'Genetic Damage' In Fallujah: The BBC Reports

Before

The BBC has posted a video report from veteran war reporter John Simpson, concerning children growing up in Fallujah and the genetic damage inflicted on them by the depleted uranium ammunition so generously expended in defense of their freedom and democracy (and to make them an ally!) by the most righteous of all possible superpowers.

True to form, the BBC runs the phrase 'genetic damage' in quotes, as if it weren't real but only alleged -- and without doubt the allegations would have been made by conspiracy theorists whose twisted minds have been warped against BBC and its excellent, impartial coverage, ever since 9/11.

People who cannot handle reality were stunned when the BBC scooped the world's media in reporting the destruction of World Trade Center's Building 7, (WTC-7), a 47-story skyscraper many people still haven't heard of, which suddenly turned to dust and broken twisted steel on the afternoon on September 11, 2001.

American media -- and the 9/11 commission -- have been criticized for not reporting the amazing disintegration of this building at all. But the BBC reported the "collapse" before it happened. Some people have gone to excessive lengths to try to make something incriminating out of this excellent reportage.

During

For its part, the BBC says it wasn't part of any conspiracy, just a fluke. So it's probably also a fluke that the video either sits and spins, or says

"This content doesn't seem to be working. Try again later".

Well, of course.

The BBC web page says:

Cancer, leukaemia and infant mortality are all increasing in the Iraqi town of Fallujah, which saw fierce fighting between US forces and Sunni insurgents, a new survey says.

Still one of the most dangerous places in Iraq, doctors have been reporting a large number of birth defects since the 2004 offensive.

John Simpson reports.

But that cold snippet of text was all I have been able to get [until later: see the update below].

After

The page was listed as "2nd most watched" when I first loaded it, but that's changed too, and rightly so, since a

20ft oak sculpture in the heart of Dartmoor national park is due to be pulled down despite a Facebook campaign to save the giant sculpture of a chair.

Thus the truth about horrible crimes burns itself into the consciousness of the multitudes.

Or, as Karl Rove writes in the Wall Street Journal:

Iraq is a democracy and an ally instead of an enemy of America.

It's remarkable the extent to which our bountiful leaders will go to make friends and instill democracy, is it not?

After

According to the Rational Optimist:

America believes ... that it would be a desirable thing if the world did become more democratic, and backward nations did become more like us. We regard that as our own national interest, and in the interests of those other nations as well. As John F. Kennedy said, “We seek not the worldwide victory of one nation or system, but a worldwide victory of men.” [And women.] And, with admittedly many zigs and zags, that is the essence of American foreign policy.

I can't tell you how relieved I am to have somebody so rational and so optimistic telling us what America believes, and what is the essence of American foreign policy.

After

When American cities look like this, we will know we have arrived -- the backward nations of the world will finally be just like us, and all mankind will enjoy the blessings of a democratic Paradise on Earth.

After

But in the meantime, the video is now available, and some of the details and images are indeed chilling.

It was only possible [for BBC reporters] to stay [in Fallujah] a few hours, but in that time we found large numbers of children with serious birth defects.

Some had six or more fingers on each hand. Many had tumors which affected their spines. There was plenty of evidence of brain damage. Some of the cases were too dreadful for us to show.

BBC decides what's fit to show, and what's too dreadful. Thus the truth about horrible crimes burns itself into the consciousness of the multitudes.

Nonetheless, BBC reports, the spectrum of genetic damage in Fallujah is similar to what was found in Hiroshima, but much, much worse.

This could be something serious. But then again, as the BBC report notes:

American legislation makes it extremely difficult for foreigners to sue the US government over acts of war.

So ... perhaps I'm too realistic ... but it's not possible for me to imagine all the uproar over this most recent revelation of state-sponsored made-in-America horror lasting more than about 15 or 20 minutes.

Currently top of the BBC most watched list: Archeologists unearth Neolithic henge at Stonehenge!

Do you see what I mean?

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Seven Years of Bad Luck

Very superstitious

writings on the wall

Very superstitious
ladders 'bout to fall


Thirteen month old baby
broke the lookin' glass


Seven years of bad luck
the good things in your past


When you believe in things
that you don't understand
then you suffer


Superstition ain't the way


Very superstitious
wash your face and hands


Rid me of the problem
do all that you can


Keep me in a daydream
keep me goin' strong


You don't wanna save me
sad is my song


When you believe in things
that you don't understand
then you suffer


Superstition ain't the way


Very superstitious
nothin' more to say


Very superstitious
the devil's on his way


Thirteen month old baby
broke the lookin' glass


Seven years of bad luck
good things in your past


When you believe in things
that you don't understand


then you suffer


Superstition ain't the way
no, no, no, no, no

Stevie Wonder:

"Return" To "Iraqi" Values: Fallujah Has Been "Reconstructed" As "A Big Jail"

According to Baghdad Bureau Chief Sudarsan Raghavan of the Washington Post:

Fallujah today is sealed off with blast walls and checkpoints. Residents are given permits to enter the city. All visitors and their weapons are registered, and police check every car. The U.S. military has divided the city into nine gated communities, each with its own joint security station staffed by U.S. troops and Iraqi police. It also has been buying the loyalties of former Sunni insurgents, paying them $180 a month to join a neighborhood force that works with the police.
...

