Ruminatrix
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Thursday, Apr 24, 2003
Life Gets in the Way Sometimes
Interruptions galore prevent posting: I got a job offer out of the blue. It involves wine sales and there's a lot of backgound research to do. That and other real-world commitments have sharply reduced the time left for posting and reading alike -- it's usually late when I get home. Plus my internal doctor ordered a break from mideast coverage. My hunch is no war with Syria but President Chavez of Venezuela may want to stay on his toes.
I do need to write, so I'll get back to looking outside my window once the film company's giant tractor-trailers move out of the parking lot outside and give me back the view of the five-storey brick wall that lies behind.Then I'll try to keep up with the changing seasons.
Reading Gunter Grass' Crabwalk late at night. The plot has a web hook: revanchist youths post coded messages online, while the real-life holocaust denier Ernst Zundel stirs the pot. But it's the wry Grass humor that keeps me reading, his endless tragi-comedy of the Pomeranian coast. At its heart is the torpedoing of a refugee-laden German liner in January 1945 by a Russian sub. It was by far the worst maritime disaster ever (with over 9000 dead in the ice-cold Baltic). Due to poorly designed life-preservers, corpses floated upside down, an image that haunts one of the few survivors. Yet as a character observes "it still seems as though nothing can top the Titanic, as if the Wilhelm Gustloff had never existed, as if there were no room for another maritime disaster..." Ah, the sweet Godardian victory of Hollywood over history.
Gotta go work. Will lurk even when I can't post.
Friday, Apr 18, 2003
Mistakes Were Made
An government investigation in Northern Ireland into the murders of two Catholics, one a well-known lawyer, has shown collusion between "security forces" and Protestant death squads.
The latest report, called Stevens Three, found that members of the RUC and Army colluded with the largest loyalist paramilitary group, the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), to murder Catholics. Its key findings were:Criminal prosecutions may follow, or not. The war against terror covers a multitude of sins.
Actions or omissions by security forces led to deaths of innocent people
Murders of solicitor Pat Finucane and student Adam Lambert could have been prevented.
Collusion in both murders of Pat Finucane and Adam Lambert
Government minister was compromised in House of Commons
Three official inquiries wilfully obstructed and misled...
...The Stevens' investigating teams found obstruction and even harassment from both the Army and elements of the RUC's Special Branch. Sir John said a fire at their offices in 1990 was arson and that throughout their inquiries, they were spied on and betrayed by police and Army colleagues."
Wednesday, Apr 16, 2003
Count the Dead
"Burial of the dead must be carried out individually if possible and must be preceded by a careful examination in order to confirm death and establish identity. The burials should be honorable and, if possible, according to the rites of the religion to which the deceased belonged. Graves must be properly maintained, with adequate record keeping, so that they may be found later. (Convention I, Art. 17)Hmm "...adequate record keeping" suggests a full reckoning. But note that there's no mention of the civilian dead. So do combatant powers have to account for enemy casualties? In Ezekiel 39:12 the Israelites spend seven months counting the dead of Gog and Magog. Then again, there are many things a victorious power is not required obliged to do: protecting cultural assets from looters comes to mind.
The above guidelines also apply to dead prisoners of war (Convention III, Art. 120) and dead internees. (Convention IV, 130)
I'm perplexed by the Pentagon's refusal to count the Iraqi dead. I mean, I know the reason given: in Vietnam daily "body counts" proved to be wildly overstated, so now they would rather refuse to give any number than be later proved wrong. And yes, it is hard to tell apart civilians, guerillas and soldiers.
But that's not a reason, that's more like squeamishness, or pique. Anyway, overestimating "kills" happens all the time in wartime: we can deal with it. For instance, RAF fighter pilots claimed many more Luftwaffe planes shot down than were flying during the Battle of Britain. But historians have been able to get pretty accurate counts nevertheless.
And of course, proper respect for the enemy dead long precedes the Hague and Geneva Conventions: Achilles was punished by the gods for his abusive treatment of the body of Hector.
So maybe it counting them up would be a good thing to do, even if the rules of war don't spell it out for us.
