World at war, “mad as hell”

Week's News, Opinion

Troubled relations — U.S. at home and abroad

Compiled and edited, minor comment by Carolyn Bennett

U.S.-LED

WAR DEAD?

Casualty sites reporting February 20, 2011

(Accurate totals unknown)

• Anti-war dot com latest update February 19, 2011

U.S. Casualties in Iraq since March 19, 2003

[U.S. war dead since the Obama inauguration January 20, 2009: 210]

American Wounded Official Estimated

Total wounded 32,978 - over 100000

U.S. veterans with brain injuries 320,000

Suicides estimated: 18 a day

http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/

• Iraq Body Count—Documented civilian deaths from violence figures:

99,712 – 108,865 

http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

• ICasualties figures:

IRAQ: 4,438 U.S., 4,756 Coalition

AFGHANISTAN: 1,476 U.S., 2,334 Coalition

http://icasualties.org/oif/

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

January 19 Wisconsin

Fifty-five thousand people on Saturday in Madison, Wisconsin, continued weeklong demonstrations protesting legislation aimed at breaking unions. The state’s governor, Scott Walker, wants state workers to increase contributions to pensions to 5.8 percent of salary and double contributions to health insurance premiums to 12.6 percent. His proposal would limit collective bargaining to wage issues and cap increases to the rate of inflation.

Continuing a national movement to break unions, the governor’s proposal would end government collection of union dues and require unions to hold annual recertification votes. Wisconsin is considered the flashpoint for a U.S. struggle over efforts to roll back pay, benefits and bargaining rights of government workers.

In their protest demonstrations, opponents chanted, “Kill the bill.”

IRAQ

February 18 Basra

Around 1,000 people demonstrated in Iraq’s second largest city on Friday demanding “better service delivery from the government, jobs and improved pensions.”

Anti-government protesters have rallied in various parts of the country against corruption, poor basic services and high unemployment. Protests occurred in the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq and in the southern city of Nasiriyah and elsewhere in the country.

Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, said on Thursday that peaceful protests were the right of all Iraqis and warned that those inciting violence would be brought to justice. Injury of 47 people and 1 death among protesters in the southern city of Kut prompted Human Rights Watch to call for an “‘independent and transparent investigation.’”

February 16 Kut

Three protesters died and thirty people suffered wounds when security forces clashed with protesters in a southern Iraqi province. Among the dead was a 16-year-old boy who had taken a bullet in the chest.

Demonstrators of around 2,000 were demanding that Latif Hamad al-Tarfa, the provincial governor, resign over poor basic services such as electricity and water.

Protesters threw rocks and took over a provincial council building in Kut in Wasit province. Three government buildings including the governor’s official residence were set on fire.

AFGHANISTAN

February 20 Kabul

The International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan said Sunday, according to United Press International, that they are investigating allegations that 50 (est.) civilians were killed by coalition forces in Kunar province. The ISAF said its information on the operations, which occurred at night in a remote area, was that thirty-six armed insurgents died in the incident. 

Foreign forces withheld details on the reported deaths.

February 19 Jalalabad

Eighteen (est.) people (mostly civilians) died Saturday when Taliban attackers reportedly struck a branch of the Kabul Bank in Jalalabad. Robbery was not the motive. “The incident follows a pattern of recent Taliban attacks in major Afghan cities, including a police station in Kandahar, and a shopping center in Kabul. The Kabul Bank had been implicated in government corruption and almost went under last year over loans to well-connected shareholders.”

February 18 Baghlan province

Three German soldiers died Friday when a shooter opened fire on troops in Afghanistan’s northern Baghlan province. The shooter, apparently a member of Afghan security forces, also died in the exchange of fire. The shootings occurred shortly after a visit to the region by Germany’s defense minister.

Six hundred (est.) German troops are stationed in Baghlan, which is considered one of the most dangerous areas in Afghanistan. Five German soldiers died last year in the province. Germany deploys 4,800 troops in Afghanistan, the third largest foreign force behind the U.S. and Britain. Since the start of the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, 48 German soldiers have died.

February 12 Kandahar

Nineteen people (among them 15 police officers, one intelligence officer and 3 civilians) along with three bombers died in an attack by Taliban fighters and suicide bombers. Among the wounded were two police officers, two members of the National Intelligence Directorate, and 25 civilians.

PAKISTAN

February 15 Lahore

U.S. Senator John Kerry has apologized for killings in Pakistan. In his position as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Kerry “delivered the apology after arriving in Pakistan on Tuesday to resolve a diplomatic row over a U.S. employee, Raymond Davis.

Davis killed two Pakistanis in the eastern city of Lahore on January 27 and afterwards claimed “self-defense.” A third Pakistani died when struck by a U.S. diplomatic vehicle that came to Davis’s assistance.