Shops stay open longer, streets are clogged with traffic, and soccer fields brim with children and young men. But for many residents, Fallujah remains a shadow of its former self. "The city is like a big jail," said Abu Ahmed, a well-known doctor who asked that his nickname be used because he has treated people who were brutalized by [police].
...

The police headquarters, built with U.S. funds, sits inside a large compound ringed by layers of blast walls in the heart of Fallujah.
...

What [police chief Col. Faisal Ismail al-Zobaie] wants is for the U.S. military to hand over full control of Fallujah. He believes Iraq's current leaders are not strong enough. Asked whether democracy could ever bloom here, he replied: "No democracy in Iraq. Ever."

"When the Americans leave the city," he said, "I'll be tougher with the people."

What is happening here? Fallujah has been turned into a prison; isolated from the rest of Iraq, and divided into nine walled-off security zones called "gated communities". Just to travel across the city, people have to go through choke-points where mercenaries -- former insurgents now making $180 a month each for work with the Iraqi-American "security services" -- check every car and register every visitor.

Their boss says things like: "No democracy in Iraq. Ever."

How did we come to this?

According to the Washington Post, it's "Peace Through Brute Strength".

The "Iraqi City's Fragile Security Flows From Hussein-Era Tactics".

No kidding. It's a return to the past. Or so Sudarsan Raghavan tells us [same article; alternate link]:

The story of Zobaie and his police force opens a window onto the Iraq that is emerging after five years of war.

American ideals that were among the justifications for the 2003 invasion, such as promoting democracy and human rights, are giving way to values drawn from Iraq's traditions and tribal culture, such as respect, fear and brutality.

Oh!! So that's what's happening!! I should have known all along, I suppose. How could I have forgotten?

American Ideals such as Promoting Democracy and Human Rights

The trouble in Fallujah started back in 2003, as described by Chris Hughes in the UK's Daily Mirror [original link broken, archived here]

IT started when a young boy hurled a sandal at a US jeep - it ended with two Iraqis dead and 16 seriously injured.

I watched in horror as American troops opened fire on a crowd of 1,000 unarmed people here yesterday.

Many, including children, were cut down by a 20-second burst of automatic gunfire during a demonstration against the killing of 13 protesters at the Al-Kaahd school on Monday.

They had been whipped into a frenzy by religious leaders. The crowd were facing down a military compound of tanks and machine-gun posts.

The youngster had apparently lobbed his shoe at the jeep - with a M2 heavy machine gun post on the back - as it drove past in a convoy of other vehicles.

A soldier operating the weapon suddenly ducked, raised it on its pivot then pressed his thumb on the trigger.

Mirror photographer Julian Andrews and I were standing about six feet from the vehicle when the first shots rang out, without warning.

We dived for cover under the compound wall as troops within the crowd opened fire. The convoy accelerated away from the scene.

Iraqis in the line of fire dived for cover, hugging the dust to escape being hit.

We could hear the bullets screaming over our heads. Explosions of sand erupted from the ground - if the rounds failed to hit a demonstrator first. Seconds later the shooting stopped and the screaming and wailing began.

One of the dead, a young man, lay face up, half his head missing, first black blood, then red spilling into the dirt.

His friends screamed at us in anger, then looked at the grim sight in disbelief.

A boy of 11 lay shouting in agony before being carted off in a car to a hospital already jam-packed with Iraqis hurt in Monday's incident.

Cars pulled up like taxis to take the dead and injured to hospital, as if they had been waiting for this to happen.

A man dressed like a sheik took off his headcloth to wave and direct traffic around the injured. The sickening scenes of death and pain were the culmination of a day of tension in Al-Fallujah sparked by Monday's killings.

The baying crowd had marched 500 yards from the school to a local Ba'ath party HQ. We joined them, asking questions and taking pictures, as Apache helicopters circled above.

The crowd waved their fists at the gunships angrily and shouted: "Go home America, go home America."

But America was not about to go home. And the events of the day were not over.

Values drawn from Iraq's Traditions and Tribal Culture

We rounded a corner and saw edgy-looking soldiers lined up along the street in between a dozen armoured vehicles. All of them had automatic weapons pointing in the firing position.

As the crowd - 10 deep and about 100 yards long - marched towards the US positions, chanting "Allah is great, go home Americans", the troops reversed into the compound.

On the roof of the two-storey fortress, ringed by a seven-foot high brick wall, razor wire and with several tanks inside, around 20 soldiers ran to the edge and took up positions.

