Dr. Ivan Eland, an anti-interventionist libertarian and Senior Fellow and Director of the Center on Peace & Liberty at the Independent Institute, on Mr. President, What Planet Are You On?
In “Spin City,” the nation’s capital, presidential administrations often believe their own propaganda. The Bush administration, however, has been especially self-delusional—particularly when it comes to the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Not since the Johnson and Nixon administrations during the Vietnam War and Watergate has an administration been in such denial about its policy course. Like a na‹ve fawn caught in the headlights, the Bush crowd seems paralyzed and condemned to the oncoming crash.
Legislative hawks such as John McCain (R-AZ) and John Murtha (D-PA), neither of whom may have the president’s best interests at heart, have advocated sending more troops into the quicksand of Mesopotamia. But even with an additional 300,000 troops, the U.S. would still be unable to pacify a country in which public opinion has largely turned its back on the occupation. The burgeoning prison torture scandal has driven the last nail into the coffin of a botched U.S. occupation. It is unlikely that the anti-U.S. feelings of the Iraqi population—instigated by more than a decade of grinding U.S.-led economic sanctions and an invasion—can now be reversed.
Read the rest here. This entry also posted at Stand Down.
Hmm.. Quite sad really isn\’t it? A defeat for Bush is a Victory for most of us I think, Iraqis, Americans, British well… come to think of it just about everyone on the planet.
They must be really, really pissed off. I\’d love to be a fly on the wall in any war cabinet type meetings. I\’d bet there\’d be quite some home truths being levelled at Bush right now from the US Army chiefs of staff. As for sending more troops, remember Westmoreland anyone? He was denied more troops since the administration thought they might need them to suppress \’civil unrest\’ in the US. The American people are a fantastic bunch when they get together to oppose wars.
Get those troops home asap.
Richard
5/26/2004 7:00:00 PM
It’s easy to understand why people would find confirming evidence of their beliefs when they restrict their reading to those who agree with them.
While bobbing their heads to the chants of failure and quagmire from the likes of James Landrith and Anthony Zinni, they might take a moment, just a moment, to listen to the testimony of people like former human shield Reverend Ken Joseph, who traveled to Iraq to try to prevent U.S. bombing.
Appearing on the Hannity and Colmes program Wednesday, May 26th, Rev. Joseph described his shock when he arrived in Iraq and was confronted by Iraqis who couldn’t understand why he was there.
He was confronted by people who swore that if the U.S. DIDN’T invade, they would commit suicide, because they could no longer live under the oppression of Saddam’s execution squads.
Every home he visited had a framed picture of at least one relative executed by Saddam’s secret police.
Every time the phone rang, people would freeze, afraid of a call from the inquisitor.
When Rev. Joseph left Iraq several weeks ago, he left bustling marketplaces, shops open and full of goods, people attending school, people rebuilding lives.
Iraqis told him “Do not let the U.S. soldiers leave, they are the only thing protecting us from the terrorists”.
Rev. Joseph said he was shocked to return to the U.S. and see the media full of doomsayers painting pictures of failures, quagmires, hopeless situations, Iraqi hatred. He said that these reports are a lie.
He said, “I opposed George Bush before I went to Iraq, now I support him because I understand the truth.”
The above quotes are paraphrased. See the interview yourself at the Hannity and Colmes website, halfway down the homepage, on the right hand side.
That is, if you care.
Of course most Iraqi citizens are going to be happy that Saddam is gone. But tell, me – how many truly know the history of our dirty involvement with the man? How many know that our support and coddling of a dictator extended from his early CIA training in 1958 to 1990 when he ran afoul of the U.S. for nationalizing Kuwaiti oilfields?
How many of them know that Saddam would likely still be our \”ally\” today if he hadn\’t invaded Kuwait, after first asking our permission? How many know that the current Secretary of Defense was caught on film (shit eating grin and all) making nice with the man AFTER he had ordered the gassing of thousands of Kurds?
Not likely many. Once the average man and woman in the Baghdad street knew that Saddam attained and maintained his power with a good deal of help from us, do you you really think they\’d find it so easy to ignore? What do you think they are going to say once it become clear that American troops will be on Iraqi soil for decades on the bases currently being built by DoD? The truth of our involvement in their subjugation by Saddam is going to circulate fast enough and then the Robert Kesslers of the world will be left stumped as to why the Iraqi people have stopped dancing in the streets – not that there was ever really much of that to begin with.
The history doesn\’t change just because we stick our fingers in our ears and scream \”lalalalala – I can\’t hear you!\”
What are we going to do when our new \”ally\” decides to ignore our counsel in the future? Send more of our children off to die in the desert? Great plan. Such is the way of the history challenged interventionist…
5/27/2004 12:35:00
Robert.
