Surge Strategy And Crimes to Come
January 31st, 2007 - by: danny
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FIDEL FIGHTS ON
HAVANA – Cuban state television Tuesday showed a video of a healthier looking Fidel Castro meeting with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and saying his recovery was “far from a lost battle,” in the first images of the ailing leader shown in three months.
WHAT’S THE STRATEGY OF THE SURGE?
BIG BROTHER AND YOUR COMPUTER
THE IRISH DEBATE ON POLICING NORTHERN IRELAND
I think I may be too hung up on numbers like the rest of the country. I’ve been pointing out that the number of marchers in the surge against the surge were downplayed, or at least the official claim was mostly not reported.
At the same time, the marchers and the war makers have focused more on numbers than what the Pentagon is actually planning to do in and TO Iraq. Anti-war legislators want to stop another 21,ooo soldiers from being sent, but have not all challenged the new “plan.”
Last Sunday, The New York Times devoted the back page of its Week in Review to a graphics dominated exposition of what the headline said were “FOUR STRATEGIES FOR SAVING BAGHDAD.” The headline does NOT say DESIGNED TO SAVE BAGHDAD OR INTENDED TO SAVE BAGHDAD, but instead presents it an affirmative way by showing “the battle terrain of the city and how the military is expected to restore civil order.” This formulation reminded me of a slip of tongue by Chicago Mayor Richard Daley who said famously, and honestly back in 1968 , “The police are here to create disorder”
The Times does tell us that the key tactics are borrowed from the failed French Colonialist campaign to restore order in Algiers through a campaign of violence and torture as illustrated in the movie The Battle of Algiers, shown in the Pentagon as if it was a documentary. “The fighting in Algiers,” reports the newspaper of record, “does stand as forerunner for being called the emerging Battle of Baghdad.” I will leave it to others to comment on how this country, born in an “insurgency” against British Colonialism, is now relying on the vicious and ultimately unsuccessful tactics of French Colonialism. They are drawing on history but avoid its lessons.
THE FOUR EVIL STRATEGIES
There are four components to this so-called plan that no one is really discussing because that discussion is being trumped by the great numbers debate. Here’s how the NY Times sums it up.
l. ESTABLISH SECURITY STATIONS in “bad” neighborhoods, the key component of the “SURGE.” The problem is that this is a joint Iraqi-American effort and the Iraqi military has not exactly distinguished themselves. They were getting their asses kicked in Najav last weekend before the US Calvary arrived and slaughtered hundreds of resistance fighters.
2. ISOLATION. I would rename this the APARTHEID OR WARSAW GHETTO STRATEGY. It involves WALLING OFF Sunni neighborhoods with concrete barriers so people can only leave and enter at checkpoints, ala the Israeli checkpoints at the Palestinian borders. Listen to this admission, “While the strategy may dampen the violence, it also exacerbates already terrible living conditions which will worsen if the government fails to provide adequate services.” Now, since there are no “adequate services,” this means inflicting more of a toll of abuse, starvation and humiliation on the population behind the walls.
3. INTENSIVE CLEARING—this is a a euphemism to an approach involving house to house searches which will lead to more hatred, more torture, and more ethnic cleansing of the kind US troops went to Bosnia to stop.
4 DEALING WITH SHITE STRONGHOLDS…This is an aggressive strategy certain to intensify ethnic strife and deepen sectarian conflict.
So there you have it, the Surge Strategy which everyone is avoiding a discussion of led by a General who is an expert on why the US lost in Vietnam. It is a prescription for more death and devastation. It envisions no negotiations, no attempt to involve Iraq’s neighbors. We know it will not “work.”
The NY TIMES reports that GOP Senators are trying to stop all debate on the plan, “The new effort is aimed at preventing a potentially embarrassing rejection of the president’s plan to push 20,000 more troops into Iraq. Meanwhile, Baker agrees reluctantly to testify.
Alexander Bolton of the Hill reports:
James A. Baker III, the co-chairman of the Iraq Study Group, has ended weeks of resistance and testified Congress on the war, avoiding a split with his fellow co-chairman, former Rep. Lee Hamilton (D-Ind.). Sources familiar with the efforts to persuade Baker to testify said he did not want to appear to be lobbying against President Bush at the height of his push for 21,500 additional troops in Iraq.
IRAN COULD BE NEXT
AP: WASHINGTON – Republican and Democratic senators warned Tuesday against a drift toward war with an emboldened Iran and suggested the Bush administration was missing a chance to engage its longtime adversary in potentially helpful talks over next-door Iraq.