A machine gun post at one of the corners swivelled round, taking aim at the crowd which pulled to a halt.

We heard no warning to disperse and saw no guns or knives among the Iraqis whose religious and tribal leaders kept shouting through loud hailers to remain peaceful. In the baking heat and with the deafening noise of helicopters the tension reached breaking point.

Julian and I ran towards the compound to get away from the crowd as dozens of troops started taking aim at them, others peering at them through binoculars.

Tribal leaders struggled to contain the mob which was reaching a frenzy.

A dozen ran through the cordon of elders, several hurling what appeared to be rocks at troops.

Some of the stones just reached the compound walls. Many threw sandals - a popular Iraqi insult.

A convoy of Bradley military jeeps passed by, the Iraqis hurling insults at them, slapping the sides of the vehicles with their sandals, tribal leaders begging them to retreat.

The main body of demonstrators jeered the passing US troops pointing their thumbs down to mock them.

Then came the gunfire - and the death and the agony.

After the shootings the American soldiers looked at the appalling scene through their binoculars and set up new positions, still training their guns at us.

An angry mob battered an Arab TV crew van, pulling out recording equipment and hurling it at the compound. Those left standing - now apparently insane with anger - ran at the fortress battering its walls with their fists. Many had tears pouring down their faces.

Still no shots from the Iraqis and still no sign of the man with the AK47 who the US later claimed had let off a shot at the convoy.

I counted at least four or five soldiers with binoculars staring at the crowd for weapons but we saw no guns amongst the injured or dropped on the ground.

A local told us the crowd would turn on foreigners so we left and went to the hospital.

There, half an hour later, another chanting mob was carrying an open coffin of one of the dead, chanting "Islam, Islam, Islam, death to the Americans".

All this trash-talk!

"Islam, Islam, Islam"?? Isn't that just a bit old?

"Death to the Americans"?? How dare they?

Respect, Fear and Brutality

We sacrificed to liberate these ungrateful wretches, and now they speak like this to us?

Nobody who heard those words could possibly bear it.

The retribution came in November of 2004.

Maps of War dot com: The Recapture of Fallujah

After the fall of Baghdad in April of 2003, Operation Iraqi Freedom transformed from a conventional war into a murky struggle against a multi-faceted insurgency. Nothing was more emblematic of this new phase than the city of Fallujah.

In November of 2004, American forces launched Operation Phantom Fury to recapture Fallujah, a heroic and harrowing story which is best told in Bing West's book No True Glory. Military officials recounted the battle as "some of the heaviest urban combat Marines and Army infantry soldiers have been involved in since Vietnam." All told, it was one of the most decisive moments in the history of the war.

The Fallujah invasion was a classic 'hammer and anvil' strategy. The bridges, highways, and other periphery choke-points were captured first in order to corner the enemy (anvil), then the secondary force moved in with a direct frontal assault (hammer). The weakness of this tactic is that it encourages the enemy to fight more fiercely since escape is made impossible.

American Ideals such as Promoting Democracy and Human Rights

Another "weakness" of this "tactic" became apparent shortly after the "heroic and harrowing" battle, when it turned out that -- because the long-rumored destruction of Fallujah had been delayed until after the so-called Presidential election -- the insurgents had already escaped!

Chris Floyd for the Moscow Times [see original for copious links]:

Eight weeks of relentless bombing was followed by a cut-off of the city's water, electricity and food supplies. More than two-thirds of the residents fled the coming inferno; those who remained were considered fair game in the house-by-house ravaging that followed. Among the Americans' first targets were the city's medical centers, as U.S. officers freely admitted to The New York Times. They were destroyed or shut down, with medical staff killed or imprisoned, to prevent bad publicity about civilian casualties from reaching the outside world, the officers said. Later, an investigation by the U.S.-backed Iraqi government found strong evidence of the use of chemical weapons against the city. Up to 6,000 people were killed in the attack, most of them civilians.

The few hundred Fallujah-based insurgents who had been the ostensible target of the assault had escaped long before the onslaught began. Thus there was no real military purpose to the city's destruction, which had been ordered by the White House; it was instead an act of reprisal, a collective punishment against the Iraqi people as a whole, noncombatants included, for the armed resistance to the coalition conquest.

Values drawn from Iraq's Traditions and Tribal Culture

Chris Floyd again, from Empire Burlesque 1.0 [and again, the original is heavily annotated]:

"There are more and more dead bodies on the streets and the stench is unbearable. Smoke is everywhere. It's hard to know how much people outside Fallujah are aware of what is going on here. There are dead women and children lying on the streets. People are getting weaker from hunger. Many are dying are from their injuries because there is no medical help left in the city whatsoever. Some families have started burying their dead in their gardens."

