Blown Cover

Two completely separate incidents converge rather nicely today and blow some government cover.

Let's go to the videotape!

In incident one, a panel investigating murders in Northern Ireland has come to the conclusion that collusion existed between security forces, the RUC (Protestant dominated police force), British government, and Protestant paramilitaries like the UDA, UVF, etc. In simplest of terms, intelligence about suspected IRA members, their families and associates was given to these paras so they could go and kill them, which they did, gleefully so. Collusion has been very hard to show in terms of a causal link, but it seems it may finally have reached the evidentiary level - we shall see. A wider reading of the situation leaves no other possible conclusion.

British intelligence services and special operations groups from the army sent operatives into Northern Ireland with the express mission to disrupt the IRA and Irish Nationalist politics of any stripe by whatever means they saw fit. To that extent, those groups commissioned to this work were left to their own devices, allowing their masters in London a high degree of "plausible deniability" in the event things went awry. Intelligence gained by the army and the RUC was given to paramilitaries who then proceeded to use this information to carry on their street war, killing Catholics who were often civilians, not members of the IRA or other armed organizations. See, the British intelligence was abysmal, based on the practice of rounding up young catholic men and keeping files on them, assuming anyone of a certain age to be a member, however minor, of the IRA. Thus, many unwarranted killings.

The current scrap is about two murders specifically, and in my view, far too narrow. Much is known about how the IRA managed to arm itself and remain so for thirty years, but little investigating has been done to determine how the UDA and its splinters gained access to modern weapons that happened to mirror those in use by the British army. The UDA and other paras of that stripe were also the primary source of illegal drugs and prostitution in Northern Ireland, a fact known to the local police, who looked the other way so long as the "lads" kept on shooting catholics.

If peace is the goal, these inquiries cannot be blocked any longer. Former members of the IRA have been amazingly forthcoming about their activities in those days, in an effort to clear the air and inject a measure of truth into the agonizingly slow peace process. The same most certainly cannot be said for protestant paramilitaries, and especially not the British government or army, which have steadfastly refused to open their files and aid in putting the horror to bed.

Incident two features the current Secretary of State, Colin Powell, issuing an apology of sorts for US involvement in Chile in the 1970's, when the democratically elected leader of the country was overthrown in a violent coup aided by the US, and a disgusting, murderous right wing dictator put in his place. Gee, didn't we just fight a war...never mind. Suffice to say, Henry Kissinger was deeply involved in events prior to the coup, which involved the assassination of a key Chilean general who refused to use the military to block the elected president frombeing sworn in. Money and arms were sent via the diplomatic pouch, funnelled through the American Embassy, and eventually, the general was killed.

Bang!

Families have filed suit against Kissinger and other defendants, which automatically makes the US government the defendant in the case, as the assumption is the individuals acted on behalf of the state. Now, Powell has shot his mouth off, saying it was a regretful period in US history, etc. The implication is that Powell has specific knowledge, and his public statements can be considered testimony. Good luck to Mr. Kissinger when they finally manage to haul his ass into court.

Ted Rall knows what's up.

See this piece at Alternet.

Yellow!

Phew!

I am sooooooooo relieved!

The scare-the-shit-out-of-the-public alert system has been altered to yellow.

I am not sure why exactly I should feel comfitted by this - yellow seems neither inherently safer nor more dangerous than orange, which is higher on the "be fucking scared" scale, nor can I ascertain the reasoning behind the lowering of the "threat level." Sure, the war is "over," woohoo and all of that, but last I saw on the news we were gearing up to bomb Syria, or Sri Lanka, I'm not too clear on the location, and from what the SpewsMedia has been telling me for six months or so, that could maybe result in a backlash in the form of more terrorist attacks, so maybe we ought to go to bright red. Bright red is alarming, in my view. We could even randomly fire off the storm sirens here in Norman for good effect. Keep us on our toes. That's what we overly complacent Americans must need, I guess, or God would not have made Shrub president in time to pacify and Christianize Iraq and all of the middle east except Israel, and what's a poor boy to do, I'd move to Canada but I hear rumors of annexation and Mexico is just one big labor camp and Germany and France are gutless Commie cowards and....

