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Michael Parker's Journal
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Monday, May 31, 2004 |
The truth of the matter is this. I am an avid fan of the Harry Potter films. To admit that I am excited for this weeks release of The Prisoner of Azkaban is an understatement. I'm dreaming about it I'm so excited.
I saw the trailer for the film when I saw Shrek 2. I was greatly intrigued by the darker tone of the upcoming film. One of the reasons why I am so excited (and why the film is darker than the previous two) is that Alfonso Cuaron is directing the film. Cuaron is known for directing the films A Little Princess, Great Expectations, and the incredible Y Tu Mama Tambien. I feel Cuaron has the ability to take the series to a richer, more psychological plane.
If you have not heard about the story line, here it is--When Harry Potter returns to Hogwarts for his third year, he and his friends, Hermione and Ron, learn that Sirius Black (played by Gary Oldman) has escaped from Azkaban prison and may be on his way to Hogwarts to kill Harry Potter.
Michael Gambon (Gosford Park) joins the cast as Dumbledore. And the lovely and talented Emma Thompson joins the cast as the professor of divination, Trewlaney. Besides Sirius Black, Harry Potter and friends will have to confront the Dementors, creatures who act as guards to the prison. They are known for their ability to suck the soul out of you.
I am expecting great things from Cuaron and Company. Five more days and counting. I can't wait!
Visit the website at www.harrypotter.warnerbros.com for more information.
4:16:37 PM  | |
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Saturday, May 29, 2004 |
Ben Affleck, Uma Thurman, and Aaron Eckhart star in this MacGyver-type film about a man who gave up three years of his life to build a secret device for a company Alcom that can portray the future. When he finished the job, his memory was erased. But when he picks up a packet of his belongings, he learns over a course of silly and far-fetched situations that he placed 20 items in this packet that would help him remember (and help him get back inside Alcom) that he needed to destroy the device. Why? Because it was going to destroy humankind.
Paycheck wanted so badly to be another Minority Report. It brought in capable actors but the script lacked direction, coherence, and most importantly, sense. You could tell that a few of the stars, Uma especially, tried to make something happen with the dialogue given them. Nothing could save this from being awful.
2:43:33 PM | |
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If you want jobs then you vote for Democrats, of course. Look at this amazing graphic from American Assembler. Consider that the worst Democratic president had a better record than the best Republican president. (I saw this posted on DailyKOS and couldn't resist adding to my journal. Thanks, KOS.) 
12:03:23 AM | |
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Friday, May 28, 2004 |
No star has reinvented themselves as much as Madonna. No one star has been as successful as she has in doing this either. I remember as a teenager the fashion trends spawned from her debut album and MTV hits Holiday, Borderline, and Lucky Star--plastic bracelets and anklets; black bras under see-through tops or tanktops; everything lace.
She rankled the religious with hits such Like A Virgin, Papa Don't Preach, and Like A Prayer. Love, sex, and the experience of it came across as her religion. She turned many listeners into believers, entranced by her blonde ambition, physically fit and sexy physique, freshly hypnotic dance routines, her flare for the dramatic and grand, and some of the best songs of her time. She has been the paradigm, in many respects, of vogue.
Madonna had a turn as one of the most popular figures among contemporary musicals and world politics--Eva Peron, winning accolades for her performance in the musical Evita. She's most recently become a best-selling novelist.
She's the queen of expressing herself. It's a characteristic that has endeared her to many of us. Now a mother of two and happily married to director Guy Ritchie, and now a faithful adherent to the practice of Kabbalah, one wonders if she has taken to the road not really to reinvent her self and her music in our eyes but rather in an attempt to revise it all to fit her new self. No matter the reason, she has my attention. She has had it from the very beginning.
(The amazing photograph above was taken at her Reinvention Tour in Los Angeles this past week. This picture, as well as others from that concert, can be seen at Yahoo Slideshows.)
3:28:49 PM | |
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Thursday, May 27, 2004 |
How uncanny. How bizarre. Nick Berg's story took a bizarre twist today when Salon reported that the American entrepreneur who was beheaded in Iraq was actually interviewed by Michael Moore for his documentary Farenheit 911 before he traveled to Iraq. Michael Moore verified this fact with Salon today. Here are a few excerpts from Salon's article today, written by Rebecca Traister.
Filmmaker Michael Moore filmed an interview with American Nicholas Berg in the course of producing his documentary film "Fahrenheit 9/11" before Berg left for Iraq, where he was taken hostage and killed, Moore confirmed to Salon in a statement Thursday. The 20 minutes of footage does not appear in the final version of "Fahrenheit 911," according to the statement.
Word of the footage reached Salon through a source unaffiliated with Moore or his film "Fahrenheit 9/11," which is reported to feature stark images of U.S. civilians and soldiers grappling with conditions in war-torn Iraq, as well as examining the relationship between President George W. Bush and the bin Laden family. It received the Palme d'Or, the Cannes Film Festival's highest honor, on Saturday.
In a statement widely circulated by Moore's people after an initial request for comment by Salon, Moore said, "We have an interview with Nick Berg. It was approximately 20 minutes long. We are not releasing it to the media. It is not in the film. We are dealing privately with the family." Moore's camp declined to comment further on any aspect of the interview. Because the footage is not in the film, a spokeswoman for Miramax Films, the production company behind "Fahrenheit 9/11," said the company had no comment.
It was not clear from Moore's statement whether footage from the interview with Berg had ever been included in early cuts of "Fahrenheit 9/11." Reports about a film industry controversy surrounding distribution of the film first hit the news on May 5, a week before Berg's death. The film officially screened for the public and the press for the first time during the Cannes festival on May 17.
The news that Moore spoke to Berg while he was still in the United States only adds to the mystery surrounding the young man's presence in Iraq and tragic death. The interview was shot before the 26-year-old Berg left for Iraq late last year as a private contractor in the hopes of helping to rebuild the ravaged country. Though it was unclear what Berg spoke about in his interview with Moore, or how the two men met, unrelated reports following his death indicate that he headed for the Middle East with plans to work to improve the country's technological infrastructure and communication abilities. He ran his own company, Prometheus Methods Tower Service, in a suburb of Philadelphia.
I wonder if the footage might find its way back into the film. I wonder if Moore is trying to get permission to divulge the contents of the interview. Maybe that is why Moore is "dealing privately with the family." No matter what, this revelation definitely sparks my curiosity about the two weeks Berg spent in US custody in Iraq. My head is full of possible questions and possible theories, some of which might best be kept unsaid.
7:38:37 PM | |
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If people's mind has been made up by April and May in regards to who they will vote for, Bush is in for a long summer and autumn. I still think it's too early and unwise to predict anything, even though poll results clearly show that American's are not in sync with Bush's vision or the Iraq war.
Josh Micah Marshall of Talking Points Memo linked to a strategy memo by Stan Greenberg and James Carville from the Democracy Corps. They wrote the following about Bush's recent polling stats:
Six months out from the election, the race for president has entered a new and distinct phase with Bush not only endangered, as we suggested earlier, but now with the odds against him. He is more likely to lose than win. Public confidence has collapsed on Iraq, but there is a lot of collateral damage, producing a strong desire for change. Whether it is the vote or job approval or personal favorability, Bush has become a 47 percent president at best. In almost every area, he is being dragged down by even stronger negative trends. Put simply by the voters themselves: just 42 percent want the country to continue in Bush's direction.
Ralph Nader might yet prove to be the spoiler for John Kerry, even though Nader's spin on his purpose in running states the opposite. For proof of this, read this analysis of poll results compiled by the Don't Vote Nader group.
But before you click over there, read this grand idea from a columnist at the Guardian in England. In a masterfully written article titled "The Fall of the Vulcan's," Timothy Garton Ash ponders how the European Commission can help America vote out Bush. His comments reminded me of Kerry's statement back in March or February in which he said many world leaders would like to see him beat Bush. Here's what Ash proposes:
[T]he crucial election for Europe - not the European elections next month, but the American one on November 2 - will be decided by Americans for American reasons. And the deciding factor may not be any foreign entanglement, nor even the economy, but the candidacy of Ralph Nader, which is likely to take pivotal anti-Bush votes away from Kerry, as it did from Al Gore in 2000. If only Nader would stand down.
Now Nader is, in many of his concerns, truly European. It occurs to me that the European Union is having some difficulty finding a new president of the European commission. So why don't we kill two birds with one stone? If we really want to help the vulcans from the American stage, let's make Ralph Nader president of the European commission.
6:40:58 PM | |
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Wednesday, May 26, 2004 |
Check this out! Sign up to see all of the episodes and have the right to vote someone off the island. Practice for November.
6:23:21 PM | |
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Tuesday, May 25, 2004 |
Bill Moyer's speech to the Newspaper Guild/Communication Workers of America dinner on May 19, 2004 is an astute description of journalism today and how the purpose of journalism, if I can call it that, is being suffocated under the curtain of secrecy placed on it by the government and media conglomerates and moguls. It is a must read if there ever was one!
Consider this paragraph on journalism's role in freedom:
Freedom and freedom of the press were birth twins of the revolution. They grew up together, and neither has fared well without the other. At times, journalism has risen to great occasions and even made other freedoms possible. From editors who went defiantly to prison after being charged under the sedition act for circulating opinions that questioned the motives of Congress, or 'criminating' (whatever that meant) the president, to the willingness of Arthur Sulzberger and Katherine Graham to risk criminal prosecution under espionage laws if they printed the Pentagon Papers; from Lincoln Steffens and Ida Tarbell and Upton Sinclair taking on the shame of the cities, the crimes of the trusts, and the treason of the senate, to Walter Cronkite devoting an entire broadcast to Watergate; from Seymour Hersh reporting on torture to 60 Minutes II broadcasting the horror of Abu Ghraib, the greatest moments in journalism have come not when journalists made common cause with power, but when they stood fearlessly independent of it.
Consider these two paragraphs regarding secrecy of this Administration:
Partly it's because of the secrecy. The secrecy today is so thick as to be all but impenetrable. In earlier times there were padlocks for the presses and jail cells for outspoken editors and writers as our governing bodies tried to squelch journalistic freedom with blunt instruments of the law. Now, the classifier's 'top secret' stamp, used indiscriminately, is as potent a silencer as a writ of arrest. It's so bad the president and CEO of the Associated Press, Tom Curley, last week called publicly for a media advocacy center to lobby in Washington for an open government. "You don't need to have your notebook snatched by a policeman," he said, "to know that keeping an eye on government has lately gotten a lot harder."
With little public debate congress gives government agencies the right to search your home, office, telephone logs, e-mails, medical records, restaurant-receipts, even banking and credit card information-without your consent or knowledge. The president signs an executive order postponing thousands of declassified documents that are 25 years old or more. He signs another executive order sending hundreds of millions of tax dollars to religious organizations with no obligation to show us where the money's going or how it's being used. For the first time in history the vice president is given the power to decide what is classified and what is not. Behind closed doors, key environmental protections are shredded and in the middle of the night, without so much as a single fingerprint left in the margin, an anonymous hand inserts into an omnibus bill a loophole providing billions of dollars in subsidies to powerful clients. Secrecy poisons democracy and there is only one antidote. When a student asked the journalist Richard Reeves to define "real news," he answered, "It's the news we need to keep our freedom."
Moyer's hits the nail on the head with this paragraph:
Meanwhile, as secrecy grows, and media conglomerates put more and more power in fewer and fewer hands, we have witnessed the rise of a new phenomenon-a quasi-official partisan press ideologically linked to an authoritarian administration that is in turn the ally and agent of powerful financial and economic interests that consider transparencies a threat to their hegemony over public opinion. This convergence dominates the marketplace of political ideas in a phenomenon unique in our history. Stretching from the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal to Rupert Murdoch's empire to the nattering nabobs of know-nothing radio to a legion of think tanks bought and paid for by corporations circling the honey pots of government, a vast echo chamber resounds with a conformity of opinions, serving a partisan worldview cannot be proven wrong because it admits no evidence to the contrary. When you challenge them with evidence to the contrary-when you try to hold their propaganda to scrutiny-you're likely to wind up in the modern equivalent of a medieval iron maiden, between the covers, that is, of an Ann Coulter tirade, or wake up in an underground cell at FOX News, force fed leftovers from a Roger Ailes snack, and required for 24 hours a day to stare at photographs of Rupert Murdoch on the walls of the cell while listening to a piped-in Bill O'Reilly singing the Hallelujah Chorus in praise of himself.
