Archived news and commentary: May 10 - 16, 2004

2004/06/28 - 2004/07/04
2004/06/21 - 2004/06/27
2004/06/14 - 2004/06/20
2004/06/07 - 2004/06/13
2004/05/31 - 2004/06/06
2004/05/24 - 2004/05/30
2004/05/17 - 2004/05/23
2004/05/10 - 2004/05/16
2004/05/03 - 2004/05/09
2004/04/26 - 2004/05/02
2004/04/19 - 2004/04/25
2004/04/12 - 2004/04/18
2004/04/05 - 2004/04/11
2004/03/29 - 2004/04/04

Sunday, May 16, 2004

News and commentary:

"Private First Class Lynndie England"
(AFP/Getty Images, 2004/05/10)
"Undated family photo of Private First Class Lynndie England."

"Prison Guard Calls Abuse Routine and Sometimes Amusing" (Kate Zernike, The New York Times, 2004/05/16)
"In a sworn statement to investigators, Pfc. Lynndie England explained the mystery of why soldiers at Abu Ghraib took pictures of detainees masturbating and piled naked with plastic sandbags over their heads by saying, "We thought it looked funny so pictures were taken." ...
She explains how she put a strap around a detainee's neck and forced him and others to run and crawl down a hallway for "approximately four to six hours;" how one soldier would regularly throw a Nerf football at detainees with bags over their heads "to scare them;" how one soldier would kick detainees and cause open wounds, then "would personally stitch detainees if the wound weren't too bad," according to a copy of her statement given to The New York Times.
Asked if she ever physically abused a detainee, Private England said, "Yes, I stepped on some of them, push them or pull them, but nothing extreme."
She described how Staff Sgt. Ivan L. Frederick II punched detainees, "and the normal stuff as far as lean on them or push them."
"He also played some mind games with some of them with chemical lights," she added. "He would tell them to lift their legs and place the chemical light under their feet and tell them it was a knife. The chemical light would then be broken and spilled on the ground, the detainee would then be forced to crawl through it and then placed in a dark cell, this would freak out the detainee because they would glow."
"Picture 000015 was basically us fooling around," she said, pointing to a photograph of detainees stacked naked in different positions in 1A, the area of the prison where the soldiers now charged with abuse worked."

"Iraqi General Urges Support of U.S. Troops" (Katarina Kratovac, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/05/16)
"A former Saddam Hussein-era general appointed by the Americans to lead an Iraqi security force in the rebellious Sunni stronghold of Fallujah urged tribal elders and sheiks Sunday to support U.S. efforts to stabilize Iraq.
Retired Maj. Gen. Mohammed Abdul-Latif rose to prominence after nearly monthlong battles last month between the Marines monthlong battles in April between the Marines and insurgents hunkered down in Fallujah's neighborhoods.
"We can make them (Americans) use their rifles against us or we can make them build our country, it's your choice," Latif told a gathering of more than 40 sheiks, city council members and imams in an eastern Fallujah suburb. ...
The venue offered a rare insight into Latif's interactions and influence over Fallujah elders. As he spoke, many sheiks nodded in approval and listened with reverence to his words. Later, they clasped his hands and patted Latif on the back.
Latif, speaking in Arabic to the sheiks, defended the Marines and the U.S. occupation of Iraq.
"They were brought here by the acts of one coward who was hunted out of a rathole — Saddam — who disgraced us all," Latif said. "Let us tell our children that these men (U.S. troops) came here to protect us.
"As President Bush said, they did not come here to occupy our land but to get rid of Saddam. We can help them leave by helping them do their job, or we can make them stay ten years and more by keeping fighting."

"Scuffles at UK embassy in Iran" (CNN.com, 2004/05/16)
"Iranian students have scuffled with riot police who kept them from attacking the British Embassy in a protest against the Iraq war.
Meanwhile Iran's clerical elite turned up the rhetoric against the U.S. and British occupation of Iraq. Iran's supreme leader accused the U.S. of acting in a "shameless" way and damaging an important Shiite Muslim shrine in Iraq. ...
The demonstration came after supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called for U.S. forces to leave Iraq and condemned the United States for their "shameful and stupid" actions in Shi'ite holy cities.
Senior cleric Ayatollah Mohammad Ali Gerami, a source of emulation for Shiites, was quoted by the ISNA students news agency on Saturday as saying that war damage to Shiite holy sites justified attacks on British and U.S. interests worldwide." (See also: "Sacred Shiite Shrine Suffers Minor Damage" (Hamza Hendawi, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/05/14))

"Report: Syrians, 'equipment' were in N. Korea train blast" (World Tribune.com, 2004/05/16)
"Syrian technicians accompanying unknown equipment were killed in the train explosion in North Korea on April 22, according to a report in a Japanese newspaper.
A military specialist on Korean affairs revealed that the Syrian technicians were killed in the explosion in Ryongchon in the northwestern part of the country, according to the Sankei Shimbun. The specialist said the Syrians were accompanying "large equipment" and that the damage from the explosion was greatest in the portion of the train they occupied.
The source said North Korean military personnel with protective suits responded to the scene soon after the explosion and removed material only from the Syrians' section of the train.
The technicians were from the Syrian technical research center called Centre d'Etudes et de Recherche Scientific (CERS). Although CERS was established to promote science and technology development, it has been viewed as a major player in Syria's weapons of mass destruction development program.
The source said it was not known whether the cargo was the source of the explosion or whether it had exploded following a separate explosion on another section of the train."

"Pentagon Denies Report's Rumsfeld Claims" (AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/05/16)
"Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld authorized the expansion of a secret program that encouraged physical coercion and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners to obtain intelligence about the growing insurgency in Iraq, The New Yorker reported Saturday.
The Defense Department strongly denied the claims made in the report, which cited unnamed current and former intelligence officials and was published on the magazine's Web site. Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita issued a statement calling the claims "outlandish, conspiratorial, and filled with error and anonymous conjecture." ...
"No responsible official of the Department of Defense approved any program that could conceivably have been intended to result in such abuses as witnessed in the recent photos and videos," Di Rita said in his statement. 'This story seems to reflect the fevered insights of those with little, if any, connection to the activities in the Department of Defense.'" (See also: "The Gray Zone" (Seymour M. Hersh, The New Yorker, 2004/05/15))

"Powell: Arab Response to Berg Insufficient" (AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/05/16)
"Secretary of State Colin Powell scolded Arab governments Sunday for not expressing more outrage over the videotaped beheading of an American civilian in Iraq. ...
Powell, interviewed from Jordan, said he has told Arab leaders, "When you are outraged at what happened at the prison, you should be equally, doubly outraged at what happened to Mr. Berg."
On "Fox News Sunday," Powell said, "That is equal to any other act you've seen with respect to the need to condemn it, and to condemn it outright, and to condemn it publicly. And we need that same level of outrage and condemnation coming from the Arab world, just as it's coming from us."
The Islamic militant groups Hezbollah and Hamas issued strongly worded condemnations of the killing. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were the first Arab governments to criticize the murder after an initial silence throughout the region about the videotape." (See also: "Arab Street Erupts in Rage Over Beheading Video" (Scott Ott, ScrappleFace, 2004/05/11))

"Kofi The King" (Amir Taheri, New York Post, 2004/05/16)
"Withjust seven weeks to the scheduled transfer of power to the Iraqis, the United States seems to be preparing to throw the baby out with the bathwater in exchange for a resolution from the U.N. Security Council.
Convinced that the Bush administration is looking for an exit strategy with the help of the United Nations, France and Russia have already started raising the stakes on the new Iraq resolution sought by the Americans. In a series of recent statements and leaks, the two veto-holding powers have made it clear that they will not settle for anything less than a humiliating abdication by the United States of its responsibilities in Iraq.
To begin with, they want Lakhdar Brahimi, the U.N. point-man in Baghdad, to name the new Iraqi government.
The Algerian diplomat has already made it clear that he is looking for "fresh faces," which means excluding all those who have worked with the U.S.-led Coalition since liberation.
In other words: Not only will the liberators have no say in who governs Iraq in the transition, but those Iraqis who have worked hard to make liberation a success will also be punished for their efforts. ...
Paris and Moscow believe that the Bush administration is desperate enough to accept almost anything.
This is why they insist that the future U.N. interim czar should have the power to revoke any of the numerous edicts approved by the Coalition Provisional Authority and the Iraq Governing Council — e.g., Brahimi could cancel the edict that banned the Ba'ath Party. He also intends to cancel the statement of principles that commits Iraq to building a Western-style democratic system rather than a modified version of Arab despotism."