This was a voice from the depths of the inferno: Fadhil Badrani, reporter for the BBC and Reuters, trapped in the iron encirclement along with tens of thousands of civilians. It was a rare breath of truth. The reality of a major city being ground into rubble was meant to be obscured by the Infoglomerate's wall of noise: murder trials, state visits, Cabinet shuffles, celebrity weddings – and, above all, the reports of "embedded" journalists shaping the "narrative" into its proper form: a magnificent feat of arms carried out with surgical precision against an enemy openly identified by American commanders as "Satan," the Associated Press reports.

One of the first moves in this magnificent feat was the destruction and capture of medical centers. Twenty doctors – and their patients, including women and children – were killed in an airstrike on one major clinic, the UN Information Service reports, while the city's main hospital was seized in the early hours of the ground assault. Why? Because these places of healing could be used as "propaganda centers," the Pentagon's "information warfare" specialists told the NY Times. Unlike the first attack on Fallujah last spring, there was to be no unseemly footage of gutted children bleeding to death on hospital beds. This time – except for NBC's brief, heavily-edited, quickly-buried clip of the usual lone "bad apple" shooting a wounded Iraqi prisoner – the visuals were rigorously scrubbed.

So while Americans saw stories of rugged "Marlboro Men" winning the day against Satan, they were spared shots of engineers cutting off water and electricity to the city – a flagrant war crime under the Geneva Conventions, as CounterPunch notes, but standard practice throughout the occupation. Nor did pictures of attack helicopters gunning down civilians trying to escape across the Euphrates River – including a family of five – make the TV news, despite the eyewitness account of an AP journalist. Nor were tender American sensibilities subjected to the sight of phosphorous shells bathing enemy fighters – and nearby civilians – with unquenchable chemical fire, literally melting their skin, as the Washington Post reports. Nor did they see the fetus being blown out of the body of Artica Salim when her home was bombed during the "softening-up attacks" that raged relentlessly – and unnoticed – in the closing days of George W. Bush's presidential campaign, the Scotland Sunday Herald reports.

Respect, Fear and Brutality

Trevor Royle, Diplomatic Editor of "The Herald" at Information Clearinghouse:

Soldiers call them bogey weapons -- nasty pieces of military hardware which kill or maim as efficiently as any other type of armament but in so doing push the victim into a vortex of agony and suffering. White phosphorus, or Whiskey Pete, comes into that category. On one level it's a legal military weapon. Provided that it is used against enemy soldiers as a smokescreen or battlefield illuminator, it is a useful addition to an arsenal one reason why it is available to British and US forces in Iraq. On another level, deployed as an offensive weapon and usually in secret, it causes severe blistering of the skin and mucous membranes, and if inhaled can do dreadful damage to internal organs. When US forces fired WP shells in the battle to break into the Iraqi city of Fallujah last November they knew exactly what they were doing. Combat outside daylight hours always causes problems for the attacking side. Darkness brings the kind of confusion which favours the defenders. Fired as an artillery shell, WP explodes in the air creating a bright artificial light and providing a useful smokescreen for the attacking infantry soldiers. After the battle for Fallujah the Bush administration admitted [sic] that WP had been used sparingly and had only been fired into the air to illuminate enemy positions, not at enemy fighters.

Like so much that has happened in this long, drawn-out and increasingly dirty counter-insurgency war, the use of WP was not what it seemed. Last week an Italian television documentary, Fallujah: The Hidden Massacre sounded the first blast on the whistle when it claimed that WP had been used in a massive and indiscriminate way not only against the insurgents but also against civilians. Some Iraqi doctors claimed that the victims had melted skin or that white phosphorus had burned through body tissue to leave bones exposed.

Jeff Englehart, an experienced US marine interviewed in the documentary gave a chilling account of what happens when WP is unleashed It doesn't necessarily burn clothes, but it will burn the skin underneath clothes. And this is why protective masks do not help, because it will burn right through the mask . It will manage to get inside your face. If you breathe it, it will blister your throat and your lungs until you suffocate, and then it will burn you from the inside. It basically reacts to skin, oxygen and water. The only way to stop the burning is with wet mud. But at that point, it's just impossible to stop.

Denials came thick and fast from Washington but these were given short shrift when a semi-official US army publication, Field Artillery Magazine, published a damning article claiming the exact opposite. What gave the article substance was that it was based on an official army account which has been seen by the Sunday Herald: a Memorandum for Record prepared on December 1, 2004 by the FSE (fire support element) of the US Task Force's 2nd Battalion, 2nd Infantry, 3rd Brigade Combat Team. In the paper the US artillery commanders, two officers and a sergeant, admitted that WP had been used in an offensive capacity against Iraqi positions: We used it for screening missions at two breeches and, later in the fight, as a potent psychological weapon against the insurgents in trench lines and spider holes. We fired "shake and bake" missions at the insurgents, using WP to flush them out and HE [high explosive] to take them out.