10:26:27 PM | |
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The fact that Bush stumbled over the pronunciation of the name Abu Ghraib last night is quite telling. Like Joan Walsh and Joe Conason, this gaffe gives the impression that Bush is simply not familiar with the name, as if he were seeing it written for the first time, as if he were saying it for the first time.
Isn't there someone in his employ up there who is supposed to coach him on how to pronounce names as important as Abu Ghraib? After all, it may be the acts captured by soldiers on film at this location that ultimately may cost him his re-election. You would think he would want to get this one right!
Joan Walsh of The War Room blog on Salon.com has an excellent commentary on this. Consider these choice paragraphs:
Given the importance of President Bush's Iraq address, it's the wrong time to be petty, but someone needs to say that his stumbling over the pronunciation of Abu Ghraib was a stunning gaffe -- and yes, I mean "gaffe" in the Washington definition of the word, as in a slip of the tongue that inadvertently reveals what the speaker really thinks -- or in this case, doesn't bother to think.
Is Bush the only American who hasn't discussed the torture scandal enough in the last month to have decided already how to pronounce the prison's name? I've come to say "Abu Ghrabe," with a long A (sounds like "hate"), which Google seems to say is the correct pronunciation. But the point is not to insist there's a clear, written-in-stone right way to pronounce it; there's no time to consult Arabic experts, and that isn't the point. I've heard knowledgeable people say "Abu Gribe," with a long I, as in "spite." Bush's mangled version sounded kind of like "Abu...Guh...rrab," as in "grab," which may be a Freudian take on it, given the groping and sexual abuse that went on there.
But the worst of it was the way Bush got stuck on the word, parsing out the syllables lamely, as though he'd never read or heard them before....
Abu Ghrabe, Abu Ghribe, Abu Ghrab, it didn't necessarily matter how Bush pronounced it, as long as he showed a weary, fed-up familiarity with the word and all it meant, and a determination to make sure this sort of scandal never happened again. But he didn't. That may have been the most important moment of Bush's speech, and the president fell on his face again, badly.
9:55:15 PM | |
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Monday, May 24, 2004 |
USA TODAY printed a remarkable article by Carl Bernstein today urging Republicans to get a backbone and stop this Bush presidency. Consider these opening paragraphs from Bernstein's article:
Thirty years ago, a Republican president, facing impeachment by the House of Representatives and conviction by the Senate, was forced to resign because of unprecedented crimes he and his aides committed against the Constitution and people of the United States. Ultimately, Richard Nixon left office voluntarily because courageous leaders of the Republican Party put principle above party and acted with heroism in defense of the Constitution and rule of law.
"What did the president know and when did he know it?" a Republican senator - Howard Baker of Tennessee - famously asked of Nixon 30 springtimes ago.
Today, confronted by the graphic horrors of Abu Ghraib prison, by ginned-up intelligence to justify war, by 652 American deaths since presidential operatives declared "Mission Accomplished," Republican leaders have yet to suggest that George W. Bush be held responsible for the disaster in Iraq and that perhaps he, not just Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, is ill-suited for his job.
Having read the report of Major Gen. Antonio Taguba, I expect Baker's question will resound again in another congressional investigation. The equally relevant question is whether Republicans will, Pavlov-like, continue to defend their president with ideological and partisan reflex, or remember the example of principled predecessors who pursued truth at another dark moment.
Today, the issue may not be high crimes and misdemeanors, but rather Bush's failure, or inability, to lead competently and honestly.
"You are courageously leading our nation in the war against terror," Bush told Rumsfeld in a Wizard-of-Oz moment May 10, as Vice President Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell and senior generals looked on. "You are a strong secretary of Defense, and our nation owes you a debt of gratitude." The scene recalled another Oz moment: Nixon praising his enablers, Bob Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, as "two of the finest public servants I've ever known."
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The Center for American Progress today reported that Donald Rumsfield has banned soldiers and media from using any "digital cameras, camcorders and cell phones with cameras." This comes after the revealed atrocities at Abu Ghraib and the excessive bombing of the wedding party near the border of Syria, in which gruesome footage was recorded and passed on to foreign media. (Atrios of Eschaton links to a news report from Elmundo.es with photos and video. The footage is quit graphic and may not be suitable for all eyes.)
The underlying message one can only assume from Rumsfield's new orders is that they do not intend to clean up their act and fall in line with the Geneva Conventions. He just wants to make sure that evidence of intelligence-gathering interrogation methods no longer see the light of day.
Isn't this yet another sign that the interrogation atrocities are systematic?
9:50:32 PM | |
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I don't know about you but I disavowed myself as a Star Wars fan when the first film of the second trilogy, which is actually the first film of the first trilogy, was released. Why? Because it was such a monstrous bore! The plot was nearly non-existent. I take that back. It was nothing more than a glorified computer game passed off as a movie.
Christopher Bahn is a critic of the films also. But Bahn believes the last episode has a chance at suriving. Bahn believes that if they get rid of Lucas, hire a different writer, get a new cast, and forget the entire storylines of Episodes 1 and 2, they just might have a film.
Read his hilarious article posted today on MSNBC. Consider the introductory paragraphs to gain a sense of Bahn's cleverness and wit:
We’ve got one more year before George Lucas finishes up his "Star Wars" prequel trilogy with the as-yet-untitled Episode III, and he certainly has his work cut out for him. Not only does he have to resolve the ongoing storylines of "Phantom Menace" and "Attack of the Clones" in such a way as to lead directly into Episode IV, the original 1977 "Star Wars," but he has to overcome two of the most soul-killingly dull storylines ever put on film. I mean, really - I’ve seen more interesting films on sandwiches I left in my fridge too long. Is there any way for Lucas to salvage the series in a single movie? It would take a great disturbance in the Force, but it’s not impossible.
Hire some real behind-the-scenes talent
Considering that most of the worst ideas in the last two films came from Lucas himself, he might start by handing over the reins to another filmmaker.
It might be difficult to convince Lucas to go along with it, but if necessary Lucas could probably be tricked by telling him that Joseph Campbell is waiting with a documentary crew to massage Lucas’ ego by interviewing him about his wonderful mythic imagination. When Lucas shows up, knock him out, encase him in a block of frozen carbonite and put him out of the way somewhere until the movie is out in theaters.
Give creative control entirely to a new directing and writing team - it almost doesn’t matter who - and tell them to ignore "Phantom Menace" and "Attack of the Clones" entirely. Rethink Episode III as a standalone story with one simple plotline: Anakin Skywalker has just married Padme (who is, unbeknownst to him, pregnant with the twins Luke and Leia who’ll show up in the next film). Seduced by ambition, Anakin leaves behind his wife, his life and even his own name to join the evil Emperor Palpatine as Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith.
The probability of Lucas giving up his baby is low. I'll await this release on DVD. Forever live LOTR, the fantasy film with the most!
8:41:45 PM | |
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Work is always fun when you can incorporate games such as this into your routine. Robert (also known as nubalicious on his blogsite), Shawn, and I pondered the above picture and came up with some fitting captions. Here are my favorite from our brainstorming session:
10. "Find a happy place...find a happy place...find a happy place...."
9. "Did I ever tell you I had a thing for my mother?"
8. "I'm bringing home a baby bumble bee."
7. "This wasn't in the Presidents for Dummies handbook."
6. "I think this is about the time my father vomited in that one guys lap."
5. "Must never eat chili before a press conference ever again!"
4. "Shit... I was not prepped for this question!"
3. Scanning the telelprompt, Bush sees: "blah, blah, blah....Weapons of Mass destruction.... blah.... blah... blah.... Oil."
2. "I picked the wrong day to quit smoking pot."
1. "Potato.... P-O-T-A-T-O-E....Potato."
The Comments page is anxiously waiting for your caption. Go to it!
Update: SORRY that the picture didn't work the first go-round!
7:33:38 PM | |
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Sunday, May 23, 2004 |
AWESOME! I pulled this off of Salon's news feed:
American filmmaker Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11," a scathing indictment of White House actions after the Sept. 11 attacks, won the top prize Saturday at the Cannes Film Festival.
"Fahrenheit 9/11" was the first documentary to win Cannes' prestigious Palme d'Or since Jacques Cousteau's and Louis Malle's "The Silent World" in 1956.
"What have you done? I'm completely overwhelmed by this. Merci," Moore said after getting a standing ovation from the Cannes crowd.
The grand prize, the festival's second-place honor, went to South Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook's "Old Boy," a blood-soaked thriller about a man out for revenge after years of inexplicable imprisonment.
Moore was momentarily flabbergasted when he took the stage to accept the award, a big difference from his fiery speech against President Bush after winning the best-documentary Academy Award for 2002's "Bowling for Columbine."
"You have to understand, the last time I was on an awards stage, in Hollywood, all hell broke loose," Moore said.
9:19:55 PM | |
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Moviegoers talked with their wallets this week and dished out an incredible $104.3 million dollars for Shrek 2. The only other film that had a better opening is Spiderman, with $115 million.
Shrek 2, about Shrek and Fiona meeting Fiona's parents in the land of Far Far Away, became the largest boxoffice opener for an animated film, beating out Finding Nemo.
Here's more tidbits from the AP about Shrek 2's success:
It's a humongous "happily ever after" for "Shrek 2." The computer-animated fairy tale satire collected an estimated $104.3 million at the weekend box office, the second-biggest three-day tally in movie history behind 2002's "Spider-Man," which took in $114.8 million.
"Shrek 2" also scored the biggest opening ever for an animated film, easily topping "Finding Nemo's" $70.2 million. "Shrek," which opened in 2001, earned $42.3 million in its first weekend -- but went on to collect $267.6 million and win the first Oscar for an animated feature film.
For the sequel, the grumpy green ogre collected $28.4 million on Friday, and then jumped a remarkable 58 percent Saturday to earn $44.8 million, according to Jim Tharp, head of distribution for DreamWorks.
Saturday's earnings broke Hollywood's overall record for highest one-day earnings, also held by "Spider-Man" with $43.6 million.
On a personal note, I greatly enjoyed Shrek 2. I loved it as much as the first film. The script is clever and dynamic. The original film succeeded because it consistently surprised me with ingenious lines and plot developments. In this light, Shrek 2 was just as ingenious. Some critics were distracted by the clarity of the digital animation, as if it made people look too real. I too noticed these moments, especially with Prince Charming on screen. But I was not distracted to the point of not thoroughly enjoying myself.
On a whole, the sign of a good sequel is that it's story and plot stand on its own, without relying on the original to supply character or plot development. It succeeds in establishing its own persona. This is Shrek 2.
Of course, these Shrek films would not be what they are if they did not revolve around the notion that beauty is not what one can see but what is in a person's heart. It's about falling in love with someone for who they are and not what you want them or expect them to be. These films make us feel good about who we are and inspire us to treat others a bit better too; at least they do for me.
Kudos to DreamWork's and the creators/makers of Shrek 2 for their success. They deserve it.
8:50:37 PM | |
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Saturday, May 22, 2004 |
In a statement to investigators, obtained by the Los Angeles Times, Private Lyndie England said "everyone in the company from the commander down" knew what was going on at Abu Ghraib.
Lynndie England is now infamous; she's become the face of these abuses. One of the many images that has defined this prison scandal shows her standing above a beaten Iraqi man who is curled up on the floor opposite her. The Iraqi man is wearing a leash; she holds the other end.
It has been documented by many scholars and psychologists and historians who have studied mass movements, war, and the characteristics of war that abuses such as these we are seeing happen because the perpetrators of these abuses come to see their victims as less than human, like animals. The image of the Iraqi man leashed like a dog validates this point.
In a New York Times column on Friday, Bob Herbert interviewed the 28 year-old Staff Sgt. Camilo Mejia who is being tried for failing to return to duty after his troops' furlough. Meija added his testament about how war changes a soldier's perspective about the people they are sent to liberate. His sentiments echo those of the Vietnam war:
All you really want to do in such an environment, said Sergeant Mejia, is "get out of there alive." So soldiers will do things under that kind of extreme stress that they wouldn't do otherwise.
"You just sort of try to block out the fact that they're human beings and see them as enemies," he said. "You call them hajis, you know? You do all the things that make it easier to deal with killing them and mistreating them."
Like the SS troops who brutalized the Jews as part of fulfilling the grand scheme of the Nazi party, a vision created by Heydrich and Hitler, known as the Final Solution, these American soldiers, contract workers, and their commanding officers have likewise (though I admit to a much lesser degree in numbers) brutalized Iraqi men, women, and children in order to fulfill Donald Rumsfield's intelligence-gathering scheme known as Copper Green.