"Now's not the time for Bush to go soft" (Mark Steyn, Chicago Sun-Times, 2004/05/16)
"The American people, no thanks to their media, still understand what's real and what's just cheesy Beltway dinner-theater. That's why the Abu Ghraib scandal is dead, even if the networks don't yet know it. It was dead before Nick Berg. It died because the Democrats and their media groupies overplayed their hand, as usual, and so turned a real scandal into just another fake scandal for senatorial windbags to huff and puff over. In the last few days, the Mirror, a raucous Fleet Street tabloid, has published pictures of British troops urinating on Iraqi prisoners, and the Boston Globe, a somnolent New England broadsheet, has published pictures of American troops sexually abusing Iraqi women. In both cases, the pictures turned out to be fake. From a cursory glance at the details in the London snaps and the provenance of the Boston ones, it should have been obvious to editors at both papers that they were almost certainly false.
Yet they published them. Because they wanted them to be true. Because it would bring them a little closer to the head they really want to roll — George W. Bush's. If you want to see what the Islamists did to Nick Berg or Daniel Pearl or to those guys in Fallujah or even to the victims of Sept. 11, you'll have to ferret it out on the Internet. The media aren't interested in showing you images that might rouse the American people to righteous anger, only images that will shame and demoralize them."

"Why America can't cope with these images" (Anne Applebaum, The Sunday Telegraph, 2004/05/16)
"No fewer than three visiting Englishmen of my acquaintance have recently expressed astonishment at the level of panic which has prevailed in Washington since the photographs from Abu Ghraib were made public, a panic which doesn't seem to have been properly reflected in the British press coverage. Congress, the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department, the press, and all of the people who go to cocktail parties in Georgetown have talked of little else for two weeks. ...
After the photographs were first published, Mr Rumsfeld's first reaction to the pictures was "This is un-American". Looking at the still-classified videos taken at Abu Ghraib, a Colorado Senator demanded to know "How the hell did these people get into our army?" You can think it naive or you can think it sweet, but American exceptionalism — the belief the US really is morally better than most other places — actually does run very deep here. ...
Don't be surprised if this anger lasts some time, and don't underestimate its power. After all, Watergate, dismissed in much of Europe as a run-of-the-mill electoral scandal, destroyed Richard Nixon. The implications of failure in Vietnam were sufficient to persuade Lyndon Johnson not to run for a second term. If George W Bush is held responsible for the nation's renewed loss of faith in itself, he too may not be president much longer."

"'Culture' is no excuse" (David Aaronovitch, The Observer, 2004/05/16)
Add Stalin and the Gulag to the list below: "A man from Maidstone had this letter published in the Independent last week. 'Why is it barbaric,' he asked, 'to decapitate an innocent man with a knife but civilised to do it with a laser-guided bomb?' Or to rephrase the question, is the video executioner of Nicholas Berg in any way morally deficient compared to the general or politician who gives an order that — whatever the intention — will almost certainly lead to the death of an innocent somewhere?
Other, similar, relativities have been knocking around this week. Also in the Independent, former editor Andreas Whittam Smith — infuriated by the government response to the Iraqi prison scandal contrasted the high language of exporting democracy with the accusation that 'the coalition appears to have created a gulag stretching from Afghanistan through Iraq and ending in Guantanamo Bay, where "undesirables" ... can be mistreated for as long as Stalin, sorry I mean Messrs Bush and Blair, decide.' ...
True, an easy assumption of superior virtue can blind you to what is good about others and what is bad about yourself. But do we really believe that it is the same thing accidentally to kill a civilian with a bomb as it is to cut off his head on camera? Or that a society and polity that is rightly horrified by prisoner abuse is to be compared with the one presided over by Stalin?" (See also: "No other prime minister has brought such shame on us" (Andreas Whittam Smith, Independent/christusrex.org, 2004/05/10))

"There's No Escape When War Turns Ghoulish" (Donald G. McNeil Jr., The New York Times, 2004/05/16)
No escape from stupid comparisons, that is. An anonymous European cabinet minister likened the prisoner abuse scandal to the Nazi destruction of Guernica. For Le Monde it equaled Ku Klux Klan lynchings. McNeil Jr. is even more imaginative:
"For the most historically imaginative, the pictures of mistreated prisoners of war from inside Abu Ghraib prison recalled the sight greeting Ottoman soldiers when they marched north in 1476 into Romania: hundreds of their captured comrades spiked on poles along the roadside by Vlad the Impaler, the Christian prince who gave rise to the Dracula legend."

"The Hawks Loudly Express Their Second Thoughts" (John Tierney, The New York Times, 2004/05/16)
"Some hawks are staying the course. Donald H. Rumsfeld, the defense secretary, is still defended by The Wall Street Journal editorial page and columnists like Charles Krauthammer, of The Washington Post, and William Safire, of The New York Times, who has dismissed the idea of speeding the transition as "cut and walk fast." Rush Limbaugh has accused liberal journalists of overreacting to the prison scandal. ...
But many hawks across the political spectrum are having public second thoughts. The National Review has dismissed the Wilsonian ideal of implanting democracy in Iraq, and has recommended settling for an orderly society with a non-dictatorial government. David Brooks, a New York Times columnist, wrote that America entered Iraq with a "childish fantasy" and is now "a shellshocked hegemon." Journalists like Robert Novak, Max Boot and Thomas Friedman have encouraged Mr. Rumsfeld to resign."

Saturday, May 15, 2004

News and commentary:

"Not in my city" (Mohammed, Iraq the Model, 2004/05/15)
Mohammed on a trip to Samawa: "The pictures I see are so many and they bring hope, I remember the last day I spent there before I returned to Baghdad, and I was watching Al-Samawa local TV (now they have their own local station) and it was broadcasting one of the sessions of the district’s council when a woman stood up wearing the traditional costume and behind her was a group of women, she started to yell in the face of the chairman of the council saying “Listen to me! You can’t ignore our voice anymore. These women elected me and put their trust in me and I demand authorities like those of men. My voice will not stay low from now on and I have to give those who elected me what they need”. I don’t think you can realize the meaning of this picture. It simply means that we have moved tens of years forward in a matter of months and we have broken the chains of a long dark past. The cry of this woman was enough to awaken me to the great progress that happened. ...
The negative media want our eyes to pause on the bad events to win time in this worldwide battle and to make us forget the good pictures that encourage us to keep the momentum. This includes most of the major western media.
They are ‘unconsciously’ supporting the terrorists and the totalitarian regimes in the region to stop this great progress. The media have managed to create some distrust and hate between some Iraqis and some of the coalition and the west in general. Well, not in my city, it seems to be immune to their poison.
The road is long and hard but together, we can do it."

"The Gray Zone" (Seymour M. Hersh, The New Yorker, 2004/05/15)
"The roots of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal lie not in the criminal inclinations of a few Army reservists but in a decision, approved last year by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, to expand a highly secret operation, which had been focussed on the hunt for Al Qaeda, to the interrogation of prisoners in Iraq. Rumsfeld’s decision embittered the American intelligence community, damaged the effectiveness of élite combat units, and hurt America’s prospects in the war on terror.
According to interviews with several past and present American intelligence officials, the Pentagon’s operation, known inside the intelligence community by several code words, including Copper Green, encouraged physical coercion and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners in an effort to generate more intelligence about the growing insurgency in Iraq. A senior C.I.A. official, in confirming the details of this account last week, said that the operation stemmed from Rumsfeld’s long-standing desire to wrest control of America’s clandestine and paramilitary operations from the C.I.A." (See also: "Chain of Command" (Seymour M. Hersh, The New Yorker, 2004/05/09) and "Torture at Abu Ghraib" (Seymour M. Hersh, The New Yorker, 2004/04/30))

"Arafat Makes Call to 'Terrorize' Enemy" (AP/Newsday.com, 2004/05/15)
"Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat on Saturday called on his people to "terrorize your enemy" as he bitterly marked the 56-year anniversary of Israel's establishment, but also signaled that he is ready for peace.
In a speech broadcast live on Palestinian television, Arafat repeatedly called on his people to be steadfast in their struggle against Israeli occupation.
He ended the speech with a quote from the Quran.
"Find what strength you have to terrorize your enemy and the enemy of God," he said. "And if they want peace, then let's have peace." ...
Arafat spoke as Palestinians marked what they refer to as the "catastrophe" of Israel's independence on May 15, 1948."

"Gaza Pullout Rally Draws Tens of Thousands in Israel" (Gwen Ackerman, Reuters, 2004/05/15)
"Tens of thousands of Israelis rallied on Saturday demanding that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon push ahead with his stalled Gaza pullout plan after Palestinian militants dealt Israel's army its deadliest blow in two years.
Crowds packed Tel Aviv's main square for what leftist organizers said was shaping up as one of the biggest demonstrations in years by Israel's "peace camp," largely dormant since the outbreak of a Palestinian uprising in 2000.
The killing of 13 soldiers by militants in the Gaza Strip this week has deepened already strong public support in Israel for a unilateral Gaza withdrawal rejected by Sharon's right-wing Likud party, opinion polls show.
The rally was intended to evoke memories of the public clamor that led to Israel's 2000 withdrawal from southern Lebanon after a 22-year occupation that cost the lives of hundreds of troops in fighting against Hizbollah guerrillas."