...I need some coffee.

Looting and Disorder

They need to stop lying.

Really.

Enough is fucking enough.

To hear Donald Rumsfeld, one time buddy of the Hussein regime tell it, the same vase was stolen twenty times and the media irresponsibly broadcast the same tape over and over again, giving a false impression of reality.

I fart in his general direction. During the aftermath of the taking of Baghdad, I perused the media coverage from all of the major networks and CableSpews outlets, plus the BBC, CBC, and Arab TV, and I didn't see the same piece of looting footage twice. It was all different, and portrayed looting on a vast scale in multiple cities in Iraq, and all across Baghdad.

For a bit of irresponsible media manipulation, consider that statue-toppling incident in a city square facing the hotel where all of the media in Baghdad happen to be housed. Looked like thousands of Iraqi's spontaneously gathered to vent their hatred of Saddam and pull down a symbol of the murderous regime, right?

Think again.

During the early airing of the statue footage, one CableSpews outlet did not edit properly, and if you look past the people in direct view, you can see how empty the place is.....

But back to looting and lawlessness.

It is bad enough their was no plan to have MP's follow up more rapidly or be flown in earlier than today, or tomorrow, or whenever they are due to arrive, it is inconceivable that important government archives where the evidence of torture, murder and disappearances might be found were left to be ransacked and destroyed. Given the solemn droning from the Shrubites about War Crimes and their Prosecution, they seem rather blase about protecting or gathering evidence for trial.

Oh yeah, I forgot, they just drop 2,000lb. bombs where the bad guys might be, and hope for the best.

And don't give me that shit about how the city wasn't under control, blah blah blah.

Bullshit.

Where the looting was taking place was under control enough for camera crews to move about without fear, taking lengthy video of the trashing of buildings and shops, people's homes, and government offices. Marines are seen standing around in fairly relaxed poses, often with their weapons down. The crime that occurred at the National Museum should be pinned squarely to the lapels of the planners of this war, for appeals were made immediately to US forces and officials to stop the looting of irreplaceable historical artifacts, and they did nothing. Day after day, they did nothing, even though that part of the city has been firmly in US control. As of late last night, not a single Marine or Army soldier had been detailed to guard the few trashed remnants of ancient history left in the wrecked museum, a history that had survived both Saddam Huseein and two US bombing campaigns.

There's a war crime for you.

C-SPAN ROOLS

Yes, the nerds are taking over.

CSPAN rocks. It rules.

As a follow up to the mention below of Tim Robbins and the pettiness of the baseball hall of shame, I should mention that Robbins appeared at the National Press Club yesterday to speak about his stance on the war, Cooperstown, and the media in particular. His speech was both impassioned and intelligently written, and the free form question and answer period reveal what I have already known - he really knows his stuff. Activism isn't a "latest fashion" to be tried on this week and cast aside the next; Robbins obviously takes it seriously and devotes considerable time and energy to it. Most importantly, he devotes a considerable portion of his being to it.

Hats off.

"The Masters"

The title begs the question: "Of what?"

Yes, the prestigiously dull, awesomely boring golf tournament known as The Masters gets underway in Georgia today amidst some flurry of protest and controversy. Seems the club that annually hosts the tournament does not allow women as members, proclaiming itself a "private" club, so barring women from the gate doesn't qualify as discrimination.

This would be true but for one thing: They host the biggest tournament in all of golfdom, and get paid handsomely to do so. While that may not technically alter the distinction, it does so in spirit. Fact is, they get way rich off the players who come there, the corporations who sponsor the tourny, and the fans who come and spend money all weekend long. This very public exposure makes them vulnerable, and to that end, someone has chosen to take them on.