Private England revealed more extremely disturbing details about the abuses she was witnessed and carried out. As reported by Mark Sage of the PA News in New York, consider the following:
[England] said guards forced detainees to crawl on their hands and knees on broken glass, threw a heavy ball at handcuffed prisoners and forced male detainees to wear women’s ’maxi pads’.
She said one soldier would "personally stitch up detainees if the wounds weren’t too bad".
"He would take pictures of his work," she added.
After slamming one Iraqi against a wall, the soldier stitched the inmates lip.
Although England implicated more senior soldiers in the scandal, she told investigators that much of the abuse was "basically us fooling around".
"We thought it looked funny, so pictures were taken," she said.
But she added: "Personnel from MI [military intelligence] and OGA [Other Government Agency, or CIA] would tell us to keep it up, that we were doing a good job." She said there were many other abuses, but "I can’t remember all of them".
She added: "We did what we were told."
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[An] Iraqi was taken to a shower room and shackled to a wall by the CIA....he was interrogated [there] and eventually died.
It was not until his hood was removed, after he died, that the extent of his head injuries was known....
Specialist Jason Kenner told investigators: "He wasn’t dead at first.
"We didn’t know how much he was injured. He went into the showers for interrogation, and about an hour later he died on them.
"I was sent to find out what was going on. Later that day, they decided to put him on ice.
"After he passed, the sandbag was removed and I saw that he was severely beaten on his face."
Scott Higham and Joe Stephens of The Washington Post obtained the statements of 13 detainees who said they were "savagely beaten and repeatedly humiliated sexually by American soldiers working on the night shift at Tier 1A in Abu Ghraib during the holy month of Ramadan." These statements paint "the most detailed picture yet of what took place on the cellblock."
These statements were "taken in Baghdad between Jan. 16 and Jan. 21" and span 65 pages.
Consider the following revelations:
....prisoners being ridden like animals, sexually fondled by female soldiers and forced to retrieve their food from toilets.
....they were pressed to denounce Islam or were force-fed pork and liquor....sexually humiliated and assaulted, threatened with rape, and forced to masturbate in front of female soldiers.
"They forced us to walk like dogs on our hands and knees," said Hiadar Sabar Abed Miktub al-Aboodi, detainee No. 13077. "And we had to bark like a dog, and if we didn't do that they started hitting us hard on our face and chest with no mercy. After that, they took us to our cells, took the mattresses out and dropped water on the floor and they made us sleep on our stomachs on the floor with the bags on our head and they took pictures of everything."
....
...Ameen Saeed Al-Sheik, detainee No. 151362: "They stripped me naked. One of them told me he would rape me. He drew a picture of a woman to my back and makes me stand in shameful position holding my buttocks."
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Most of the detainees said in the statements that they were stripped upon their arrival to Tier 1A, forced to wear women's underwear, and repeatedly humiliated in front of one another and American soldiers. They also described beatings and threats of death and sexual assault if they did not cooperate with U.S. interrogators.
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[Kasim Mehaddi] Hilas witnessed an Army translator having sex with a boy at the prison. He said the boy was between 15 and 18 years old. Someone hung sheets to block the view, but Hilas said he heard the boy's screams and climbed a door to get a better look. Hilas said he watched the assault and told investigators that it was documented by a female soldier taking pictures.
.....
Another detainee told military investigators that American soldiers sodomized and beat him. The detainee, whose name is being withheld by The Post because he is an alleged victim of a sexual assault, said he was kept naked for five days when he first arrived at Abu Ghraib and was forced to kneel for four hours with a hood over his head. He said he was beaten so badly one day that the hood flew off his head. "The police was telling me to crawl in Arabic, so I crawled on my stomach and the police were spitting on me when I was crawling, and hitting me on my back, my head and my feet," he said in his sworn statement.
One day, the detainee said, American soldiers held him down and spread his legs as another soldier prepared to open his pants. "I started screaming," he said. A soldier stepped on his head, he said, and someone broke a phosphoric light and spilled the chemicals on him.
"I was glowing and they were laughing," he said.
The detainee said the soldiers eventually brought him to a room and sodomized him with a nightstick. "They were taking pictures of me during all these instances," he told the investigators.
.....
Al-Sheik said he was arrested on Oct. 7, and brought to Abu Ghraib, where he was put in a tent for one night. The next day, he was transferred to the "hard site," the two-story building that held about 200 prisoners and contained Tiers 1A and 1B.
He said a bag was put over his head and he was made to strip. He said American soldiers started to taunt him.
"Do you pray to Allah?" one asked. "I said yes. They said, '[Expletive] you. And [expletive] him.' One of them said, 'You are not getting out of here health[y], you are getting out of here handicapped. And he said to me, 'Are you married?' I said, 'Yes.' They said, 'If your wife saw you like this, she will be disappointed.' One of them said, 'But if I saw her now she would not be disappointed now because I would rape her.' "
He said the soldiers told him that if he cooperated with interrogators they would release him in time for Ramadan. He said he did, but still was not released. He said one soldier continued to abuse him by striking his broken leg and ordered him to curse Islam. "Because they started to hit my broken leg, I cursed my religion," he said. "They ordered me to thank Jesus that I'm alive."
The detainee said the soldiers handcuffed him to a bed.
"Do you believe in anything?" he said the soldier asked. "I said to him, 'I believe in Allah.' So he said, "But I believe in torture and I will torture you.' "
I know many Americans feel we are justified in torturing Iraqis. I've heard from a few of them. But I want you to know they are wrong. Donald Rumsfield, George Bush, and their cohorts in this deplorable war on Iraq are wrong.
These acts have turned America into the evil that we teach our children is unacceptable. These acts have made a mockery of the precepts of any religion and the ethics of secularism. This is not who I am. This is not who my family is. This is not who my neighbors are. This is not who my friends are. I'd like to believe that this is not what America is.
11:50:42 AM | |
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Thursday, May 20, 2004 |
Total Film Magazine published the results of a critics poll naming the best gory deaths in film. Their top choice was Vivian Leigh's shower scene in Psycho.
It's the sheer violence of the edit rather than any explicit gore - 70 different angles, over 90 cuts and those shrieking violins. It's a masterclass in montage and audience manipulation."
Crook added: "Knowing that the blood is Bosco's chocolate syrup and that a pulped casaba melon stood in for the stabbing noises does nothing to reduce the impact."
Scenes making the list seemed to cross many genres. Consider some of these scenes:
Stanley Kubrick's "Dr Strangelove Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb" (1964) came second, with the surreal ending when Slim Pickens (news) rides an atomic bomb.
Other highly rated movie deaths were the fatal plunge to earth of the ape in the 1933 Fay Wray (news) movie "King Kong," in third place, and the demise of Bambi's mother (6th) in the 1942 Disney movie of the same name.
Alan Rickman (news)'s fall from a 30-storey building in "Die Hard" (1988) comes fourth, followed by the killing of the title characters in "Bonnie and Clyde" (1967)....
The Wicked Witch melting in 'The Wizard Of Oz' (13th)....
The Godfather (22nd) and Reservoir Dogs (23rd)...
Which scenes would you put on this list?
10:28:44 PM | |
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Check this out from the Center for American Progress:
The non-partisan General Accounting Office (GAO) found that the Bush administration engaged in illegal, covert propaganda when it produced fake news segments about the new Medicare law and distributed them to local television stations. The segment featured individuals purporting to be Washington reporters who were, in fact, "paid with federal funds through a contractor to report the message." The GAO found that the news segments were "not strictly factual news stories as HHS [the Department of Health and Human Service] contends," and, just like their multi-million dollar advertising campaign, contained "notable omissions and weaknesses." The fake news segments were broadcast, in whole or in part, on 40 stations in 33 markets across the country. When the investigation was launched, Bush administration spokesman Kevin Keane mocked the allegations that the fake news segments were illegal. Keane said "The use of video news releases is a common, routine practice in government and the private sector. Anyone who has questions about this practice needs to do some research on modern public information tools." The GAO concluded, however, that the conduct Keane was defending violated two federal laws and improperly expended at least $44,000 of taxpayer money. Nevertheless, the Bush administration has indicated it is unlikely it would comply with the GAO ruling. The latest incident is part of a pattern of deception and deceit which the Bush administration has employed to pass and promote its $500 billion Medicare legislation.
REPORT ALLEGES CONSERVATIVE HOUSE LEADERS BRIBED MEMBERS FOR VOTES: This week, Common Cause released a report chronicling all of the improprieties that occurred before and after the passage of the Bush administration's Medicare bill. Perhaps most disturbing: conservative leaders in the House held the vote on the Medicare bill open for 3 hours in the middle of the night while they pressured Rep. Nick Smith (R-MI) and others to switch their votes. Normally, votes in the House are open for 15 minutes. In a 11/23/03 column on his website Rep. Smith wrote, "members and groups made extensive financial campaign supports and endorsements for my son Brad who is running for my seat. They also made threats of working against Brad if I voted no." The following month on a radio interview, Smith said "the first offer was to give [my son Brad] $100,000-plus for his campaign and endorsement by national leadership." While Smith stuck to his principles, others did not, and the bill passed by one vote.
CONSERVATIVE HOUSE LEADERS CENSORED C-SPAN: The House leadership controls the C-SPAN cameras in the chamber. Normally, during a vote, the camera constantly pans side to side monitoring floor activity. But during the three hours the conservative leadership was harassing members to switch their votes, the camera was locked on the Democratic side of the chamber. As a result "there is no visual record of who was talking to whom that night while votes were sought by the leadership."
ADMINISTRATION THREATENED GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES TO HIDE TRUE COST: Chief Medicare actuary Richard Foster "was threatened with dismissal if he released his official estimate of the cost of the prescription drug bill," which was $156 billion higher than the administration promised. The White House was well aware of the higher estimate because Foster gave the estimates to them in June 2003. According to Foster, that same month Medicare administrator Tom Scully "decided to restrict the practice of our responding directly to provide responses to him so he could decide what to do with them." An April 26, 2004 Congressional Research Service (CRS) report found that Scully's behavior was likely illegal. According to the CRS, a federal government employee who issues a "'gag order' on subordinate employees, to expressly prevent and prohibit those employees from communicating directly with Members or committees of Congress, would appear to violate a specific and express prohibition of federal law."
EMPLOYEE WHO ISSUED GAG ORDER CASHES IN: In December 2003, just after the president signed the Medicare bill, chief Medicare administrator Tom Scully joined a law firm that represents drug manufacturers and other major players in the health care industry who benefited from the law. The Bush administration granted Scully an ethics waiver "so that he could negotiate with potential employers while he helped write the Medicare law."
10:12:53 PM | |
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You're going to be seeing a metamorphosis of Michael Parker's Journal over the next few weeks. It will begin with slight modifications to the layout and lead to an unveiling of the new blogname. But fear not good Salon blog friends and others who have come to visit, and who have come to know my name via my blog, I am not signing off. I will still be here writing as much as I possibly can.
For months I've been considering joining forces with a few friends on a blog. And with the election year heating up, I've volunteered to create and run the Utah Democratic Blog site. So rather than keep two or three blogs running at the same time, I'm going to let my personal journal fade away. This does sadden me to a great extent. But believe me, I'm excited for this new venture, too.
Within the next few weeks, you can expect to be formally introduced to my friends Shawn Hammond and Sean Beall. They bring so much more to this table. I'm thrilled at the prospect of having them on board.
10:01:31 PM | |
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Wednesday, May 19, 2004 |
A Republican recently explained to me that in debate, it is all about the gift of mockery. Discredit your opponent first, especially with soundbytes for the media, and you come out the conquerer.
I always figured that the moment you mock someone or attempt to discredit them, it was a sign that your arguement was weak or out of gas.
Today, Sen. Hastert applied this rhetorical method when questioned by a reporter about Sen. McCain's comments. As you read this, picture Hastert out in front of a group of House GOP lawmakers, who laugh at every phrase and expression Hastert gives the reporter. It's high school all over again.
Consider the report posted on CNN this afternoon:
The exchange [with Hastert] started when a reporter asked: "Can I combine a two issues, Iraq and taxes? I heard a speech from John McCain the other day..."
Hastert: "Who?"
Reporter: "John McCain."
Hastert: "Where's he from?"
Reporter: "He's a Republican from Arizona."
Hastert: "A Republican?"