American Ideals such as Promoting Democracy and Human Rights

Graphic video from the Italian news service RAI: Fallujah: The Hidden Massacre

Values drawn from Iraq's Traditions and Tribal Culture

Iraqi blogger Riverbend at Baghdad Burning:

People in Falloojeh are being murdered. The stories coming back are horrifying. People being shot in cold blood in the streets and being buried under tons of concrete and iron... where is the world? Bury Arafat and hurry up and pay attention to what's happening in Iraq.

They say the people have nothing to eat. No produce is going into the city and the water has been cut off for days and days. Do you know what it's like to have no clean water??? People are drinking contaminated water and coming down with diarrhoea and other diseases. There are corpses in the street because no one can risk leaving their home to bury people. Families are burying children and parents in the gardens of their homes. WHERE IS EVERYONE???
...

Iraqis will never forgive this -- never. It's outrageous -- it's genocide and America, with the help and support of Allawi, is responsible. May whoever contributes to this see the sorrow, terror and misery of the people suffering in Falloojeh.

Respect, Fear and Brutality

Fadhil Badrani, "an Iraqi journalist and resident of Falluja who reports regularly for Reuters and the BBC World Service in Arabic", in English, via the BBC:

A row of palm trees used to run along the street outside my house - now only the trunks are left.

The upper half of each tree has vanished, blown away by mortar fire.

From my window, I can also make out that the minarets of several mosques have been toppled.

There are more and more dead bodies on the streets and the stench is unbearable.

Smoke is everywhere.

A house some doors from mine was hit during the bombardment on Wednesday night. A 13-year-old boy was killed. His name was Ghazi.

I tried to flee the city last night but I could not get very far. It was too dangerous.

I am getting used to the bombardment. I have learnt to sleep through the noise - the smaller bombs no longer bother me.

Without water and electricity, we feel completely cut off from everyone else.

I want them to know about conditions inside this city - there are dead women and children lying on the streets.

People are getting weaker from hunger. Many are dying from their injuries because there is no medical help left in the city whatsoever.

Some families have started burying their dead in their gardens.

Reprise

Baghdad Bureau Chief Sudarsan Raghavan of the Washington Post:

Fallujah today is sealed off with blast walls and checkpoints. Residents are given permits to enter the city. All visitors and their weapons are registered, and police check every car. The U.S. military has divided the city into nine gated communities, each with its own joint security station staffed by U.S. troops and Iraqi police. It also has been buying the loyalties of former Sunni insurgents, paying them $180 a month to join a neighborhood force that works with the police.
...

Shops stay open longer, streets are clogged with traffic, and soccer fields brim with children and young men. But for many residents, Fallujah remains a shadow of its former self. "The city is like a big jail," said Abu Ahmed, a well-known doctor who asked that his nickname be used because he has treated people who were brutalized by [police].
...

What Zobaie wants is for the U.S. military to hand over full control of Fallujah. He believes Iraq's current leaders are not strong enough. Asked whether democracy could ever bloom here, he replied: "No democracy in Iraq. Ever."

"When the Americans leave the city," he said, "I'll be tougher with the people."

It was done in our name but without our consent. So there! You see how well the system works!

It was paid for with our money -- and our blood. We are suffering because of it; we will suffer much more before we're finished.

But our suffering is nothing compared to what we have inflicted on the people of Iraq -- innocent victims of "American ideals such as promoting democracy and human rights".

Winter Soldier: Bitter Truths From Those Who Know

This weekend, as we approach the fifth anniversary of the American invasion of a defenseless oil-rich country which never threatened us, Iraq Veterans Against the War are presenting the testimonies of soldiers who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and of civilians who have lived through the invasion and occupation of their country.

The event is called "Winter Soldier", and you can watch it happen (or watch archived video) here.

Apparently it isn't worth a mention in our allegedly liberal "paper of record".

Your search - site:nytimes.com "winter soldier" - did not match any documents.

But Saturday's Washington Post has a piece on page B1, the web version of which (much to the WaPo's credit) actually links to the IVAW website!

The WaPo piece, by Steve Vogel, gives the Pentagon a chance to speak, and cleverly leaves no doubt as to the value of the verbiage.

A Defense Department spokesman said he had not seen the allegations raised yesterday but added that such incidents are not representative of U.S. conduct.

"When isolated allegations of misconduct have been reported, commanders have conducted comprehensive investigations to determine the facts and held individuals accountable when appropriate," Lt. Col. Mark Ballesteros said.

How laughable this would be if it were not so tragic. Mark Ballesteros hasn't even seen the allegations but he can already assure us that they're false!

This is an unprovoked war of aggression -- the invasion and occupation of a defenseless, non-threatening country -- the ultimate crime against humanity. That's not an isolated allegation of misconduct; that's a fact!

The so-called "War on Terror" is in fact a barbaric assault on several foreign countries simultaneously (Afghanistan and Iraq directly, and Somalia and Pakistan by proxy, with even more countries in the cross-hairs). It has killed at least a million people and ruined the lives of millions and millions of others. And all the reasons officially given for it have turned out to be not just false but ludicrous!