Bravo!

Hold on a minute. Augusta National is a way ritzy club, its members way rich, so the argument really boils down not to women generally, but rich women specifically being barred from membership.

Oh. Well.

Fuck that.

Honestly speaking, it is ridiculous that a so-called private club can reap the rewards of a very public sporting event and still get away with rank discrimination, but a little perspective reveals that we are talking about rich white women being denied acces to the clubhouse. I can't get too upset about that.

There has also been much criticism of Tiger Woods for not coming to the aid of the monied damsels in distress, based on his color and the fact that not too many years ago he would not have been able to play on many of the courses he now visits, much less ever be a member. He even made those provocative Nike ads when he first turned pro, talking about that very issue. Now, he is the richest golfer in the history of the game, but has refused to get directly involved in the controversy, just as Michael Jordan refused to get into the issue of where and how those Nike shoes so closely tied to his name were being made, and by whom.

Some say Tiger can't make a bit of a difference.

Wrong.

He is so good, so far ahead of the rest of the sport, that were he to boycott the tournament and perhaps the sport, this men-only thing would be history. He chooses not to, and I think it unfortunate.

Maybe he just wants to play golf.

When Petty Minds Attack

"Baseball been berry berry good to me."

A baseball movie was once very good to Tim Robbins, not to mention baseball itself, and later this month the Baseball Hall Of Fame in Cooperstown, NY. was scheduled to hold a 15 year anniversary of the film's release. For those who haven't had the pleasure, it's a great movie, even if you're not much of a baseball fan. I took my mother to see it, and initially thought it might be too racy for her, but the hoots and snickers from the seat beside me allayed my fears. Unfortunately for the film, both Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon happen to be in it, and a former Reagan administration official happens to be the president of the Baseball Hall Of Fame.

Thus, the celebration of a great movie and a great game is tarnished by a tiny mind and self-righteous grandstanding.

Dale Petroskey, now president of the hall of shame, was once assistant press secretary in the Reagan administration, infamous for its ability and willingness to tell the Big Lie, and thousands of little ones. These lies often concealed the fact that Reaganite policies were getting people killed. Petroskey apprently holds a deep dislike for Robbins and Sarandon, both famous in recent times for their statements against the war in Iraq, and both long term committed activists for peace and social justice, concepts that stick in the craw of every former Regan official, including the many currently running the war.

So Petroskey issued these words:

"In a free country such as ours, every American has the right to his or her own opinions, and to express them.
Public figures have platforms much larger than the average American's, which provides you an extraordinary
opportunity to have your views heard - and an equally large obligation to speak and act responsibly. We believe
your very public criticism of President Bush at this important - and sensitive - time in our nation's history helps
undermine the U.S. position, which could put our troops in even more danger."

To politicize a celebration of a baseball movie at a baseball shrine is beyond pathetic, but I'm not surprised at all. The Republicans seem to have carried over the famous enemies lists of the Nixon era. Al-Jazeera gets tossed off the floors of stock exchanges, FoxSpews gets special treatment in exchange for savaging any mildly famous person who expresses and opinion considerd deviant from the party line, and now this stupidity. The hall of fame is home to thugs and wife beaters past, and future to Pete Rose, who bet on his own sport, a true violation of the ethics of the game, but he will be enshrined. Robbins and Sarandon were merely part of a film about baseball unlike any other ever made, one to be celebrated, and within the context of the game they have comitted no harm, no foul. Beyond the white lines they spoke their minds as responsible citizens are *required* to do as part of their civic duty, a concept so distorted as to be lost.

Tim Robbins, after receiving Dale Petroskey's admonishing letter, said this:

"I had been unaware baseball was a Republican sport.
Long live democracy, free speech and the `69 Mets - all improbably glorious miracles that I've always believed in."

Throwing The Book

"Well I'm proud to be an American
cause I might know how to read..."

Awright, it wasn't funny.

Neither is this, but it sure is cool.