Amid nervous laughter, the reporter continued with his question: "Anyway, his observation was never before when we've been at war have we been worrying about cutting taxes and his question was, 'Where's the sacrifice?' "
Hastert: "If you want to see the sacrifice, John McCain ought to visit our young men and women at Walter Reed and Bethesda. There's the sacrifice in this country. We're trying to make sure they have the ability to fight this war, that they have the wherewithal to be able to do it. And, at the same time, we have to react to keep this country strong."
Walter Reed Army Medical Center and Bethesda National Naval Medical Center are two military hospitals in the Washington area.
McCain, a prisoner of war during Vietnam, later released a written statement, taking issue with the spending habits of Republican lawmakers.
"The speaker is correct in that nothing we are called upon to do comes close to matching the heroism of our troops," McCain said. "All we are called upon to do is not spend our nation into bankruptcy while our soldiers risk their lives. I fondly remember a time when real Republicans stood for fiscal responsibility. Apparently those days are long gone for some in our party."
6:42:10 PM | |
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Tuesday, May 18, 2004 |
Michael Moore's newest documentary Farenheit 9/11 is receiving rousing cheers and long standing ovations according to CNN and Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun Times. The controversial film was recently bought by the Weinstein brothers at Miramax after the parent company, Disney, refused to distribute the film. Disney would also not allow Miramax to distribute the film so the Weinstein brothers came to the rescue.
The title of the movie comes from the Ray Bradbury novel Farenheit 451 and is signficant because that is the temperature at which books will burn. Moore interprets Fahrenheit 9/11 as the "temperature at which freedom burns."
CNN described the film in this way:
The movie reiterates other critics’ accusations about the Bush family’s financial connections to Saudi oil interests and the family of Osama bin Laden. Moore charges that the White House was asleep at the wheel before the Sept. 11 attacks, then used fear-mongering of future terrorism to muster support for the Iraq war.
Yet Moore - the provocateur behind the Academy Award-winning "Bowling for Columbine," which dissected American gun culture - packages his anti-Bush message in a way that provokes both laughs and gasps....
Interviews, mocking footage of Bush’s often inelegant speeches, and comments by U.S. soldiers in Iraq - many expressing harsh disillusionment in their leaders - dominate the film.
It opens with a whimsical recap of the 2000 presidential campaign and the rancor after Florida’s photo-finish vote threw the election to Bush over Democratic rival Al Gore.
"Was it all just a dream?" Moore ponders. "Did the last four years even happen?"
The Sept. 11 attacks play out with no images of the planes that hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Instead, Moore fades to black and provides only the sounds of the planes crashing into the towers, before fading in again on tearful faces of people watching the devastation and a slow-motion montage of floating ash and debris after the buildings collapsed.
Moore examines Saudi financial ties to the Bush family and presents post-Saddam Iraq as an economic-development zone for American corporations.
Graver in tone than "Bowling for Columbine," the film includes grisly images of dead Iraqi babies and burned children, along with amputees and other U.S. soldiers injured in Iraq....
Even those skeptical of Moore, who has drawn criticism that he skews the truth to fit his arguments, were impressed.
"I have a problematic relationship with some of Michael Moore’s work," said James Rocchi, film critic for DVD rental company Netflix, saying he found Moore too smug and stunt-driven in the past. "There’s no such job as a standup journalist."
Yet in "Fahrenheit 9/11," Moore presents powerful segments about losses on both sides of the Iraq war and the grief of American and Iraqi families, Rocchi said.
"This film is at its best when it is most direct and speaks from the heart, when it shows lives torn apart," Rocchi said.
Just as the controversy surrounding Gibson's film The Passion of Christ created a remarkable interest for people to see the film, the same appears to be happening with Farenheit 451. At least, that was the case at Cannes.
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Here's a major news item from the AP that disappeared as quickly as it appeared. Answering questions in front of the Senate Committee for Armed Forces, Wolfowitz explained that there was no timeline for the departure of US troops from Iraq. Regarding the reasons why there is no timeline, Wolfowitz offered the following to the committee, according to the AP:
“I would say of all the things that were underestimated, the one that almost no one that I know of predicted ... was to properly estimate the resilience of the regime that had abused this country for 35 years.”
[Wolfowitz] said that included the failure “to properly estimate that Saddam Hussein would still be out there funding attacks on Americans until he was captured; that one of his principal deputies, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, would still be out there funding operations against us; that they would have hundreds of millions of dollars in bank accounts in neighboring countries to support those operations”; and that the old intelligence service would keep fighting.
Wolfowitz also said U.S. officials were wrong to impose so severe a policy of de-Baathification, the decision to purge members of Saddam’s Baath party from the government. The move threw thousands of teachers, military men and others out of work, many of whom had been required to join the party for employment, and was blamed for not only boosting joblessness but helping fuel the insurgency.
The ban on former party members in public-sector jobs was eased last month.
Wolfowitz also said that the next year to 18 months would be critical in Iraq because it would take that long to stand up fully trained and equipped Iraqi security forces and to elect a representative government.
Wolfowitz didn't sound too upset that there was no plan or timeline of departure. Due to the recent revelations regarding Rumsfield and how he failed to accurately plan for the war and the reconstruction, not to leave out how he helped mastermind the Copper Green strategy, I doubt they even want to leave. This Administration thrives on the chaos of terror and war. And besides, who are we to convince them they are wrong. To steal a phrase from Chris Hedges, they define themselves and no other definitions count.
6:25:28 PM | |
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Monday, May 17, 2004 |
Eli Pariser from MoveOn.com has teamed up with Arianna Huffington (columnist and author) and Joe Trippi (Howard Dean's former campaign manager) to create a vision for Kerry's campaign. They call it the "Go Big" campaign. To support the cause, simply sign the petition. I'd like to call it an endorsement but I'm not MoveOn. Here is the text of the letter being sent to Kerry:
Dear Senator Kerry,
We all want to send George Bush home to Crawford, Texas, in November. He seems convinced that the way to win is by playing on our fears. You can prove that the answer lies in appealing to the "better angels of our nature."
Let Bush own September 11th and the politics of fear. You should own September 12th -- the spirit of generosity and community that poured forth in the aftermath of the attacks -- and the politics of hope.
Offer voters a bold moral vision of what America can be. A vision that is bigger than the things that divide us. A vision that brings hope and soul back to our politics and appeals to more than voters' narrow self-interests. A vision that makes America once again a respected force for good in the world.
Don't be tempted to adopt the familiar -- and failed -- Republican-lite swing voter strategy. You can reach out to and inspire the fifty percent of eligible voters who have given up on voting. If you do, you will win not in a toss-up but a landslide.
Senator Kerry, I'm ready to vote my hopes and not my fears. So please: Go Big, Ask More!
John Kerry has what it takes to make this campaign a success. Consider the comments from MoveOn regarding Kerry's recent speech in California:
It's clear that Kerry has it in him to be a visionary candidate. In a speech to the California Democratic State Convention, he referred to Robert Kennedy's famous quotation: "Some men dream things that are and ask why. I dream things that never were and ask why not?" Then Kerry said:
That is the question at the heart of our campaign. That is our cause.
Why not have an economy where equal opportunity is a fact? Where people who work hard and do the right thing can not only make ends meet but can actually reach higher and hope for more?
Why not give every working American access to high-quality, affordable health care?
Why not have public schools where children set out on a lifetime of learning and possibility? Where "no child left behind" is a promise kept, not broken and forgotten.
Why not preserve our environment so our great grandchildren can breathe clean air, drink clean water, and know that they too live in a land that can be called "America the beautiful." (http://www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/speeches/spc_2003_0314.html)
Join the "Go Big" petition by going here.
9:41:00 PM | |
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by Glenn Parton
Glenn Parton is a member of the Shasta County Central Committee for Redding, CA. This article was previously printed in the NorthCal Democrat Newspaper. His article "Love Politics" was recently featured in an article by Dave Pollard at How to Save the World.
America is polarized between those who would like to move forward in health care, education, environmental protection, wages, jobs, etc. and those who are not ready or willing to do so. In this tug of war between Democrats and Republicans, Democrats have an uphill battle because we want change, while Republicans want to "stay the course" that is pulling downward.
The present socio-ecological crisis, entailing the progressive poisoning of all our food, is already so serious that if Bush remains in power for 4 more years, then the future is risked. No one knows for sure when this unhealthy and unsustainable way of life will end, perhaps in one or two generations, perhaps sooner, but one thing is certain: Republicans are accelerating the pace of world-disaster, while Democrats will slow it down, control the galloping pace of unbridled capitalism, not let corporations-for-profit run wild toward the precipice.
The 2004 Election is a fork in the path of history, with nothing less than the fate of the living planet at stake. The high road of the Democratic message is that it is necessary, desirable, and possible for elected representatives to rise above short-term selfish interests and govern for the good of the entire country (and the world to a significant degree). This idealistic message contrasts sharply with the cynicism and fatalism of Republicans who basically do not like politicians and politics because they have a low opinion of human nature (the explanation for which goes beyond the scope of this letter) and do not trust anyone to make judgments and decisions that benefit everyone. The Republican answer that each person should maximize his or her own private interests and (somehow?) the general good will result is the height of social irresponsibility that appeals to the egoistic side of human beings.
The Republican Party has become a gathering place for the greedy, stupid and ignorant. It has a three-fold structure: a small leadership that sets and steers the agenda; a core or base constituency (around 40 percent) who are stupid in the sense that they do not recognize the truth when they see it or hear it, no matter how many times they see it or hear it; a remaining membership who are ignorant in the sense that they are "capable of learning" the truth, and so are possible swing or switch voters. The difference between the stupid and the ignorant is that the stupid are inaccessible to reason because their minds are closed more than anything else by religious dogma, while the ignorant can still be educated, but tend over time through association with staunch Republicans to become infected with the sickness of the politics of selfishness and resentment. The ideologues at the top will keep on preaching and spreading the free-market gospel around the globe, which no amount of facts or evidence to the contrary will alter, and little is to be expected from a mass of followers for whom politics is a religion based on fear, not reason.
There is no other credible explanation, except stupidity and ignorance, for why tens of millions of people vote Republican. The statistics are that 5 percent of Americans possess 50 percent of the wealth, while another 15 percent have an additional 30 percent of the wealth, which leaves 80 percent of the people struggling and scratching for the remaining 20 percent of the wealth. This disparity of wealth in America is obscene, and it is the direct result of a Republican-led deregulated market economy that is owned and operated by big companies. Democrats want the wealthiest people to pay more taxes toward a fair and equitable society with a higher quality of life for the vast majority, but far too many Americans have been duped by the big lie that Washington politicians are the problem or that the federal government is the enemy, and these people do not concern themselves with the difference between good and bad government because, for them, all politicians are the same and all government is evil.
The notion that government is the problem goes back to the origin of our country, which was established by overthrowing a ruling elite, and the mistrust and hostility toward government has been with us ever since. The underlying premise of the U.S. Constitution is that government is best that governs least. However, two hundred years ago America was predominately an agrarian economy of small property owners. The accumulation of wealth in private hands was not great enough to be perceived as the major threat to the freedom, justice and happiness of the People. It was not until the Industrial Revolution during the second half of the 19th century that the rise of corporations overwhelmed the public sphere and trumped the common good.
Theodore Roosevelt, the last good Republican, was among the first to realize that the Republican Party was now captive to big business, so he resigned from the Party in 1912. His cousin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was a Democrat and the first president (after 3 Republican do-nothing presidents in a row--Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover--caused the Great Depression) to use the force of the federal government to solve social problems having to do with a bad distribution of wealth. In doing so he was going back to the roots of Western civilization--before the political theory of John Locke, Adam Smith and our beloved Thomas Jefferson to that of Plato and Aristotle. These ancient Greek founding fathers did not favor limited government, but rather they saw government, comprised of the best and brightest citizens, as the leading edge of social progress. John Kerry belongs to this tradition, while George W. Bush represents the corporate ruling elite, especially the money-hawks of Texas.
There should be no reluctance of the part of the Democratic Party to explicitly, boldly, and proudly put forth the idea that government (on the local, regional and especially the federal level) must play an active role in securing the quality of life for all Americans, including the creation and protection of a decent job for everyone who wants one, as was intended by the New Deal and the WPA. The shadow of Ronald Reagan, who won on the ideological platform of "getting government off the backs of the people," should not make us timid on this point. A Democratic campaign for a strong activist government (for regulating big business and enforcing public goods) separates the two parties in a way that the Republican Party and the media will not or cannot blur.