Many Pakistanis have been suspicious about Davis, who was arrested with loaded weapons and a GPS satellite-tracking device. U.S. authorities have been vague as to his role in Pakistan.

The U.S. president had earlier “urged Pakistan to free Davis, insisting that he was not ‘callous’ about the shooting that led to the U.S. employee’s arrest.”

The U.S. government pressured Pakistan’s government to free Davis, triggering a new flare-up in anti-U.S. sentiment in the South Asian nation, and put off three-way talks with Pakistan and Afghanistan that were due to be held next week.

Claiming “diplomatic immunity” for Davis, the U.S. president said without this cover “diplomats who ‘deliver tough messages to countries where we disagree with them’ will ‘start being vulnerable to prosecution locally.’”

U.S. v. UNITED NATIONS and

PALESTINE

February 19

The United States on Friday vetoed a UN Security Council resolution that would have condemned Israeli settlements as ‘illegal’ and called for an immediate halt to all settlement building.

All 14 other Security Council members voted in favor of the resolution. The veto by the U.S. president “is certain to anger Arab countries and Palestinian supporters around the world.”

Since 2000, one or more of the five permanent members (Peoples Republic of China, France, the Russian Federation, United Kingdom, and United States), of the UN Security Council have vetoed fourteen Security Council Resolutions. Ten of those vetoes were United States vetoes, nine of which related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Arab MIDDLE EAST

Uprisings, “America’s Horse” February 7

“‘America’s horse’ is the Arab leader who is backed by the United States and given license to rule however he deems appropriate, as long as he doesn’t threaten Israel’s security or other American interests in the region. In return, [the Arab leader] is allowed to abuse human rights and deny his people economic and political rights. With America’s sanction, and under the banner of fighting Islamic fundamentalism, [the leader] can crush any opposition that arises.…

“[Now] a wave of popular uprisings in the Middle East is sending a clear message to those in power — and those who aspire to be in power — in the Arab world. Together with the release of several sets of leaked secret documents, they are making it clear that one should never bet on America’s horse.”

Leadership discredited — “…The United States and Western countries must reconsider their approach toward the regimes of the Middle East. It will no longer suffice for America’s horse to use the banner of moderation and Western values, and the need to fight Islamists, to crush all opposition. After all, everyone in the Arab world knows that this is not how America chooses its own leaders and treats its own political opposition.

“…The U.S. needs to think long and hard about its interests in the region, through the prism of the wants and needs of the Arab masses— not by gambling and hedging bets on this or that American horse. …The lesson to be learned is that America’s horse can’t win the race. …”

“Mad as hell” MIDDLE EAST

February 6

“Whether Islamist or secularist, any government of ‘of the people’ will turn against the neoliberal economic policies that have enriched regional elites while forcing half or more of the population to live below the $2 per day poverty line. …

They will no longer turn a blind eye, or even support, Israel’s occupation and siege across the Occupied Palestinian territories.

“They will most likely shirk from spending a huge percentage of their national income on a bloated military and weapons systems that serve to enrich western defense companies and prop up autocratic governments, rather than bringing stability and peace to their countries — and the region as a whole.…

“[I]f the revolutions of 2011 succeed, they will force the creation of a very different regional and world system than the one that has dominated the global political economy for decades, especially since the fall of communism. This system could bring the peace and relative equality that has so long been missing globally — but it will do so in good measure by further eroding the position of the United States and other ‘developed’ or ‘mature’ economies. If Obama, Sarkozy, Merkel and their colleagues do not figure out a way to live with this scenario, while supporting the political and human rights of the peoples of the Middle East and North Africa, they will wind up with an adversary far more cunning and powerful than al-Qaeda could ever hope to be. More than 300 million newly empowered Arabs who are mad as hell and are not going to take it any more.”

Sources and notes

“Ideologies clash in Wisconsin — Competing protests draw thousands in flashpoint US state over bid to roll back pay and union rights of government staff,” February 20, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2011/02/20112201564409366.html

“Fresh protests hit Iraqi cities — Reports of deaths as thousands turn out to demand better service delivery and jobs from government,” February 18, 2011,

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/02/2011218104510878522.html

“Iraqis attack government offices — Three people killed in clashes with security forces as protesters break into public offices and set buildings on fire,” February 16, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/02/2011216114058147154.html

“Possible Afghan civilian deaths probed,” February 20, 2011, http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2011/02/20/Possible-Afghan-civilian-deaths-probed/UPI-65521298223603/

Also: “Kabul blast kills, wounds several,” January 12, 2011,http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2011/01/12/Kabul-blast-kills-wounds-several/UPI-97371294834707/

“Taliban kill 18 in Afghan bank attack,” February 19, 2011, http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2011/02/19/Taliban-kill-18-in-Afghan-bank- attack/UPI-11131298141051/