Tuesday, Apr 15, 2003
Next Time We Buy Airbus
An new FBI spy scandal -- call it the Leung Affair -- has been bubbling under the headlines over the past week. Now comes paydirt:
The National Security Agency, the supersecret eavesdropping agency, working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other intelligence organizations, led an operation to plant bugs in a Boeing 767 used by the president of China while it was in the United States for refitting, officials said. The listening devices were quickly discovered, and the Chinese government disclosed the incident early last year.
United States officials have never previously acknowledged the bugging operation, and the Bush administration still publicly declines to comment.
Intelligence officials say they are trying to determine whether the Chinese found out about the operation as a result of an F.B.I. security breach that was disclosed last week with the arrest of Katrina Leung, who officials described as a Chinese double agent, and James J. Smith, a former F.B.I. agent in Los Angeles who was her contact at the bureau.
Monday, Apr 14, 2003
On With the Show
I reckon that the London revue The Madness of George Dubya (NYT review, register as fmhreader) would do quite well in Gotham and a few other cities over here. Elsewhere riots might ensue.
Another Times story on TV news coverage of the war, (citing the research of Andrew Tyndall) notes that Nielsen numbers for the Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) Nightly News fell during the war's first two weeks. Audiences went for cable and the Web instead. I didn't see any evening news during this war -- Theo makes me watch The Simpsons instead. Come to think of it, I only had TV war coverage on three or four times, unlike in 1991. Now Web and radio more than sufficed.
While the war in Iraq is not over until the President says so, -- is that a sufficient condition? -- news of the fall of Tikrit to US forces suggests there will not be a Gotterdammerung final stand by the Ba'ath. For which much thanks. And if the Administration is serious about a possible breakthrough on a Palestinian state, this might be a good time for hawks to stop banging the Iraqi-WMD-are-in-Syria-now drum.
Yes, the title of this page is indeed subtly changed "into something rich and strange". Answers: a) in a dream; b)last night and again this morning; c) Ariel in The Tempest;...now where can I find an image of a heifer in a vinyl bustier?
Sunday, Apr 13, 2003
Rules of War; Spinning Shi'ite politics
Two notes from today's Sunday NYT: An interesting article in the magazine on the history and evolution of the Rules of War from Grotius through the Hague and Geneva Conventions. The current rights of non-uniformed forces and the question of who is entitled to POW status remain very much in flux. US military lawyers will no doubt be writing extensively on the same topic shortly.
Also, the mystery of why a prominent Shiite cleric was killed in Najaf.
Mr. Khoei, accompanied by at least two former Iraqi Army officers, had been flown into the country from London by the American military on April 3. He was taken to this Islamic holy city by United States Army Special Forces hoping to win support among the country's Shiite majority, Army officers said today.*Bakr al Hakim is the leader of the Badr Brigade, a Teheran backed Shiite military force.
He was killed along with Haidar al-Refaei, the hereditary custodian of the mosque, when an angry mob attacked them. Four other men were also reported killed in the melee.
Many people interviewed here insist that Mr. Khoei's murder was a spontaneous act, set off by the presence of Mr. Refaei, who had long collaborated with the government of Saddam Hussein. But others suggested that the murder was part of a broader power struggle between clerics vying for control of Najaf after Mr. Hussein's fall from power.
That power struggle extends to the United States and Iran, both of which want influence over Iraq's Shiite population. Iranian influence in the city is already strong.
"Our true, real leader is Bakr al-Hakim*," Abu Jafaar, a 22-year-old engineer, exclaimed Friday near the Imam Ali Mosque. He was referring to the Tehran-based leader of the Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution In Iraq.
He called Mr. Khoei an "infidel," who had stolen money from a seminary in Najaf to set up his charitable foundation in London. "You know when they stabbed him, thousands of dollars were found on his body hidden under his robe," Mr. Jafaar said...
...If Iraq is eventually to have a democratically elected government, analysts say it is critical for Washington that the Shiite majority be closer to the United States than to Iran, which has been ruled by Shiite clergy since the Islamic Revolution there overthrew the shah in 1979.
Pottery lessons
Donald Rumsfeld is an embarassment to civilization. The stupidity of the defense secretary's alleged remark -- on seeing video of the looting of the Iraqi National Museum -- that he didn't "know there were that many vases in Iraq" only goes to show that the defense secretary shouldn't run Iraq. Maybe he can take up pottery when he retires. He has no clue.
