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The US army platoon leader, Lieutenant Jack Saville, who ordered his men to throw two Iraqi prisoners into the Tigris in January 2004 (one is presumed dead) was given a stiff sentence of 45 days for “dereliction of duty.” Saville apologized because his actions “adversely affected U.S.-Iraqi trust during critical times of reconstruction.” Ya think? And he asked to be allowed to remain in the army (it’s unclear if he will be discharged or not), and said God had forgiven him and he hopes “to use these experiences for greater good.” How one uses the experience of drowning a prisoner for greater good is beyond me.
And since this story (and a couple of other sources’ reports on this) seriously buries the lead, I’m gonna put it in red:
Lt Saville agreed to testify against his captain, who had given him a hit list of five Iraqis who were to be executed on the spot if they were captured in a raid.
Matthew Cunningham is the captain’s name (it’s not mentioned in the Guardian, AP or BBC reports).
The two guys thrown into the river were not on the hit list. Rather, two platoons had a bet (the stakes are not specified in any news report) over which one would throw an Iraqi into the river first.
Putin’s little youth movement, less than a month old, has already taken to book-burning. They are protesting a new opera being performed at the Bolshoi. Yes the whole thing is silly (including the opera itself, from the description), but the danger lies in the fact that while Putin created this organization to prevent a Borscht Revolution, in the meantime they have to be given things to do, to maintain their enthusiasm and involvement. Today they’re protesting opera. What’s next?
Compare and contrast the Chinese National People’s Congress
and the Taiwanese legislature.
Just sayin’.
The LA Times has a must-read about US soldiers in Iraq making music videos featuring pictures of dead Iraqis, with appropriate musical soundtracks. “I have a lot of pictures of dead Iraqis — everybody does,” said Spc. Jack Benson, 22. The Times actually went to a film studies professor for a review. He liked it, so at least the soldiers aren’t the only sociopaths in the article. Says a 30-year old sergeant, “It’s no more graphic than ‘Saving Private Ryan.’ To us, it’s no different than watching a movie.”
I’ve been reading Joanna Bourke’s An Intimate History of Killing, on the psychology of war, but I think the veterans of this war are going to have a collection of psychoses absolutely without precedent.
Condoleezza Rice went on three Sunday talk shows to say that she won’t run for president. Imagine my disappointment. Really, go on: imagine it.
She says that instead of running for the presidency, she wants to “get back to ... the world of ideas.” The two are, of course, mutually exclusive. Actually, my ellipsis hides that she actually said she wants to “get back to the California life and to the world of ideas,” and those are also mutually exclusive.
I guess if she’s not running, we’ll never know what being “mildly pro-choice” means.
The ghost mice problem in Malawi’s presidential palace is being taken care of. President Mutharika’s aide on Christian affairs says “No strategy designed from the pits of hell will prosper against the President because we have asked for divine intervention to cast the blood of Jesus against any evil plots against the President.” So that’s ok then.
The Israeli Cabinet decided to postpone taking any actions against 24 settlements in the West Bank that even they acknowledge are illegal (105 were listed in a recent gov report). They will wait until after the Gaza evacuation, because while the Israeli Defense Force can defeat the combined militaries of all the Arab nations in less than a week, it can’t cope with evacuating the West Bank and Gaza settlers at the same time.
The Taiwanese government has called for demonstrations to protest the Chinese law just passed allowing China to invade -- sorry, to use “non-peaceful and other necessary measures” -- if Taiwan declares independence. It doesn’t plan to declare independence, it just doesn’t like being told what to do by “the man.”
To demonstrate that Taiwan should have no fears about reunification because China is now a free, liberal, pluralistic, tolerant country, the vote in the National People’s Congress was 2,896 to 0, with 2 abstentions. Huh, huh, two abstentions, how ‘bout that?
Taiwan plans to mobilize a million demonstrators. Yeah, like a million is really going to impress China, where that many people show up for a 10%-off shoe sale.
Something only just occurred to me: if the US doesn’t recognize Taiwan, what entity is it we sell all those arms to?
You’re still imagining my disappointment that Condi isn’t running for president, aren’t you?
The president of Malawi, Bingu wa Mutharika, who a few months ago kicked the parliament out of its offices because he really needed a 300-room mansion, no longer lives there because of ghosts. Say what you will about imperialism but when the British ran the place, the ghost problem was kept pretty much under control.
A new version of the Bible will use the phrase “stoned to death” to describe the punishment popularized by Monty Python’s Life of Brian rather than “stoned,” because of fears that people will become confused and take it as an endorsement of drug use. Also, “foreigners” replaces “aliens,” in case people think the Bible is referring to bug-eyed monsters from Alpha Centauri.