“Three German soldiers killed in Afghanistan,” February 18, 2011, http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,14851662,00.html

Also: “Roadside bombs kill at least 17 civilians,” January 17, 2011, http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2011/01/17/Roadside-bombs-killat-least-17-civilians/UPI-86861295185467/

“19 dead in Kandahar police station attack,” February 12, 2011, http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2011/02/12/19-dead-in-Kandahar-police-station-

attack/UPI-31391297535553/

“Pakistan receives Kerry apology — Senator says US ‘deeply sorry’ while Obama urges release of ‘diplomat’ who fatally shot two Pakistanis," February 15, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2011/02/201121519284986246.html

“U.S. vetoes UN draft on settlements — Washington blocks resolution condemning Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories as an obstacle to peace,” February 19, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/02/201

1218201653970232.html

“U.S. doubling down on Middle East horses — People in Palestine will trust US stewardship once again if Obama applies consistent political standards to PA leaders,”

(Fadi Elsalameen), last modified February 7, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/02/20112710311546108.html

This article originally appeared in Haaretz. Fadi Elsalameen is a fellow with the New America Foundation’s American Strategy Program. He is also director general of the Palestine Note and Diwan Palestine, internet newspapers in English and Arabic.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.

“The shaping of a New World Order  — If the revolutions of 2011 succeed, they will force the creation of a very different regional and world system,”(Mark LeVine) last modified February 6,  2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/02/20112611181593381.html

Mark LeVine is a professor of history at University of California-Irvine and senior visiting researcher at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Lund University in Sweden. The views expressed in this article are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy. 

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Bennett's books available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; The Book Den, Ltd.: BookDenLtd@frontiernet.net [Danville, NY]; Talking Leaves Books-Elmwood: talking.leaves.elmwood@gmail.com [Buffalo, NY]; Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza: http://www.bhny.com/ [Albany, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY]; LONGS’ Cards and Books: http://longscardsandbooks.com/ [Penn Yan, NY]


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Members of Congress debate war

Re-reporting, compiling and editing by Carolyn Bennett

More is never enough — bring them home now

AFGHANISTAN

 Pro-war

“In January, Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Carl Levin (D-Michigan) urged U.S. President Barack Obama to sign off on a proposal to expand Afghan forces to 378,000.” He said that both the Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen and U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates supported this increase.

“The Pentagon’s fiscal 2012 budget request includes $12.8 billion for Afghan national security forces, a figure that Gates said the United States cannot sustain indefinitely.” Having it both ways, pro and con, Secretary Gates “said he supports the plan to begin drawing down U.S. troops in Afghanistan in July, based on conditions on the ground [and] he does not want the drawdown to prompt a ‘rush to the exits’ by the 50,000 allied troops currently deployed to Afghanistan.”

The Administration’s mendaciousness evidenced in Defense officials’ testimony before Congress “is considering boosting the Afghan security forces by as many as 73,000 [AND preparing] to begin a gradual drawdown of troops from the country in July.” Issues ‘still very much in discussion,’ Mullins told the Senate Armed Services Committee, include the exact size of the Afghan security force and the speed of growth of that force. The administration is considering expanding the Afghan army and police force by 352,000 to 378,000 [by October], “a significant increase from the current goal of 305,000 personnel in the security forces.”

AFGHANISTAN

Anti-war

“I am on the Armed Services Committee and I remember a few years ago when they were telling us, these generals would come in — and I respect each and every one of them — and they would say to us: ‘Well, we’re making progress,’” North Carolina Representative Walter Jones spoke into the Congressional Record. “‘We’re training the Afghans to be policemen. We’re training the Afghans to be soldiers.’”

However, Jones said, “We are 10 years later and still training. How much more can you do? It is costing us $8 billion a month and more important than the money is the lost lives and the broken bodies of our men and women in uniform.”

Jones reported visiting the Walter Reed military hospital complex in Bethesda, Maryland, and on his way to meeting a young soldier, the military escort alerted him that the soldier he was about to visit “has no body parts below his waist. They have all been blown away.”

Jones said he also visited a marine sergeant “who had been to Afghanistan four times and on the fourth tour [this marine] had his left leg blown off.…”  

Marines from the Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, Jones’ district, are young, 19 to 38 years old, he said. They “have given their lives for this country [and] … many times I wonder here in Congress why we do not bring up this issue of bringing our troops home from Afghanistan…  

“What in the world are we trying to do?” Jones asked. Sixty-three percent of the American people say it is time to get out of Afghanistan and “it is time that this Congress listens and speaks up.”

More is never enough

“If they say it is going well in Afghanistan, they want more troops and more resources and more time,” Congresswoman Lee told the press. “If they say it is going poorly, they come back and they say they want more troops and more resources and more time.”