"Newsweek Poll: Bad Days for Bush" (Brian Braiker, Newsweek, 2004/05/15)
"As his administration grapples with the fallout from the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal, President George W. Bush’s approval ratings have dropped to 42 percent, according to the latest Newsweek poll, a low for his presidency. Fifty-seven percent say they disapprove of Bush’s handling of the war in Iraq. And 62 percent say they are dissatisfied with the way things are going in the United States, a number that has been steadily increasing since April, 2003, when it was 41 percent. ...
With images of naked and shackled prisoners still fresh in their minds, the 35 percent of the public that approve of the handling the war in Iraq represents a nine-point drop over last month. And the number of those who think the United States did the right thing in declaring war on Iraq in the first place has fallen 11-points from December, to 51 percent."

"It's America's War" (David Gelernter, The Weekly Standard, from the 2004/05/24 issue)
"The moment we saw those pictures we knew (every last American knew) that the punch in the gut is on the way. People who never cared a damn what Saddam did to his prisoners would be choking back tears of outrage. Americans hold themselves to a higher moral standard, of course. But most Americans suspected that the world's reaction had as much to do with America Hatred as it did with moral standards. We knew that people would forget what we have achieved in Iraq, and what it has cost us in arms and legs and eyes and blood. We knew our enemies would light into America and do their best to turn the world against us and against our troops — whom we had seen risking their lives to liberate Iraq and make it safe — not to mention the
civilians who hazarded life and limb to get clean water flowing, oil pumping, power on, schools open, streets policed, the economy inching forward, and democracy coming steadily closer. We could all anticipate headlines like the one that appeared in the May 8 Irish Times: "The shaming of America. George Bush's boast of shutting down Saddam Hussein's torture chambers in Iraq rings hollow now." We knew our enemies would use those photos to smear our whole Army, our whole Iraq campaign, our whole nation. Much of the world (after all) operates on America Hate the way a car runs on gas or a tick on blood.
"The shaming of America. George Bush's boast of shutting down Saddam Hussein's torture chambers in Iraq rings hollow now." The hell it does. Anyone who equates Saddam's bloody decades of torture and mass murder to the crimes at Abu Ghraib is the same kind of fool who once preached the moral equivalence of America and Soviet Russia, or of America in Vietnam and Hitlerism. Imbecility is eternal, perpetually reincarnated."

"Who Is Abu Zarqawi?" (Robert S. Leiken and Steven Brooke, The Weekly Standard, from the 2004/05/24 issue)
"What we know about the terrorist leader who murdered Nicholas Berg": "Zarqawi exemplifies Sunni terrorism after 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq, what some call "al Qaeda 2.0." The Western counteroffensive decimated al Qaeda's leadership, stripped the organization of safe havens and training camps, and disrupted its command and control. Former al Qaeda subsidiaries became franchises, receiving inspiration from bin Laden's occasional messages but operating independently. Historically speaking, the dynamic of revolutionary movements favors the most radical faction — the Jacobins, not the Girondists, the Bolsheviks, not the Menshiviks. If this dynamic prevails in contemporary Sunni terrorism, Abu Musab al Zarqawi represents the future."

"We are all un-American?" (Jean-Marie Colombani, Le Monde/¡No Pasarán!, 2004/05/15)
A translation of an editorial by Jean-Marie Colombani from yesterday's Le Monde:
"'It's impossible to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means. The horror.' So says Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now, the film that best represented an America at war, in Vietnam, divorced from itself. The nightmare that isolated America from the rest of the world and from the better part of itself has reemerged, revived by the quagmire created by Bush’s war in Iraq. One, perhaps, should say “crusade,” as Bush’s good conscience — this faith without any doubt that borders on arrogance and that distances America from the values that it is supposed to defend — is omnipresent. “They want to become Americans,” claimed Donald Rumsfeld, when speaking of Iraq. We are all un-American, one is now tempted to reply. ...
This debacle has it origins in that mix of American power and Bush’s absolutely good conscience. This is a corrosive cocktail that blocks all inhibitions, erases doubts, and prevents self-criticism on the borders of the Potomac just as much as in the corridors of a Baghdad prison. This situation requires a double remedy: Return to the best American tradition of checks and balances that lies at heart of American democracy; listen to the veterans of Old Europe; in brief, remember that trans-Atlantic cohesion deserves renewed consideration. American leaders must agree — one time is not enough — to state: “We are all Europeans!” America must become more European. Americans must draw on that wisdom that Old Europe — so disdained by Donald Rumsfeld — acquired at its own expense, during a colonial past that had its share of somber hours. America desperately needs Europe — Americans suffer from an absence of old European skepticism. At the origin of the Iraqi tragedy is an almost theological conception of power that has driven the Bush administration from the very beginning: America is Good incarnate; all those not with us are against us; the enemies of the United States are Evil." (See also the French original: "Tous non-Américains?" (Jean-Marie Colombani, Le Monde, 2004/05/14))

"The British quisling corporation" (Melanie Phillips, melaniephillips.com, 2004/05/15)
"Over the past few days, the BBC’s virulent bias over Iraq, America and Israel has gone into an utterly astounding overdrive. The scandal over the ill-treatment of Iraqi prisoners has clearly destroyed the last vestiges of any attempt at fairness as hysteria has descended on our public disservice broadcaster. Item after item has mounted attack after attack on America, hyping up the distorting defeatism over Iraq and continuing to promulgate the view that Israel, the victim of the most barbaric atrocities, is instead the root of the problem in the Middle East. ...
What all this shows is that the BBC has become far more than a redoubt of Guardian and Independent values; far more than a journalistic disgrace; far more than betrayal of the concept of public service broadcasting. It has become nothing short of a national menace, an enemy of this country’s interests and a fifth column in time of war. There is no doubt in my mind that a major reason why otherwise sane and sensible Britons have totally lost touch with reality, believe the US and Israel are the source of all evil while people who play football with the heads of Jews are the victims of injustice, and are on the way to pressurising the British government to pull out of Iraq, denounce America and thus hand victory to religious fascism, is because of the influence of the BBC, our secular church. And because of its immense global prestige and the fact that it is trusted to tell the truth, the BBC is now helping poison the discourse of the world."

"Arafat at heart of rights abuse report" (Gethin Chamberlain, The Scotsman, 2004/05/15)
"Arab prisoners beaten and tortured, innocent bystanders killed by gunfire — another damning human rights report.
But the difference this time is that the violence is being perpetrated not by coalition forces in Iraq, but by the Palestinian Authority, and the victims are its own people.
The report, partly funded by the Finnish government, claims Palestinian cities are in a state of near anarchy, with people on the payroll of Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Authority (PA) blamed for 90 per cent of gangland violence.
It highlights numerous incidents of torture of prisoners and refers to the killing of civilians in gunbattles between Palestinian factions.
It is another blow for Mr Arafat’s organisation, which was recently accused of misusing £134 million of European Union funds. Mr Arafat was accused of signing cheques to people linked with terrorist activity.
The organisation behind the latest report, the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group (PHRMG), has won few friends for its work documenting human rights violations against Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem.
Although it has been strongly critical of Israeli treatment of Palestinians, its criticism of the PA has seen its funding by European governments slashed." (Hat tip: InstaPundit. See also: The Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group.)

"Al-Qaeda says Canada deserves bombing" (Stewart Bell, National Post, 2004/05/15)
"The Al-Qaeda terror network views Canada as a legitimate target because it is a "selfish" nation committing "terrorism" against Muslims around the world, an unofficial spokesman for jihadists waging holy war against the West said Friday.
Khalid Khawaja, a friend of Osama bin Laden's who calls the Saudi terrorist and his followers "the most wonderful people of the world," told the National Post that Canadians should not be surprised if suicide bombers want to strike their country. ...
Suicide bombers are simply fighting back against the Western assault on their faith and Canadians should just learn to "take it," he said.
"Today you have the power in your hand. The other day the suicide bomber also has power. So you use your cruise missiles and atom bombs and all that, so he uses his power. So why do you cry at that time? When you say we are fighting a war against you, so better take it then."
"They are also fighting a war against you. They are fighting their way, you are fighting your way. So let's be happy. But only thing is, your faces are pulled down, you are scared, sitting in America and Canada. You are scared of a man sitting in the cave."
"We are not scared of you." ...
"Your civilization is selfish and self-centred. Just you want to live and enjoy yourselves and that is all, you don't give."
He said terrorist attacks would end only when the West stopped trying to dominate the Muslim world.
'We don't believe in killing innocent people but we would certainly like to send you into the Stone Age the same way you have sent us into the Stone Age.'"

"SORRY.. WE WERE HOAXED"
(The Daily Mirror, 2004/05/15)
(See also: "Sorry.. We Were Hoaxed" (The Daily Mirror, 2004/05/15): "So to you today we apologise for publishing pictures which we now believe were not genuine. We also say sorry to the Queen's Lancashire Regiment and our Army in Iraq for publishing those pictures.")

