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Ghostpipe
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THE BIG PICTURE: Dont insult our intelligence
By M.Majid
FOLLOWING Sept 11, 2001, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld authorised harsh interrogation techniques against "high value targets" in the war on terror.
The programme, according to Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker, was approved by every federal agency, and President George W. Bush was informed about it.
These "techniques" were aimed at "terrorists" taken in Afghanistan, where the "methods" apparently proved "successful". They were transferred and practised in Iraq, where Iraqi prisoners of war were left at the mercy of the needs of military intelligence.
The first step was for prisoners to be stripped naked and shackled before interrogation. All else followed in a grotesque orgy of sadistic acts.
The horrors of Abu Ghraib, therefore, are not a surprise and an aberration. They are part of what had been knowingly arranged, with bestial sexual excess being exposed for the first time with such morbid clarity, even if it surely was not for the first time committed.
There is historically a record and culture of men acting like beasts in the theatre of conflict and, in Iraq, the American women have joined them.
The ancient Greeks, for instance, found rape and pillage socially acceptable. It is said the Crusaders raped their way to Constantinople. In more recent times, we must all only be too aware of what happened in Bosnia and Vietnam.
With such a history, and when you knowingly give the licence for your soldiers to employ sadistic "techniques", you cannot be surprised by Abu Ghraib. If you say you are, you are a double-faced liar. You are as guilty as the soldier who raped and pillaged and murdered.
So don't pull your hair out and stop all that hand-wringing, Mr Bush and Mr Rumsfeld! Cut the crap and don't insult our intelligence.
All that talk about President Bush having taken Rumsfeld "to the woodshed" and really worked him over. Only to end up saying Rumsfeld was the best Defence Secretary the United States has ever had? A sullen-faced Rumsfeld visiting Abu Ghraib prison. As if he didn't know! And then Lieutenant-General Ricardo Sanchez, the American general in charge of coalition forces in Iraq, being replaced and not likely to get his promotion to head the US Southern Command which oversees all operations in Latin America leading to speculation he knew what was happening at Abu Ghraib and was being punished.
As if Bush and Rumsfeld had no idea. So much sandiwara.
Law unto themselves When the Bush administration carved out a unilateralist foreign policy and embarked on the right of pre-emptive strike, the US became a law unto itself.
America refused to accept the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.
The US kicked the UN into long grass as it tolerated no intervention or interference with what it wanted to do. The Americans fell out with their major European allies, with the British and Australians (actually, Tony Blair and John Howard) the only ones sticking with them.
Their stock with Muslims fell to an all-time low, as they tore into Muslim lives, without count or care.
It is a certain breed that has taken hold in the Bush administration, which has all the characteristics of the Wild, Wild West, and the depth of understanding of cowboys. The trouble is it is the world, and not just the wild west, that is now their playing field.
From the promise of the good an all-powerful America can do, the Bush administration has taken the world to a horrible low from which there is no escape as long as Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld hold sway.
When they feel like it, they strike. When it is inconvenient, they make or change the rules.
The greatest terror you can face is when they decide you are terrorist, or conjure that you are part of an axis of evil with threatening weapons of mass destruction.
When they are done with the bombings, missile attacks and heavy artillery fire, they have the inconvenient problem of dealing with the people who had survived their attacks from afar.
The dead are easy meat; the living do not know how to deal with. So they become non-combatants, get Guantanamoed and Abu Ghraibed.
If you happen to have a wedding party in the desert in Iraq 16km from the Syrian border, you must be part of a terrorist organisation all the men, women and children. And 40 of you get zapped, just like that.
Who would be having such a wedding party in the desert, the American general asks. Why, herders of course, with relatives coming from across borders. Dunno, don't care.
After their despicable acts, guilty American soldiers are removed from the jurisdiction of any international court or tribunal, even as the Americans insist others, such as those at Guantanamo, come under the jurisdiction of their courts.
Only Americans themselves can put this right in November. Who else can argue with this posse of cowboys?
No clue in Iraq However, when they get stuck, they come running to others to share the burden.