Librarians are pissed about the secret powers the government granted itself when it passed the Patriot Act, you know, the one that came after September 11, you know, the one nobody in Congress really bothered to fucking read? One of its many many unexamined provisions allows federal law enforcement officials to obtain a search warrant in secret court and get your library records. Computers being ubiquitous, records are accurate and easily collected. The subject of the search will have no knowledge of it happening and no manner of appeal.

Secret, rapid, no redress.

Some librarians can see past the thin fog of this War On Terrorism and recognize how easily federal law enforcement can obtain warrants for anyone's reading records (which includes Internet use at the library) and have taken countermeasures, destroying checkout records for all patrons, clearing computer usage records, and in some cases, resisting the move to update systems any further to ensure they still have control over them.

Sure, it doesn't seem like much, the feds examining what books you read, but the assumption must run in the opposite direction - what fucking business have they in the first place abrogating American's guaranteed civil liberties so they can go fishing for bad guys? The FBI has a long and sordid history of gathering and maintaining files on citizens who hold opinions that run counter to the dominant thought of the day, and that practice, despite their insipid denials, remains in practice today. Going through your reading records is another way for them to unconstitutionally snoop where they do not belong.

Librarians rock.

Blow Shit Up

Cool, let's blow some shit up!

Maybe we can hit some civilians, blast their houses to Kingdom Come, 'cause coming it surely is now that we're here. No worries, someone told us big bad Saddam was there, so it was worth it the extra body parts.

What's that? Huh?

Why don't we take him alive if we know where he is?

Are you referring to our Brainless Leader's empty talk about war crimes?

*chuckle*

Maybe a few low level guys go on trial so we can reinforce our unlimited righteousness, but no, Saddami the Salami ain't going on trial, he's goin' straight to Hell where he belongs, to hang out with other war criminals, like Hitler and Richard Nixon, and maybe Rupert Murdoch when he arrives.

Besides, if we took him alive and put him on trial in a venue other than a kangaroo of our own design, Adolf Saddam Hitler Hussein might start talking about classified US intelligence information...

Oops!

Never mind all of that crap - we're winning the war!

We're kicking ass and not even bothering with the fucking names!

God Bless America - Not Just A Prayer, It's A Demand.

Hospital Redux 2

OKOKOK.

One of these days, I'll actually go to the hospital for this monitoring.

Really.

I swear.

I'm put off until the 28th of April.

Peeing In The Pool

I lived in and around Fairfax County, Virginia for many years before moving out here to Oklahoma. It's a comfortable county, one of the five richest in America with rock solid ties to Washington's power structure, used to getting its' way in all things. In recent years the county and the state surrounding it have savaged themselves by electing a series of pie-in-the-sky tax-cutting hard right Republicans who have annihilated the state budget structure, made a mockery of one of the best public school systems in American history, and brought down Jefferson's lofty dreams of superb higher education. The architects of the slaughter have moved on to become senators and white house favorites - George Allen, now a Senator, and Jim Gilmore, general ass licking lackey for the Shrubites.

So it came as no surprise in the wake of the sniper case that Fairfax would flex its considerable political muscle and convince the feds involved to drop the federal charges against Lee Boyd Malvo and John Allen Muhammed, backhand Maryland officials out of the way (the majority of the killings took place in Maryland, the state where the suspects were also apprehended), and have the case assigned to Fairfax County for trial. The move was extraordinary in every dimension, but in a post September 11 United States, no one thought much of it.

Of course, the primary, perhaps sole reason for the change in approach to the case was the application of the death penalty. Maryland does have a death penalty statute but it does not allow for the execution of persons who were under 18 at the time of the comission of the crime in question, thus Malvo could not be executed. Maryland has also been toying with eliminating or radically altering its death penalty statutes, making it an unreliable venue for a case in which all parties have publicly stated a desire for the defendants to be executed.