"Stunned staff mourn loss of editor who 'told the truth' about Iraqi abuse" (Sandra Laville, The Guardian, 2004/05/15)
Lies are truth at The Daily Mirror: "Such was the speed of his exit that Morgan had no chance to pick up his coat from the back of his chair.
His crime, colleagues said, was telling the truth. ...
"Everyone who criticised the war has been targeted. First it was the BBC and now Piers. Only the people who have prosecuted this war are still in place," said one reporter. ...
'What do you do when someone comes to you with a story? You ask for pictures. What he's done is expose the cruelty that was going on and told the truth. He has been kicked out by a bunch of faceless American shareholders - and who knows who was lobbying them.'" (See also: "Editor sacked over 'hoax' pictures" (BBC News, 2004/05/14) and "Mirror editor sacked over hoax" (Dan Milmo and Helen Carter, The Guardian, 2004/04/15): "Yesterday morning Mr Morgan was in defiant mood. "All I want to say is we published the truth," he told the ITV News Channel. 'We have revealed a can of worms. If the government chooses to ignore that, it is entirely a matter for them.'")

Friday, May 14, 2004

News and commentary:

"The Real Picture Show" (Roger L. Simon, rogerlsimon.com, 2004/05/14)
"I don't often get scoops on this site and there is no reason you should trust me, but I have one today. The following events ... light years beyond what you have seen from our troops in Abu Ghraib... are now in the hands of the new Arab-language Television network Alhurra. They are videotapes and, in one grisly case, photographs. These are all acts performed by Saddam's soldiers and police in uniform. I am not sure what Al Ahurra will broadcast, but they will be culled from among the following. I am told that when their people saw these tapes, they were unable to watch them. I can understand why. It is hard for me to type them.
First, the photographs. They are of actual live castrations of Kurds.
Now, the video tapes:
Two beheadings, during one of which "Happy Birthday, Saddam" is being sung in Arabic.
Fingers being cut off one by one from a hand tied to a board.
People being thrown off four-story buildings, one forced to wear a Superman costume.
A man scourged ninety-nine times.
Three different instances of gas poisonings (probably employing different types), including dead babies.
There may be more. I don't know. I would like to know if any of these torturers is actually in Abu Ghraib right now. Let's hope they were not among those let out. I also would like to know what Senator Kennedy has to say about the moral equivalence of our actions after watching these tapes. And finally, I would like to know why it took so long for these to come out."

"Heresy and History" (Angelo M. Codevilla, The American Spectator, 2004/05/14)
Codevilla on Wahabism: "In sum, the West has let the Wahabis set up bases outside the reach of their Muslim enemies, has let its terrorism run rampant, and has safeguarded its main base, Saudi Arabia, from the natural consequences of its rulers' Faustian bargain.
More than shielding the Saudi regime, Americans enabled it to spread Wahabism to a heretofore unimaginable extent when, in 1973, they agreed to give Saudi Arabia the power to set the world price of oil. The Saudi royals' money, we must not forget, is theirs only because America's best and brightest think it proper to assign property rights to persons who contribute nothing to the product. In the end, the Wahabi heresy intimidates Muslims around the world because it is fueled by U.S. money directed to them through Saudi Arabia by American judgment, the validity of which is not self-evident. ...
This heresy can be defeated only after the destruction of Saudi rule — preferably by other Muslims. The Saudis' Wahabism makes them the natural enemies of all the world's orthodox Muslims, especially Shi'ites. Iran, the great power of Shi'a Islam, is Wahabism's main enemy. America's elites, however, have supported the Saudis against the Iranians because they understand only the categories of "moderate vs. fundamentalist" and see neither Shi'ites nor Wahabis, neither orthodoxy nor heresy.
In short, violent heretics are winning their war with Islamic orthodoxy. The religion is being redefined. Hijacked. That is due in part to the support the heretics enjoy, nonetheless powerful for being indirect, from the West in general and America in particular. The point of all this is that even the best and brightest of officials need to know what they are about and, with that, do no harm."

"Christians Leave Nigerian City as Riot Rages" (Tume Ahemba, Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2004/05/14)
"Christians chased out of their homes by Muslims during bloody riots in Nigeria's northern city of Kano boarded buses to leave town as fresh clashes broke out Friday.
Hundreds of people, mostly Christians, have been burned and hacked to death by rioting Muslim mobs since Tuesday in a reprisal attack for the slaying of hundreds of Muslims in central Nigeria 10 days ago. ...
Thousands more Christians, many hungry and penniless, camped in police barracks across the city to escape rampaging youths armed with knives and gasoline.
About 1,000 Nigerians have probably died in religious fighting across the oil exporting country in two weeks, although officials decline to provide credible death tolls.
An aid worker said she saw three truck loads of corpses delivered to Kano's main hospital and expected more Friday.
"On Wednesday evening they brought in two trailor loads of bodies. There was one trailer load the previous day. A lot of people were killed. I think it is even more than 600," said the medical worker, asking not to be named."(See also: "Fury mounts after brutal Nigerian riot leaves morgue overflowing" (AFP/Yahoo! News, 2004/05/13),
"Nigerian Muslims Rampage for Second Day" (Oloche Samuel, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/05/12) and "Nigerian Muslim Protest Turns Violent" (Oloche Samuel, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/05/11))

"Editor sacked over 'hoax' pictures" (BBC News, 2004/05/14)
"Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan has been sacked following pressure over faked photos of soldiers abusing an Iraqi prisoner.
The Queen's Lancashire Regiment earlier said the Mirror should apologise for running the pictures and endangering British troops.
A statement from the Mirror said it had fallen victim to a "calculated and malicious hoax". The Mirror board said it would be "inappropriate" for Morgan to continue. ...
The newspaper released a statement saying: "The Daily Mirror published in good faith photographs which it absolutely believed were genuine images of British soldiers abusing an Iraqi prisoner.
"However there is now sufficient evidence to suggest that these pictures are fakes and that the Daily Mirror has been the subject of a calculated and malicious hoax.
"The Daily Mirror therefore apologises unreservedly for publishing the pictures and deeply regrets the reputational damage done to the QLR and the Army in Iraq." (See also: "Britain says prisoner abuse photos 'not taken in Iraq'" (AFP/Yahoo! News, 2004/05/13))

"Berg's encounter with 'terrorist' revealed" (CNN.com, 2004/05/14)
"When Nicholas Berg took an Oklahoma bus to a remote college campus a few years ago, the American recently beheaded by terrorists allowed a man with terrorist connections to use his laptop computer, according to his father.
Michael Berg said the FBI investigated the matter more than a year ago. He stressed that his son was in no way connected to the terrorists who captured and killed him.
Government sources told CNN that the encounter involved an acquaintance of Zacarias Moussaoui — the only person publicly charged in the United States in connection with the September 11, 2001, terror attacks.
According to Berg, his son was taking a course a few years ago at a remote campus of the University of Oklahoma near an airport. He described how on one particular day, his son met "some terrorist people — who no one knew were terrorists at the time."
At one point during the bus ride, Berg said, the man sitting next to his son asked if he could use Nick's laptop computer.
"It turned out this guy was a terrorist and that he, you know, used my son's e-mail, amongst many other people's e-mail who he did the same thing to," Berg said."

"Sacred Shiite Shrine Suffers Minor Damage" (Hamza Hendawi, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/05/14)
"The golden dome of the Shrine of Imam Ali, one of the most sacred sites for Shiite Muslims, was hit by what appeared to be four gunshots in fighting Friday between U.S. soldiers and militiamen loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
Four holes, each about 12 inches by 8 inches, were seen on the landmark structure by an Associated Press reporter.
The holes appeared to have been caused by machine gun fire but it was unclear which side was responsible. Three were on one side of the dome and one on another.
Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said al-Sadr militiamen probably were responsible for damage to the shrine. The chief U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, said he was unaware of the damage to the shrine, but added: "I can just tell you by the looks of where we were firing and where Muqtada's militia was firing, I would put my money that Muqtada caused it."
He said the militiamen were using religious sites "much like human shields." ...
Al-Sadr's spokesman, Qays al-Khazali, told The Associated Press that the Americans were responsible. He carried the casing of a bullet that he wrapped up in a paper tissue.
"I picked this up from the shrine. Only Americans have such bullets," he said outside al-Sadr's office near the shrine.
"They are Jews, they are Jews," screamed al-Mahdi Army militiamen standing nearby, alluding to the Americans.
Reports of the damage to the shrine, which includes the tomb of the son-in-law of the prophet Muhammad, Imam Ali, were widely reported across the Middle East by Arabic language television stations."