So, back to the UN. You know, those useless resolutions that Bush has always said his administration had no time for. The US is proposing one on Iraq. What a turnaround but not before Iraq had been convulsed, turned inside out. And it ain't by no means over yet.
So, some kind of multinational force to ensure Iraqi security, instead of the coalition forces, although the Americans would still want to take the lead, where they are making the blunders, which even their British partners are finding difficult to stomach. Especially when they just march in, lash out, cause deaths and damage.
And, a march towards some kind of Iraqi sovereignty, with an interim Government taking office at the end of next month. To be followed by direct democratic elections.
Neat, but a lot depends on the skills of UN special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi in identifying and coaxing the best people to serve in that Government, especially as Prime Minister. The hottest name at the moment is Dr Hussein Shahristani, ironically a nuclear scientist. People like the charlatan Ahmad Chalabi, whom the Americans had earlier identified, seem to have fallen by the wayside.
There is still a long way to go to come up with a government the Shias and Sunnis are comfortable with, and the Kurds do not feel left out of.
On the economy, which is of course in shambles, the draft resolution looks to creditors reducing Iraqi debt, urges financial institutions to provide loans and other assistance, and gives the interim Government responsibiltiy to run the oil-for-food programme.
The proposed Development Fund for Iraq, however, will be monitored by an international audit board, particularly the oil receipts which will continue to be put in the fund.
It is a long way to come out of the mess which the Americans have created. Every thinking person had said this will come to pass if the Americans invaded Iraq. Which they did nevertheless, and caused this bloody mess, this anger and this pain, and this huge problem of revival as a nation-state once again.
This unnecessary war and invasion have not only visited death and misery on the people of Iraq but also pressed these crushing problems on them.
And, far from fighting terror, it has widened its field and, according to the annual strategic survey (2003-04) of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, the war in Iraq has brought new recruits to the ranks of al-Qaeda, which can now count on 18,000 potential operatives worldwide.
Not a clue on Iraq, not a clue on how to fight terror. Only wilful petulance, bluster and blunder. And a heck of a lot of dama
By M.Majid
FOLLOWING Sept 11, 2001, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld authorised harsh interrogation techniques against "high value targets" in the war on terror.
The programme, according to Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker, was approved by every federal agency, and President George W. Bush was informed about it.
These "techniques" were aimed at "terrorists" taken in Afghanistan, where the "methods" apparently proved "successful". They were transferred and practised in Iraq, where Iraqi prisoners of war were left at the mercy of the needs of military intelligence.
The first step was for prisoners to be stripped naked and shackled before interrogation. All else followed in a grotesque orgy of sadistic acts.
The horrors of Abu Ghraib, therefore, are not a surprise and an aberration. They are part of what had been knowingly arranged, with bestial sexual excess being exposed for the first time with such morbid clarity, even if it surely was not for the first time committed.
There is historically a record and culture of men acting like beasts in the theatre of conflict and, in Iraq, the American women have joined them.
The ancient Greeks, for instance, found rape and pillage socially acceptable. It is said the Crusaders raped their way to Constantinople. In more recent times, we must all only be too aware of what happened in Bosnia and Vietnam.
With such a history, and when you knowingly give the licence for your soldiers to employ sadistic "techniques", you cannot be surprised by Abu Ghraib. If you say you are, you are a double-faced liar. You are as guilty as the soldier who raped and pillaged and murdered.
So don't pull your hair out and stop all that hand-wringing, Mr Bush and Mr Rumsfeld! Cut the crap and don't insult our intelligence.
All that talk about President Bush having taken Rumsfeld "to the woodshed" and really worked him over. Only to end up saying Rumsfeld was the best Defence Secretary the United States has ever had? A sullen-faced Rumsfeld visiting Abu Ghraib prison. As if he didn't know! And then Lieutenant-General Ricardo Sanchez, the American general in charge of coalition forces in Iraq, being replaced and not likely to get his promotion to head the US Southern Command which oversees all operations in Latin America leading to speculation he knew what was happening at Abu Ghraib and was being punished.