U.S. Representatives Barbara Lee and Walter Jones together with reportedly 46 cosponsors are again proposing legislation to end the war against Afghanistan. Free Speech Radio News yesterday reported, “a bipartisan group of U.S. Congress members is introducing legislation that would end the war in Afghanistan.

“The bill would require any funds authorized for the military in Afghanistan to be used to withdraw troops and contractors. It also prohibits the use of appropriations for combat purposes.”

Republican Jones said, “There is nothing we can win over there because we don’t have an end point to the war strategy; if you don’t have an end point, you don’t know what you are looking to achieve. It is time to bring them home. The American people are fed up and tired of seeing the broken bodies and flag draped coffins.”

Democrat Lee added, “I don’t believe and I think many don’t believe —and the American public certainly doesn’t believe— that a military solution is either feasible, affordable, or in the national security interests of the United States.”

There is another way, California Representative Lynn Woolsey has said repeatedly. In her “Alternatives to War,” she writes, “Instead of continuing the long-term military operations that are increasingly exacting their tolls in lives lost and billions of dollars spent, we need to pursue a smart security strategy for the conflicts America faces. Such a strategy is the best way to keep our country safe in the long run.”

Woolsey said, “We should back up our men and women in uniform with a new approach to national security — one that emphasizes preventing war instead of preemptive war.”   Her “Alternatives to War” proposal anchors in “smart security [treating] war as an absolute last resort by —

• Strengthening intelligence and law enforcement while respecting human and civil rights

• Pursuing diplomacy, enhanced inspection regimes, and regional security arrangements to reduce the proliferation of nuclear weapons

• Ceasing the sale and transfer of weapons to regimes involved in human rights abuses and to regions of conflict

• Increasing development aid and debt relief for the world’s poorest countries

• Reducing dependence on foreign oil by promoting long-term energy security through greater investment in sustainable and renewable alternatives

• Supporting civil society programs as a critical component in the prevention and resolution of violent conflict

“Smart security defends America,” Woolsey concludes, “by relying on — our capacity for global leadership — our compassion for the people of the world — our commitment to peace and freedom.”

Sources and notes

“Administration considers expanding Afghan security forces” (Megan Scully National Journal), February 17, 2011, http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=47146&oref=todaysnews

“Bring Our Troops Home” — (House of Representatives - January 24, 2011), Congressional Record article 7 of 18

“The bipartisan bill to end the Afghan war,” Free Speech Radio News Segments February 17, 2011,

http://fsrn.org/audio/bipartisan-bill-end-afghan-war/8042

“Alternatives to War — Getting Smart about National Security,” (updated January 2011), http://woolsey.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=43&sectiontree=5, 43; also “Woolsey, 61 Colleagues Urge Obama Not to Delay Redeployment of Troops from Afghanistan,” November 19, 2010, http://woolsey.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=18&parentid=6&sectiontree=6,18&itemid=794

Jones

Congressman Walter Beaman Jones Jr. represents the U.S. state of North Carolina. He was born in Farmville, North Carolina and studied and received degrees colleges and academies in Virginia and North Carolina. Before coming to the U.S. Congress, he was a member of the North Carolina state house of representatives (1983-1992). He was elected as a Republican to the One Hundred Fourth Congress and to the eight succeeding Congresses (January 3, 1995-present), http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=J000255

Lee

Congresswoman Barbara Lee represents the U.S. state of California. She was born in El Paso, Texas and studied and received degrees from colleges in California. Before coming to the U.S. Congress, she was a member of the California state assembly (1991-1997); member of the California state senate (1997-1998). She was elected as a Democrat to the One Hundred Fifth Congress in a special election to fill the vacancy created by the resignation of United States Representative Ron Dellums. She was reelected to the seven succeeding Congresses (April 7, 1998-present), http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=L000551.

Woolsey

Congresswoman Lynn C. Woolsey represents the U.S. state of California. Woolsey was born in the state of Washington and studied and received academic degrees in Seattle and San Francisco, California, colleges.  Before coming to the U.S. Congress, she was a member of Petaluma, California’s city council (1984-1992); vice mayor of Petaluma (1989 and 1992). She was elected as a Democrat to the One Hundred Third and to the nine succeeding U.S. Congresses (January 3, 1993-present), http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=W000738

LONG PAST TIME FOR THIS ONE TO GO

Levin

Congressman Carl Levin represents the U.S. state of Michigan. Levin was born in Detroit and studied and received degrees from colleges in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. Before coming to the U.S. Congress, he was a lawyer for the state (1964-1969); a member of the Detroit City Council (1969-1977). He was elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate in 1978 for the term beginning January 3, 1979, and reelected in 1984-2002 and 2008 for the term ending January 3, 2015, http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=L000261