The repulsive 15-year-long battle over the brain-dead body of Terri Schiavo continues. Just when you think it can’t get any more distasteful, a businessman has offered her husband $1 million not to pull the plug.
State-run Iraqi tv has a daily program featuring the confessions of captured insurgents. Some of them show signs of having been beaten up, and this week one died after his 15 minutes were up.
Tax collectors in Rajahmundry, Andhra Pradesh, in an interesting variation on the old Indian custom of “sitting dharna,” have hired drummers to play, constantly, outside the homes of tax-defaulters. Don’t tell the Republicans, or they’ll stick a provision in the bankruptcy bill letting credit card companies do that to debtors too.
A tiny unregarded AP story Friday reported that 37 people killed themselves in 2004 under Oregon’s assisted-suicide law, which is a drop from the previous year. The average age of the... customers was 64. I support assisted suicide, but I hope someone is properly monitoring this program because the possibilities for abuse are so great.
The United States military, under the peculiar impression that it was Michael Jackson, kept children as young as 11 locked up in Abu Ghraib. Still does, for all we know.
The real Michael Jackson (which may be the first time that adjective has been attached to that person) appeared in court in pajamas. Who does he think he is, a blogger?
It has been suggested to me that my last post made unfair sport of Kofi Annan’s wish to outlaw terrorism. Actually, the early reports spun Annan’s remarks (transcript here) rather differently than the Guardian, which describes them as an attack on countries which undermine “core values” in their fight on terrorism, and (and this detail was definitely left out) called for a UN special envoy to monitor whether countries’ counter-terrorism measures -- Patriot Acts, detention without trial, etc -- violate international law.
That said, my problem with the UN addressing terrorism is that it involves defining certain people, groups, organizations as terrorists, which is an inherently political act which the UN is simply not up to.
Blair is still in the process of ramming his terrorism bill through Parliament, removing the right to a trial, the presumption of innocence, and habeas corpus all in one go, on the grounds that 9/11 trumps 1215. The Tories have been fighting for an 8-month sunset clause, but Blair insisted during Prime Minister’s Questions that Al Qaida is more likely to attack Britain if the provisions are not permanent. Comments Simon Carr in the Indy, “You didn’t think the terror situation was so finely poised, perhaps?”
Blair has steadfastly refused to release to Parliament the full legal advice he was given about whether going to war in Iraq was legal under international law. This week it turned out that even the Cabinet wasn’t shown it, and today it has come out that there was none. All there ever was was a single page.
Still, it’s better than the guide which the Labour Party is giving MPs and campaigners on how to answer questions about the war. If asked about the legality of the war, they are advised to respond, “We are where we are,” which seems a little Zen for Eastbourne, somehow.
British satellite tv service Sky is introducing a Bad Movie channel. I’m so jealous.
A federal district court judge has thrown out a civil case brought by Vietnamese harmed by the use of Agent Orange against its manufacturers. Actually, I can see the legal point that they acted according to lawful government orders, but if you know that your product is being misused, in ways that harm innocent civilians, I don’t think the “just following orders” defense is really good enough. (Update: Simon Tisdall points out that Zyklon B manufacturers were executed after World War II).
Similarly, the Pakistani government today admitted that A.Q. Khan aided the Iranian nuclear program, but will not allow him to be prosecuted. Also, according to the misinformation minister, he was acting “in his personal capacity,” and the government had no idea that several centrifuges had found their way onto a ship bound for Iran.
Looking back over this post, every item is about -- as Annan put it -- compromising core values, assuming those core values aren’t a myth. Actually, every item but one: the Bad Movie channel doesn’t pretend to be anything other than what it is.
Boris Gryzlov, speaker of the Russian Duma, on the death/assassination of former Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov: “The elimination of a terrorist of international standing only means that there will be much less evil now.” Something to look forward to then, the less evil I mean. Less evil would be nice.
Speaking of less evil, Kofi Annan has proposed an international treaty to outlaw terrorism, which will surprise everyone who thought terrorism was already illegal.
It’s, what, 6 days after the attack Giuliana Sgrena’s car, and we still have no real answers. Pictures of that car suggest that if 300 to 400 bullets were fired, as she said, then somebody needs to get some more rifle practice. The US military has admitted that the blockade was a “temporary blockade,” but won’t say what that consists of. One detail in the NYT Wednesday: “As they rounded a curve, the car was illuminated by a bright light...” What sort of idiot puts a blockade around a curve?
Speaking of the traffic hazards of Baghdad, the convoy of the Iraqi minister of planning came under gunfire today. If the route chosen by the minister of planning includes an ambush, maybe he’s in the wrong job. Just sayin’.