As if Bush and Rumsfeld had no idea. So much sandiwara.
Law unto themselves When the Bush administration carved out a unilateralist foreign policy and embarked on the right of pre-emptive strike, the US became a law unto itself.
America refused to accept the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.
The US kicked the UN into long grass as it tolerated no intervention or interference with what it wanted to do. The Americans fell out with their major European allies, with the British and Australians (actually, Tony Blair and John Howard) the only ones sticking with them.
Their stock with Muslims fell to an all-time low, as they tore into Muslim lives, without count or care.
It is a certain breed that has taken hold in the Bush administration, which has all the characteristics of the Wild, Wild West, and the depth of understanding of cowboys. The trouble is it is the world, and not just the wild west, that is now their playing field.
From the promise of the good an all-powerful America can do, the Bush administration has taken the world to a horrible low from which there is no escape as long as Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld hold sway.
When they feel like it, they strike. When it is inconvenient, they make or change the rules.
The greatest terror you can face is when they decide you are terrorist, or conjure that you are part of an axis of evil with threatening weapons of mass destruction.
When they are done with the bombings, missile attacks and heavy artillery fire, they have the inconvenient problem of dealing with the people who had survived their attacks from afar.
The dead are easy meat; the living do not know how to deal with. So they become non-combatants, get Guantanamoed and Abu Ghraibed.
If you happen to have a wedding party in the desert in Iraq 16km from the Syrian border, you must be part of a terrorist organisation all the men, women and children. And 40 of you get zapped, just like that.
Who would be having such a wedding party in the desert, the American general asks. Why, herders of course, with relatives coming from across borders. Dunno, don't care.
After their despicable acts, guilty American soldiers are removed from the jurisdiction of any international court or tribunal, even as the Americans insist others, such as those at Guantanamo, come under the jurisdiction of their courts.
Only Americans themselves can put this right in November. Who else can argue with this posse of cowboys?
No clue in Iraq However, when they get stuck, they come running to others to share the burden.
So, back to the UN. You know, those useless resolutions that Bush has always said his administration had no time for. The US is proposing one on Iraq. What a turnaround but not before Iraq had been convulsed, turned inside out. And it ain't by no means over yet.
So, some kind of multinational force to ensure Iraqi security, instead of the coalition forces, although the Americans would still want to take the lead, where they are making the blunders, which even their British partners are finding difficult to stomach. Especially when they just march in, lash out, cause deaths and damage.
And, a march towards some kind of Iraqi sovereignty, with an interim Government taking office at the end of next month. To be followed by direct democratic elections.
Neat, but a lot depends on the skills of UN special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi in identifying and coaxing the best people to serve in that Government, especially as Prime Minister. The hottest name at the moment is Dr Hussein Shahristani, ironically a nuclear scientist. People like the charlatan Ahmad Chalabi, whom the Americans had earlier identified, seem to have fallen by the wayside.
There is still a long way to go to come up with a government the Shias and Sunnis are comfortable with, and the Kurds do not feel left out of.
On the economy, which is of course in shambles, the draft resolution looks to creditors reducing Iraqi debt, urges financial institutions to provide loans and other assistance, and gives the interim Government responsibiltiy to run the oil-for-food programme.
The proposed Development Fund for Iraq, however, will be monitored by an international audit board, particularly the oil receipts which will continue to be put in the fund.
It is a long way to come out of the mess which the Americans have created. Every thinking person had said this will come to pass if the Americans invaded Iraq. Which they did nevertheless, and caused this bloody mess, this anger and this pain, and this huge problem of revival as a nation-state once again.
This unnecessary war and invasion have not only visited death and misery on the people of Iraq but also pressed these crushing problems on them.
And, far from fighting terror, it has widened its field and, according to the annual strategic survey (2003-04) of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, the war in Iraq has brought new recruits to the ranks of al-Qaeda, which can now count on 18,000 potential operatives worldwide.
Not a clue on Iraq, not a clue on how to fight terror. Only wilful petulance, bluster and blunder. And a heck of a lot of dama