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Bennett's books available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; The Book Den, Ltd.: BookDenLtd@frontiernet.net [Danville, NY]; Talking Leaves Books-Elmwood: talking.leaves.elmwood@gmail.com [Buffalo, NY]; Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza: http://www.bhny.com/ [Albany, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY]; LONGS’ Cards and Books: http://longscardsandbooks.com/ [Penn Yan, NY]


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Proving their bona fides — impunity, amorality

Clinton/Obama/Obama/Clinton-ites — 

Impunity, mendacity, rights be damned

Editing, comment by Carolyn Bennett

HRClinton heavies silence freedom protester at her free-speech speech

Rory O’Connor wrote yesterday, “Are you as shocked as I am that even former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld turns out to be a better supporter of free speech than Hillary Clinton?”

It seems her majesty HRC was again talking nonsense in high places: lecturing the rest of the world about freedom this week at George Washington University and silencing a silent protester, peace activist, U.S. Army veteran, former C.I.A. analyst Ray McGovern.

McGovern’s crimes against amoralist HRC were to don a t-shirt and turn has back during her free-speech speech. The government hauled McGovern out of the hall, roughed him up a bit, and cited him for “Disorderly Conduct.”

McGovern was reportedly “wearing a shirt that blocked the view of guests and the media and therefore ‘disrupted’ the state secretary’s speechifying. “ In an interview with blogger Rob Kall, McGovern said Government heavies cuffed him and watched his wrists flowing blood all over his pants and the transport vehicle.

In D.C. police custody, officers charged protester McGovern with disorderly conduct, booked, fingerprinted and photographed him, and dropped him in a six by four cell for three hours. On release, McGovern took a taxi to the hospital for x-rays and dressings on his wounds. Doctors advised him that he had suffered an assault and should report the assault to police.

Clinton/Obama/Obama Clinton’s America — 

Welcome to their world

Rephrasing O’Connor’s question: “Are you as shocked as I am,” he asks, that Hillary Rodham Clinton is less a supporter of free speech than was former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld?  No, I am not shocked and only a person living for decades in a cave would be genuinely shocked.

Someone wrote on a fence along the Erie Canal path near where I live, “When America finishes bringing freedom and democracy to the world, maybe they’ll bring a little of that freedom and democracy to the United States of America.”

The danger of people like the Clintons and Obamas  in positions of enormous power (together with their amorality) is that they feel compelled to exact extreme pain and violence. They feel compelled to prove to a world of barbarians ill at ease with their kind that they can be as brutal as — even more barbaric than — thugs and dictators, authoritarians, militarists and mercenaries operating with impunity, beyond law, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and international conventions.

Clinton’s reading a script condemning other governments for “arresting protesters and inhibiting free expression” is another example of this government’s and its predecessors’ mendacity, its profoundly entrenched and dangerous schizophrenia. Notwithstanding all this, the 71-year-old McGovern says despite the brute force and bruises, he is glad he protested and will go on bearing witness.

Sources and notes

“Hillary Clinton Talks Freedom as Protester Ray McGovern Is Bloodied,” February 17, 2011, News and Politics (RoryOConnor.org)

Filmmaker and journalist Rory O'Connor is the author of ‘Shock Jocks: Hate Speech and Talk Radio’ (AlterNet Books, 2008). O'Connor also writes the Media Is A Plural blog.

http://www.alternet.org/news/149951/hillary_clinton_talks_freedom_as_protester_ray_mcgovern_is_bloodied/?page=entire

Amoralists are those who are or believe themselves to be and so act as though they are outside the sphere to which moral judgments apply, beyond the moral order or a particular code of morals. They lack moral center or sensibility and in high office, the effect, in its inhumanity, is a kind of madness as dangerous as that of sociopaths or psychopaths.

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Bennett's books available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; The Book Den, Ltd.: BookDenLtd@frontiernet.net [Danville, NY]; Talking Leaves Books-Elmwood: talking.leaves.elmwood@gmail.com [Buffalo, NY]; Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza: http://www.bhny.com/ [Albany, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY]; LONGS’ Cards and Books: http://longscardsandbooks.com/ [Penn Yan, NY]
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Schizophrenic policy “caught with pants down”

Dangerous entrenchment

Editing, re-reporting, comment by Carolyn Bennett 

“The fact that Washington sees people as terrorists, as jihadists, as radicals, as extremists [and at the same time sees] the most autocratic, the worst of kleptocracies in the world as moderate, as allies, as friends of the United States — is an insult to the American people.”

Responding today to Amy Goodman’s question putting Washington's Middle East “consensus” up against political analyst Marwan Bishara's Middle East “experience,” Bishara said —

“They were caught with their pants down — completely.” 


The U.S. government, he said, is “still trying to play catch-up with what’s going on in the Arab world.”