It's a crime of monstrous proportions, and the individuals who ought to be held accountable are still at large. But instead we get this ... so let's wait a while and see whether Lt. Col. Mark Ballesteros can stuff his head all the way up into his small intestine. Oh, my mistake! There was no need to wait!

Vogel's piece bends over backwards to go the "fair and balanced" route, giving plenty of space to obvious liars of all types. But that seems to be the price of admission in post-democratic America, so it's not surprising.

And yet, the article also includes some nuggets of truth.

Former Marine Jon Turner began his presentation by ripping his service medals off his shirt and tossing them into the first row. He then narrated a series of graphic photographs showing bloody victims and destruction, bringing gasps from the audience. In a matter-of-fact voice, he described episodes in which he and fellow Marines shot people out of fear or retribution.

"I'm sorry for the hate and destruction I've inflicted upon innocent people," Turner said. "Until people hear about what is happening in this war, it will continue."

I couldn't agree more, and in fact this is the key reason why the government and the "news" media don't want us to know what is happening in this war.

Not just this war, of course: they don't want us to know what happens in any war. If everybody thought Rambo was realistic, the warmongers would be very happy. They do their best to control what we see, and it works very well for them, unless we go looking.

So we can't just sit passively and watch TV, or go to Hollywood movies for our worldly education. If we want the truth about what our country does in the world, we have to pay attention to the people who have done it, and listen carefully to the people to whom it was done.

Two former soldiers who served with the 1st Armored Division described an attack by an AC-130 "Spectre" gunship [photo] on an apartment building in southern Baghdad that they said took place Nov. 13, 2003.

"It was the most destructive thing I've seen, before or since," said [Cliff] Hicks, one of the soldiers.
...

"These are not bad people, not criminals and not monsters," said [Hicks]. "They are people being put in horrible situations, and they reacted horribly."

Horrible is right! And the most horrible aspect is that there is no reason for any of these horrible situations -- unless you count the part where we lost control of our electoral system, or the part where the real news vanished from our "news" media, or the fear generated by obvious false-flag terror, or the stupidity that somehow in modern America acts like a gas and fills all the available space.

Other than these relevant yet unrelated issues, there's no good reason for any of our soldiers to be in any horrible positions.

Unless you count the oil.

Adam Kokesh, a student at George Washington University who served with the Marine Corps in Iraq, said Marines were often forced to make snap decisions about whether to fire on civilians.

"During the siege of Fallujah, we changed our rules of engagement more often than we changed our underwear," he said.

On the screen, a photograph showed him posing next to a burned-out car in which an Iraqi man was killed after approaching a Marine checkpoint.

"At the first Winter Soldier in 1971, one of the testifiers showed a picture like this and said, 'Don't ever let your government to do this to you,' " Kokesh said. "And still the government is doing this."

The people of Iraq and Afghanistan are not the only ones suffering, and they're not the only ones whose suffering has been mostly hidden from us:

At a session on shortcomings in veterans' health care, audience members sobbed as Joyce and Kevin Lucey described the suicide of their son, Marine Cpl. Jeffrey Lucey, a death they blamed on his inability to get treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder.

Mental health specialists were on hand to help speakers and audience members, and a workshop was offered on PTSD.

The veterans who participate in Winter Soldier will undoubtedly be smeared forever for having told a few minutes of truth.

Such is life in post-democratic America.

Those who spoke yesterday described the experience as intimidating.

"It was terrifying for me," said Steven Casey, a former 1st Armored Division specialist from Missouri who also described the AC-130 attack. "I knew somebody needed to hear it. All I wanted to do is say what I saw. I'm not accusing anyone of a crime."

From the look of the IVAW site at the moment, a lot of people need to hear it.

Fighting Bullshit With Bullshit: The Surge And The Myth

Many years ago -- in the New Yorker, unless I am mistaken -- I saw a cartoon that has stayed with me. It was a simple scene: a man in a suit standing behind a podium, speaking. Easy to draw, and hardly remarkable, but the caption was brilliant. It said:

Don't believe his lies. Believe my lies.

I hadn't thought of that cartoon for a long time but it came rushing back to me when I started reading a column by Congressman Robert Wexler [photo], published at Bob Parry's Consortium News, and called "A Surge of More Lies".

In this piece, Congressman Wexler disputes the administration's contention that the surge has been "a resounding success", a contention which, as Parry points out in a short introduction, has become "an article of faith in Official Washington".

Wexler's method is instructive and, I would suggest, representative (no pun intended) of the "best" American "journalism" has to offer. In other words, Wexler fights bullshit with bullshit.

Excerpts first, then translation:

The surge had a clear and defined objective – to create stability and security - enabling the Iraqi government to enact lasting political solutions and foster genuine reconciliation and cooperation between Sunnis, Shias, and Kurds.