"American Cannibalism" (Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, 2004/05/14)
"Have we any memory of a man in a suit and tie, nearly three years ago wading through the din and panic amid the morning rubble, assuring millions of stunned Americans that the national headquarters of their armed forces was still intact and capable of defending us after the mass murder of 3,000? And have we no shame in recognizing that should some congressional critics and Washington harpies get their way, Americans will accomplish what bin Laden's suicide bombers could not on September 11: remove America's finest Secretary of Defense in a half century? ...
Rumsfeld and Meyers have presided over two amazingly successful wars. In an aggregate of 11 weeks, and at the tragic cost of 700 combat dead, the American military defeated the two worst regimes in the Middle East and stayed on to implant democratic change where no such idea has ever existed. ...
Indeed, there are two constants in this war: Every time the United States engages the enemy it wins, and every time Iraqis are given a chance at a secure, peaceful local election they act responsibly and eschew candidates of violence and hate. Unless those facts change, America will win the peace. If we will fight more aggressively in the shadows while the new government basks in the light of success, the miracle of Iraq will come to pass — and it simply would not have without the likes of a Donald Rumsfeld." (See also: "Why The Troops Don't Trust Rummy" (Ralph Peters, New York Post, 2004/05/14))

"Why the big media continue to lose their audience" (Glenn Reynolds, InstaPundit, 2004/05/14)
"Neal Boortz observes:

This morning in most of the newspapers I scanned during my preparation for the show the top story was still the Iraqi prison abuse scandal. Nick Berg had already disappeared from many front pages, but the prison abuse stories remain. May I suggest to you that there is a reason for this? Maybe it's just this simple: The prison abuse scandal can damage Bush, the Nick Berg story can only help him. Given the choice many editors will chose the stories that serve their cause, getting Bush out of the White House, rather than one that hurts it.

Such cynicism about the media, these days. But he's right. The Berg video wasn't shown on TV, and — as Boortz notes — the big media leaders seem almost desperate to keep the story on Abu Ghraib, even to the point of running already discredited fake porn photos purporting to be from Iraq. ...
These guys are marginalizing themselves with their agenda-driven coverage. And they're so out of touch they don't realize it. As Andrew Sullivan notes:

My gut tells me that the Nick Berg video has had much more psychic impact in this country than the Abu Ghraib horrors. I even notice some small evidence for this. Every political blog site has just seen an exponential jump in traffic — far more than anything that occurred during the Abu Ghraib unfolding. My traffic went through the roof yesterday, and, according to Alexa, so did everyone else's. People who have tuned the war out suddenly tuned the war in. They get it. Will the mainstream media?"

(See also: "Looking at the top stories" (Neal Boortz, boortz.com, 2004/05/13) and "A Blog Jolt" (Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Dish, 2004/05/13) Also: "Boston Globe publishes bogus GI rape pictures" (Sherrie Gossett, WorldNetDaily, 2004/05/12))

"Chopping Heads" (Amir Taheri, New York Post, 2004/05/14)
Systematic Abuse 101. As Podhoretz points out in the column below: "It remains the case, more than two weeks after the public exposure of the Abu Ghraib photographs, that not a single digital photo showing mistreatment has emerged from another cellblock at that self-same prison, or from any of the other 24 prisons in Iraq. ...
The scandal isn't widening. If anything, it's contracting. The focus continues to zoom in on the actual people in the pictures and their disgusting conduct in them."
In contrast, the beheading of Nick Berg is an example of a practice that is truly widespread and systematic:
"What has impressed most people is the fact that the terrorists cut Mr. Berg's head in the way that sheep are beheaded at the annual Feast of the Sacrifice.
Berg is, of course, not the first to be murdered in such a gruesome manner. Nor, alas, is he likely to be the last. For the cutting of heads (in Arabic, qata al-raas) has been the favorite form of Islamist execution for more than 14 centuries. ...
Chopping off heads was widely practiced throughout the Afghan wars of the 1980s. An estimated 3,000 Soviet soldiers, many of them Muslims, had their heads cut off by the Mujahedeen, who at the time enjoyed U.S. and other Western support. (In other cases the Mujahedeen cut off the testicles of the Soviet soldiers and fed them to other Soviet prisoners.)
Needless to say, rival Mujahedeen also chopped off each other's heads. The group led by one Haji Akbari was especially notorious in that respect. One of its members was Osama bin Laden. ...
One Algerian specialist in slitting throats and cutting off heads was known as Momo le Nain (Muhammad the Midget). He was a 20-plus-year-old butcher's apprentice recruited by the GIA for the purpose of cutting off people's heads. In 1996 in Ben-Talha, a suburb of the capital Algiers, Momo cut off a record 86 heads in one night, including the heads of more than a dozen children.
In recognition of his exemplary act of piety, the GIA sent him to Mecca for pilgrimage." (See also: "The Sacred Muslim Practice of Beheading" (Andrew G. Bostom, FrontPageMagazine, 2004/05/14): "Reactions to the grotesque jihadist decapitation of yet another "infidel Jew," Mr. Berg, make clear that our intelligentsia are either dangerously uninformed, or simply unwilling to come to terms with this ugly reality: such murders are consistent with sacred jihad practices, as well as Islamic attitudes towards all non-Muslim infidels, in particular, Jews, which date back to the 7th century, and the Prophet Muhammad's own example.")

"Rooting For The Enemy" (John Podhoretz, New York Post, 2004/05/14)
"A man has his head cut off by al Qaeda in Iraq, and The New York Times aggressively markets the idea — on its front page yesterday — that his death is somehow the fault of the United States.
"The family of Nicholas E. Berg challenged American military officials on Wednesday," according to lead paragraph in the Times' story, "insisting that the man beheaded by Islamic terrorists in Iraq had earlier been in the custody of federal officials who should have done more to protect him."
Whatever the circumstances of Nick Berg's detention in Iraq and his family's torment at his unspeakable murder, the Times' decision to offer this angle as its main story in the matter of his beheading is a very telling fact about that newspaper, the mainstream media and the politics of 2004.
No matter what happens in the war with Iraq, no matter what the evildoers do, the Times wants to bring it back to high-level American misconduct — misconduct so severe that it supposedly calls the entire mission in Iraq into question. To blame the United States for Berg's beheading might be acceptable for Berg's own grief-deranged kin. But it is not acceptable for The New York Times or anyone else. ...
And yet Teddy Kennedy, a man who once let a woman die, feels free to speak the following unspeakable words: "We now learn that Saddam's torture chambers reopened under new management, U.S. management."
The United States is, according to the man in whose car Mary Jo Kopechne drowned, no better than the regime of Saddam Hussein. ...
Conventional liberal opinion believes that the Abu Ghraib photos are the true meaning of the war, and that Nick Berg is just another victim of callous U.S. policy.
Conventional liberal opinion is actively seeking the humiliation and defeat of the United States in Iraq." (See also. "U.S. Officials Failed to Protect Slain Civilian, Family Says" (Richard Lezin Jones and Jill P. Capuzzo, The New York Times, 2004/05/13) and "Senate Condemns Iraqi Prisoner Abuse" (FOX News, 2004/05/11): "'On March 19, 2004, President Bush asked, 'Who would prefer that Saddam's torture chambers still be open?'' said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. 'Shamefully, we now learn that Saddam's torture chambers reopened under new management: U.S. management.'")

"Why The Troops Don't Trust Rummy" (Ralph Peters, New York Post, 2004/05/14)
"Rumsfeld's "vision" was to lavish money on the defense industry and administration-friendly contractors, while sending too few troops to war, with too little battlefield equipment, inadequate supplies and no long-range plan. As one Army colonel put it in the heat of battle, "We're winning this despite OSD."
Contractors grow rich. The Army grows exhausted. And every single prediction about the future of warfare made by the Rumsfeld gang proved incorrect. Airpower doesn't win wars on its own. Technology doesn't trump courage, guts and skill. Both war and its aftermath still require adequate numbers of well-trained, disciplined troops. And serious planning.
We need a bigger Army. We got a bigger budget - but the money is going to CEOs, not to G.I. Joe.
Outsourcing? We see now where that gets us. In Rumsfeld's military, you even outsource leadership. As we did at Abu Ghraib prison.
Even if none of the above mattered, Rumsfeld needs to go because he has utterly lost the trust of the officer corps. He isn't a leader. He's an arrogant ideologue unfit to serve our democracy. ...
I'm privileged to spend a good bit of time with our military officers, from generals to new lieutenants. And I have never seen such distrust of a public official in the senior ranks. Not even of Bill Clinton. Rumsfeld & Co. have trashed our ground forces every way they could. Only the quality of those in uniform saved us from a debacle in Iraq." (See also: "Rumsfeld Must Stay" (David Frum, National Review, 2004/05/10), "Rumsfeld Should Stay" (William Safire, The New York Times, 2004/05/10) and "Major U.S. Papers Call for Rumsfeld's Resignation" (Diane Bartz, Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2004/05/07))

"The Abu Ghraib Panic" (Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, 2004/05/14)
"Krauthammer on the "moral panic that has set in about the whole Iraq enterprise":
"This panic is everywhere and now includes many who have been longtime supporters of the war. The panic is unseemly. The pictures are shocking and the practices appalling. But how do the actions of a few depraved soldiers among 135,000 negate the moral purpose of the entire enterprise — which has not only liberated 25 million people from 25 years of genocidal dictatorship but has included a nationwide reconstruction punctuated by hundreds, thousands, of individual acts of beneficence and kindness by American soldiers?
We are obsessing about the wrong question. It is not: Is our purpose in Iraq morally sound? Of course it is. The question today, as from the beginning, remains: Is that purpose achievable? ...
The prize in Iraq is not praise for America from the Arab street nor goodwill from al-Jazeera. We did not have these before Abu Ghraib. We will not have these after Abu Ghraib. The prize is a decent, representative, democratizing Iraq that abandons the pan-Arab fantasies and cruelties of Saddam Hussein's regime.
That remains doable. What will make it undoable is the panic at home."