We should have learned from the 2000 Election that those who have the best ideas do not always win (power). Fighting for better health care, education, environmental quality, retirement benefits, minimum wage, job security, as Al Gore did 4 years ago, may not be enough again because the Republicans will repeat as many times as money can buy that they are also for these things, only adding that the best way to achieve them is through privatization. Democrats have a different and workable solution: we want to lift the State above the present situation in which it is mixed up with economic special interests, and make it serve all the people. This is not socialism that calls for public ownership of railroads, airlines, utilities, etc. but rather the control and regulation of big business for the welfare of society as a whole.
In short, Republicans want to support/subsidize and facilitate corporations (and toward this end the super-ideologue, Ronald Reagan, created the largest federal bureaucracy in American history, now surpassed by his disciple George W. Bush), while Democrats want to control and regulate these impersonal mega-entities. This is the fundamental divide between the two parties that we must clearly open up for the American public in order to win this fall.
Given the imminent danger of the Republican Party it is incumbent on all intelligent people to unite under the Democrat banner, at least for the next 6 months. The strategy of defeating the Bush Administration, which is the biggest obstacle to the realization of all our goals, is more important than the principles that divide us. Deep thinkers, like Ralph Nader and the Greens, need to understand that unless we remove Republicans from power there will not be enough time to build a long-range movement for fundamental lifestyle changes in this country, which the most aware people understand must happen or else! At this historical moment there is no force in America with a realistic chance to post-pone world-disaster, perhaps long enough to avert it, except the Democratic Party.
There has already been an influx of excellent thinkers into the Democratic Party--Michael Moore, for example, but more progressive persons and organizations for the environment, justice, peace, etc. need to get involved in the Democratic Party right now. The media wants the upcoming election to be a sporting event, a horse race, a cliff hanger (in which Republicans win by a nose, a photo-finish, an electronic vote?) but if enough thoughtful and caring people speak with one voice in November, including those who usually don’t vote, then it will not be a close race this time, just as it should not have been a close race last time.
George W. Bush has no plan or strategy for solving major problems facing this country--the War in Iraq, outsourcing, environmental degradation, the deficit, rising energy prices--except a well-funded advertisement campaign, a personal cheerleading routine for the economy in which "prosperity is right around the corner" (to borrow a phrase from Herbert Hoover), a smoke and mirrors magic show in which important issues disappear from the table and perhaps Osama bin Laden is pulled out of a hole, and the scare tactics of terrorism and taxes. However, Democrats can never rest on our laurels, regardless of what the polls say, because the Party of Dirty Tricks, Crooks and Liars is looking for another way to steal the power of the presidency.
-- Glenn Parton may be contacted via email at Rain51@hotmail.com
9:19:06 PM | |
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Sunday, May 16, 2004 |
You can gauge what's on people's minds by what they search for. This week, thousands upon thousands were thinking of Nick Berg and his horrific death at the hands of Al Qaida.
Hundreds of websites and blogsites were inundated with thousands upon thousands of people hitting their favorite websearch engines in search of information and/or the live recording of his beheading.
The popular Atrios over at the blogsite Eschaton wrote that he was getting 10,000 hits an hour. Steve, author of one of my favorite blogs Absit Invidia, posted a plea of help for one of his reader's blogs because it was receiving so many hits that he was going to be charged for the extra bandwidth. For myself, having written four posts on Nick Berg, the hits for my journal skyrocketed by about 1,000%.
I'd like to think that the majority of people were searching for commentary about his death, something that would not only explain more about his life, family, dreams, and ambitions but also be a thoughtful tribute--something you can wrap around you that gives you understanding or perspective. Consider the eloquent biography written by the editorial team at The New York Times:
It's easy to say he should not have been in Iraq, but Nicholas Berg was a type familiar to all danger zones: an adventurous and naïve young man who was perhaps keen to do a bit of business, but keener yet to test himself; old enough to understand the danger, but young enough to defy it. It is impossible not to feel grief, and horror, at his terrible end.
I'd like to think that people were interested to learn more about Nick's parents, Michael and Suzanne, and their fight against the Administration to get answers to their son's death. Why was he held by our forces for two weeks? Why wasn't he given a secure transport out of the country? But all they have received is differing answers and/or silence.
Just this week, Jason Straziuso of the Associated Press explained that the family had received emails from the diplomat Beth Payne in Iraq confirming that Nick was being held by the US. Now the government tells them those emails were false.
Berg's brother called on the government to come clean about its contacts with the slain American before he died. The family has blamed the government for keeping him in custody for too long while anti-American violence escalated in Iraq.
"They're trying to deflect attention to a couple weeks down the road when no one's paying attention,'' David Berg said. "I think President Bush needs to be a man about this and tell the truth. I think most, if not all, Americans can figure out who's telling the truth and who's lying.''
[snip] The Bergs said they want to know if the government had received an offer to trade Iraqi prisoners for Nicholas Berg. On the videotape of his death, Berg's killers made a reference to a trade offer, but U.S. officials have said they knew of no such offer.
Unfortunately, the majority of the hits received on my site were for the actual beheading of Nick Berg, the live coverage. In this mad storm of hits, I received an email pleading me to send the video of the beheading as soon as possible. The request ended with the word, "Please."
On Friday, I saw a picture of Michael Berg placing a white, flowered wreath in the shape of the Star of David in his yard, in preparation of the funeral of his son Nick at the West Chester synagogue. The presence of a light blue ribbon, its ends falling like a waterfall below the star, drew my eye to that point. It was like looking at a piece of blue sky beyond cumulus clouds.
In death, Nick Berg has become as wide as this sky; his name immortalized. On his name will ride the debates of peace or revenge.
10:40:49 PM | |
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Boy oh boy did the GOP screw the pooch when compiling their party platform in 2000!
MattS found these paragraphs and posted them on DailyKos on Friday. I just couldn't resist because they are so very good. I had to post them in my journal, too.
"The arrogance, inconsistency, and unreliability of the administration's diplomacy have undermined American alliances, alienated friends, and emboldened our adversaries." [ed. this is referring to Clinton's administration]
"Gerrymandered congressional districts are an affront to democracy and an insult to the voters. We oppose that and any other attempt to rig the electoral process."
"Nor should the intelligence community be made the scapegoat for political misjudgments. A Republican administration working with the Congress will respect the needs and quiet sacrifices of these public servants as it strengthens America's intelligence and counter-intelligence capabilities and reorients them toward the dangers of the future."
Should someone call them on their hypocricy, especially regarding this point--"Gerrymandered congressional districts are an affront to democracy and an insult to the voters"?
For some odd reason, I doubt they'ld even care. After all, absolute power is their's. Maybe that will change come November.
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Saturday, May 15, 2004 |
Yes, Mr. Rumsfield, you are accountable for what has transpired at Abu Ghraib. Here is the latest on a little secret operation the intelligence community liked to call Copper Green, from Seymour Hersh's New Yorker article titled "The Gray Zone."
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.
-- Atrios at Eschaton posted the link to this article.
5:16:04 PM | |
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This is the question posed by the Chilean author Ariel Dorfman, in the masterfully written article "Are there times when we have to accept torture?" published by The Guardian on May 8th. I highly recommend you read the article in its entirety. To give you a taste of his prose and his thoughtful analysis on this matter, I give you these few paragraphs:
It is a question that was most unforgettably put forward over 130 years ago by Fyodor Dostoevsky in The Brothers Karamazov. In that novel, the saintly Alyosha Karamazov is tempted by his brother Ivan, confronted with an unbearable choice. Let us suppose, Ivan says, that in order to bring men eternal happiness, it was essential and inevitable to torture to death one tiny creature, only one small child. Would you consent? [snip]
Make no mistake: every regime that tortures does so in the name of salvation, some superior goal, some promise of paradise. Call it communism, call it the free market, call it the free world, call it the national interest, call it fascism, call it the leader, call it civilisation, call it the service of God, call it the need for information; call it what you will, the cost of paradise, the promise of some sort of paradise, Ivan Karamazov continues to whisper to us, will always be hell for at least one person somewhere, sometime. [snip]
Alyosha knows, as we should, that torture does not, therefore, only corrupt those directly involved in the terrible contact between two bodies, one that has all the power and the other that has all the pain, one that can do what it wants and the other that cannot do anything except wait and pray and resist. Torture also corrupts the whole social fabric because it prescribes a silencing of what has been happening between those two bodies; it forces people to make believe that nothing, in fact, has been happening; it necessitates that we lie to ourselves about what is being done not that far, after all, from where we talk, while we munch chocolate, smile at a lover, read a book, listen to a concerto, exercise in the morning. Torture obliges us to be deaf and blind and mute - and that is what Alyosha cannot consent to.
11:38:24 AM | |
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TomPaine.com printed a letter that was sent to President Bush this week in regards to the abuses at Abu Ghraib. It confirms a fact that abuses were being reported to the proper people and reported in newspapers but no one was raising the alarm or doing anything about it. In light of Rumsfield's visit to the prison, which didn't win many points because of his offensive remark "I'm a survivor," and the news some of the interogation tactics will be done away with, the recommendations by these humanitarian groups can be used as a good measure on the steps taken to resolve these abuses. Here is the content of that letter:
Dear Mr. President:
We are deeply disturbed by the photos of the treatment of prisoners by U.S. soldiers and interrogators and welcome your public condemnation of those acts. But more than statements are required. We write to urge you to take decisive and immediate action to address a problem that we believe is not an isolated incident, but rather illustrates a dangerous and illegal system of interrogation and detention in use by the United States in many places around the world. As representatives of a number of major human rights organizations, we request a meeting with you on an urgent basis to discuss our recommendations for dealing with this problem.
For the past year and a half, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, USA Today, Newsday, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Christian Science Monitor and other leading newspapers have repeatedly quoted unnamed U.S. intelligence officials boasting about the use of torture and other ill treatment of prisoners. Numerous detainees have been killed or attempted suicide in custody in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, prompting unprecedented expressions of concern by the International Committee of the Red Cross; suspects have been turned over to the foreign intelligence services of countries, such as Syria, with records of brutal torture; the ICRC has also specifically expressed concern about conditions at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq; and now, the U.S. military's own inquiry has found "systemic and illegal abuse of detainees" at Abu Ghraib.
These incidents occurred across continents and over many months, but they are nevertheless linked. As Cofer Black, the head of the CIA's Counterterrorism Center, told Congress in September 2002: "There was a before 9/11, and there was an after 9/11 .... After 9/11 the gloves come off." Since then, intelligence officials have said repeatedly that they have a mandate to obtain information by "breaking" prisoners through a combination of pain and humiliation, if not outright torture. The sexual humiliation of prisoners now documented at Abu Ghraib was extreme, but not new. More than a year ago, The New York Times quoted prisoners held in Afghanistan saying that they were kept naked most of the time. Likewise, there have been numerous reports of female guards and interrogators used in a deliberate attempt to humiliate and degrade prisoners.
For more than a year, the undersigned organizations and others have repeatedly asked you and senior officials in your administration to act promptly and forcefully to publicly repudiate the statements of intelligence officials and to assure that the treatment of detainees is consistent with international humanitarian law. We particularly asked that you provide access to detention centers, release the results of investigations and take other steps to ensure greater transparency of the detention process.
Last June, human rights groups welcomed your pledge that the United States would lead by example in the fight against torture. Yet whatever steps your administration may have taken to implement that pledge have been inadequate to end torture and inhuman treatment of prisoners and to dispel the apparent belief among U.S. interrogators and guards that brutality and degradation are acceptable in the quest for information. The events at Abu Ghraib now in the headlines are the latest evidence of an interrogation and detention system that appears to be out of control and of inadequate action to match your pledges, not the isolated misdeeds of a few individuals allegedly acting without authorization.
This pattern of conduct has caused extraordinary damage to the cause of human rights around the world, as well as to the United States and to its ability to conduct foreign policy successfully, from Iraq to the global campaign against terrorism.
Extraordinary action on your part is now required to begin to repair this damage and, at long last, bring an end to this pattern of torture and cruel treatment. You have stated in eloquent terms that "human dignity is non-negotiable," but you have tolerated a U.S. system of interrogation that is specifically designed to degrade, humiliate and destroy the human dignity of prisoners to obtain information. In recent days, U.S. officials in Iraq have announced a welcome prohibition on the use of a number of "stress" interrogation tactics. You should follow through on these announcements by completely banning the use of the "stress and duress" tactics and incommunicado detention throughout the world.
The choice is not about whether to express your abhorrence over the events at Abu Ghraib and to investigate them. The choice is whether you dismiss them as the actions of "a few bad apples" while continuing an interrogation and detention system that is cruel and illegal; or act forcefully to end the "stress and duress" system of incommunicado interrogation in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay or anywhere that people are held in U.S. custody. This system violates both the Constitution and international law, including the solemn pledges your father made when he sought Senate approval of the Convention Against Torture.
