some good old-fashioned Minor Threat:

At least I'm fucking trying
What the fuck have you done?

May 03, 2004

Game Over

On Sunday, in the wake of the row over the Abu Ghraib pics, blogger/history professor Juan Cole wrote:

I really wonder whether, with the emergence of these photos, the game isn't over for the Americans in Iraq. Is it realistic, after the bloody siege of Fallujah and the Shiite uprising of early April, and in the wake of these revelations, to think that the US can still win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi Arab public?

Regular readers of Cole's obligatory blog know he's being coy. Of course the game is over for the Americans in Iraq, and Cole knows it.

But, in fact, the game was over before it even started. Was anyone ignorant or arrogant enough to think an American army could invade and occupy an Islamic country in the heart of the Mideast and have it not be a quagmire? OK. Sorry. Dumb question.

The Iraq Adventure is a failure. Not one more American should die, or be widowed, or be without a father, or be without legs, or be psychologically traumatized for this Mother of all Mistakes.