Thus, Virginia. That state is not shy about applying its liberal death penalty law, and were its population larger it might challenge Texas for the annual execution crown. The appeals process is also one of the most restrictive in the nation, making it an ideal environment in which to try these two cases. While the outcome is not preordained, it is close.

And, with intentional leaks from law enforcement and the prosecution, the result in both cases is more likely to resemble the fervent wishes of the prosecution. It is obscene that prosecutors in this, or any case can get away with prejudicial activities of such an extreme nature. Releasing all or major parts of statements taken from an accused defendant on trial for his lfe in a civilized system of justice is criminal behavior. In an era when the death penalty has come under much need scrutiny that has revealed mind boggling flaws and outright criminal behavior on the part of those who arrest and try suspects, it is incomprehensible that public officials would continue to use the very same tactics to influence outcomes in order to win cases.

I repeat: It is wrong, and criminal. A reminder for those who are in need of it: to date, no official in the United States has ever been held criminally liable for manufacturing or suppressing evidence or testimony in a death penalty case. A few have been found out and quietly lost their jobs, but have never gone on trial for what is provable criminal behavior. Whatever else one may think of the barbarity of killing people in the name of the state, that very fact goes a long way in explaining why the system is so flawed and prone to error.

It also explains why Fairfax County prosecutors and law enforcement officials are going to get away with their power grab in these cases, and with openly peeing in the jury pool.

Round Two

I try again for the hospital tomorrow morning. Thus far today I haven't received a call complicating the appointment or cancelling it altogether, but the day is young.

Big thunderstorms here last night and this morning, part of the same wave that dropped enormous hail on northern Texas. We had soaking rains, big booming thunder and spectacular lightning, and yes, got hammered by hail also. It sounded like a thousand people on our roof beating it with sledgehammers, so we got up to see if the car was being totalled. To our relief, it was not. We don't have a garage, but our driveway is sheltered somewhat by a large spreading tree that had only dropped its blossoms last week and unfurled its leaves, most of which were carpeting the car. They are now all over the driveway, the lawn, the roof, and the street.

Friendly competition

Once again Oklahoma is chasing the state of Texas for the execution crown, going the extra mile this time by killing a man convicted of murdering two people when he was a juvenile. The Supremes split along election-stealing lines, despite some earlier indications that they may be slightly troubled by this barbaric practice. Apparently not.

Stay denied.

DrugWar Comes Home

Tulia, TX.

This is 2003, right?

"Degraded?"

There has been much ado in the papers and electronic media these past days about te Republican Guard surrounding Baghdad, its size, strength, and capabilities. Most of it has been rank speculation, fed by tidbits from CENTCOM, and who knows how much, if any, of what they have been tossing out is true.

More disturbing is the deeper push into the bizarro land of euphemism. As US troops approach Baghdad, air power and ground based artillery has been striking at the various divisions of the Republican Guard, "softening them up" for the inevitable full frontal assault. The terms used to describe the results of these attacks is interesting. On the one hand there is "heavy damage." I've seen heavy damage, to cars in accidents, towns following tornadoes, cities after full scale bombings. "Heavy damage" is not ordinarily a term that I imagine would be used to describe what must in fact be happening - human death on a wide scale. CENTCOM won't even say that they are "inflicting heavy casualties" on the Iraqi divisions around Baghdad. They prefer "heavy damage," then go on to characterize those same divisions as being at "50% effectiveness or less," which I must presume to mean that half of the men in those divisions have been killed or wounded severely enough to keep them from fighting. So why not say so?

The further descent into weirdness comes with the term "degradation," as in "the Republican Guard divisions have degraded by 50%." I'm not sure that qualifies as English, much less anything that a normal person can realistically understand. Are the people in those divisions rotting away? Have they some horrible new disease? Ebola, perhaps? Shall we call the World Health Organization? The CDC?