We ask you to take immediate actions to establish clear prohibitions on illegal and inappropriate interrogation and detention methods backed by strong penalties; mandate strong enforcement mechanisms, including access for independent monitors; and provide for public review and full disclosure of interrogation practices and the records of investigations. Our specific recommendations for accomplishing these goals are attached.
We appreciate your interest in our concerns and your consideration of our recommendations. We hope that we will be able to arrange a meeting with you as soon as possible.
Recommendations
1. Immediately ban "stress and duress" interrogation and take immediate action to insure that all interrogation and detention practices are fully consistent with international human rights and humanitarian law.
2. Immediately ban any action taken anywhere in the world that would violate the prohibition on "cruel and unusual" punishment if conducted in the United States; this is the pledge that your administration made to the Congress in June 2003 that was apparently never implemented.
3. Immediately ban secret and incommunicado detention; specifically, mandate that the names of all detainees be published.
4. Immediately ban the transfer of prisoners to countries with a pattern of using torture in interrogation;
5. Immediately ban the use of civilian contractors in conducting interrogations;
6. Ensure that appropriate criminal penalties exist for any person involved in torturing or otherwise abusing detainees-no matter where in the world the conduct occurs.
7. Mandate Strong Enforcement
8. Permit immediate access to every prisoner to independent monitors, including the ICRC, appropriate UN officials and human rights organizations, including the ability to interview prisoners in private, and conduct medical evaluations in accordance with the Manual on the Effective Investigation and Documentation of Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment;
9. Permit all detainees to have access to family members and physicians, based on a recognition that secret and incommunicado detention is at the root of much of the prisoner abuse;
10. Ensure that there is a record available to determine whether any abuses occurred by videotaping all interrogations and other interaction by military and intelligence personnel with detainees;
11. Request significant increases in funding for the Inspector General offices in every agency involved in any form of interrogation or detention of prisoners, and issue an explicit mandate to each such office to monitor interrogations and detention;
12. Pay restitution. Follow the lead of the United Kingdom in its response to findings of prisoner abuse in Northern Ireland prior to 1972, by providing redress and compensation, including paying restitution to those detainees found to have been victims of torture or inhumane treatment.
13. Provide Public Review and Full Disclosure
14. Release the results of investigation into the abuse of detainees, including the Department of Defense investigation into deaths at Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan in December, 2002, and investigations concerning interrogation and detention methods and procedures.
15. Work with the Congress to appoint an investigation commission of persons of unquestioned integrity and independence to examine all aspects of U.S. interrogation practices, including the transfer of detainees to other countries; and
16. Disclose publicly all interrogation manuals, instructions and guidance governing the conduct of detention and interrogation.
Sincerely,
William Schulz, Amnesty International USA; Gay McDougall, Global Rights; Michael Posner, Human Rights First; Ken Roth, Human Rights Watch; Louise Kantrow, International League for Human Rights; Felice D. Gaer, Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights; Robin Phillips, Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights; Len Rubenstein, Physicians for Human Rights USA; Todd Howland, RFK Memorial Center for Human Rights
11:17:22 AM | |
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Thursday, May 13, 2004 |
In the introduction to his book War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning, Chris Hedges explains that when the Senate and House voted to give the president the right to 'use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks," there was only one dissenting vote. This vote was from Barbara J. Lee, a Democrat from California. In defense of her vote, she explained that military action could not guarantee security for the country and pleaded that "as we act, let us not become the evil we deplore."
As Donald Rumsfield flew into Iraq today to give what appeared to be nothing more than two very expensive press conferences at Abu Ghraib prison, he talked about the abuses being a "body blow" to the US and for those in charge. He also pinpointed the fact that no one had tried to keep these abuses secret. This can be argued.
Meanwhile, lawmakers were privileged to view additional photos and video of the abuses and torture at Abu Ghraib. Ken Guggenheim of the AP reported that "House and Senate members saw photos and video Wednesday of Iraqi corpses, military dogs menacing cowering Iraqi prisoners, Iraqi women forced to expose themselves and other sexual abuses. Some lawmakers said the pictures included forced homosexual sex..."
Guggenheim spoke with lawmakers about what they saw in the private screening. Here are a few comments:
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said, "It was significantly worse than anything that I had anticipated. Take the worst case and multiply it several times over." [snip]
"I saw cruel, sadistic torture," said Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., who added that 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.
Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., said he did not see acts of violence, but what appeared to be "results of acts of violence."
He said he saw people in body bags and a person with a face "virtually gone." He saw "people being stitched up above the eyebrow apparently unconscious."
Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-N.Y., said, "There were people who were forced to have sex with each other."
Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., said, "There were some pictures where it looked like a prisoner was sodomizing himself" with an object. He said blood was visible in the photograph.
Maureen Dowd believes that President Bush has his very own sex scandal on his hands because of this. In her New York Times article "Clash of Civilizations," printed today, she writes:
The administration's demented quest to conquer Arab hearts and minds has dissolved in a torrent of pornography denigrating other parts of the Arab anatomy. George Bush, who swept into office on a cloud of moral umbrage, now has his own sex scandal - one with far greater implications than titillating cigar jokes.
The Bush hawks, so fixated on making the Middle East look more like America, have made America look un-American. Should we really be reduced to defending ourselves by saying at least we don't behead people?
Gripped in a "I can't look at them - I've got to look at them" state of mind, lawmakers grimly filed into private screening rooms on the Hill to check out the 1,800 grotesque images of sex, humiliation and torture.
"They're disgusting," Senator Dianne Feinstein told me. "If somebody wanted to plan a clash of civilizations, this is how they'd do it. These pictures play into every stereotype of America that Arabs have: America as debauched, America as hypocrites.
"Cheney and Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz act like they know all the answers, almost like a divine right," she said. "They don't have a divine right, and they are wrong."
House Majority Leader Tom Delay explained today that people are overreacting to these images and using it as a political tool. When we are at war, when we are the occupying force, and especially when we have promised freedom from tyranny and abuse, this is not overreacting. We are seeing the acts of evil that we deplore.
11:03:42 PM | |
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You don't truly know yourself until you know and recognize what others think of you. One of the questions that has plagued America since 9/11 is "Why do they hate us?"
Over the last nine months, I've tried defining the reasons, but that is not what I want to highlight with this post. I received an email from a reader from the Dominican Republic today in response to my posts on Nick Berg. I appreciated her email because it shines a sliver of light on the question asked above.
Today I (unfortunately) saw that video were the people from Irak decapitated the poor American. I have to say that that was one of the most shocking things I've seen in my life. I was so shocked I even started to cry.
A teacher once told me that if a person, as a young adult, doesn't hate the USA for a period of time, then they have no heart. That teacher was from New York, and was one of the most loyal-to-his-country person I know.
I've always felt that the USA handled things very badly sometimes, but I never had felt so strongly about it like today.
You must be wondering why I feel this way, given the fact that the one killed was American, and that the murderers were others. Well, not only are Americans doing things as bad or even worse than that, but they (you) are making it public. It's history repeating. It's like that time in Cuba, were the newspapers was sensationalist. I mean, let's be honest. The USA controls the world. Why would they allow that video to spread all over the internet so anyone could see it? Not only I find it a disrespect to that poor fellow American that died, but I think that it is a sick way of twisting the truth. Of course, Bush and the other animals that rule your great nation only want everyone to hate those people. The reason exactly why they don't show the other side of the coin--how THEY treat the people in Irak.
Sadly my country is (as I like to think about it) the unofficial US colony. Our governors do whatever your people tell us to do. The reason why we send troops to Irak. Why in the world would a country full of people dying of hunger would want to send troops for a matter that doesn't really concern them? We just want to be in the US' good list.
About my point that the US always manipulates the media, why did they publicly announce that those people were paying a reward for Kofi Annan? My guess is to make someone else do what they want to do. The US has never respected the United Nations. Your narcissistic approach to everything made you have confrontations with the UN, so what a better way get rid of that problem than to kill it's leader... and blame another person! Shame on you (them).
9:41:55 PM | |
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Wednesday, May 12, 2004 |
Robert Scheer had damning words for Bush today in light of his vocal support of Rumsfield after his questioning about the torture at Abu Ghraib and the release of the Taguba and Red Cross reports to the public:
On Monday, President Bush reiterated his unyielding support for Rumsfeld, even as the influential Army Times newspaper called for heads to roll "even if that means relieving top leaders from duty in a time of war." The abuses of Iraqi prisoners in Baghdad are "a failure that ran straight to the top," argued the newspaper.
And all of this does flow from the top. With the occupation itself built on a web of lies -- that invading Iraq was part of the war on terror, that Iraq had threatening weapons of mass destruction, that anybody who resisted the occupation was a "terrorist" or "thug" -- it can only be assumed that those interrogators dealing with the nearly 50,000 Iraqi detainees in the last year were under enormous pressure to produce statements that fit these phony "facts." [snip]
The big lie that the United States is merely a selfless battler against terrorists, with no other agendas, opens the door for brutality against any who dare resist. Bush has exercised an arrogance unmatched by any U.S. president in a century and brandished God's will as his carte blanche. His unilateral, preemptive "nation-building" -- and the settling of old scores in the name of fighting terror -- grants license to treat anybody, including U.S. citizens, in a barbaric manner that cavalierly sweeps aside all standards of due process.
Fallout Among Conservatives
The fallout of Abu Ghraib has not only incited the liberals but also the conservatives to voice indignation toward Bush, Rumsfield and the neocons. For example, the pro-Bush columnist Andrew Sullivan agrees that top heads must roll because of the abuses at Abu Ghraib. Consider these comments compiled by Mark Follman of The Right Hook at Salon:
"The one anti-war argument that, in retrospect, I did not take seriously enough was a simple one," writes Sullivan, who a year ago blasted opponents of the war as wobbly and myopic. "It was that this war was noble and defensible but that this administration was simply too incompetent and arrogant to carry it out effectively. I dismissed this as facile Bush-bashing at the time. I was wrong. I sensed the hubris of this administration after the fall of Baghdad, but I didn't sense how they would grotesquely under-man the post-war occupation, bungle the maintenance of security, short-change an absolutely vital mission, dismiss constructive criticism, ignore even their allies (like the Brits), and fail to shift swiftly enough when events span out of control. This was never going to be an easy venture ... and many of us have rallied to the administration's defense in difficult times, aware of the immense difficulties involved.
"But to have allowed the situation to slide into where we now are, to have a military so poorly managed and under-staffed that what we have seen out of Abu Ghraib was either the result of a) chaos, b) policy or c) some awful combination of the two, is inexcusable. It is a betrayal of all those soldiers who have done amazing work, who are genuine heroes, of all those Iraqis who have risked their lives for our and their future, of ordinary Americans who trusted their president and defense secretary to get this right. To have humiliated the United States by presenting false and misleading intelligence and then to have allowed something like Abu Ghraib to happen -- after a year of other, compounded errors -- is unforgivable."
The New York Times columnist David Brooks also called his support into question:
"This has been a crushingly depressing period, especially for people who support the war in Iraq. The predictions people on my side made about the postwar world have not yet come true. The warnings others made about the fractious state of post-Saddam society have ... We went into Iraq with what, in retrospect, seems like a childish fantasy."
"Whose bright idea was it to keep Saddam's gulag open as a U.S. prison, anyway?
"It's hard not to be appalled by the Pentagon's blindness to the psychological catastrophe these photos were bound to create. Even [Friday], months after the atrocities were first known, Rumsfeld and company were incapable of answering the most elemental questions from John McCain, Lindsey Graham and others about who was in charge of the prison, and why the photos weren't immediately seen as weapons of mass morale destruction."
"Believe me, we've got even bigger problems than whether Rumsfeld keeps his job. We've got the problem of defining America's role in the world from here on out, because we are certainly not going to put ourselves through another year like this anytime soon. No matter how Iraq turns out, no president in the near future is going to want to send American troops into any global hot spot. This experience has been too searing ...
"We've got to acknowledge first that the old debates are obsolete. I wish the U.S could still go off, after Iraq, at the head of 'coalitions of the willing' to spread democracy around the world. But the brutal fact is that the events of the past year have discredited that approach."