Marwan Bishara’s assessment of unprincipled leadership, a foreign policy steeped in hypocrisy, without even common sense in relations with North Africa and Persia is painful to hear. This is some of what he said on Democracy Now.

U.S. sees Middle East absent “Arab”

“There is something called an Arab.” Marwan Bishara explained. “There is an Arab nation.” Flying seven hours from Morocco to Iraq, a passenger passes through an Arab region that speaks the same language, has the same heritage. This “has been invisible to American media and to American decision makers.”

We have seen the Arab world. We have seen Saudi Arabia. We have seen Bahrain through the lenses of military strategy, oil, prisms of Israel, and certainly terrorism and jihad; but what we have seen over the last six weeks has been completely absent in Washington and media speak.

Uprisings [in North Africa and the Middle East] therefore “caught everyone by surprise.” They were “caught in the headlights [wondering], what is going on. Who are these people—not realizing that in places like Bahrain, places like Yemen, certainly Egypt, Tunisia and so on and so forth [there has been], a pent-up tension building up for years.”

Arabs’ years’ long, risky resistance [pre-Facebook]

“In Saudi Arabia as in the rest of the Arab world we are going to see what has been building up for years.” For the last 30 years in Bahrain, they used to call it attempts to topple the government, attempts to topple the regime.

They were in fact “community organizers — not exactly like Chicago. The risks are far greater in the Arab world. But these are community organizers in Egypt and Tunisia, Yemen, Bahrain and other places, trying to live—or trying to root for decent living; but [in Washington] always being called terrorists… or always oppressed under the pretext of terrorism.

Washington’s schizophrenic 

“terrorist/ally” policy

“The fact that Washington sees people as terrorists, as jihadists, as radicals, as extremists [and at the same time sees] the most autocratic, the worst of kleptocracies in the world as moderate, as allies, as friends of the United States — is an insult to the American people.”

James Madison said, “A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or, perhaps both.

“Knowledge,” he said, “will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”  

Sources and notes

Marwan Bishara is Al Jazeera's senior political analyst, host and editor of the program “Empire.” He was previously a professor of International Relations at the American University of Paris. Marwan Bishara writes extensively on global politics and is widely regarded as a leading authority on international affairs and the Middle East, http://blogs.aljazeera.net/imperium

“‘The Genie Is Out of the Bottle’: Assessing a Changing Arab World with Noam Chomsky and Al Jazeera’s Marwan Bishara,” February 17, 2011,

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/2/17/the_genies_are_out_of_the

“Al Jazeera is a transparent, open forum for Arabs to come and speak,” Marwan Bishara said on Democracy Now, and for the last fifteen years, Al Jazeera has “given Arabs from various parts of the Arab world the capacity to come on air and speak.” Al Jazeera covers Palestine and was the only news organization on the ground in 2008 “during the Israeli bombardment and war and invasion of Gaza.”

Kleptocracies are governments seeking status, personal gain at the expense of the governed

Britannica notes

The Middle East is comprised of lands around the southern and eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea, extending from Morocco [North Africa] to the Arabian Peninsula and Iran [Southwest Asia, Persia] and sometimes beyond.

The central part of this general area was formerly called the Near East, a name given to it by some of the first modern Western geographers and historians, who tended to divide the Orient into three regions.

·       Near East applied to the region nearest Europe, extending from the Mediterranean Sea [North Africa/Southwest Asia] to the Persian Gulf

·       Middle East, Southwest Asia from the Persian Gulf to Southeast Asia

·       Far East, Asian regions facing the Pacific Ocean

During World War II, the term Middle East was given to the British military command in Egypt. Thus defined, the Middle East consisted of the states or territories of —

Turkey, Cyprus, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Palestine (now Israel), Jordan, Egypt, The Sudan, Libya, and the various states of Arabia proper (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Yemen, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, and the Trucial States, or Trucial Oman [now United Arab Emirates].

Subsequent events have tended, in loose usage, to enlarge the number of lands included in the definition (Middle East). The three North African countries of Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco are closely connected in sentiment and foreign policy with the Arab states.

In addition, geographic factors often require diplomats (political leaders) and others to take account of Afghanistan and Pakistan in connection with the affairs of the Middle East.

Occasionally Greece is included in the compass of the Middle East because the Middle Eastern (then Near Eastern) question in its modern form first became apparent when the Greeks rose in rebellion (1821) to assert their independence of the Ottoman Empire.

Turkey and Greece, together with the predominantly Arabic-speaking lands around the eastern end of the Mediterranean, were also formerly known as the Levant.

Use of the term Middle East yet remains unsettled. Some agencies — notably the United States Department of State and certain bodies of the United Nations — still employ the term Near East.