"A series of errors on lewd images" (Christine Chinlund, The Boston Globe, 2004/05/14)
Chinlund is Noston Globe's ombudsman: "It is an understatement to say that the Globe erred when it ran a photo that, if you look closely, showed images of men dressed as soldiers having sex with unidentified women. It's also an understatement to say the paper regrets the error — as was evident in the apology published yesterday as an editor's note. ...
On Wednesday many editors were shocked to see the photo in print. So were readers, who called in large number, many saying they were "disgusted" and "angry."
The photo quickly became the subject of talk shows and websites. It was held up as evidence of the Globe's "anti-Americanism," its desire to "bring down Bush" or discredit US troops. I think that criticism is off the mark. Yet the error could not have come at a worse time. Emotions about Iraq were running high even before the beheading of Nicholas Berg. That the Berg story shared the May 12 paper with the inappropriate photo only made things worse. Some readers called for the firing of various Globe editors. "We are not firing anybody," responds Baron. What will happen, he says, is conversations with staffers about following proper procedure." (See also: "Reporters are big on asking other people for apologies..." (Glenn Reynolds, InstaPundit, 2004/05/13))

"Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad on Al-Jazeera" (MEMRI, Special Dispatch Series - No. 714, 2004/05/14)
From an interview with Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad: "The Palestinian resistance is legitimate because it is popular, and when the Palestinian people calls it 'resistance' that means that it is resistance. Neither we nor others have the right to call it by another name. Popular support is what transforms it into resistance. If we want to call it by another name, what can we say? Are all the hundreds, thousands, and millions who are resisting occupation in various ways, not necessary by military resistance, all members of the so-called Al-Qa'ida — and we do not know if there exists anything called Al-Qa'ida! Or are they all supporters of Saddam's regime? If so, then it means that the previous regime [in Iraq] was popular. Then why did you [i.e. the U.S.] say that you came to liberate the Iraqi people from Saddam Hussein? … What is happening with regard to popularity gives legitimacy to the resistance, and proves that what is happening is — for the most part — resistance…"

"Sick Romps At Porn Prison" (Bridget Harrison, New York Post, 2004/05/14)
"Iraq's feared Abu Ghraib jail was one big sex romp - sometimes by candlelight with an audience watching, U.S. troops said yesterday.
Sex and alcohol were commonplace, and soldiers frequently set up candlelit rooms for voyeuristic sex shows, said a soldier who served at the notorious prison.
"There were lots of affairs. There was all kinds of adultery and alcoholism and all kinds of crap going on," said Dave Bischel, a National Guardsman with the 870th Military Police unit, who returned home from Abu Ghraib last month.
"There was a bed found in one of the abandoned buildings. There was a mattress on the ground. They had chairs all circled around it and candles all over the place," said Bischel, adding the chairs were "obviously for an audience."
The soldier said the X-rated liaisons at the prison were made easier by its maze-like layout and that other troops frequently turned a blind eye to what their pals were up to.
"One of the female soldiers supposedly had sex in a gang bang," said Terry Stowe, an MP from California. "From time to time, things like this would happen."
News of the shocking sexcapades in the controversial lockup come as a friend of disgraced reservist Lynndie England lashed out in her defense yesterday, saying tapes of her having sex in the prison were personal to her and the boyfriend with whom she is 'in love.' ...
Congress members, who viewed shocking new pictures of abuse in the Iraqi jail, said England appeared in a sicko video having sex in front of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and that she was snapped in graphic sex acts with other U.S. soldiers.
But one family friend insisted the racy reservist had sex only with her boyfriend, Spc. Charles Graner - one of six others from the 372nd Military Police Company facing charges for the abuse - and that the pair are 'madly in love.'"

"Abu Ghraib Guard Paints Harrowing Portrait of Abuse" (Richard A. Serrano, Los Angeles Times, 2004/05/14)
"[Spc. Jeremy] Sivits, whose statements are contained in investigative records obtained by The Times, provided the most detailed account to become public by one of the defendants in the abuse scandal. ...
Sivits portrayed Graner, a former Pennsylvania prison guard who was accused of misconduct there, as a ringleader of the Abu Ghraib abuses. He said Graner was always "joking, laughing, pissed off a little, acting like he was enjoying it." ...
And he said all of this was done without the knowledge of their superiors in the Army chain of command.
"Our command would have slammed us," he said. "They believe in doing the right thing. If they saw what was going on, there would be hell to pay."
Some of the guards have said they acted on orders from above or from military intelligence to soften up inmates for questioning.
Sivits said Graner told him not to say anything. ...
He described Pfc. Lynndie England, the woman seen smoking and smiling in some of the photos, as "laughing at the different stuff that they were having the detainees do."
England has contended that she was ordered to pose in front of the abused inmates."

Thursday, May 13, 2004

News and commentary:

"After the carnage: the predatory 'intelligentsia'" (Rajeev Srinivasan, rediff.com, 2004/05/13)
Srinivasan quotes from an article in The Wall Street Journal, April 9, 2002: "In Saudi Arabia, there is the concept of blood money. If a person has been killed or caused to die by another, the latter has to pay blood money or compensation, as follows:

• 100,000 riyals if the victim is a Muslim man
• 50,000 riyals if a Muslim woman
• 50,000 riyals if a Christian man
• 25,000 riyals if a Christian woman
• 6,666 riyals if a Hindu man
• 3,333 riyals if a Hindu woman

That is, a Muslim man's life is worth 33 times that of a Hindu woman. This is clearly the view of the Indian 'intelligentsia' as well; for they have made 33,000 times as much noise over the death of even a Muslim rioter in Gujarat as over the torching of a Hindu pilgrim woman in Godhra."

"Hoping for the worst" (Toby Harnden, The Spectator, from the 2004/05/15 issue)
"The other day, while taking a break by the Al-Hamra Hotel pool, fringed with the usual cast of tattooed defence contractors, I was accosted by an American magazine journalist of serious accomplishment and impeccable liberal credentials.
She had been disturbed by my argument that Iraqis were better off than they had been under Saddam and I was now — there was no choice about this — going to have to justify my bizarre and dangerous views. I’ll spare you most of the details because you know the script — no WMD, no ‘imminent threat’ (though the point was to deal with Saddam before such a threat could emerge), a diversion from the hunt for bin Laden, enraging the Arab world. Etcetera.
But then she came to the point. Not only had she ‘known’ the Iraq war would fail but she considered it essential that it did so because this would ensure that the ‘evil’ George W. Bush would no longer be running her country. Her editors back on the East Coast were giggling, she said, over what a disaster Iraq had turned out to be. ‘Lots of us talk about how awful it would be if this worked out.’ Startled by her candour, I asked whether thousands more dead Iraqis would be a good thing.
She nodded and mumbled something about Bush needing to go. By this logic, I ventured, another September 11 on, say, September 11 would be perfect for pushing up John Kerry’s poll numbers. ‘Well, that’s different — that would be Americans,’ she said, haltingly. ‘I guess I’m a bit of an isolationist.’ That’s one way of putting it."

"CIA Says Al-Zarqawi Beheaded Berg in Iraq" (Katherine Pfleger Shrader, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/05/13)
"U.S. intelligence officials have concluded that terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was the person shown on a video beheading an American civilian in Iraq, based on an analysis of the voice on the video, a CIA official said Thursday.
Intelligence officials conducted a technical analysis of the video released on an Islamic web site May 11 and determined "with high probability" that the person shown speaking on the tape — wearing a head scarf and a ski mask — is al-Zarqawi, a CIA official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
The person who is shown speaking in the video — determined to be al-Zarqawi — is then shown on the video decapitating American citizen Nicholas Berg, the official said."

"Rumsfeld Makes Surprise Visit to Iraq" (Robert Burns, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/05/13)
"Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, making a surprise visit to Iraq, went to the Abu Ghraib prison Thursday and told U.S. troops "we'll get through" the international uproar over abuse of inmates there.
Arriving here with Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Richard Myers by helicopter in a dust storm, the embattled Rumsfeld called the abuse scandal a "body blow for all of us" but said he was determined that those in the wrong be punished. ...
Rumsfeld and Myers were accompanied here by Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, commander of the prison system in Iraq, who told Rumsfeld that a new complex of outdoor camps is going to open soon on the grounds outside the main prison building.
It will be called "Camp Redemption," he said, at the suggestion of the Iraqi Governing Council, and will provide better living conditions for the detainees. Rumsfeld has heard many calls for his resignation in the wake of publicly released photos showing abuse of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. forces. President Bush has given Rumsfeld a vote of confidence.
"I've stopped reading newspapers," Rumsfeld quipped to the troops here. "You've got to keep your sanity somehow. I'm a survivor.'"