In conclussion, I give you the analysis of Josh Micah Marshall in regards to the Congressional hearings on the Abu Ghraib incidents. He speaks first of Inhofe's extremely lame tirade and then finishes with kudos for a few Republicans who best understand what these abuses mean to America and the world:
...[H]ere you have Jim Inhofe lumbering out of his cave and on to the stage, arguing that we can do whatever we want because we're America. Inhofe's America is one that is glutted on pretension, cut free from all its moral ballast, and hungry to sit atop a world run only by violence. Lady Liberty gets left with fifty bucks, a sneer, a black eye, and the room to herself for the couple hours left before check out.
Yet there was a much brighter side to these hearings on Tuesday. For all the dishonor Inhofe brought on them, I was struck by how much of this is being carried by Republicans -- in particular, John McCain, John Warner and, perhaps most strikingly, Lindsey Graham.
Graham has become some mix of the star and the conscience of these proceedings because of his specialized knowledge as an Air Force JAG and his ability to see that this goes beyond partisan politics, threatening as it does not only America's honor, but (in a way someone like Inhofe could probably never understand) also her power.
Graham got it exactly right today when he said: "When you are the good guys, you've got to act like the good guys." [Emphasis mine.]
Another way to put this might be to say that being the good guys is about what you do, not who you are. That's a truth that the architects of this war, in subtler but I suspect more damaging ways, frequently failed to understand.
9:07:20 PM | |
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Over the weekend, a local paper displayed the headline in large black and bold print: "Accountable," referring to Donald Rumsfield's comment to the Senate in relation to how he has handled the debacle of the detained Iraqis at Abu Ghraib. Of course, the GOP love to throw out these catch phrases that their own people in the media can latch onto and spit out for the general public. The only problem is this--the general public are not swallowing the propoganda so easily. Consider the latest CBS poll results as an indication that Americans are more and more leary of how Iraq is being handled and flat out that it wasn't worth it to begin with.
Regarding Rumsfield, I agree with Joe Conason's analysis in his journal printed today on Salon. Conason writes:
Somehow, [Rumsfield] found it within himself to express annoyance that anyone had dared to leak Gen. Antonio Taguba's "classified" report on Abu Ghraib, which he described as an illegal act. In response to questions from senators about the Red Cross report on the prison abuses, Rumsfeld suggested that the incriminating document should be withheld from public scrutiny.
Indeed, Rumsfeld personifies the ruinous combination of deception, arrogance and incompetence that has so badly damaged the war effort from the very beginning. His role has been so ruinous, in fact, that even some of the most enthusiastically hawkish pundits, such as George Will and Andrew Sullivan, are belatedly coming to recognize that utopian dreams of democratic imperialism have turned into a nightmare of colonial occupation. But the secretary of defense reflects nothing more or less than the president's policies and attitudes, which is why he still has his position.
How and when American troops should be extricated from Iraq remains a matter for intense debate. It is not at all clear that a precipitous pullout, leaving a torn nation to the mercies of warlords and armed mullahs, would serve the interests of Iraqis, Americans or the rest of the world. But what becomes clearer with each day is that we are in deep trouble -- and that the Bush administration possesses neither the will nor the ability to prevent the worst consequences of a failed policy. They have given Osama bin Laden a victory that he could never have won for himself.
You know, it has been hard for John Kerry to crack into the limelight because of the Abu Ghraib and Nick Berg's beheading. But today on the Don Imus show, Kerry commented on Rumsfield's testimony to the Senate. Kerry thinks Rumsfield should resign. Who does Kerry suggest would be a good candidate for the job? He explained that Senators John McCain and John Warner, for example, are highly qualified. Here's the text of his interview from the AP:
"If America has reached a point where only one person has the ability in our great democracy to manage the Pentagon and to continue or to put in place a better policy even, we're in deeper trouble than you think," Kerry told broadcaster Don Imus. "I don't accept that. I just don't accept that. I think that's an excuse. The fact is that we need a change in policy."
Asked who he would put in place as defense secretary, Kerry first named McCain, R-Ariz., and then listed Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., Warner, R-Va., and William Perry, who served as defense secretary under President Clinton.
"There are any number of people who are unbelievably capable. This notion that we have to continue with a policy that's wrong and taking us down the wrong track is absurd," Kerry said.
I'm pleased to see that Kerry made the news with this. I think it is news that generates debate (something that is much needed in today's climate) and shows Kerry thinking on his feet. And you know, I think Kerry's suggestion is right on -- McCain would be an excellent choice to fill this role.
8:02:49 PM | |
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Tuesday, May 11, 2004 |
Geraldine Sealey of Salon's War Room 2004 posts this information about Nick Berg's final days in Iraq and how his parent's are trying to get answers from the government on how Nick ended up in Al-Qaida hands. Consider these paragraphs:
How Berg came to be captured by these alleged al-Qaida forces in Iraq is still murky. Berg spoke to his parents on March 24 and told them he would return home six days later. But Berg was reportedly detained by Iraqi police at a checkpoint in Mosul and turned over to U.S. officials, who detained him for 13 days. Berg's parents say Nick wasn't allowed to make phone calls or contact a lawyer while in U.S. custody. It seems that U.S. officials were trying to confirm his identity -- FBI agents visited Berg's parents in suburban Philadelphia on March 31 to check out his story. Six days later, the Bergs filed a lawsuit in federal court arguing their son was being held illegally by the U.S. military. Berg was released the next day, and spoke to his parents, saying he hadn't been mistreated. Berg told his parents he would try to get home through Jordan, Turkey or Kuwait, whatever was safest and easiest. But the Bergs did not hear from their son again. They checked with the State Department, the FBI and the Red Cross, but got nowhere.
Michael Berg, Nick's father, is expressing outrage at the U.S. government for, in his view, creating circumstances that led to his son's death. If U.S. officials in Iraq had not detained Berg for so long, then released him into an increasingly chaotic and unsafe environment, perhaps Berg could have made it out of the country alive, his father says. "I think a lot of people are fed up with the lack of civil rights this thing has caused," Michael Berg says of the Iraq war. "I don't think this administration is committed to democracy." There are still many questions to be answered about why Berg was in Iraq, why he was detained, and how and why he was captured, but the Berg family's loss is undeniable. Many other parents could soon share Michael Berg's anger.
The latest Gallup poll shows that for the first time, a majority of Americans say the war in Iraq was not worth it. The tragedy of Nick Berg, and the anguish voiced by his family over the circumstances that led to his death, can only add more doubt in the minds of Americans that the Iraq debacle is worth another lost life.
9:44:06 PM | |
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Nick Berg of Philadelphia was the first death in a repercussion to the abuses toward Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib, explained the Al Qaida operatives who executed Nick. His death was most grisly, his execution by beheading videotaped and then shown on Arab television. As proof that they had carried out the beheading, Nick's captors held his decapitated head for the camera.
Tonight, Bush declared that Berg's murderers would be found and brought to justice.
Berg's death is truly a tragedy; he was an innocent victim in a tumultuous, vengeful, and wartorn land.
There is a popular adage that explains that one thing leads to another. In this context, and in this war, this adage seems most fitting. Berg's death is yet the latest evidence of a downward spiral, that the US control over Iraq and the many factious elements fighting within it is suspect, despite what we hear. In all reason, we will reap what we have sown at Abu Ghraib.
And as both sides continue taking eyes for an eye and teeth for a tooth, we should presume that this is just the beginning and the worst is yet to come.
7:59:49 PM | |
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Monday, May 10, 2004 |
That's the latest headline displayed on MSN tonight. Today, I was sickened by a new photo displayed on the cover of USA TODAY-- a naked Iraqi man cowering against a prison wall with Army dogs and soldiers watching him. The article explains that a photo taken minutes later shows this same man on the floor with deep bite marks and/or scratches on his left leg, a soldier sitting on top of him.
Donald Rumsfield may have yet survived this shock and awe attack on his character for today, as Bush has come out publicly and applauded Rumsfield for his hard work. With further photos and videotape forthcoming, one wonders if Bush is digging his own grave by sticking by him.
Over the weekend, as a warning about these forthcoming photos and video, Terrance Hunt of the AP reported that Rumsfield admitted to Congress that these images show "acts that can only be described as blatantly sadistic, cruel and inhuman."
The impact of these images is nearly calculable and negative possibly beyond measure. Hunt’s AP report "More Bad News May Be on the Way for Bush" offers an analysis from a political scientist of the American University, James Thurber.
Thurber likens "the Iraq images to the infamous Vietnam pictures of a naked young girl fleeing a napalm attack and a Viet Cong prisoner being executed on a Saigon street."
"That's what we're going to remember about Iraq," Thruber surmises. "It's just not going to go away. That may have a lasting and negative effect on his campaign. It certainly does right now and I think you'll see it in the polls immediately."
Another negative aspect regarding these abuses is the revelation that the majority of these Iraqi’s being detained are innocent civilians. A contract interrogator from the Utah National Guard, Torin Nelson, recently revealed to the Guardian in London that if they could not find and retrieve the subject they were sent out into the field to locate, they would pick up anyone they could find:
"A unit goes out on a raid and they have a target and the target is not available; they just grab anybody because that was their job," Nelson said.
"I've read reports from capturing units where the capturing unit wrote, 'the target was not at home. The neighbor came out to see what was going on and we grabbed him,'" he said, according to the newspaper.
Philip Robertson, in his article "Sometimes they pretended to kill me," found evidence of this as he walked the edges of Abu Ghraib--
One old man, Hardan Soud, had a slip of paper with seven numbers written on it, and he wanted to know when the Americans would release his sons. "They came to my house in Thuluaya at 2 a.m., pushing down the door to enter my house. They didn't speak or ask any questions, and they took away my sons. I still don't know why."
And though the Army, Pentagon, Bush, and other Administration officials are saying that these abuses are not widespread or systematic to the occupation, revelations to the contrary are seeing the light of day.
Salon printed a story by Philip Robertson about Suhaib Badr al Baz, a cameraman for Al-Jazeera, who came forth to reveal that he was moved around from one detention center to another starting November 17 of last year-Sammarra, the Baghdad airport, and Abu Ghraib. Al Baz was not charged with any crime nor given an opportunity to defend himself before a court.
"At the base I first saw a tall heavy man who put a black hood over my head," he recalls. "Then he forced me to stand in front of a wall for three or four hours. I was treated very roughly, then taken to a room and interrogated. When the tall man was not satisfied with my answers, he hit me in the face. They asked questions in a way that showed they were not interested in the truth." Al Baz says at first he was not given food or water, or allowed to pray. On the second day, he was given foul-smelling food. Immediately after his arrest, colleagues from the network and friends began to pressure the coalition for information but were told by Gen. Kimmit's staff that there was no information available. This is a common reply for people seeking information about recently detained people. Al Baz said it took a week for the military to issue him a prison I.D. number.
"I asked them if I could contact my family because they would be worried about me. The tall man told me to forget it, that my destiny was in Guantánamo Bay." Al Baz said that during his time at the base, soldiers came into his cell spitting on him and screaming in his ear to keep him awake. "I didn't know if it was day or night. They tied my hands so tightly my wrists started bleeding, but at this stage I was still allowed to keep my clothes...."
Al Baz says that he was taken from the base in Samarra to the airport in Baghdad, where his treatment took a sharp turn for the worse. "In there I heard some horrible noises, many people screaming. They told me to sit on the floor and I went numb from the cold. If I moved my head even a little bit, a soldier would grab my hood and slam my head into the wall. Sometimes they pretended to kill me by pulling the trigger of their rifles. I found out later that they were punishing other people there." Al Baz says that he heard screams, men shouting "Good Bush, bad Saddam!" and crying out to God for help. "But it didn't do anything to decrease the punishment they were going through." [snip]
When al Baz moved to Abu Ghraib in late November, he said he was asked to strip naked at one point but was never forced to take part in staged scenes like the others. "It didn't happen like that to me," he said. But he did say that he witnessed a disturbing episode involving a father and son. From his cell, al Baz said he watched through the small window and saw two men stripped naked. "The boy was only about 16 years old, and then a soldier poured cold water over them. Their cell was directly across from mine." Al Baz says that the father and son were made to stand naked in front of other prisoners for days.[snip]
"I first knew that they were taking pictures when I saw that one of the computers had a picture of some prisoners as its desktop background. One of the prisoners had a black hood over his head and he was covered in cold water. I personally witnessed this event take place. The man was screaming, "I'm innocent!" until he got sick and his body got swollen from all the punishment," al Baz said. Cold water, solitary confinement, swollen bodies and constant psychological abuse are recurring images for the Al-Jazeera cameraman, who also credits his tormentors with ingenuity. "They had all different kinds of punishments and they changed them all the time. I begged them to interrogate me again so they would know that I was innocent, but they said no, that's it. All we know is that you're staying here."