Levant

Levant is from the French lever, “to rise,” as in sunrise, meaning the east). Levant historically comprised the countries along the eastern Mediterranean shores.

Common use of the term is associated with Venetian and other trading ventures and the establishment of commerce with cities such as Tyre and Sidon as a result of the Crusades.

Levant was applied to the coastlands of Asia Minor and Syria, sometimes extending from Greece to Egypt. It was also used for Anatolia and as a synonym for the Middle or Near East. In the 16th and 17th centuries, the term High Levant referred to the Far East.

The name Levant States was given to the French mandate of Syria and Lebanon after World War I, and the term is sometimes still used for Syria and Lebanon, who gained independence in 1946.

Middle East.  (2011). Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Deluxe Edition.  Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica.

Levant.  (2011). Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Deluxe Edition.  Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica.

U.S. politician, “father of the Constitution,” fourth U.S. President James Madison (1809-1817)

James Madison, letter to W.T. Barry, August 4, 1822, The Writings of James Madison, ed. Gaillard Hunt, vol. 9, p. 103 (1910) in Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations Requested from the Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., 1989

Using the older spelling, ‘Governours,’ Madison’s words adorn the main entrance (left) of the Library of Congress James Madison Memorial Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. 

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U.S. /UK “Dirty War” further unveiled

“Dirty War” by definition breaches law, convention, “is a public health and humanitarian problem.”  Reports repeatedly document Dirty War crimes and criminals. Yet the world, poignantly “the righteous” seem purposely powerless to stop and are therefore accomplices in the massacre of innocents.

Re-reporting, editing, comment by Carolyn Bennett

Nevertheless, another report has just been released documenting the callous killing of innocents including the categories of killers and the how and where of massacre. Dr. Madelyn Hsiao-Rei Hicks and her colleagues have published a “Dirty War Index” detailing violent deaths of Iraqi civilians during five years (2003-2008) of U.S. /UK war against the people of Iraq.

Their findings show that of 92,614 civilian deaths (documented by NGO Iraq Body Count), “unknown perpetrators” caused 74 percent (n = 68,396), of civilian deaths, [U.S./UK-led “coalition [uniformed] forces” caused 12 percent (n = 11,516), and “anti-coalition forces” [un-uniformed combatants identified by attacks on coalition targets] caused 11 percent (n = 9,954) of civilian deaths.

Researchers recount: that since the Iraq war began on March 20, 2003 — when a multilateral force led by United States and United Kingdom invaded Iraq — more than 100,000 Iraqi civilians (women, children, noncombatants, and police carrying out non-paramilitary duties) have died because of armed violence, according to the Iraq Body Count. Referenced regularly on Today’s Insight News, IBC is a nongovernmental project collating media reports of deaths of individual Iraqi civilians and crosschecking the reports with data from hospitals, morgues, nongovernmental organizations, and official figures.

In their analysis in a “Dirty War Index” indicating the scale of indiscriminate killing in conflict, the researchers found —

The most indiscriminate effects on women and children in Iraq were from unknown perpetrators firing mortars (Dirty War Index = 79) and non-suicide vehicle bombs (Dirty War Index = 54), and from coalition air attacks (Dirty War Index = 69). 

Coalition forces had a higher Dirty War Index than anti-coalition forces for all weapons combined,” the researchers said, “with no decrease over the study period,” 2003-2008. 

Deaths caused by Coalition forces of Iraqi civilians, women, and children peaked during the invasion period, with relatively indiscriminate effects from aerial weapons. 

Unknown perpetrators causing most Iraqi civilian violent deaths (2003–2008) did so  “primarily through extrajudicial executions that disproportionately increased in regions with greater numbers of violent deaths. 

Unknown perpetrators using suicide bombs, vehicle bombs, and mortars had highly lethal and indiscriminate effects on targeted Iraqi civilians. Indistinguishable from their victims, they were responsible for three-quarters of civilian deaths 

Unknown perpetrator suicide bombings that targeted civilians and coalition aerial bombings killed most civilians per lethal event. The highest average number of civilians killed per event in which a civilian died were in Unknown perpetrator suicide bombings targeting civilians (19 per lethal event) and Coalition aerial bombings (17 per lethal event) 

Extra-judicial executions by unknown perpetrators were responsible for one-third of civilian deaths and disproportionately increased as deaths from other forms of violence increased across Iraq.

In laying out grounds for the content and focus of their study, the researchers said, “Detailed analysis of civilian deaths during wars is important because it can improve the understanding of the impact of these deaths on general public health and on vulnerable subgroups in the population.” Data collected on the nature and effects of violence can guide the development of preventive policies.

An analysis revealing “that air attacks by invading troops cause a high proportion of civilian deaths might encourage policy changes that prohibit air attacks on populated areas.”