My enemy’s enemy is my friend- so long as my enemy exists.
This does not mean that once my enemy is gone, the third party remains my friend, or was my friend for any other reason. This is particularly so if my enemy’s enemy then behaves as though they are my enemy subsequently. It doesn’t help to have one enemy removed, to be replaced by another.
I personally know many Iraqis, both inside and outside Iraq. Do you? Your third party representation of the impressions of the naiive Reverend strongly suggest to me that you do not. Iraqis are capable of sophistication in their views, a faculty with which you do not appear to credit them.
Some Iraqis were famously filmed celebrating the fall of Saddam, and the fall of his statue. On the base that the statue used to stand, now reads the legend: “All done, go home.” This is echoed throughout Iraq.
What the Iraqi people hoped at the time of the invasion was that the rhetoric concerning acting only in their interests would turn out to be true. What James, myself, and the millions of other critics of the war could see is that it never was true. The motives for fighting this war were no more about the welfare of the Iraqi people than were the ten years of sanctions preceding it, or frankly any of the previous interventions of the west in this region. They were about protection of western interests, etc. etc. etc.
Please don’t try to speak for the Iraqi people through the testimony of a Christian preacher who clearly didn’t have a good idea of what he was talking about in the first place, and is unlikely to have achieved one since, despite his time in the country. He seems patently to be a person who sees things only in black and white, right and wrong, good and evil. No subtlety at all. His missionary zeal in one direction, upon encountering subtleties and facts which did not chime with its simple truth, flip-flopped to a missionary zeal in the other direction, equally blind to sophistication. Quite apart from anything else, has it occurred to you that the testimony of a Christian westerner kicking about in Iraq as to the true feelings of Iraqis is to be suspected in any case? Why should “ordinary” Iraqis bare their souls to him? Why should they assume he is who he says he is, and that his motives are clear? Especially in light of what happened in Abu Ghraib, why should they automatically assume that what they tell him won’t land them in an interrogation chamber? You clearly don’t, as he did not, have any idea what the actual effects of living under a regime such as Saddam’s might have upon a person. You say:
“Every home he visited had a framed picture of at least one relative executed by Saddam’s secret police. Every time the phone rang, people would freeze, afraid of a call from the inquisitor.”
And then you blandly accept the testimony of this western preacher as though these very people would simply automatically trust him. Don’t you see the irony of this absurd position? Why should these people trust the good reverend at all?
So therefore, given his demonstrable lack of self-insight or capacity for subtlety on the part of the preacher, it should in no way surprise that such a person finds himself speaking with the same tongue as Bush.
Later you wrote:
“Iraqis told him “Do not let the U.S. soldiers leave, they are the only thing protecting us from the terrorists”.”
Is this true of the people of Fallujah?
Yours,
Steven H.
Why should anyone trust the testimony of this \”western preacher\”, Steven?
Because he is an Assyrian Christian visiting the homes of his own relatives.
It is obvious from your post that you didn\’t bother to watch the five minute interview.
Too much trouble, eh?
5/27/2004 3:11:00 PM
Robert:
On Feb. 11, 2004, responding to a previous message by another blogger, I posted the following:
[ Thread URL]
http://www.nowarblog.org/archives/001710.html
�Both these wars are being fought with both hands tied behind our backs, like Vietnam.”
I’m not sure hands tied is descriptive of the US approach in Viet Nam. About 3,000,000 Vietnamese were killed in that operation. Did we kick them to death? If we had had one hand loose we might have killed them all.
“just having returned from a tour of duty in Afghanistan as part of a Special Forces A-Team, I can tell you we long for the day we would be allowed to assassinate somebody who was paticularly troublesome.”
Do the Special Forces carry the Law of War card these days? Doesn’t it say you can’t assassinate anyone?
I’m a former Marine, and certain Parris Island lessons stand out in memory, those about laws of war, treatment of prisoners etc. I was astounded to be inst[r]ucted that if a superior were to tell [m]e to kill or torture a prisoner, for example, I was obliged to disobey and also to report the event immedia[t]ely to some higher-up. It was odd to hear that in boot camp, when all you do is obey. But I grasped the concept. Luckily, I was never in combat, and never had the opportunity to put my training in practice.
But the “war on terror” and certain troubling developments related to it has got me revisiting the laws of war.
I know that 9/11 did not turn laws rules ethics, treaties, into nullities overnight. But it’s easy to say it does, and then do what you want, especially if there is no one who can stop you. And This has definitely been the approach and example of the Commander in Chief.
Unless Laws of War are understood and enforced at a small unit level, they wont be heeded and people will be murdered, and tortured, mistrea[te]d, by us troops or any others.