"Britain says prisoner abuse photos 'not taken in Iraq'" (AFP/Yahoo! News, 2004/05/13)
"Photos purporting to show British troops abusing Iraqi prisoners are still being probed by military police, but they were were "categorically not taken in Iraq", the government said.
"Investigations (into the photos in the Daily Mirror newspaper) are now proceeding on this basis: that these pictures were categorically not taken in Iraq," Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram said.
This was the opinion of the Royal Military Police special investigations branch, he said, adding that it had been "independently corroborated".
Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan reacted to Ingram's statement by saying that the government had "still not produced incontrovertible evidence that the pictures are faked". ...
[Ingram] added: "From the start of this episode, the Daily Mirror has demanded that the Ministry of Defence and the army operate under the highest of standards, both in honesty, openness and professionalism."
'I now challenge the Daily Mirror to do the same.'" (See also: "Daily Mirror Stands by Iraqi Prisoner Abuse Photos" (Reuters/My Way, 2004/05/02), "Doubt cast on Iraq torture photos" (BBC News, 2004/05/02) and "Shame Of Abuse By Brit Troops" (Paul Byrne, The Daily Mirror, 2004/05/01))

"Fury mounts after brutal Nigerian riot leaves morgue overflowing" (AFP/Yahoo! News, 2004/05/13)
"Religious anger was mounting in Nigeria after two days of rioting between Muslims and Christians in the northern city of Kano left morgues overflowing and thousands homeless. ...
Wednesday's official police tally listed 30 dead, but Christian refugees fleeing outlying suburbs claimed that more than 400 had been left behind in burnt out homes.
It was impossible to independently verify the death toll, but the hospital morgue was so full Thursday that five corpses had been lain outside under blankets, an AFP reporter at the scene said.
Outside, distraught relatives were arguing fiercely with staff who were barring them from going inside to look for their loved ones. ...
Another doctor told AFP hospital staff were forbidden to give casualty figures: "We are gagged." ...
In the absence of an official casualty toll, the main body representing Nigeria's Christians, the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), claimed that more than 400 of its followers had been killed in Kano. The toll could not be verified.
"The 30 people quoted by the police is an understatement. From the reports we got, over 400 Christians have been killed and there are more than 10,000 refugees," Saidu Dogo, CAN's general secretary for northern Nigeria, told AFP." (See also: "Nigerian Muslims Rampage for Second Day" (Oloche Samuel, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/05/12))

"The War of Images" (Lee Harris, Tech Central Station, 2004/05/13)
"Meanwhile, back on the home front, those Americans who instinctively believe in supporting our troops in far away lands, and supporting them "right or wrong," will watch with mounting exasperation as the Bush administration tries to appease the unappeasable Iraqi streets by putting Americans on trial in Iraq. At which point those Americans at home will began to ask themselves: Why are we bringing our guys to justice, while their guys, whose crimes are infinitely worst, not only remain at large, but are busily doing whatever they can to kill even more of us? Why are we punishing our own, in a futile attempt to pacify the Arab world, at the very time when we should be sticking together to fight an enemy whose collective will is to destroy us? ...
Liberals complain that the Bush administration's approach is too simplistic. Quite frankly, it is nuanced to the point of incoherency. It asks of Americans that they hate only "the bad guys" in the Arab world, while it simultaneously calls on Americans to be willing to sacrifice their sons and their pocketbooks in order to create a happy future for "the good guys" in the Arab world. Yet our television and computer screens are full of the images of the bad guys of the Arab world doing unspeakably ghastly things to us, while we search in vain for the image of even one of the good guys for whom our nation has staked its resources and its prestige. Show us just one photograph of Iraqis publicly denouncing this gruesome act as a slander against Islam and a blasphemy against God."

"Saddam lawyer to file war crimes suit against Britain" (AFP/Yahoo! News, 2004/05/13)
Verges proves that the United States made a prescient decision: "A lawsuit accusing Britain of war crimes in Iraq will be filed at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, veteran French lawyer Jacques Verges told AFP.
Verges, who is one of several attorneys asked to act for former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, said he had drawn up the suit on behalf of "the families of prisoners of the coalition in which Britain participates."
"The reality of torture and systematic abuses of the dignity of Iraqi prisoners, sometimes followed by murders, both by US and British troops is no longer in question," the text of the complaint reads Thursday.
"There are strong presumptions that the facts that form the basis of our complaint were committed with the participation of nationals of the United Kingdom, which unlike the US ... is a party to the (court's) statute," the text goes on.
The United States does not recognise the jurisdiction of the ICC, which began work in July 2002 with the aim of "ensuring that the gravest international crimes do not go unpunished."
A controversial courtroom performer, Verges, 79, has acted in the past for Gestapo chief Klaus Barbie and the terrorist known as Carlos. In March he was taken on by Saddam Hussein's nephew Ali Barzan al-Takriti to represent his uncle at a future trial."

"Reporters are big on asking other people for apologies..." (Glenn Reynolds, InstaPundit, 2004/05/13)
"Reporters are big on asking other people for apologies, but this rather lame effort from the Globe is typical of what happens when they screw up royally:

Editor's Note: A photograph on Page B2 yesterday did not meet Globe standards for publication. The photo portrayed Boston City Councilor Chuck Turner and activist Sadiki Kambon displaying graphic photographs that they claimed showed US soldiers raping Iraqi women. Although the photograph was reduced in size between editions to obscure visibility of the images on display, at no time did the photograph meet Globe standards. Images contained in the photograph were overly graphic, and the purported abuse portrayed had not been authenticated. The Globe apologizes for publishing the photo.

Note that it doesn't say, anywhere, that the images were actually fraudulent, though they were. Is this an adequate apology for running explicitly pornographic images that were falsely labeled as representing atrocities by American troops? Especially after news reports that such photos were being circulated had appeared in a number of British and American media outlets?" (See also: "Editor's Note" (The Boston Globe, 2004/05/13) and "Boston Globe publishes bogus GI rape pictures" (Sherrie Gossett, WorldNetDaily, 2004/05/12))

"The images we see - and those we don't" (Jeff Jacoby, The Boston Globe, 2004/05/13)
"Poor Nick Berg. The anybody-but-Bush crowd isn't going to rush to publicize his terrible fate with anything like the zeal it brought to the abused prisoners story. CBS and The New Yorker couldn't resist the temptation to shove the Abu Ghraib photos into the public domain — and the rest of the media then made sure the world saw them over and over and over. But when it comes to video and stills of Al Qaeda murderers severing Berg's head with a knife and brandishing it in triumph for the camera, the Fourth Estate is suddenly squeamish.
As I write on Wednesday afternoon, the CBS News website continues to offer a complete "photo essay" of naked Iraqi men being humiliated by Americans in a variety of poses. But the video of Berg's beheading, CBS says, "is too gruesome to show." No other network and no newspaper that I have seen shows the gory pictures, either.
What exactly is the governing rule here? That incendiary images sure to enrage our enemies and get more Americans killed should be published while images that show the world just how evil those enemies really are should be suppressed? Offensive and shocking pictures that undermine the war effort should be played up but offensive and shocking pictures that remind us why we're at war in the first place shouldn't get played at all?
Yes, Virginia, there really is a gaping media double standard. News organizations will shield your tender eyes from the sight of a Berg or a Daniel Pearl being decapitated, or of Sept. 11 victims jumping to their deaths, or of the mangled bodies on the USS Cole, or of Fallujans joyfully mutilating the remains of four lynched US civilians. But they will make sure you don't miss the odious behavior of Americans or American allies, no matter how atypical that misbehavior may be or how determined the US military is to uproot and punish it."

"Sometimes, a War Saves People" (Jose Ramos-Horta, The Wall Street Journal, 2004/05/13)
"The new Socialist government in Spain has caved in to the terrorist threats and withdrawn its troops from Iraq. So have Honduras and the Dominican Republic. They are unlikely to be the last. With the security situation expected to worsen before it improves, we have to accept that a few more countries — which do not appreciate how much the world has at stake in building a free Iraq — will also cut and run.
No matter how the retreating governments try to spin it, every time a country pulls out of Iraq it is al Qaeda and other extremists who win. They draw the conclusion that the coalition of the willing is weak and that the more terrorist outrages, the more countries will withdraw.
As a Nobel Peace laureate, I, like most people, agonize over the use of force. But when it comes to rescuing an innocent people from tyranny or genocide, I've never questioned the justification for resorting to force. ...
So why do some think Iraq should be any different? Only a year after his overthrow, they seem to have forgotten how hundreds of thousands perished during Saddam Hussein's tyranny, under a regime whose hallmark was terror, summary execution, torture and rape. Forgotten too is how the Kurds and Iraq's neighbors lived each day in fear, so long as Saddam remained in power. ...
Some may accuse me of being more of a warmonger than a Nobel laureate, but I stand ready to face my critics. It is always easier to say no to war, even at the price of appeasement. But being politically correct means leaving the innocent to suffer the world over, from Phnom Penh to Baghdad. And that is what those who would cut and run from Iraq risk doing."

