Marian's Blog

Iraq: Civil war and Nir Rosen's Green Bird; long live Zarqawi?

Thursday, 8 June 2006. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi no longer walks the earth and CNN has interviewed a 'less well-known' (to some of us) freelance journalist called Nir Rosen. Today Rosen became the first person I've heard in the mainstream media (MSM) to speak openly, and like he were making sense, about Iraq being in a state of civil war. Digest that. Most other media folk are still using that "sectarian violence" euphemism. This includes Wolf Blitzer who thankfully, unlike many of his CNN colleagues, I am not forced to endure or imagine discussing "Brangelina" with a straight face. Besides Nir Rosen has anyone in US mainstream media officially called the current state of Iraq a civil war? Rosen specifically says it's been a civil war since 2005. He is also author of a book I'd never heard of before today - In the Belly of the Green Bird: The Triumph of the Martyrs in Iraq - briefly reviewed here. The book's subtitle seems appropriate on this day when some in "the West" are cheering and instant-replaying news of al-Zarqawi's death. May he, like all of us, have an opportunity to talk to G*d about who he was and the acts he committed in this life.

"The Israel Lobby" in London Review of Books

I've been told by those "in the know" that this piece by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt is a seminal article. It's about US foreign and domestic policy toward Israel, and its other effects in the Mideast. Also in Africa which seemingly often is caught somewhere in between. US Mideast policy always keeps Israel at its center. What are the effects? And for Americans when is it ever ok to question, examine and even to change the current "terms" of US-Israeli politics? The LRB article even quotes Israel's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion. He was born David Gryn in 1886 in a place called Plonsk which then was Russia and became Poland. Gryn/Ben Gurion "told Nahum Goldmann, the president of the World Jewish Congress: If I were an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country . . . We come from Israel, but two thousand years ago, and what is that to them? There has been anti-semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: we have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that?"

John Mearsheimer is author of The Tragedy of Great Power Politics and professor of poli sci at Univ. of Chicago. Stephen Walt is an international affairs prof at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and author of Taming American Power: The Global Response to US Primacy, among other titles.

Somalia - Peaceful protesters tell Islamic fighters: "Leave Mogadishu"

The Guardian reports "hundreds of protesters" (we also hear it was thousands) marched the streets of Mogadishu today asking self-styled Islamic sharia court militias to leave town peacefully. On the U.S. diplomatic side, a (San Jose) Mercury News article today reports former State Department official Princeton Lyman is advising the Bush administration to "begin working urgently with regional governments and Somaliland, an unrecognized self-declared independent nation in northern Somalia, to contain Islamist militias." That quote is from the paper, not directly from Lyman. And I added the emphasis. We hope "official Washington" 1) will not bring any more of its "shock and awe" into traumatised Somalia; and 2) that it also will not simply turn its back. I will try adding a link for info on Somaliland - a region once colonised by Britain. This is also where I first drank camel's milk, and I must say: not bad! My prayers are with all of our colleagues and friends.

Blair and Bush: E. J. Dionne's Coalition of the Erring

It worked for "Brangelina", so why not Mr. Blair and Mr. Bush? We'll use "blush" - pronounced 'bloosh' the way Scots would say it. I love the George Orwell quote in E.J. Dionne's 30 May article. "[T]he slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts." How 'twu'. Well, bring it on anyway. As soon as we're done we'll all hunt, fish, chop wood and ride bikes at George's private lake in Texas.

Haditha: Reports Marines will face trial; investigation of possible cover-up

In a news article dated Wednesday, 31 May, the Independent (of London) writes that according to the BBC, "American soldiers would stand trial" in last November's killings of unarmed Iraqi civilians in Haditha, Iraq. The article adds there's an investigation about whether there may have been a cover-up by senior officers. Oliver Duff and Jerome Taylor reported for the Independent.

Shades of Haditha: New ambassador's own US military vs. Iraqi civilian tragedy

Talk about surreal. This leaves me scratching my head. There didn't seem to be a lot of news coverage today as new Iraqi ambassador Samir Sumaidaie gushingly presented credentials to G.W. Bush. This is right on the heels of the news of last November's civilian killings in Haditha. That scene from the White House was so... unreal, but this goes to another level. Last summer Sumaidaie himself accused US soldiers of summarily executing (my term, not his) his cousin, Mohammed al-Sumaidaie. Apparently this took place inside his relatives' family home in a village called al-Sheik Hadid. Just reading this makes me need to pray.

(BBC) "As the marines left "smiling at each other" an hour later, the interpreter told the mother they had killed Mohammed, said Mr Sumaidaie. "In the bedroom, Mohammed was found dead and laying in a clotted pool of his blood. A single bullet had penetrated his neck.""

The BBC also reported as follows: "Maj Gen Stephen T Johnson said the allegations were being taken seriously and would be thoroughly investigated. ..." That was in 2005, and long before the slaughter in Haditha. In a 2005 letter Iraq's newly minted ambassador responded to his cousin's killing:

"I believe this killing must be investigated in a credible and convincingly fair way to ensure that justice is done, and the sense of grievance is mitigated, and to deter similar actions in the future."