Juan Cole: The Danger of Bush’s Anti-Iran Fatwa
The president’s decision to use force against Iranian “agents” inside Iraq could snare innocent pilgrims, and raises the risk of open warfare.
http://www.ichblog.eu/content/view/207/52/
The History of Western Complicity in Iraq, From Churchill to Kennedy to George W. Bush
Audio and Transcript
Barry Lando, a former 60 Minutes producer, examines how the United States has meddled in Iraq dating back to the Eisenhower administration. He also looks at how the Reagan and Bush administration helped arm Saddam Hussein at a time when he was committing his deadliest atrocities.
http://www.ichblog.eu/content/view/200/57/
WESTERN POLICY PUSHES HEZBOLLAH TOWARD IRAN
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/819620.html
Adds The Nation: “Another one of the many tragic consequences of the Iraq war, as Mohamad Bazzi reports from Beirut, is that blowback from Iraq is now fueling Lebanon’s slide toward civil war as increasingly fearful Lebanese Sunnis are striking back at Shiites, spurred to violence by Iran’s growing regional influence.
http://lists.thenation.com/t?ctl=7F98:4B5DD
ISRAEL EXPANDS THE “SEPARATION (AKA APARTHEID) WALL
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/819633.html
THE WSF’S THREE FACES – ANTHONY BARNETT
After seven years is the World Social Forum any closer to making “another world possible”? A report from Nairobi.
http://venus.opendemocracy.net/t/3770/38637/2726/0/
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT CRITICIZED IN NEW YORK
January 30, 2007 — The New York Civil Liberties Union today expressed its shock and sadness at a jury’s decision to impose a death sentence in New York State.
Ronell Wilson was convicted in December of 2006 of murder of two undercover New York Police Department detectives in 2003. This terrible crime took place entirely within New York, but — because New York’s death penalty statute has been ruled unconstitutional — the federal government chose to prosecute. This is one of many cases in which the federal government has prosecuted a local murder in an end-run around state law that does not permit capital punishment.
The NYCLU will support legal efforts to reverse the death sentence. Were the death sentence not successfully reversed, Wilson could become the first individual to be executed in New York State since 1963 and the first to be executed in a federal death penalty case in New York State since Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were executed
in 1953.
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Big Brother Coming To Your Phone etc.
January 31st, 2007 - by: danny
Jayne Stahl warns big brother is here:
Effective in May, those who provide “voice transmission,” and broadband services will have to ensure that their equipment that is wiretap-ready, and accessible to your local police force, and the FBI.
The new legislation is modeled after the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement, or CALEA, which was designed primarily to facilitate wiretaping of mobile phones. This new legislation is intended to expand governmental surveillance powers to cover companies like Vonage, so the progression evolves thus: first we can tap Ma Bell, then Cingular Wireless, then Yahoo emails, then Vonage.
The rules set to go into effect in a couple of months have been challenged by a U.S. appeals panel, back in July, at which U.S. District Judge Harry T. Edwards called courtroom arguments made by the FCC “goobledygook.” (VoIP News Net) He was, in my opinion, being kind. Civil liberties groups have expressed outrage over the FCC expansionism claiming that this legislation doesn’t take into account the fundamental difference between the telephone, a vehicle for conversation, and the Internet, a tool by which information is acquired and conveyed. Lawyers for the government argued only that the 1994 intended to be applied to future technology; the Judge wasn’t buying that, and neither are we.
Moreover, sophistic claims by the Justice Department that not increasing wiretapping capability to encompass the rapidly proliferating Internet phone industry will transform the Web into a refuge or “criminals and terrorists” are not only hackneyed, they’re transparent enough for a six year old to see through…
Caveat emptor; if we, consumers, stand by and allow the expansion of federal eavesdropping from basic phone calls to cell phones to emails, and now to Skype, or Internet, calls, then we have only ourselves to blame. It’s time that not only civil libertarians, but Internet Service Providers, stand up to this administration’s ongoing assault on privacy, and the First Amendment. Congress is threatening to use the power of the purse to prevent military expansionism, we must likewise consider a boycott of those companies, and service providers, who comply with these new rules that are scheduled to go into effect in May.
I WANT MEDIA: YouTube Users Watch Less TV, Resist Ads
About 32% of frequent YouTube users are watching less television as a result of the time they spend on the video-sharing site, says a poll by Harris Interactive. Also, 73% of frequent YouTube users say they would visit the site less if it started including short video ads before every clip.
http://www.worldscreen.com/newscurrent.php?filename=harris12907.htm
New Media Could Force Creative White House Campaigns
With more campaign advertising dollars likely to be spent on new media than ever before, candidates for the White House in 2008 may be forced to display unprecedented creativity, say political experts. Ad placement is seen as “less important,” as campaign messages focus on going “viral.”
http://www.adweek.com/aw/national/article
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Dissector Daily Forum: Letters & More
January 31st, 2007 - by: danny
Susan Oehler writes from Asheville beginning with a quote from my blog yesterday:
“I keep thinking: how will Iraq remember this war. How will its children learn in the future about the great war to free them and the civil war it spawned.”
Susan comments
I guarantee they won’t remember it as a ‘great war to free them’ any more than the Poles remember WW2 as a ‘great war to free them’.
