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23. mars 2003
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For the record
The Geneva convention relative to the treatment of prisoners of war says:
Art 2. Prisoners of war are in the power of the hostile Government, but not of the individuals or formation which captured them.
They shall at all times be humanely treated and protected, particularly against acts of violence, from insults and from public curiosity.
Obviously, both parties have violated this rule.
11:23:23 PM 
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How to have fun with war propagnda
Somebody has made a Gulf War II drinking game. Actually playing that game at home would get you very, very drunk. But that's the whole idea about drinking games, isn't it?
10:52:59 PM
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Clashes between Iraqi defectors and loyalists
John Simpson, BBC's embedded journalist with Kurds and US special forces in northern Iraq, is reporting having seen a firefight erupting between a "large group" of Iraqi troops that had tried to defect to the Kurdish side and loyalists who opened fire at them.
10:41:15 PM
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— Bush a war criminal
Paul Craig Roberts, a conservative, is making a case that George Bush is a war criminal by waging a war of aggression. His piece is preluded with the following quotation:
We must make clear to the Germans that the wrong for which their fallen leaders are on trial is not that they lost the war, but that they started it. And we must not allow ourselves to be drawn into a trial of the causes of the war for our position is that no grievances or policies will justify resort to aggressive war. It is utterly renounced and condemned as an instrument of policy.
— U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, U.S. representative to the International Conference on Military Trials, Aug. 12, 1945.
Have you heard about Godwin's law? It is a 'law' developed as a generalisation of Usenet debates. No matter the subject, sooner or later somebody compared his or her opponent to Hitler and the Nazis. Then, the thread's usefulness was effectively over, and it was also generally agreed that whoever had invoked Hitler had lost.
 In the case of the war against Iraq, this happened a long time ago. You will probably remember that the former German Justice Minister Herta Däubler-Gmelin, lost her job after comparing Bush' propaganda methods to Hitler's.
I guess at one level, you can probably compare any person, group or action to Hitler or the Nazis, especially if you know rather little about history. The nazis were, which is often forgotten, humans, and tended to do a number of things most of us do (and, obviously, a number of things we are happy to see very few of us do!)
However, if we are discussing international law as it relates to war, it is hard to get around comparisons to World War II. After all, the Nuremberg trials of nazi war criminals was the first large-scale application of an idea of international law that, though largly unwritten, transcends national laws and applies to all humans.
The Nazi leaders were tried for a number of crimes, one of them being waging a war of aggression. By making use of a staged conflict where SS soldiers were dressed up in Polish uniforms, Hitler could argue that the attack on Poland was really an act of self defence. Roberts compares this to the fraudulent documents put forth by the Bush administration to prove that Iraq had tried to obtain weapons-grade fission material. Those documents surely raise serious concerns. Either US intelligence actually forged the documents (and did a very bad job, obviously) or they just passed them on, as they claimed. But in the latter case, it is hard to believe they did not subject them to enough scrutiny to actually find out they were forged, and in that case they suppressed that finding.
At any rate, the case of the forged documents makes the US administration look very bad indeed. The whole build-up to the war has been a total PR fiasco from the coalition's point of view. US media has suppressed and underreported a number of the gaffes, as I have mentioned here earlier, so I suspect most Americans are not aware of what a botchered job their administration has done.
I don't think, however, that the case for calling Bush (and Blair) war criminals is that strong. From a strictly legal point of view, Iraqi violation of the UN secuerity council resolutions were a violation of the armstice agreement from 1991. Gulf War I was a clear case of Iraq engaging in aggressive war. Surely, legal experts disagree about this question, and will no doubt debate this question for a long time to come.
You could in fact make a similar argument about Clinton (and almost every western leader at the time) over the Kosovo war, which was a war of naked aggression against Serbia, and one which had huge popular support in the western world.
In a strict sense, I doubt you could find any wartime leader that could not be considered a war criminal, and that includes heroes like Churchill, Roosevelt or Truman. While it is true that the victors write history, it would be misplaced cynicism to place the allied leaders of the west on the same level as Hitler. It would similarliy be an example of totally lost proportions to compare George Bush to Saddam Hussein or Adolf Hitler.
