Author: Helena

Ghaith, from Najaf

Juan Cole’s had a couple of link recently to pieces from Iraq in the Guardian by Ghaith Abdul-Ahad. Somehow, I believe that’s Salam/Pax’s friend ‘G’, but I may be wrong. Anyway, he’s a fine reporter and a pretty fearless one too.
This is the piece he had in today’s (Monday’s) paper. It’s a great piece of reporting from a couple of days spent covering the (recent? ongoing? who knows?) fighting in Najaf…
After describing nine corpses of pro-Moqtada “martyrs” he saw stacked up in “one of Najaf’s oldest religious schools … a few yards away from the main Imam Ali mosque”, he comments:

    The injuries to the dead said a lot about the precision of American snipers, but there was more argument over the precision of their counting.
    While the Americans claimed 300 of the Mahdi army had been killed, no more than a dozen wounded and the nine dead were to be seen.
    “If they had killed 300 that means we have at least another 1,000 injured,” said Ahmad al-Shaibani, the militia’s leading commander. “How many fighters do they think we have?”

The kind of tactics he describes seemed like the classic hit-and-run members of a small mobile force would use:

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East Timor resists push for UN court

I hadn’t seen this interesting story before. It’s on Reuters Alertnet today, and it tells how Foreign Minister Jose Ramos-Horta of East Timor has urged his country’s friends in the international community to stop pushing for a UN court to be established to try the many terrible excesses that Indonesia committed in the country in the wake of its 1999 election:

    Foreign Minister Jose Ramos-Horta said his tiny nation was heavily dependent on political stability in neighbouring Indonesia and a U.N. court trying Indonesian soldiers could spark a backlash and even be a setback for the war on terror.
    “The government of East Timor does not contemplate lobbying for an international tribunal to try the crimes of 1999 because we know this would undermine the existing relations between the two countries,” Ramos-Horta told Reuters by telephone from Dili.
    “We know it could be manipulated by certain elements in Indonesia itself and create a backlash against the United Nations and the international community, even against the government of the day in Indonesia,” he said.

Human Rights Watch reportedly called, over the weekend, for the establishment of just such a UN court. That happened after a national-level Indonesian appeals court overturned the convictions of three top soldiers and a policeman found guilty of crimes against humanity in connection with the 1999 massacres.
Indonesia is also, right now, in the middle of a complex presidential election. Presumably, the fear is that if the UN were to announce plans for a court, that could push more voptes to the pro-military, ultra-nationalistic party, Golkar.
The Reuters piece added:

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Responsibilities of states in conflicts

I just finished writing another chapter of my book on Africa. Doing so involved –among other things–poring over the reports of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, in order to see how those good folks tried to comprehend and describe the violence that beset their land in the apartheid era.
In volume 6 there (one of the “codicil” volumes, published in 2001), I found the following very important quote:

    A state must be held to a higher standard of moral and political conduct than any other role player in a violent conflict. After all, a state has at its command powers, resources, privileges, obligations and responsibilities that liberation movements and other role players do not.(p.615)

I think that that simple piece of wisdom should be underscored in the present time, particularly in the context of the US’s conduct in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere; Israel’s conduct in the occupied territories; and Sudan’s conduct in Darfur. (To name just a few.)
The sentiment expressed there is pure John Locke. Locke, a 17th-century british philosopher, had a vivid understanding of (and as a result, a healthy distrust of) the huge power of states relative to that of non-state actors.
I was thumbing through my copy of Locke’s Two Treatises of Government, trying to find one or two of the more apposite quotes in that regard. Well, the book fell open instead at Chapter XVI, “Of Conquest”. It is worth re-reading– and particuarly so, perhaps, by all those in the US rightwing who have a healthy–one might say, Lockean–distrust of “big” government:

    Sec. 175. THOUGH governments can originally have no other rise than that before mentioned, nor polities be founded on any thing but the consent of the people; yet such have been the disorders ambition has filled the world with, that in the noise of war, which makes so great a part of the history of mankind, this consent is little taken notice of: and therefore many have mistaken the force of arms for the consent of the people, and reckon conquest as one of the originals of government. But conquest is as far from setting up any government, as demolishing an house is from building a new one in the place. Indeed, it often makes way for a new frame of a common-wealth, by destroying the former; but, without the consent of the people, can never erect a new one.