Why does Bush talk about 'the Americas' but not the OAS?

There's a major disconnect in the Americas. I can't figure when or where or how it began. Bush is in Chicago talking to the National Restaurant Assoc. and answering citizen questions about "the Americas" and relations with "our neighbors" in "the Western Hemisphere". Actually, seems more like throwing tomatoes at Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. Chavez 'just happens to be' a pardo - which means he's a racially mixed person of African and Native descent; like a lot of us from the Americas. And Bush never mentions anything about the OAS. (As a matter of fact, neither does the MSM.) Heck. It's almost right out back of the White House.

Speaking of "neighbors" and "neighborhoods", this may ring a bell: "... In present day Venezuelan society, notes respected commentator Gregory Wilpert, "The correspondence between skin color and class membership is quite stunning at times. To confirm this observation, all one has to do is compare middle to upper class neighborhoods, where predominantly lighter colored folks live, with the barrios, which are clearly predominantly inhabited by darker skinned Venezuelans."..." (A Real Racial Democracy? "Hugo Chávez and the Politics of Race" [Venezuela], N. Kozloff, Counterpunch, 14 Oct 2005)

             OAS - Organization of American States
              17th Street & Constitution Ave., NW
                      Washington, DC 20006

The Hummer: Militarized American family car

I vividly remember. It was summer 2003. I was in the US, with family, and traveling a highway through Virginia. At first maybe I thought I was having a 'flashback' of a visit at Camp Dobol in eastern Bosnia, or remembering what it was like driving an OSCE armored vehicle on the road between Fushe Kosov/Kosovo Polje and Pristina. But no. There before me coming down a civilian highway in northern Virginia, USA was the military vehicle we call a "Humvee". That was the first time I laid eyes on its commercial equivalent - a freak of marketing - known as a "Hummer." Being rather militarized itself, northern Virginia seems a likely locale for observing the unprecedented blurring of military transport with the need to pick up dish liquid and a newspaper. What is the Hummer owner's demographic profile? Is this ostensibly the next evolutionary step up from the SUV? I've seen one Hummer ad on US TV. It depicted a kid being dropped at school, and by mom no less, as he cheerfully exits the vehicle's passenger side. All this seems highly unlikely. In my book, anyway.

Hi tech?! Enough already

Cheese and crackers! Between one thing and another we've been offline... how long? Bummer. Darn cookies and computers... Anyway, we're back. It's Easter weekend already. Good Friday. Passover began yesterday and continues till Thurs the 20th. Rummie is still US defense secretary (for the moment); Euro Social Forum kicks off in Athens in May - including Women's Assembly. Sudan's DC embassy proclaims its displeasure over an annoying (to them) yet growing snowball of divestment. Chad just cut dip. relations with Khartoum while CNN's US domestic service says nothing about most of this instead reporting the disturbing news of a New York shopkeeper whose cat may be trapped forever inside a wall. I kid you not. Plus ca change plus c'est toujours news American style. The more things change the more it's still news American style! Peace.

Protest marches: No to Katrina evictions; Bush articles of impeachment

So much going on as February winds down. Your help is needed to support and help pass H.R. 4197: the Hurricane Katrina Recovery, Reclamation, Restoration, Reconstruction and Reunion Act of 2005. Email, snail-mail or call your congressional representatives and ask them to pass HR 4197. What about impeaching George Bush? Get your copy of this book available for $9.95 from Center for Constitutional Rights -featuring four Articles of Impeachment against George Bush. I'm sure his parents will be disappointed, though probably in the American people. Articles of impeachment include: warrantless surveillance, lying to Congress about Iraq, torturing prisoners, and subverting the Separation of Powers. By law US federal separation of powers is legislative, executive and judicial, though lately they seem all jumbled with someone in or near the White House pulling rabbits from a hat. KATRINA PROTESTS: Info from democrats.com and afterdowningstreet.org, "... on March 15, FEMA plans to evict thousands of victims of Hurricane Katrina. ... Our federal government is engaged in a campaign to exclude poor and black people from the new version of the city it allowed to be destroyed. On March 14, tens of thousands of Americans will skip work and march from the U.S. Capitol to the White House, and we will not leave until Bush announces a plan for housing and orders an end to evictions. Press Conference: 1-2pm, Rayburn Office Building - Room #2237; Mardi Gras Style March for Justice: 2-3pm start from Capitol South Metro at 2pm to White House; Rally & Protest at White House 3pm- 11:59pm, Lafayette Square Park." Check websites of the protest march for those internally displaced by Katrina, and another to send an email to your voting member of Congress - if you have one (Washington, DC itself and Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, US Samoa, Mariana Islands, etc. HAVE NO voting representation in Congress). Ask your rep to cosponsor House Resolution 635 calling for congressional investigation into grounds for impeachment. Register here for local protests in your area.