Given Bush’s dishonesty, the open contempt he displays for any laws that purport to constrain his actions, I\’m worried that all the rules are out the window.
Baghram as best as I can tell, is a horrible center of to[r]ture and murder, where detainees, are beaten, kept awake, kept in standing positions for weeks at a time, arms chained to the ceiling.
That’s a bad way to have your hands tied
These are the reports from those that get out. The Red Cross and various human rights groups aren’t allowed in and get stonewall answers.
There are tens of thousands of Iraqis held incommunicado.
Beatings and torture, shootings, filthy conditions
This is all being done by US military. And amazingly, nobody is disobeying. Even though they are supposed to.
It\’s disgraceful and dishonorable.
Its not like any of this stuff is a secret
Posted by Tom Doyle on February 11, 2004 08:42 AM
You responded:
�Excuse me Tom Doyle, but you jump from �being made to stand up without sleep�, to accusations of beatings, torture, and murder.�
�Thank you for your service, but I think your charges are wildly inaccurate.
�Notice how we responded to a Marine who simply fired off a gun behind a terror suspect. We almost threw him out of the service.
�If abuses occur, and they’re discovered, we punish severely. If they\’re not discovered, then they’re only your accusations without evidence.�
Posted by Robert Kessler on February 11, 2004 12:15 PM
Have you modified the views you expressed, in light of subsequent disclosures?
Touche.
Steven H.
Robert,
You were quite right to criticize previously. I did try to find the interview you talked of, but was unable to do so. You provided no link, and various searches since have still drawn a blank. Perhaps you can provide one.
However, I did indeed find plenty of information about this person, the Rev. Ken Joseph Jr. Much of what I read is to be found on his website:
http://www.assyrianchristians.com
While my original suggestion that he would be considered as suspect by Iraqis because of his foreign status is not entirely wrong (he is not Iraqi himself, but has Iraqi ancestry), he certainly has family there, and would likely be trusted sufficiently by them to warrant some regard as to the truth of his testimony. However, to suggest that his views are representative of the views of the “people of Iraq” in general is an unreliable overstatement, to be polite.
He represents a small minority of the Iraqi people ethnically, at best. He is also quite clearly a self-publicist and a polemicist with radical christian views of the world. So not surprising that he would naturally seek to side with and support the actions of a christian evangelist such as Bush (his website includes the prominent link urging the reader to “join a prayer team”). His curious assertions about the “assyrian christians” representing the the true original population of Iraq seems to ignore, among other things, the obvious anachronism, and would unquestionably be rejected by the overwhelming majority of the population.
I have little doubt that there are significant sections of the population who are unequivocally in support of the continuing occupation. It is an obvious and indubitable matter of fact that the Kurdish population in the North are both Iraqi (in terms of strict geography) and likewise supportive. So what? The equally simple matter of fact is that such views do not reflect those of the overwhelming majority of the country: Iraqi moslems. His voice is a rarity among web-presenced Iraqi voices in that it unequivocally supports the occupation. His educational background is: Christian Academy in Japan, followed by Biola University in La Mirada, California, with degrees in Intercultural Communications and Mass Communications. Put two-and-two together. His appearance on prominent talk shows is unsurprising, and is to be set alongside the fact that his website features dozens of photos of himself, far more than photos of “ordinary Iraqis”. On the “I was wrong” page there are a series of links suggesting how one might engage him to speak or be interviewed, alongside prayer links and links to support the Assyrian Christians.
The list of media organisations which has represented him is dominated by right-biased outlets such as Fox, and includes a link to netenyahu.org, which appears to be the homepage of Binyamin Netanyahu, the apostle of right-wing Israeli hawks. It is deeply questionable that any “ordinary Iraqi” or one who speaks for them would have such a link on their website. A link to a moderate Israeli politician\’s website? Sure, why not? But to Netanyahu? Hmmm…
I think that it is you who should take a closer look at your spokesman of the people of Iraq.
Yours,
Steven H.
Robert,
To follow up on that last point, it appears that not a single one of the links offered on the media coverage page of this individual connects to an edited Iraqi or Arab web resource or media organisation. The single link which is even based in the Arab world is to an open-publishing media forum, which is dominated by anti-occupation material.
Curious thing, if he speaks for so many Iraqis, that his own website contains not a single link to any other such spokesman or group, don’t you think?
Try again.
Mystery solved.
Here is an extract from the Rev’s post at http://www.assyrianchristians.com/news_oct_29_02.htm
“Currently the Assyrian Christians are in a extremely precarious situation. Sandwiched between the Kurds who are Muslims and supported through the United Nations weapons for peace program, the Turkomans, also Muslims supported by Turkey, they are a minority of Christians in a region that is, with the exception of Israel, exclusively Muslim.