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Hiroshima then and now

59 years ago today an American warplane dropped the world’s first “operational” atomic weapon. It was designed to detonate some 200 meters above the ground, to maximize fallout on the heavily populated Japanese industrial city of Hiroshima. Some 30 minutes prior to dropping the bomb, other American planes had dropped sensors at various points around the city so they could gauge the radiation and other effects of the big one.
200,000 Japanese people were killed by that bomb. Some fast, in the firestorm that engulfed the city. Some more slowly and agonizingly–from drinking radiation-polluted water, or from developing radiation-induced cancers.
Three days later, the U.S. military was eager to test a different bomb design. So without even giving Japan a chance to surrender, they dropped the second bomb on the equally heavily populated city of Nagasaki.
Let’s not confuse the effects of an atomic bomb–even a “primitive” form of atomic bomb like those 1945 models–with those of other forms of weapons, through too much easy talk of “weapons of ‘mass’ destruction”. Atomic weapons, like the 7,094 nuclear warheads that are in the US arsenal today, are whole orders of magnitude more deadly than the most lethal chemical or biological weapon.
Why does the US ruling elite think the country “needs” to have such a large nuclear arsenal–or indeed, any nuclear arsenal at all?
They claim they are defending “civilization”. What twisted idea of “civilization” is this that would require even one nuclear weapon to defend it?
There is another, more plausible explanation: it is that the ruling elite wants the US–with a total of just 4 percent of the world’s population!–to continue to exercise hegemony over the entire world. Under this explanation, the use of the bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the prime example of the doctine of “shock and awe”, otherwise known as terrifying/terrorizing the rest of the world until it bows to Washington’s will.
Enough. Enough. Let’s start working seriously, from here on, for a truly nuclear-weapons-free world.
The Bush administration, need I add, has just about the opposite idea. Far from being ready to start stepping down the USA’s own reliance on nuclear weapons in any way, manner, or form, it is aggressively reserving for itself the right to continue to upgrade and “update” the US nuclear arsenal.
The latest indicator of this is the administration’s refusal to allow any provisions for inspections other verifiaction measures to be included in the terms of the still-under-negotiation Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty…

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Hamas on a roll?

Well, guess who’s in Cairo, talking about security issues in Gaza?
According to Reuters, Khaled Mashaal, the head of Hamas, is.
Mashaal is the guy whom the Israelis tried to kill, using poison darts, in Jordan, back in 1997. I’m assuming his security people have gotten some solid-looking commitments from the Egyptians that the israelis won’t be allowed to try the same thing again this time?
The Reuters story, by Nidal Mughrabi, says:

    Sources in Hamas, an Islamist movement behind many suicide attacks on Israelis, said the Cairo talks would seek to clarify Egypt’s offer to send up to 200 security advisers to Gaza.
    Egypt, one of only two Arab states to have a peace treaty with Israel, wants to help prevent any collapse into anarchy or an Islamist takeover on its borders after Jewish settlers leave.
    A Hamas delegation led by Khaled Meshaal, the exiled Hamas politburo chief who survived an Israeli assassination attempt in 1997, arrived in Cairo Monday to prepare for the talks.
    “Each side will seek clarification from the other on a number of Palestinian, regional and international issues,” Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters by telephone from Gaza.
    “The discussion will touch on (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon’s Gaza plan, (possible) roles of Arab countries such as Egypt, and the latest crisis in the Palestinian territories.”
    There was no immediate comment available from Egyptian officials on the talks.

Of course, all this takes place in the context of the continuing turmoil within the ranks of the (mainly secular) Fateh and allied Palestinian movements.
This would not be the first time that the Egyptian government–or, indeed, the Israeli government–has sought to strengthen the role of Palestinian Islamists as a way to countering the power of Palestinian secular nationalists…

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U.S. torture revelations: Gitmo & Abu Ghraib

As I’ve predicted a few times, further revelations about Uncle Sam’s terrifying record of detainee abuse have continued to come out throughout the summer. Today, we had the news about the start of the trial of a visibly pregnant (but still truculent) Lynndie England. There have also been a couple of other tidbits in the major media that give notice of intriguing additional news items to come…
First, Newsweek has this story, by Michael Hirsch and John Barry, telling us that the Schlesinger Commission, appointed by Rumsfeld himself to look into the detainee abuse issue, will be issuing its report in mid-August: and it may assign blame to people high up in the Pentagon, including possibly Bombs-Away Don himself.
They write:

    there is strong sentiment to assign some responsibility up the line to senior civilian officials at the Pentagon, including Rumsfeld, several sources close to the discussions say. The Defense secretary is expected to be criticized, either explicitly or implicitly, for failing to provide adequate numbers of properly trained troops for detaining and interrogating captives in Afghanistan and Iraq. His office may also be rebuked for not setting clear interrogation rules and for neglecting to see that guidelines were followed. The commissioners “are taking an unvarnished look at the issue as a whole,” said a source close to the commission. “A more extensive look than some people had initially thought they might take.”