10:27:19 PM
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Iraqi conscripts shot their own officers to surrender
Tom Newton Dunn, one of the embedded journalists with the British 40 Commando in southern Iraq, is reporting that after poorly equipped Iraqi conscripts surrendered, the commandos found a bunker full of dead officers who had been killed by AK47 fire.
They also took some Iraqi officers capture from another bunker, and found a bag of money they had apparently been withholding from the troops. No wonder Iraqi conscripts shoot their officers.
One Marine joked: “Oh no. They’re surrendering at us from all sides.”
It seems the fighting morale in the Iraqi armed forces varies a lot.
8:48:07 PM
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Anti-Saddam Iraqis turn around anti-war activist
One anti-war demonstrator changed his mind after talking to normal Iraqis who would have their houses bombed if they could get rid of Saddam:
A group of American anti-war demonstrators who came to Iraq with Japanese human shield volunteers made it across the border today with 14 hours of uncensored video, all shot without Iraqi government minders present. Kenneth Joseph, a young American pastor with the Assyrian Church of the East, told UPI the trip "had shocked me back to reality." Some of the Iraqis he interviewed on camera "told me they would commit suicide if American bombing didn't start. They were willing to see their homes demolished to gain their freedom from Saddam's bloody tyranny. They convinced me that Saddam was a monster the likes of which the world had not seen since Stalin and Hitler. He and his sons are sick sadists. Their tales of slow torture and killing made me ill, such as people put in a huge shredder for plastic products, feet first so they could hear their screams as bodies got chewed up from foot to head."
I guess there are different opinions on the street in Baghdad too, like everywhere else, but I can't free myself from thinking it takes a very sheltered life for those naive young people to make them want to become human shields. But a learning experience it sure is.
7:58:03 PM
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Propaganda Watch
'Shock and awe' has a continued strong showing by 3,290 occurrences, increased from 2,740 yesterday.
I expected 'friendly fire' to be the big winner, thanks in part to an over-eager Patriot missile battery, but 916 occurrences two days ago has only increased to 1,240. Expect a stronger showing soon, but then again, perhaps the term has gone out of fashion.
But to nobody's surprise, 'surgical strikes' is not the flavour of the month for this war, with just 136, up from 95. No need to watch this term for GFII, it seems.
'Collateral damage' was at 716 and is now at 1,020. I guess that reflects reality pretyy well.
7:06:26 PM
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Patriot SNAFU
The Patriot missile system has a rather bad record of taking out incoming Iraqi missiles. Today it shot down an RAF Tornado warplane returning from mission, in an apparent misidentification. The two pilots are missing, and the incident is under investigation.
6:15:49 PM
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Setbacks
The coalition forces have suffered setbacks as Iraqi television shows four American casualties and interviews a number of prisoners of war.
5:55:03 PM
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Warns that war can spread to Turkey
With Turkish troops threatening to cross the border into northern Iraq, the US risks learning that any war follows its own logic (or lack thereof), and that even the best-laid plans never survive contact with the enemy. Dmitry Rogozin, head of the foreign affairs committee in the Russian State Duma warns against the war spreading to Turkey.
"This war resembles a Russian doll, with one doll inside another. One war started and another is building inside."
There has been some confusion about whether Turkish forces had actually entered Iraq; the answer seems to be (so far) a negative. But it's quite clear that if Turkish forces enter Iraqi Kurdistan, it will result in a serious conflict between them and the Kurds.
The secular Kurdish groups have been a loyal ally of the US, and Turkey's actions threaten that relationship. The US government did not even try to hide their irritation with Turkey at this stage. However, if Turkey should invade, we will see if Bush stands firm and is loyal to the Kurds. In case, it would be the first time that the Kurds do not get the shaft in an international conflict. It's about time!
6:50:33 AM
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Was the soldier who attacked his own a muslim?
BBC World radio has heard rumours that the serviceman who is suspected of having attacked his own with grenades was a muslim. A US official being interviewed refused to comment on that, referring to ongoing investigations. But he didn't deny it either.
Not much news about this on the wire. ITV writes:
Central Command gave no details of the wounded. It did not name the suspect or comment on a possible motive. US broadcaster Fox News said he was a Muslim American and that he had been described as "acting strange" before attack.