“Grudingly allowed to participate in the local Kurdish Parliament, the Assyrian Christians have five seats out of 105 they are extremely fearful of any post-Saddam government.
“Currently, the State Department is attempting to put together a coalition of Iraqi Nationalist Groups to decide on a future Government, but the Assyrian Christians as the only non-Islamic group in the mix are at a decided advantage.
“Iraq, for all its fault, is a secular nation governed by a secular Baathist Party. The Vice President, Mr. Tarig Aziz, is a Christian and the Church is allowed the most freedom of any country in the Middle East, with the exception of Egypt.
“The Assyrian Archibishop for Iraq, Mar. Gewargis pleads for help for his people and Church. `We understand the concern and support of the Christians in the West for Israel, but find it hard to understand why the Church does not have the same concern and support. For all its faults, the Iraqi government has built Churches for the Christians`.”
So clearly the situation is this: he opposed the fall of Saddam, since Tariq Aziz was a Christian and looked out for their interests under the (in any case secular) regime. He and his compatriots in the Christian community fear the moslems (although there do not appear to have been recent acts of violence of antagonism against Iraqi christians at the hands of moslems, and so his fear seems… premature), and as long as the occupation lasts, the moslems are being kept at bay. He is terrified of some kind of fundamentalist government after the occupation, and so wants it prolonged as long as possible.
Fine. But two things. Firstly he patently and self-admittedly does not represent the “Iraqi people” not even the Kurds, who are moslem. Secondly, his liking for the occupation ignores the fact that it has made the (very undesirable, I would contend, being a committed secularist myself) establishment of a radical Islamist government in post-occupation Iraq far more likely. If one doubts this, one merely has to track the (resistable) rise of Moqtadr al-Sadr, whose iconic status is directly linked to the occupation’s existence, and decision to make him “public enemy no.1”. The case of Nelson Mandela, in a far more desirable way, has shown that being public enemy no.1 of a hated regime which represents minority interests makes power more, not less likely.
Yours as ever,
Steven H.
Lost in Space
Dr. Ivan Eland, an anti-interventionist libertarian and Senior Fellow and Director of the Center on Peace & Liberty at the Independent Institute, on Mr. President, What Planet Are You On? In ?Spin City,? the nation?s capital, presidential administratio…
I got this in March 2003 via the American Society of International Law listserve. It was the first I’d heard of the torture issue. The author, the late Professor Joan Fitzpatrick, (1950-2003) was very prescient in her observations.
Subject: Torture as an impeachable offense
From: Joan Fitzpatrick
To: letters@nytimes.com
The “interrogation” techniques described in “U.S. Military Investigating Death of Afghan in Custody” (March 4, 2003, A14) violate basic norms of international humanitarian law. The Geneva Conventions require humane treatment of all prisoners, whether POWs or “unlawful combatants,” and regardless of the nature of the conflict. All acts of violence or intimidation, outrages upon personal dignity, and humiliating and degrading treatment are strictly forbidden. Does the Department of Defense argue that chaining naked prisoners to the ceiling, in freezing weather, and kicking them to keep them awake for days on end, are practices consistent with the Geneva Conventions? Is the DOD prepared to tolerate this treatment of American POWs in the Iraq war?
These practices also violate human rights treaties to which the United States is a party, specifically the prohibitions on torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. The United States may not transfer Al Qaeda suspects to other states to facilitate their torture; that too is a violation. Moreover, there is no state on earth “that does not have legal restrictions against torture” (“Questioning of Accused Expected to Be Human, Legal and Aggressive”, March 4, 2003, A13). The prohibition on torture is a peremptory norm of customary international law binding on all nations. The torturer is the enemy of all mankind.
If President Bush has commanded these practices, he has committed serious international crimes and crimes against the laws of the United States that are impeachable offenses. Congress must investigate immediately.
Secretary Rumsfeld last Friday again revealed his complete ignorance of the laws of war by suggesting that Iraqi POWs could be tried before military commissions. They may be tried only by court martial, under rules identical to those applicable to U.S. forces. As Bush and Rumsfeld are poised to launch a major war in Iraq, the world stands appalled by their utter disregard for the most fundamental norms of humanity in wartime. Heaven help our “enemies” and our own soldiers.
Sincerely,
Joan Fitzpatrick
Below are some relatively early links on torture. I’m sorry that this happened but at least it’s coming out. This stuff was old news before the US invaded Iraq.
http://globaltexts.blogspot.com/2003_03_02_globaltexts_archive.html#90291086
http://globaltexts.blogspot.com/2003_03_09_globaltexts_archive.html#90493868
http://globaltexts.blogspot.com/2004_03_14_globaltexts_archive.html#107936363984046251