Certainly worth watching out for. (Hirsh and Barry make clear that former Secdef Jim Schlesinger, who’s heading the four-person commission, may be a hawk, but he’s also a fiercely independent thinker who has already won at least one significant battle with Bombs-Away Don over the scope of the commission’s work.)
Over at ABC News, meanwhile, there’s an exclusive bit of reporting that the three Brit-cits who were freed from Guantanamo in March have produced a “written account” of their time there that details some pretty nasty treatment.
We actually saw this item on ABC Evening (TV) News this evening, and the reporter was holding up some kind of a bound, report-type publication that seemed to be the “account” in question. I even think the reporter (I forget who it was) said it would be presented to someone tomorrow, or soon thereafter.
There’s nothing about that in the ABC web story. But it does say this:

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Women in Somaliland

Continuing on the theme of the role of women in reform efforts in Muslim countries, Yvette Lopez, the talented, inspirational author of the Taste of Africa blog, has a great post there today on the subject.
Somaliland, in case you didn’t know much about it, is an almost self-governing portion of war-plagued Somalia. (You can read much more about it on Yvette’s blog.) But what she writes in today’s post–as in many previous posts– gives a lot of good info about the vital role of women in rebuilding shattered communities after wars–whether in Muslim countries or elsewhere.
In today’s post, she writes of:

    Daraweyne village where an impending inter-clan conflict was halted by women, they stood in the middle of two warring clans as if saying “kill us first before you kill each other!” This act prevented the clash of male villagers and paved the way for a dialogue facilitated by women.
    After the war, women took odd jobs to provide for their families while the men were left unemployed. The male unemployed force come from demobilized liberation fighters and nomads affected by the livestock ban, an industry dominated by men.
    “Our men are proud, they don’t want to be seen doing work they consider demeaning” [Zamzam Abdi, the manager of the most successful micro-finance institution that provides loan for women traders] added. More and more women set up small businesses, they sew clothes, manage teashops, clean houses, cook for other people among others. Today, women head more and more households, the sad impact of khat chewing sends their husbands away from their families leaving women to carry the burden of productive and reproductive roles.
    The total absence of women in the traditional clan structure is slowly being changed in the arena of the newly formed Somaliland government and civil society movement. “We have gone a long way, now we have 2 women cabinet Ministers, 3 out of 332 local officials are women, stable and strong organizations are well managed and sustained by women, we are now part of the National Electoral Commission (NEC) of political parties and civil society groups that publicly voice out women’s interest,” Sacadia of Pastoral Environmental Network of the Horn of Africa (PENHA) said.

Check the rest of the post out, too!

Country roads, Virginia

I wrote here Friday that I’d been playing hooky from “a residential conference”,
though in fact the gathering in question was the 333rd annual session of
Baltimore Yearly Meeting
of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers).

I shan’t write much here about what went on at the conference. The
business part of the proceedings was largely tied up in lengthy consideration
of a gay-rights/ anti-homophobia issue within the broader Quaker community
that is a hard one to come to unity on. Still, I think some
good progress was made. And meanwhile, it was good to re-connect with
some old friends who are also Friends.

I did, however, want to write a little about the pleasure I got from driving
back on Friday afternoon to Harrisonburg, Virginia–location of the session–from
my hometown here in Charlottesville…

Because Lorna (the youngest) would be home a bit this weekend, I left my
car here for her to drive, and took Bill-the-spouse’s car, known by some
as “the skateboard”. Actually, it’s a 1982 Fiat Spider and it’s considerably
wider than a skateboard, if not very much longer or higher than one.

But the neat thing about it is, in good weather you get to put the top down…

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Rolling Stone on Abu Ghraib

Rolling Stone has an article by Osha Gray Davidson that describes some of the info in the 160 “annexes” (6,000 pages) to the US Army’s internal Taguba report into conditions at Abu Ghraib prison. These annexes have been provided to Congressional investigators but not–until now–to the general public.
Thanks to Yankeedoodle for signaling this piece.
Davidson’s piece is definitely worth reading (if you have a strong stomach.) Not many actual new “revelations” apart from numerous apparently credible statements from previous inmates about rapes by guards and other members of the prison staff of male (and apparently also female) prisoners. And quite a lot more details about incidents like the night that Sgt. Graner, Pvt Lynndie England, and their co-workers took so many photos of all their abuses.
And this:

    According to an internal Army investigation contained in the secret files, the civilian-run Coalition Provisional Authority had hired at least five members of Fedayeen Saddam — a paramilitary organization of fanatical Saddam loyalists — to work as guards at the prison. An Iraqi guard, probably one of “Saddam’s martyrs,” had smuggled the gun and two knives into the prison in an inner tube, placed them in a sheet and tossed them up to the second-story window of Cell 35. In May, when Taguba testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen.Wayne Allard asked him a direct question: “Did we have terrorists in the population at this prison?” Taguba answered, “Sir, none that we were made aware of.” His own files make clear, however, that a more accurate response would have been: “Yes, sir — but only among the guards.”

Davidson’s analysis points a finger of responsibility pretty clearly at Maj-Gen. Barbara Fast, the Chief of Military Intelligence in Iraq–at the time, and still today; and also at Maj-Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the man who was sent from Gitmo to Abu Ghraib in October 2003 to try to “Gitmo-ize” the intel-gathering operations there– and who was subsequently named director of all detainee operations in Iraq, a position that he still holds.
If Sen. Warner and all the other Congressional people who’ve been trying to investigate and reform this whole situation want to be taken seriously by us taxpayers, then I suggest they should at the very least require that Generals Fast and Miller be reassigned from their current positions– at the double!