All of this euphemistic weirdness, delivered through stony faces beneath the glitzy lights at CENTCOM is beyond creepy, but when it is coupled with the refusal to issue body counts for Iraqi military personnel and especially civilians ("We don't do body counts," as Herr General Tommy Franks said) it becomes clear that the White House and Pentagon don't trust the American people with the simple facts. Why they fear their own citizenry over these issues is a question none of them would deign to answer in public, but the conclusion is fairly obvious, even through all of the linguistic smoke.

Who shall lead them?

The Bush/Blair unholy alliance may be faltering, and the troops are only in the Baghdadian suburbs.

How tragic, especially for Mr. Blair, who will likely lose his job over this when the fighting stops.

Blair favors heavy involvement of the UN in administering a postwar reconstruction of Iraq, while Resident Bush insists upon direct US administration. That means "occupation." So much for "liberation." Adding insult to bombardment, the Shrubites, busily bankrupting the federal government with this war and their ridiculous tax cuts, are going to force the Iraqis to use their only viable resource, oil, to pay for the reconstruction. Yes, that same oil that so desperately needed to be "preserved for the Iraqi people" will be hauled out of the ground as fast as US corporations can get it to market, and the Iraqi portion of the profits will go into rebuilding the country our forces have just blown to bits.

Follow the money:

US invades Iraq, all on the public dime. US corporations are given contracts to clean up oil spills, put out fires, and rebuild the physical infrastructure of the entire country. US corporations will also be granted enormous contracts to aid Iraq in retrieving more oil from the ground on a per daily basis than they ever have before. That oil will be sold on the open market, the consulting firms get paid, and the Iraqi share goes immediately into the rebuilding fund, which pays out to US corporations....

...and so on.

Kudos to Private Jessica Lynch for managing to survive in deadly circumstances. My hat is off to you.

Perhaps her debriefing will put to rest the lie about the "captured then executed" POWs.

The media is wall to wall with Private Lynch's rescue, and it is clear that the extraordinary circumstances involved are not the only reason. That she is young, white, and importantly, female, plays heavily into the coverage, and that is too bad. Private Lynch is a trained member of our armed forces, someone who signed up cognizant of the risks involved, and yet the saturation coverage refuses to acknowledge her equal rank and status by the repeated use of her first name only in reference to her. In the context of a war and her experiences as a wounded prisoner and survivor, it is only right that the media refer to her as Private Jessica Lynch. Had she been a male prisoner, proper rank and title would be affixed to her name in most media references. Why not in her case?

I'm drinking in the air...literally.

It's like thick soup out there today, more like swampy Virginia than Oklahoma.

CableSpews And Their Discontinentia...

Peter Arnett and Geraldo Rivera have been cast out.

Woe is us.

Arnett, veteran of many a network and a few suspicious stories sank himself by foolishly appearing in an interview conducted by Iraqi state television, such as it is. Though US forces have been trying like hell to knock it off the air since it became clear it would not be the medium by which Saddam Hussein would declare surrender on Day Two, Iraqi TV has managaed to broadcast on a semi-regular basis during even the most furious bombing campaigns. Perhaps Arnett wasn't acclimatized to the constant subsonic booming and blinding flashes given off by the bombs, and so had not slept since the start of the war when Iraqi officials asked to speak with him on camera. Who knows? He went ahead and did so, and it was a stupid step for a man whose career was declared dead five years ago when he was fired by CNN, and so NBC/MSNBC CableSpews officials fired him yet again.

Fine.

But enough already. The continuing allegations remain that Arnett in his statements gave aid and comfort to the enemy. Arnett merely repeated statements that have been reported and spoken in newspapers and TV all across the US and the globe, by US officials current and former, by our friends and our enemies. He basically said that the initial war plan failed - it did - and that it was being modified - it was. This information was available all over mainstream media, including FoxSpews, which has made major hay of this story in a cynical bid for extending their ratings lead over MSNBC. Fox, excresence of Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch, has alleged that Arnett's comments will lead to further US casualties, a statement that even I find objectionable - the Iraqi's get satellite TV, read major papers, and the top brass still have access to the web.