This has not happened.

There has been negligible political progress in Iraq, and we are no closer to solving the complex problems - including a power-sharing government, oil revenue agreement and new constitution - than we were before the Administration upped the ante and sent 30,000 more troops to Iraq.
...

The reduction in violence in Iraq has exposed the continuing failure of Iraqi officials to solve their substantial political rifts. By President Bush's own stated goal of political progress, the surge has failed.
...

The military progress is a testament to the patience and dedication of our brave troops – even in the face of 15-month-long deployments followed by insufficient Veteran's health services when they return home.

They have performed brilliantly – despite the insult of having President Bush recently veto a military spending bill that enhanced funding and benefits, and increased care.

Despite the efforts of American soldiers, the surge alone cannot bring about the political solutions needed to end centuries of sectarian divide.
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Enough is enough: While the Administration over-commits American forces in Iraq, we see al-Qaeda regrouping and Osama bin Laden still at large. We remain seriously bogged down in Afghanistan, and are witnessing a crisis in Pakistan that has left a nuclear country on the brink of a meltdown.

America's resources and attention are desperately needed elsewhere and our soldiers must no longer be needlessly sacrificed as we wait for Iraqis to stand up.

First, Wexler misrepresents the point of the "surge". He confuses publicity with reality when he talks about the point of the surge. The basic idea, of course, was to extend and expand the war -- to create a quagmire so deep and so vast that no two succeeding administrations could find a way out. All the rest was window dressing.

But rather than call a war crime a war crime, Wexler goes along with the program. And thus, in his telling, the surge has failed because it hasn't enabled the Iraqis to agree on a formula by which they will divide the scant 12% of the money that comes from their oil after they agree on a formula by which control of that oil will be handed to wealthy foreigners.

The surge has failed because the Iraqi people, in the midst of being tortured and shot, raped and looted, crushed and burned, and bombed in their own homes by the occupying foreigners, have failed to stop the civil war the occupiers started just a few years ago -- but which Wexler now describes as "centuries of sectarian divide".

The surge has failed despite the sacrifices of all the brave soldiers who have served so brilliantly, because America still doesn't have what it wants: a compliant government, the oil rights, a constitution to make all the petro-looting permanent and enough basic security to make commercial development viable.

In other words, since the Iraqis have not stood up and given us what we want, the surge has failed. So now it's time to get out. That's Wexler's lie: we got our ass kicked, the Iraqis aren't worth our sacrifice, so let's go home ... well, not home exactly: let's not be bogged down anymore; let's find Osama bin Laden; let's go save Afghanistan and Pakistan.

It's horrible, and it's double-bullshit, but as I mentioned, it's representative. It's the best you're going to get from the Democrats and it's the best you're going to get most of the time from the major "news" media. Sorry about that.

If you want to know what's really going on -- what the surge was really about and how we really know it has really failed -- you have to know where to look. And surely Chris Floyd's Empire Burlesque deserves a spot at the top of any list of such places.

Floyd's newest post provides a great example of why I consider his site so valuable: in "Ground Zero: On the Front Lines of a War Crime" he links to a powerful source of real information about the real war -- two sources, actually: "As Iraqis See It" by Michael Massing, from the New York Review of Books, and Massing's source, "Inside Iraq", a blog written from Iraq by employees of McClatchy News.

Floyd's sharp eye catches the major theme:

These are people happily working with Americans, English-speaking, not sectarians, not insurgents; yet the picture they paint of the American occupation, and its effect on the daily lives of ordinary Iraqis, is damning indeed. As Massing notes:

The overwhelming sense is that of a society undergoing a catastrophic breakdown from the never-ending waves of violence, criminality, and brutality inflicted on it by insurgents, militias, jihadis, terrorists, soldiers, policemen, bodyguards, mercenaries, armed gangs, warlords, kidnappers, and everyday thugs. "Inside Iraq" suggests how the relentless and cumulative effects of these vicious crimes have degraded virtually every aspect of the nation's social, economic, professional, and personal life.

Massing tells of the confrontation that McClatchy blogger Sahar had with American troops who invaded her home one night. One soldier was astounded to find American science fiction books, John Grisham novels and even video games like Grand Theft Auto on her shelves:

She told me that when the American soldier discovered Grisham and Asimov on her bookshelf, "He was totally amazed. When he looked at me, he didn't see an Iraqi woman in a hijab, he saw a human being. You can't imagine the look on his face—there were tears in his eyes. He was inside a house, with love, a family, like anywhere else."

The incident, Sahar said, gave her a sense of the extent to which the Iraqi people are unknown. "People in America look at pictures of Afghanistan and think Iraq is the same," she said. "They think Iraqis are people who are uneducated, who are Bedouins living in tents, tending camels and sheep." Until the plague of wars began devouring the country, she went on, Iraq was the leading nation in the region, with a highly educated people boasting the best doctors, teachers, and engineers. Americans, Sahar sighed, "don't know this. And when you don't know a person, you can't feel for them, can you?"