An analysis of civilian deaths, which links violent deaths to perpetrators “can provide an indicator of combatants; compliance with the laws of war, which require the protection of civilians from targeted or indiscriminate harm.”

There are laws of war, international humanitarian laws and customary standards, governing the treatment of civilians and combatants (e.g., the Geneva Conventions). Moreover, it is well known among human beings that the death of civilians through armed violence — despite internationally agreed humanitarian standards regarding the treatment of civilians during wars — causes catastrophes for human beings (health and humanitarian problems, cultural and interpersonal, state and environmental problems) that, as Ann Jones writes, continues long after officials have signed papers purporting to end a war or decrease "combatants."

Sources and notes

PLoS Medicine: “Violent Deaths of Iraqi Civilians, 2003–2008: Analysis by Perpetrator, Weapon, Time, and Location,” http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000415

Dr Madelyn Hsiao-Rei Hicks (MD MA MRCPsych) is an honorary lecturer in Health Service and Population Research departments at King’s College London and is a cross-cultural psychiatrist with a background in medical anthropology. “Her research interests focus on sociocultural and epidemiological aspects of violence, depression, suicidality and help-seeking.” A native of the United States, she is an expatriate in Britain and has studied and worked in both countries.

Publications include Li Z, Hicks MH. (2010) The CES-D in Chinese American women: construct validity, diagnostic validity for major depression, and cultural response bias. Psychiatry Research, 175: 227-232; Hicks MH, Dardagan H, Guerrero Serdán G, Bagnall PM, Sloboda JA, Spagat M. (2009) ’The Weapons That Kill Civilians — Deaths of Children and Noncombatants in Iraq, 2003-2008’. New England Journal of Medicine, 360(16): 1585-1588. This article is freely accessible at http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/360/16/1585; Cameron E, Spagat M, Hicks MH. (2009) Tracking Civilian Casualties in Combat Zones using Civilian Battle Damage Assessment Ratios. British Army Review, 147: 87-93; Hicks MH, Spagat M. (2008) ’The Dirty War Index: A public health and human rights tool for examining and monitoring armed conflict outcomes’. PLoS Medicine, 5(12): e243, doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.0050243. This article is freely accessible at http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0050243; Rubio-Stipec M, Canino I, Hicks MH & Tsuang M. (2008) ‘Ethnic, Cultural, & Socioeconomic Factors Influencing the Selection, Use and Interpretation of Measures’. In Handbook of Psychiatric Measures, 2nd Edition. Rush AJ, First MB & Blacker D (Eds). American Psychiatric Publishing, Inc.: Washington DC. pp 23-32; Hicks MH. (2007) Mortality in Iraq. Lancet, 369: 101-102; Hicks MH. (2006) ’Mortality after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: Were valid and ethical field methods used in this survey?’ This working paper is posted as HiCN Research Design Note 3 on the Conflict Research Design Platform page of the Households in Conflict Network website: http://www.hicn.org/research_design.html

Institute of Psychiatry-Maudsley King's College London, University of London, http://www.iop.kcl.ac.uk/staff/profile/?go=11023

[LONDON]:  “More than 92,600 civilians were killed in armed violence in Iraq from 2003 to 2008 — U.S.-led coalition forces showed higher rates of indiscriminate killing of women and children than insurgents, a study has found,” February 16, 2011, http://www.dawn.com/2011/02/16/civilian-death-study-rates%e2%80%9ddirty-war%e2%80%9d-in-iraq.html

“Analysis of Violent Deaths of Iraqi Civilians Between 2003-2008” Science Daily (February 15, 2011) — A paper published in this week's issue of PLoS Medicine provides the most detailed assessment thus far of civilian deaths in the course of the recent Iraq war. Madelyn Hsiao-Rei Hicks from King's College London, UK and colleagues analyzed data from Iraq Body Count (IBC), a nongovernmental project that collates media reports of deaths of individual Iraqi civilians and crosschecks these reports with data from hospitals, morgues, nongovernmental organizations, and official figures. Story Source: The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by Public Library of Science, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Since the start of the war against Iraq on March 20, 2003, Iraq Body Count (IBC), a nongovernmental organization, has systematically collated a wide range of war data as a means of monitoring and documenting Iraqi civilian casualties from armed violence. The resulting database interlinks specific violent events with their perpetrators, the weapons used, the individual civilians killed, and the victim’s demographic characteristics, http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

The Iraq war has involved both conventional state-to-state warfare and asymmetric, irregular warfare, with continuous international media coverage that has resulted in detailed reports on thousands of events causing civilian death.

Updated figures as of February 16, 2011, Iraq Body Count— Documented civilian deaths from violence: 99,711 – 108,864 

The War is not over when it’s over: women speak out from the ruins of war, Ann Jones (Metropolitan Books, 2010)

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