Sorry for the multiple appearances of my last post. Blogger is really weird. To compound the weirdness, you saw 4 versions if using Internet Explorer or Firefox, but only 1 in Opera.
The Israeli army decides not to prosecute a soldier for the murder of a British cameraman two years ago, but impose “minor disciplinary charges.” The army gave 3 patently false versions of the incident at the time, and allowed the cover-up to continue. They are now saying they can’t prosecute for lack of ballistics evidence, but they waited more than a month before asking the soldiers’ for their guns. The cameraman’s widow points out that an entire unit knew the truth.
Seumas Milne has an interesting op-ed piece in the Guardian about the “fairy tale” of a democratic revolution in the Middle East. Milne points out that the anti-Syrian protesters Bush praised were actually calling for elections under a system weighted in favor of Christians (there hasn’t been a census since something like 1958, but the demographics have changed since then, one reason the Christian minority has blocked any new census).
Today’s Prime Minister’s Questions demonstrated just how much emphasis Tony Blair intends to put on looking tough on terrorism during the British elections. PMQ will only get more entertaining as the elections get closer; today’s will repeat Sunday night, 6 & 9 pm PT; new ones Wednesdays 4 am PT. The Times’s sketchwriter says of the exchanges between Blair & Michael Howard, “The relationship between the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition has gone into the crockery-throwing stage. They are now saying what they really mean. It was like watching a fight on a busy train between a couple on the brink of divorce.” Click on the link to see how the issues of terrorism versus civil rights play out in British political culture.
My question is, when did being tough on terrorism consist entirely of destroying civil rights? Blair said to the Liberal Democratic leader, “Should any terrorist act occur there will not be any debate about civil liberties.” The government is rushing through Parliament a bill that includes house arrest for people suspected but not charged with anything, although after resistance from the supporters of freedom in the, um, House of Lords they have agreed to allow judges into the act, rather than leaving the issuing of “control orders” entirely to the home office. The Lords also wanted to raise the test for the issuing of such orders from “reasonable suspicion” to “the balance of probabilities.” The government rejected this, which means, literally, that it is happy to put under house arrest people who are probably not guilty of anything. Here’s a picture of a protestor from Liberty, the British ACLU, who has set up this lovely fake prison cell on a sidewalk, but honestly, what’s up with that lamp?
George Bush meets the president of Romania. “We discussed the Black Sea.” The mind boggles.
And he tells how he once went to Bucharest, got really stoned and, well, I’ll let him tell it: “It was a mystical experience for me. It was one of the most amazing moments of my presidency, to be speaking in the square, the very square where Ceausescu gave his last speech. And the rainbow that I saw in the midst of the rainstorm ended right behind the balcony from my point of view. It’s a clear signal that, as far as I was concerned, that freedom is powerful”. So at the end of every rainbow, there’s a pot of gold and a dead dictator?
It was all smiles until he told them he was sending them to Iraq.
The 9th Circuit rules that a man whose wife had been forcibly sterilized in China was entitled to political asylum (the wife is still in China). The federal immigration judge who had denied asylum did so because after all his wife can hardly be sterilized again, now can she?
Your vocabulary word of the day, from the Maori: whakaphone = “Raise your grass skirt and show them your bum.” (To really insult someone, the bum in question must be tattooed).
Speaking of whakaphoning it in, a common sign at the pro-Syrian demonstration in Lebanon:
From a Bush speech at the National Defense University:
Last month, when soldiers of the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment were on combat patrol north of Baghdad, one of their Humvees fell into a canal, and Iraqi troops came to their rescue -- plunging into the water again and again, until the last American was recovered. The Army colonel in charge of the unit said, “When I saw those Iraqis in the water, fighting to save their American brothers, I saw a glimpse of the future of this country.”
Fortunately the American Humvee falling into a canal had no symbolic meaning whatsoever.
The Turkish government has identified three dangers to the unity of Turkey: the red fox, roe deer and wild sheep, whose very names demonstrate an invidious intent to divide the country. The Turkish Environment Ministry has renamed them, removing all reference to Kurdistan and Armenia. Says the Ministry, these dangerous and treacherous beasts “were named this way with ill intentions. This ill intent is so obvious that even species only found in our country were given names against Turkey’s unity.”
Approach these separatist agitators only with extreme caution:
Vulpes Vulpes Kurdistanica, now Vulpes Vulpes
Capreolus Capreolus Armenus, now Capreolus Cuprelus Capreolus
Ovis Armeniana, now Ovis Orientalis Anatolicus. This sheep, while too cagey for us even to be sure quite which picture of wild sheep is the right one (hey, the CIA put out a wanted picture of Mullah Omar that was actually some other guy who didn’t even have the right number of eyes, and their budget is much larger than mine, so give me a break), is believed to be extremely “wild,” a really.. quite... wild... sheep.