Meanwhile, FoxSpews leading star "reporter," Geraldo Rivera, late of stupid afternoon "talk" shows and chair throwing incidents, issued a report from inside Iraq that included diagrams being drawn in the sand showing the forecast movement of the troops with wholm he was travelling, as well as the major and alternate supply lines. US CENTCOM told Fox Spews they considered this a breach of both the enbedding agreement (Rivera was not expressly part of that program, but had been travelling with a specific unit) and operational security. The latter, if officials chose, could lead to federal charges. Roger Ailes appealed the decision with all of his administration buddies, and things got quiet. Rivera stupidly took to the air and claimed he'd done nothing wrong, and that NBC was out to get him. How *that* is possible in this situation is beyond me, and indicative of his loose mental state.

After more than 24 hours, FoxSpews finally stated that Rivera was leaving Iraq, but the channel itself has done almost no reporting on its own reporter's incredible irresonsibility. No, they've been flacking the Arnett story and the implication that Arnett is getting people killed. Right wing media commentators have also been haranguing about Arnett and all the US servicemen and women who will die because of his retatement of widely reported issues in the press, while they give Geraldo a complete pass.

Hurry up and wait.

My week in the hospital has been delayed until April 7. The neuro folks have only three rooms set up for 24 hour EEG/video monitoring, and several patients had to be kept on extra days. The third room was given to a patient coming from out of state. I understand, though they were vague about whther this meant the whole week was shot or just monday. I finally got them to tell me they prefer to start new patients at the beginning of the week, so I could assure them next week was fine.

Thanks to all of you who called, and those who promised to call and entertain me during my captivity...I hope you meant it, as I'll still need the floor show next week. :)

Language is everything.

In the hyper-fast world of electronic media, terms and definitions have their meanings altered and distorted as the need arises.

To whit:

200 people are blown up in a building in Basra during an air strike. That's a hell of a lot of people, too many to just deny as accidental, "collateral" deaths. The US makes up a really amazing story about 200 members of a "terrorist death squad" meeting in a building in Basra to "plan attacks upon coalition forces." Acting upon timely "intelligence," fighters and bombers leap to the air and drop tons of ordnance on the building, demolishing it and killing everyone inside.

Hurrah!

Terrorist Death Squad Members Are Dismembered!

That was a few days ago.

Today, the British government, whose forces are largely in control of the areas surrounding Basra, has re-characterized those inside the building as "Baath Party Members," now dismembered, of course. A blow for the old empire, to be certain.

Language is everything.

If those men killed were officers in the military, or even civil servants, then the Brits will be telling the truth in the strict reductionist sense, as all of them would have been members, now dismembered, of the Baath Party. When they mutated from being dismembered members of a Terrorist Death Squad to bog standard members (dismembered) of the ruling Baath Party, we shall never know.

In fact, language continues to take a very odd turn in Iraq and the airwaves carrying the war to the rest of us.

It seems there are very few civilians in Iraq at all, judging by the pictures and the commentary. Tanks, planes, and many many explosions, but very few civilians, and then only when they are dead, and them only if they are proven to be dead by hands other than our own. That Baghdad marketplace remains a shining example of how odd things can become. In the minutes following the breaking of that story, officials at CENTCOM had already floated a story that Iraq had done it to themselves, even though a near continuous bombing and missile campaign had been going on at the time. Later, when they'd had a bit of time to think, they floated a new rendition of the same story, claiming that some sort of mysterious Iraqi missile had misfired and fallen back to earth. Except there were multiple craters in the street there, so several missiles simultaneously misfired, fell back to earth, and killed civilians.

A few points can be awarded for sheer chutzpah, as those same officials at CENTCOM took a cursory look at a grainy videotape of the blasted market and strewn (and yes, dismembered) bodies and declared with shiny confidence that the bomb craters were "inconsistent with US munitions." Are you fucking kidding me?