Hunt closed his article with very poignant analysis from a growing and varied chorus of US lawmakers who fear these images will harm American credibility for years. Consider his closing lines:
While the United States champions freedom and democracy in Iraq, the pictures show vivid scenes of cruelty and insensitivity.
Splashed across front pages across the Middle East and around the world, the pictures may undermine "the substantial gains toward the goal of peace and freedom in various operation areas of the world, most particularly Iraq," said Sen. John Warner, R-Va., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Michigan Sen. Carl Levin, the committee's top Democrat, said the abuses "dishonored our military and our nation and they made the prospects for success in Iraq even more difficult than they already are."
Added Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla.: "This was a political and public relations Pearl Harbor."
Last Friday, I had the opportunity to see the award-winning documentary Fog of War. Robert Macnamera made a most prescient comment. What constitutes a war criminal, Macnamera explained, was simply based on whether or not you win the war. If you are the winner of the war, you are not a war criminal. With stories of further abuses coming to light that paint our US prisons as a replica of concentration camps, maybe Bush knows this very fact. That is why he is spinning the rhetoric about how in control they are rather than the truth about how badly Rumsfield mismanaged the planning of all aspects of this war--intelligence, invasion, reconstruction, and exit strategy.
Oddly enough, though, it is the sight of these abuses that linger in your mind and leave your soul sick and troubled. And this will come to ultimately define the war for not only Americans but for people around the world. And unfortunately, I wonder who will believe Bush did anything to resolve it or make anyone accountable. With Bush's second-hand man screaming on the sidelines, "Get off his back," I know I don't believe.
10:47:07 PM | |
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Thursday, May 06, 2004 |
Sister Bailey and her teenage son, Alan, picked us up in Thames on an overcast, muggy, Monday afternoon. They had invited us, my missionary companion and I, to stay with them that night so that we could proselyte in their area the next day.
Sister Bailey was a middle-aged Maori woman with fair skin, coal black hair, and a strong spirit. I liked her because she was balanced in reality--she didn’t like men or women who demanded attention; she didn’t like hypocrites; nor did she believe something because it appealed to her emotionally. She also had a good and kind heart.
When we arrived by bus, they had just finished grocery shopping.
As we were leaving Thames, a small town at the base of the north-side of the Coromandel peninsula, a wasp suddenly flew out from the grocery bags sitting behind us and flew into the front where Sister Bailey and Alan were.
As I was reporting what I saw, it flew over to Sister Bailey and disappeared down the neck of her overcoat. "It’s gone down....." I began saying but she let out this half-scream, half-cry, smacked her neck with one hand and with the other hand pulled the car over to the side of the road.
Jumping out of the car, she threw off her overcoat. Alan and my companion saw the wasp fly away. I noticed the red welt appearing on her neck as she rubbed it with her hand.
"Are you alright," I asked as she climbed back into the car. "Are you allergic to bees?"
"No," she replied. "I’m not allergic. I’ll be alright. Thanks for asking."
On the journey to their home, I entertained them with stories about my dad (who is allergic to bees), who, when confronted with a bee in the car, would nearly get in a crash before he could pull the car off the road. It seemed to ease the tension from what had just transpired.
The Bailey’s home sat down river 15 kilometers at the crossroads between the Thames and Paeroa road and the road that crossed the steep Moehau mountain range to the small village of Tairua. To Americans, there home was "in the country."
When we arrived at their house, it was late afternoon. Sister Bailey asked Alan to bring the goats in from the outer field and chain them into the paddock near the house. My companion and I volunteered to bring in the groceries so we did so.
The Bailey’s lived in a small but livable home. Area rugs covered the cement floors where people walked and congregated; the floors were bare everywhere else. There were two rooms to the house. The main room was moderately-sized. It consisted of a kitchen, a small dining table, and two couches that sat in the corner by the sliding glass door to the backyard.
The smaller room was used for their living quarters. It consisted of two beds that were separated by blankets sewn together. There was a toilet enclosed in a closet-sized room and a makeshift shower. Though it was nothing compared to what I was accustomed to in America, it felt like a home.
"What would you like for dinner," Sister Bailey enquired, as she began putting her groceries away. I noticed the spaces in the cupboards. When she opened the fridge, I saw she only stocked the necessities.
"Anything," my companion and I replied.
"I was thinking lamb and potatoes," she said.
She can’t afford this meal, I thought. I suddenly was feeling guilty.
"That sounds awesome," my companion said.
"Yes," I iterated. "That is awesome. I really appreciate it."
My companion and I were going to be sleeping on the couches so we began moving our bags and scriptures from the tables and chairs to the area by the glass door. Alan suddenly burst into the house. "The goats are being stung," he screamed.
We followed Alan back outside into the back yard that connected to the paddock. The swarm was so thick it was like a dark cloud. I thought of the Angel of Death that visited Egypt the night the first born sons were taken.
The swarm circled the goats who were running about wildly, sometimes bucking like bulls in a rodeo, sometimes diving into the ground, and sometimes rolling about like animals on fire. Even from our distance, we could see that their coats were matted with wasps.
Both goats tried biting at the skin they could reach. But mostly they just screamed out of mouths that seemed stretched unnaturally wide, the sound of which not only pierced me to the core but could have cracked the gray sky if it were solid.
At first, we made an attempt to get to the two steel posts that each goat was chained to. If we could release those chains, that would free the goats to run off. The wasps, however, came at us. We retreated.
In a different attempt to save them, we carried out the watering hose and sprayed the swarm still hanging about in the air. But the hose didn’t reach far enough to do anything but shoot water out in a forceful, narrow stream. Alan used this to try to spray the wasps off the goats. It was no use.
I had believed since a child that Moses parted the Red Sea using his power from God; that Jesus calmed the raging Sea of Galilee because his innate power could control the sophisticated workings of nature. And I swear at this moment, when all hope seemed lost, I felt myself prompted to raise my hand and cry out in the name of God to strike down the wasps. But I didn’t. For a split second, I doubted the ability and doubted myself That prompting never returned.
We stood watching the goats till they gave up the ghost. They cried till the very end.
I mourned their loss most severely. Was I there for the sole purpose of saving them? If so, I failed. These deaths still haunt my soul.
10:59:04 PM | |
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Wednesday, May 05, 2004 |
I'm a state delegate to the Utah State Democratic Convention this May 7th and 8th in Salt Lake City. I’ve been swamped the past two weeks getting ready for it. I’ve been reviewing the party platform, which is more conservative than the national platform, understandable for a conservative state. If I desire, I could write an addendum to the platform or request a change in the way it is worded. But I won't do either. I’ve also been reviewing campaign sheets for the candidates vying for the national committee and delegation positions to the National Convention.
Other than preparing for the convention, I've been busy meeting a deadline at work, finishing the monthly newsletter for the church congregation I attend, doing homework with M, completing my house and yard chores, and keeping up with my workout routines and training runs. My head is barely above water. As you can tell, I’m struggling to get out a blog post every day, especially one that means something.
This is my first year participating in politics, let alone as a delegate. I’m excited and honored.
I received a link to www.utahpriorities.net so that I could familiarize myself with the issues facing Utah. According to recent polls, the top ten issues on Utah voters' minds this year are, and in order:
1. Public Education
2. Jobs & Economic Development
3. Water Supply & Quality
4. Health Care
5. Crime & Security
6. Higher Education
7. Taxes
8. Dealing with Growth
9. Environment, Air Quality & Hazardous Waste
10. Parental Rights
(Just off the top of my head, I'm thinking we need more funding also for our first responders--the police, fireman, and emergency crews. That might take care of #5.)
As I review the compiled lists of articles (on the utahpriorities site) dealing with these issues, I’m noticing that for a majority of the issues, the most recent articles are from 2002 or later. There was not one research article for Crime & Security. At least they had a news aggregater posting current headlines. Nonetheless, because this is a non-partisan site, the information that both Republicans and Democrats will be analyzing to formulate solutions is two years old or later. And we all know how things have changed in all areas within the last four years.
If and when I get any time, I'll write more. Wish me luck on my training run.
6:22:54 PM | |
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Tuesday, May 04, 2004 |
This came as a surprise.....but it seems to fit. I am Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. The description of my personality states: "Determining and doing the right thing is the foundation of your personality."
The personality quiz consists of five to forty-five questions (your choice). It roughly takes about 5 minutes, if you choose the latter quiz.
Take the quiz here.
When this was sent via email today at work and amongst family, I heard of these films being named:
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (5), Easy Rider (2), Godfather (2), Schindler's List (2), and Apocolypse Now (1).
6:49:14 PM | |
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Sunday, May 02, 2004 |
Let me give you two topics-- revising history and how high would you jump with a gun to your head. Discuss.
This is most bizarre from the AP today:
L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator in Iraq, said Sunday he regrets a statement he made more than six months before the Sept. 11 attacks that the Bush administration was "paying no attention" to terrorism.
Bremer said any implied criticism that President Bush was not acting against terrorism was "unfair."
Ahead of the November election, Bush is facing criticism he didn't make terrorism his No. 1 priority before the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center and then weakened the war on terror by invading Iraq and shifting the focus from Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network. The resurfacing of Bremer's comments added to administration frustrations.
At a McCormick Tribune Foundation conference on terrorism on Feb. 26, 2001, Bremer said, "The new administration seems to be paying no attention to the problem of terrorism. What they will do is stagger along until there's a major incident and then suddenly say, 'Oh, my God, shouldn't we be organized to deal with this?'
"That's too bad. They've been given a window of opportunity with very little terrorism now, and they're not taking advantage of it."
Bremer made the speech after he had chaired the National Commission on Terrorism, a bipartisan body formed by the Clinton administration to examine U.S. counterterrorism policies.
In a statement Sunday, Bremer said his remarks three years ago "reflected my frustration" that none of his commission's recommendations had been implemented by Clinton or the new Bush administration.
"Criticism of the new administration, however, was unfair. President Bush had just been sworn into office and could not reasonably be held responsible for the Federal Government's inaction over the preceding 7 months," Bremer's Sunday statement said.
"I regret any suggestion to the contrary. In fact, I have since learned that President Bush had shared some of these frustrations, and had initiated a more direct and comprehensive approach to confronting terrorism consistent with the threats outlined in the National Commission report.
"I am strongly supportive and grateful for the President's leadership and strategy in combating terrorism and protecting American national security throughout his first term in office."
10:12:34 PM | |
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One of these days, I'd like to tell you about Anthony Minghella's film Cold Mountain-- how it reminded me of Homer's classical war epic, The Odyssey; how it is an anti-war film; that Ada's line "I suppose God is tired of being called down on every side of the argument..." is one of the most prescient lines in light of the US invasion of Iraq; and why I consider it one of the best films of 2003.
I was thumbing through Charles Frazier's novel, in which the film is adapted from, and I came across a quote that I had marked in red but nonetheless forgot about anyway. The character Inman is writing a letter to Ada who is home in Cold Mountain; he's describing how things have changed, how he has changed. As he writes, he witnesses an immense flock of pigeons flying south. There were so many of them that as they crossed the path of the sun, they darkened it. Inman explains "At least that much remain unchanged," birds flying.
Then Inman explains how his perception of war has changed since four years earlier when the promise of war "made up a war frenzy."
The powerful draw of new faces, new places, new lives. And new laws whereunder you might kill all you wanted and not be jailed, but rather be decorated. Men talked of war as if they committed it to preserve what they had and what they believed. But Inman now guessed it was boredom with the repetition of the daily rounds that had made them take up weapons. The endless arc of the sun, wheel of seasons. War took a man out of that circle of regular life and made a season of its own, not much dependent on anything else. He had not been immune to its pull. But sooner or later you get awful tired and just plain sick of watching people killing one another for every kind of reason at all, using whatever implements fall to hand.
Today, the season of Spring has shown a blooming of uprisings, bombings, atrocities toward Iraqi detainees, and deaths of US troops. Because of this, the silver lining of war seems to be fading away.
Many Americans were immune to the pull of this war, the promise to rid Iraq off its weapons of terrible destruction, the promise to rid it of its despotic dictator, the promise to liberate its people, and the promise that peace in Iraq and the region was simply an invasion away. Indeed, many got sucked into it on rallies of patriotism, loyalty to a president, fear of imminent destruction, and the ideal to spread peace and democracy. But as Inman explains, there comes a time when the soul grows tired and sick of it. Is this time soon coming for us?
11:26:33 AM | |
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