Today, George and Laura Bush went to the Providence Family Support Center in Pittsburgh, as part Laura wants to help steer children away from “bad choices.” Those who can, do, those who can’t, teach.
Laura said, “Statistics show boys are having a particularly tough time growing up.” She added, “For example, George here still has the reading ability and maturity of a six-year old.”
(Update: the LA Times writes about this under the headline “First Lady Takes Stage With Her No. 2.” Couldn’t have said it better myself.)
“Say Joey, do you like movies about gladiators?”
Today’s NYT’s front page has, side by side, 1) a story about the Pentagon’s slowness in provided armor for troops in Iraq, which says “the Army’s equipment manager effectively reduced the armor’s priority to the status of socks” -- actually, one might argue, the Army reduced soldiers’ priority to the status of socks, and 2) “US Checkpoints a Deadly Gantlet: Iraqis Killed or Injured in Troops’ Security Effort.” These stories are of course linked: in the absence of proper defensive self-protection, soldiers have resorted to offensive self-protection, i.e., shooting anything that moves. In a classic case of shit rolling downhill, Washington demonstrated a clear lack of interest in the lives of American soldiers, who evinced the same lack of interest in preserving the lives of Iraqi civilians.
Also, note to the NYT: gauntlet, not gantlet. The London Times also uses the word, but correctly, in a story on the same subject tomorrow.
Today, Kuwaiti women demonstrated for women’s suffrage, while in Germany, Free Democratic MEP, Silvana Koch-Mehrin shows off her naked, very pregnant stomach in glamor photos in this week’s Stern, because “showing your stomach is both a provocation and a dramatic symbol of emancipation”. The Christian Democrats respond by officially denying that pregnancy is political. The London Times story on this little piece of self-promotion promotes her age, which is actually 34, to 44. But they did get the gauntlet/gantlet thing right.
The Thai government, worrying about the effects of the tsunami on tourism, has come up with an answer, albeit the wrong answer: a tsunami museum, complete with “a Universal Studios-style simulated tidal wave”.
John Bolton, new American ambassador-designate to the UN, today: “my record over many years demonstrates clear support for effective multilateral diplomacy”. And two years ago: “There is no such thing as the United Nations. There is only the international community, which can only be led by the only remaining superpower, which is the United States.” A couple of months later he threatened Iran, Syria and North Korea with war, suggesting they “draw the appropriate lesson from Iraq”. (I’ve also mentioned Bolton here and here.). (Annoyingly, while I have 4 posts on Bolton, the Google search box only brings up 2, the Pico box 3. Blogger has a perfectly good search function available to me but not to you, that even returns results in chronological order.)
More on Bolton here.
Does anyone know who the reporter was who kept asking Scottie McClellan why, if rendition wasn’t about torture, we would need to send prisoners to Uzbekistan? Scottie’s answer: a) that’s classified, b) “The war on terrorism is a different kind of war.” c) the Uzbeks are better at rendering: they use every part of the prisoner.
I don’t think all the talk about the FEC regulating blogs will come to anything, but you never know. My question is, if I link to a campaign website in order to make fun of it, does that count as a contribution?
The New Scientist reports on the military’s attempts to use research designed to eliminate pain in order to create a weapon Pulsed Energy Projectiles which can generate pain within the brain without doing actual physical harm -- immaculate torture, if you will. As every blogger in the universe has noted, this can be used against protests. And once it’s possible, it’s only a matter of time. In my 1971 edition of the Yale student paper-produced “Insiders’ Guide to the Colleges” (which is a lot of fun, by the way, and well worth the 25¢ I paid on impulse for it some years ago), it warns, “A gas mask is a must at Berkeley, because no matter what your political shade, you are likely to be tear gassed during your stay.”
As long as I’ve got the book out, here’s a bit from the entry for USC: “The typical SC student reads Mad magazine and Superboy comics and suffers from megalomania (otherwise known as the SC syndrome), rich parents, and general illiteracy. It has often been rumored that reading is a prerequisite for some SC classes, but this is vehemently denied by the administration”.
Speaking of literacy, I’ve been sort of following the SAT’s addition of an essay-writing segment. The WaPo has an article about the test prep classes, and evidently you’d all be more impressed if I wrote larger and used words like esoteric and equivocal. I’ll get right on that.
Speaking of crappy writing, here’s an AP headline: “South Florida to Vote on Slot Machines.” Turns out, they’ll be voting on whether to legalize slot machines, they’re not actually using slot machines AS voting machines, appropriate as that might be in Florida.