Fox News themselves doesn't mention this on their site. It's a very touchy subject.
At any rate, a soldier turning on his own is not that unusual. It happened a few times during the Viet Nam war. There is even a technical term for it in US army: fragging. Geeks, hold your tongue!
5:13:28 AM
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Richard Dawkins on Bush
"The population of the US is nearly 300 million, including many of the best educated, most talented, most resourceful, humane people on earth. By almost any measure of civilised attainment, from Nobel prize-counts on down, the US leads the world by miles. You would think that a country with such resources, and such a field of talent, would be able to elect a leader of the highest quality. Yet, what has happened? At the end of all the primaries and party caucuses, the speeches and the televised debates, after a year or more of non-stop electioneering bustle, who, out of that entire population of 300 million, emerges at the top of the heap? George Bush.
My American friends, you know I love your country, how have we come to this? Yes, yes, Bush isn't quite as stupid as he sounds, and heaven knows he can't be as stupid as he looks." (Guardian)
The rest of the article is, I think, rather shallow. I am a massive fan of Richard Dawkins, and he usually gets it right, but I will have to say I wished he had devoted as much time and energy to understand the process that lead up to the decision to attack Iraq as he did to his study of biology. While rhetorically brilliant, as always, he simplifies the issues so much he misses a few very crucial key points.
4:34:21 AM
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Father of fallen US serviceman blames Bush
I had to look long and hard to find this story, reported on BBC radio, on any online news sources:
"Staff Sgt. Kendall Damon Waters-Bey died along with three other Americans and eight British Marines in a helicopter crash in Kuwait.
Waters-Bey's father, Michael, said he opposes the war.
When asked what he would say to Bush he said, "This was not your son or daughter. That chair he sat in at Thanksgiving will be empty forever."" (WBAL)
He actually said a bit more, but I can't find that online now.
Update: I heard it again on BBC World. Michael Waters-Bey said, addressed to Bush: "You took my only son away from me." The anchor remarked that the Bush administration was probably praying that such outbursts did not become too common. But why should they fear, with such exemplary self-censorship in the US media?
This story (parts of it) was only reported on a number of small US news sources, who obviously don't have the sense to suppress such unpatriotic outbursts.
Keep an eye on this story on Google news.
3:34:47 AM
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The truth from Baghdad?
In the previous Gulf war, the Iraqis spread unbelievable, absurd propaganda. They claimed to have shot down coalition aircraft daily, and exaggarated their civilian casualties enormously.
This time, Iraqi news reports have been remarkably sober. They reported three - 3 - killed from the massive bomb attacks on Baghdad yesterday. That is an astonishing low number, and nobody would really have a reason doubt the Iraqis if they had reported 30 dead.
We are seeing a new tactic from Saddam Hussein: tell the truth. He sure is unpredictable to the very end.
3:20:31 AM
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Grenade attack injures 13 at 101st airborne camp
An unknown number of attackers attacked encamped US soldiers in Kuwait, injuring 13, 6 of them seriously.
A friend tells me that a CNN reporter said on the air that a US soldier had been arrested in relation to the attack. The CNN anchor was apparently stunned. No online media has reported it yet.
At least we know that US troops have not learned anything about security since GW1. It is amazing that armed men can make their way into a camp area, and a miracle they did not kill dozens.
Update: CNN now mentions this briefly: "A U.S. soldier was among the people detained and questioned in connection with the attack, the Financial Times reported."
Update 2: And there CNN finally reports the story in full:
"Military criminal investigators said the suspect was recently reprimanded for insubordination ...
[Time journalist] Lacey said he was told by a military commander the soldier lobbed three grenades into the operations center and yelled, "You're under attack!" A major told Lacey he saw a grenade roll by him before the explosion."
Crazy that a serviceman could attack his own comrades that way. I guess there must be lunatics everywhere.
3:06:17 AM
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Why white flags?
I had actually wondered why a white flag is a near-universal symbol of capitulation.
1:03:23 AM
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© Copyright 2003 Jan Haugland.
Last update: 01.04.2003; 01:33:22.
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