Language is everything.

There is no Iraqi military left, except for those who surrender when we tell them to.

The rest have all been relegated to a whole host of new categories, churned out again by those boys at CENTCOM. I suppose they have little else to do - they don't fight themselves, they don't release any real, factual information to the press, and their self-importance can be contained for only so long. Any man with a gun and not in full Iraqi uniformed regalia is called, at the very least, an "irregular." In some cases, this might be true. Men might have been run off their land by the bombs or advancing troops, or terrified of the coming invasion of their homeland, brutal dictator or not. They may well be Iraqi soldiers whose uniforms have worn out or no longer fit, and for which there are no replacements. Sounds hilarious, but it is likely true. Think Confederate soldiers in America - no two dressed anything alike, because what little resources they had went to guns and food.

Then there are the "paramilitaries". These were mostly "irregulars" in the first week of the war, but "paramilitaries" is a more loaded term, denoting a kind of lawlessness or shifting loyalty. This is applied in order to cut them off from any association with the nation of Iraq. If they are not true soldiers of the country, then they are one step closer to terrorists, and much easier to kill, or torture, etc.

Last, we have my favorite, "Terrorist Death Squad."

This is also a loose term, highly loaded, with a shifting and ever-broadening definition. If the war does not end in a few more days or so, everyone in Iraq who is obviously not a combatant will be a member (potentially dismembered) of a "Terrorist Death Squad." Under the current definition, these people were called the Fedayeen until two or three days ago, when CENTCOM, they of the spiffy clean uniforms, came up with their new moniker. The new name came right when legitimate doubts about the war were springing up, and there is nothing like the word "terrorist" to cloud the issue and reset the American jaw.

Fedayeen, as I understand it, means "devoted to a cause" or "to die for a cause." These soldiers are sworn to Saddam Hussein himself, a grave error in judgment in my view. I understand them to be a fanatical personal military guard. They are not bound by military commanders in the field but by Hussein himself. This is neither shocking nor all that unusual, nor does it rise to "terrorist" as the word has come to be popularly defined in the West after the events of September 11, 2001. Thus far, they have been accused of all manner of crimes by the US military, but there is no evidence whatsoever for any of it, and a military command that will stretch reality to avoid taking responsibility for civilian deaths while bombing a city full of them is the least likely source of truthful information. The media that reports the war here relies entirely upon that military command structure and its political masters for information, so they also disqualify themselves. Point being, all of the horrors attributed to the Fedayeen (who are pretty small in number - they must run really fast to get all over the country to perform that much mayhem) or some or none of them may turn out to be true - but our government has gone right ahead and behaved in its usual irresponsible way and applied the appellation "Terrorist Death Squad" to them, dehumanizing them, making it easier to kill them. Thus, "liberation."

Thirty years ago it was "pacification."

Language is everything.

And on the subject of war crimes.

Enough already. The Red Cross has determined that both the US and the Iraqis violated the terms of the Geneva Convention in filming and airing films of captured prisoners. As for the repeated fairy tales of US soldiers who were first captured and them executed - it has not been shown to be true, and likely it is not. The Brits had made the same accusation about two of their own, which has since been withdrawn by British military command, though not Tony Blair. Disgusting, really, that he would use two families' pain for propaganda purposes. Not bad enough they were killed in war, no, they had to be led to believe there loved ones had been captured, tortured, and executed. Tony really has become a little follow-along lapdog for the Shrub, hasn't he?

The final hilarity, in the most morbid of senses, to all of this war crimes talk, is His Shrubness threatening to try anyone else filming American POWs as war criminals. My question would have to be: In what venue? The US pulled out of the International Criminal Court at The Hague, set up specifically to deal with war crimes and other major issues between nations. No doubt he'll label everyone who pisses him off an "unlawful combatant dismembered member of a terrorist pretzel squad" and relegate them to a purgatory of listening to him read aloud every evening.