No invading army does that to “free” people for their own benefit. And from the crowd that says “stuff happens” when civil society is falling apart and “we don’t do body counts” when civilians are dying by the thousands – we can be sure they don’t care one whit about the Iraqi people or what happens to them. The only FREEDOM that Bush is bringing to the Iraqi people is the FREEDOM OF THE GRAVE. And the only DEMOCRACY that Bush is bringing the Iraqi people is the DEMOCRACY OF DEATH.
I believe there are three ways to do a counter-insurgency: bribery, civil war, and genocide. The Bushies are too dumb to try bribery, so they went for civil war. It was not ‘spawned’ it was planned. And if that does not work, we will see genocide next.
Jackie Newberry writes
Last night, Chuck Norris, film star and martial arts expert, filled in for Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity on his show last night. Interviewed an Iraqi American young man who was a rapper and recorded an anti war video. Talk about slanted leading questions. Kid answered questions by hop-skipping over the utter ignorance. Colmes, Hannity’s partner, saved his butt. Norris not much worse than Hannity I guess.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70DcahyMkrQ
Sarah Maquire writes:
I think the Rally was a great success for the time of year it took place. Think of how many hundreds of thousands more including me would have been there if it was was in warmer weather. If anyone is planning a RALLY against the MEDIA, they should take into account the time of year, warmer weather?
I didn’t listen to Bush’s S of U Speech As per Bush mentioning global warming and saving fuel in his State of the Union Address. Why is no one mentioning all this JETTING aroungh the country he is doing, just to give a speech that not many are interested in? Think of the fuel and polution, global warming, he is causing. Why doesn’t he bike to these speeches as he supposedly bikes for hours each day?
As to adding or making this oil depository reserve larger, are we pumping oil out of the ground to pump it back in? Is he making it larger to increase profits for Oil while the price of oil is still high. I can only hope more people will start to think about ererything that is going on in this country and the world, and try to make a difference instead of just going along.
Adam Kenner writes:
I was at the rally/march and I have been watching the reporting to see how the media would report the size. On the train back to NY, I read CNN’s coverage stating “tens of thousands.”
I could tell from the ground that the numbers easily were in the hundreds of thousands, but I have only seen “tens” of thousands reported until recently. My own estimate before seeing any coverage was over 200,000; An estimate of 400,000 or 500,000 seems reasonable.
C-SPAN did cover the rally live for a long time. I spoke to a friend in NY who was watching. Once the march left the mall, I saw news cameras from various channels carried at various places, perhaps recording but not broadcasting live.
Panoramic photo here:
Jim Leonard writes:
We need a march on the media. I live in Davis,CA. Let me know when the march will happen and where. Hopefully it will be close since I don’t have a lot of money to get there.
Carol Hoen: “I just have to tell you I really enjoy your writing style.”
DEBATE, IRISH PUB SYLE
The best intra movement debate that I ‘ve been to in awhile took place last night at a packed Rocky Sullivan’s pub in New York last night where activists in the Irish Republican movement faced off on the question of “Should Irish Republican join or support the police forces in Northern Ireland. The arguments were passionate and discussed all sides with the main divide over what strategy is likely to bring change. There were shared values in the room but serious divisions on how reformist Sinn Fein can or should be. The details were meaty and fascinating but the orderly, should I say, comradely way it was conducted was most impressive against a background of some forward motion and lots of continuing abuse in Northern Ireland.. Other political movements can learn from this process while downing a few pints. People who disagree can speak to each other not just at each other when there are ground rules.
Harpers includes this news in its weekly summary.
Steve Jobs was questioned by federal investigators about his role in an options backdating scandal. Scientists in Jena, Germany, who had been using spaghetti and cucumbers as bait to make a sloth climb up and down a pole, gave up after three years, and veterinarians at Aquatopia in Antwerp announced that Mozart, an iguana that has had an erection for a week, would have to have one of his two penises amputated. In Leisureville, a retirement community in Florida, a registered sex offender died of heart disease while looking at pornography on his computer while naked, and a ring-neck duck named Perky, who was found alive in a hunter’s refrigerator two days after being shot, died, then came back to life in Tallahassee. A molecular scientist who owns a café announced that he had found a way to put caffeine in a donut. Ruth Bader Ginsburg said that being the only female Supreme Court justice made herfeel lonely, and Ryszard Kapuscinski, Polish reporter and author of several acclaimed works of nonfiction, including *The Soccer War,* died. At the Gulf Cup tournament in Abu Dhabi, Iraqis painted their faces and cheered their national soccer team. “By God, football unites us,” said one woman in the crowd. “I wish we could be like that back home.” The team failed to make the final round.
And my week goes on, with its ups and downs, editing one minute, writing the next. Please check out my partner Rory O’Connor’s excellent reports from the Libby trial in the belly of the beast.
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About Danny Schechter
Danny Schechter is an Emmy award winning journalist, television producer and independent filmmaker who also writes, blogs and speaks about media issues.
His latest film is PLUNDER The Crime Of Our Time.
Mr. Schechter is NOT the Godfather of Soul.
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