The archaeological ruins and art of Mesopotamia (covering several millenia) are of much more value to world history than much of what has been produced in this country since the arrival of Columbus. Not preventing the wholesale destruction of the collection (something that could have been done with a platoon or two) is a form of vandalism on the scale of the removal of the Parthenon friezes by Lord Elgin, or the pillaging of Byzantium by the Fourth Crusaders in 1204. Or the Mongols who levelled Abbasid Baghdad in 1258. Two years later they were decisively defeated at Ain Jalut by the Mamelukes, mercenaries from the Black Sea area, and the horde went home. [It is said that in Europe Te Deum masses were given to thank God for granting this victory -- a very unusual event, as Christians rarely found themselves allied with Muslims against a common enemy. The Mamelukes went on to rules Egypt until 1798].
I only hope that when looted items are offered to sale to Americans in Iraq (civilians or military) -- as they inevitably will be -- that some have the decency to return them. The argument of conquerors and "acquirers" such as Lord Elgin, who shipped the Parthenon friezes to London where they are still, has always been that "we can take better care of this stuff than you can." Bullshit, as Mr Rumsfeld has so eloquently demonstrated.
Saturday, Apr 12, 2003
Six Points
WNYC's Brian Lehrer has six points for a post-war antiwar movement to put to the US Government. They're not online yet:
1. large-scale humanitarian aid to Iraq now, internationally administered;
2. a public plan for real democracy in Iraq;
3. details of the "road-map for Middle East (i.e. Israeli-Palestinian) peace" announced last month;
4. addressing the short-comings of American-backed regimes in the Arab world (Egypt and Daudi Arabia in particular);
5. a pledge of no more pre-emptive wars -- i.e. Iraq was a special case;
6. announcing strict limits to US profits from Iraqi oil; i.e. a sunset provision on any American administration of the Iraqi oilfields;
I didn't get it all, but at least it's different from the unrealistic "Troops Out Now" line of such groups as International Answer...
Why We Don't Fight
Mosul abandoned to looters...Kurds pull out of Kirkuk as Americans prepare to arrive...It's not over, the President says, until General Franks tell him that "the certain objectives I've set out" have been reached. But we are already hearing a lot of spin on how the war was won -- this is a culture that loves to hear from the winners, buy their books, the souvenirs, get stuff on ebay...
The Pentagon line is that there's a new way: new technologies have revolutionized warfare. Well, they would say that, wouldn't they (as the English say) -- and it's probably true up to a point -- but it's also a strategic: intimidating any potential enemies by making yourself appear invincible.
There are two more traditional reasons for the way things turned out the way they did: old-fashioned heavy bombing "softened up" troops, just like in 1991. And then there's oldest reason of all: the Iraqis didn't want to fight if they were left a way out. A Republican Guard colonel, at home in Baghdad, tells BBC's Andrew Gilligan.
"From the beginning, I think that the balance of the air power is not equal. Something hit us. The aircraft... destroyed our tanks and equipment," he said.
He said he did not force anyone to stay with the unit. "Every day, one, two, three. Every day one, two, three. Everyone he want to go, leave his gun and go away," he said...
He revealed that Iraqi soldiers had not wanted to fight in the streets of Baghdad because it was their city and home to their families...
In the end, he said, the officers gathered round a fire and decided it was not worth fighting. The unit's troops changed into civilian clothes which they had with them, and went home.
Our correspondent says he increasingly believes Iraqi officers followed orders, but did not really want Saddam Hussein to win and so did not make any serious attempts to defend Iraq.
Of course, he would say that. But it has the ring of truth. The war was "easy" because Iraqis didn't want a fight. Keep it in mind when planning "rolling regime change" in other lands.
Could tunnel-ridden Tikrit on the other hand become another Waco [pdf]...i.e. a standoff siege followed by a fire? Correspondents will be on hand to let us know.
I'm Free
Defense Secretary D Rumsfeld on the days of looting and violence in Baghdad:
It's untidy. And freedom is untidy. And free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things.
What can one say, except..how true, how true.