"Throwing Away Victory" (Ralph Peters, New York Post, 2004/05/13)
"We bragged publicly that we would avenge the mutilation of those four contractors at the hands of Fallujah's thugs. We told the world we would not stop until the city was cleansed of insurgents. And, of course, we swore we would never negotiate with terrorists.
What did we actually do? We negotiated with terrorists, re-empowered Saddam's thugs in uniform and ran away as quickly as we could go. ...
Our threats have begun to sound as hollow as those made by Khadafy in his prime. Our power means nothing unless we are willing to use it decisively. The truth is that those heroic young Marines who died in the initial combat encounters in Fallujah lost their lives for nothing. Frightened, politicized leaders squandered the advantages gained by their sacrifice.
And our enemies are telling the Muslim world that they fought the U.S. military to a standstill. For once, they're telling the truth. It doesn't matter that they won politically, not militarily. They won. ...
Cowardice isn't a strategy. Weakness isn't a virtue. Caving in to killers isn't a demonstration of humanity. When fighting monsters who decapitate living prisoners in front of video cameras, you are, literally, in a knife fight to the bone. If we aren't willing to fight such enemies to the death, we might as well stay home and hide in a corner. Waiting for them to come after us, which they will."

"Leash Gal's Sex Pix" (Vincent Morris and Deborah Orin, New York Post, 2004/05/13)
"Shocking shots of sexcapades involving Pfc. Lynndie England were among the hundreds of X-rated photos and videos from the Abu Ghraib prison scandal shown to lawmakers in a top-secret Capitol conference room yesterday.
"She was having sex with numerous partners. It appeared to be consensual," said a lawmaker who saw the photos.
And, videos showed the disgraced soldier - made notorious in a photo showing her holding a leash looped around an Iraqi prisoner's neck - engaged in graphic sex acts with other soldiers in front of Iraqi prisoners, Pentagon officials told NBC Nightly News.
"Almost everybody was naked all the time," another lawmaker said.
Many members of Congress left the 45-minute viewing session early, thereby missing the porno performance by England, but there were enough other images of torture, humiliation and intimidation to sicken anyone.
"It was pretty disgusting, not what you'd expect from Americans," said Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.). "There was lots of sexual stuff - not of the Iraqis, but of our troops." ...
The shocking photos and videos, provided on computer disks by Pentagon officials, showed attack dogs snarling at cowering prisoners, Iraqi women forced to expose their breasts, and naked prisoners tied together on the floor, senators revealed as they emerged from the heavily guarded conference room." (See also: "Female GI In Abuse Photos Talks" (CBS News, 2004/05/12) and "A naked detainee at the Abu Ghraib prison..." (The Washington Post, 2004/05/06))

"Lawmakers Say New Abuse Photos Even Worse" (Pauline Jelinek, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/05/13)
"The abuse of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. troops went beyond the photos seen by most Americans, shaken lawmakers said Wednesday after viewing fresh pictures and video that they said depicted forced sex, brutality and dogs snarling at cowed prisoners.
Some members of Congress said they feared that making the images public would inflame international outrage and endanger Americans still in Iraq. The private screening of more than 1,600 photos in a top-secret room of the U.S. Capitol came one day after Islamic militants announced they had beheaded an American in Iraq to avenge abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison.
"I don't know how the hell these people got into our army," said Colorado Republican Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell after viewing what he called a fraction of the images.
"I saw cruel, sadistic torture," said Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., who said some of the images were of male prisoners masturbating. She said she saw a man hitting himself against a wall as though to knock himself unconscious.
Others said they saw images of corpses, military dogs snarling at cowering prisoners, women commanded to expose their breasts and sex acts, including forced homosexual sex."

Added in archive:
"Fake rape photos infuriate Arab world" (Sherrie Gossett, WorldNetDaily, 2004/05/09)
"Bogus GI rape photos used as Arab propaganda" (Sherrie Gossett, WorldNetDaily, 2004/05/04)

Wednesday, May 12, 2004

News and commentary:

"The Curse of Pan-Arabia" (Fouad Ajami, The Wall Street Journal, 2004/05/12)
"We have stumbled in Abu Ghraib. But the logic of Abu Ghraib isn't the logic of the Iraq war. We should be able to know the Arab world as it is. We should see through the motives of those in Cairo and Amman and Ramallah and Jeddah, now outraged by Abu Ghraib, who looked away from the terrors of Iraq under the Baathists. Our account is with the Iraqi people: It is their country we liberated, and it is their trust that a few depraved men and women, on the margins of a noble military expedition, have violated. We ought to give the Iraqis the best thing we can do now, reeling as we are under the impact of Abu Ghraib — give them the example of our courts and the transparency of our public life. What we should not be doing is to seek absolution in other Arab lands. ...
Our goals in Iraq are being diluted by the day. There has been naivete on our part, to be sure, and no small measure of hubris. We haven't always read Iraq right, but if we abdicate the burden and the responsibility — and the possibilities — that came with this war, our entire effort will come to grief. In Najaf on May 7, in a Friday sermon made from the shrine of Imam Ali — Shiism's most revered pulpit — Sheikh Sadr-al-din Qabanji, a respected cleric with ties to Ayatollah Ali Sistani, called on the Mahdi Army of Muqtada al-Sadr to quit the city. "Listen to the advice of the ulema," he said, using the term for the recognized men of religion. "Come, let us together find another way, go back to your homes and provinces." The defense of Najaf, he said, belonged to its people, and the bands of young "Sadrists" were told to return to the slums of Baghdad. We haven't stilled Iraq's furies, and our gains there have been made with heartbreaking losses. But in the midst of our anguish over Abu Ghraib, and in our eagerness to placate an Arab world that has managed to convince us of its rage over the scandal, we should stay true to what took us into Iraq, and to the gains that may yet be salvaged."

"U.S. Forces Cleric's Militia From Its Stronghold in Karbala" (Edward Wong and Dexter Filkins, The New York Times, 2004/05/12)
"At least 22 insurgents were killed in a furious overnight firefight in this holy city when the American military attacked a fortified mosque in its largest assault yet against the forces of the rebel Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, military officials said today.
The attack came even as American officers sought a negotiated resolution to the five-week standoff with Mr. Sadr through Iraqi intermediaries.
After the fighting had ended this morning, American officials met with city leaders, including the local Iraqi police chief, and asked that the Iraqi police take charge of the damaged mosque and ensure that rebels did not take root there again, Col. Peter Mansoor, commander of the First Brigade of the First Armored Division, said. He added that occupation forces would be working with the Iraqi police to secure the area.
The strike on the Mukhaiyam Mosque brought hundreds of American soldiers and their armored vehicles to within a third of a mile of two of the holiest sites in Shiite Islam, the ornate shrines of the martyrs Hussein and Abbas.
A building behind the mosque was fired on, detonating a huge weapons cache, and soldiers then stormed the mosque, chasing insurgents out into a hotel and alley. Six coalition troops were wounded in the attack, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the top American military spokesman in Iraq, said."

"U.S. Denies Holding Beheading Victim Berg" (Robert H. Reid, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/05/12)
"An American civilian who was beheaded in a grisly video posted on an al-Qaeda-linked Web site was never in U.S. custody despite claims from his family, a coalition spokesman said Wednesday. ...
Berg, who was Jewish, spoke to his parents March 24 and told them he would return home on March 30, according to his family in suburban Philadelphia.
But Berg was detained by Iraqi police at a checkpoint in Mosul on March 24, was turned over to U.S. officials and detained for 13 days, the family said. His father, Michael, said his son was not allowed to make phone calls or contact a lawyer.
Coalition spokesman Dan Senor told reporters that Berg was detained by Iraqi police in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. The Iraqis informed the Americans, and the FBI questioned him three times about what he was doing in Iraq.
Senor said that to his knowledge Berg 'was at no time under the jurisdiction or detention of coalition forces.'"

"Female GI In Abuse Photos Talks" (CBS News, 2004/05/12)
"Army Pfc. Lynndie England, seen worldwide in photographs that show her smiling and pointing at naked Iraqi prisoners, said she was ordered to pose for the photos, and felt "kind of weird" in doing so.
In an exclusive interview with Brian Maass of Denver CBS station KCNC-TV, England also confirmed that abuses worse than those depicted in the photos were carried out at the U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, but she declined to discuss them.
England, 21, repeatedly insisted that her actions were dictated by "persons in my higher chain of command." ...
"I was instructed by persons in higher rank to stand there and hold this leash and look at the camera," she said.
"We thought that's how they did it," England said.
England said the actions depicted in the photos were intended to put psychological pressure on the Iraqi prisoners.
"Well, I mean, they [the photos] were for psy-op reasons," she said 'And the reasons wor