She continued: "How many have been killed in Iraq? Bordering on a million. If you realize that these are real people with real feelings who are being killed—that they are fathers and husbands, teachers and doctors—if these facts could be made known, would people be so brutalized? It's our job as Iraqi journalists to show that Iraqis are real people. This is what we try to advance through the blog."

Massing's conclusion cuts to the heart of the matter: the relentless humiliation of having foreign soldiers occupying your native land:

The question on everyone's mind, of course, is whether the Americans should stay or go. On this, [McClatchy bureau chief] Leila Fadel told me, her Iraqi staff is divided. Some of them think the Americans should leave at once. While withdrawal would probably result in a bloodletting among Iraqis, they believe the country would be better off if this happened sooner rather than later, thus avoiding the effects of a prolonged occupation. Others think the Americans should stay and fix all the destruction they've caused over the last four and a half years. But, she adds, the staff's views on this keep shifting: "They're at war within themselves—on whether they want the Americans to stay or not, and whether they think that staying would make things any better. It's something they go back and forth on."

Whichever side they come down on, however, there is one feeling that predominates: humiliation. "They remind me of this constantly," Fadel says. "Americans believe their soldiers are working for the greater good. The Iraqis don't see that. They see people who are here for their own self-interest—who drive the wrong way on roads, who stop traffic whenever they want to, who they have to be careful not to get too close to so that they won't be shot." When one of her staff members wrote the post about the student who threw a rock at a US soldier, Fadel says, she asked him, "Why did this kid throw a rock at a man with a weapon, a helmet, and a vest? What was he thinking?" "These are foreign soldiers," he replied. "This is an occupation." That, Fadel notes, is a very common feeling among Iraqis. "Everybody I speak to thinks this. They don't have power in their own country."

And that's just the beginning of an essential education. I think you should read all of "As Iraqis See It" and bookmark "Inside Iraq".

If you think it's sad that this sort of coverage is lacking from the major dailies, consider that the smaller papers are for the most part considerably worse.

"Maine Owl" provides a perfect illustration with "Fallujah as "progress" in Iraq", landing on a note that rings true and clear:

The entire environment in which news is reported in America about Iraq is broken. The Pentagon very much loves local papers to report the "good news" and not the bad. So far in 2008, it is getting what it wants.

What's Next For Pakistan? What's Next For Us?

In recent discussions about the "state of emergency" which has brought de facto martial law down upon Pakistan, some people have wondered whether a similar fate lies ahead for the United States.

Pakistani journalist Fatima Bhutto [photo] has been thinking along parallel lines, but she's wondering what's next for Pakistan, and she's looking at Iraq!

In a column published the day after emergency rule was declared, Fatima honored the restriction against ridiculing the President, General Pervez Musharraf, mostly by not mentioning him at all.

But she extended no such courtesy to her aunt, Benazir Bhutto, to whom she referred in glowing terms such as "a formerly self-exiled political dynamo" and "the Daughter of the East (read: West)".

Fatima also mocked the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO), which granted amnesty to all (read: selected) former politicians. The NRO paved the way for the return of Benazir Bhutto but the government has denied the same courtesy to another former Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, who was arrested at the airport and deported to Saudi Arabia when he tried to enter Pakistan in September.

The amnesty law, drafted in secret negotiations between Musharraf and Benazir, and brokered by Americans desperate to keep Musharraf in power no matter what the cost to his country, has been proclaimed as a step toward civilian democracy. But not everyone was deceived, even before the state of emergency was declared.

Fatima Bhutto's column was ostensibly a reaction to Newsweek's October 29 piece, "Where the Jihad Lives Now", but it covered quite a bit more ground. I reproduce it in full below and I invite you to savor it.

As Fatima Bhutto says, "Let's spend a moment imagining just how spectacular our Iraqi style democratic landscape is going to be."

Iraq redux?

Wither Iraqi style democracy? According to a very ominous cover story in Newsweek, it's here in Pakistan. Newsweek is confident in asserting that 'today no other country on earth is arguably more dangerous than Pakistan'. Not even Iraq. In fact, according to Newsweek Iraq is so 2006, Pakistan is it now; we're the new black. We've managed to kick Iraq off the pages as the world's most horrifying, most destructively precarious country and reclaim the title for ourselves. According to the Newsweek article, Pakistan has 'everything Osama Bin Laden could ask for' including a vibrant jihadi movement, political instability, access to worrisome weaponry, and a lonesome nuclear bomb. The article quotes a now deceased Taliban commander as romantically noting that 'Pakistan is like your shoulder that supports your RPG'. It is swoon worthy stuff really.

While the Newsweek article is no doubt an excited piece of fear mongering journalism, is it actually so far off the mark? Not really. We have recently been brought Iraqi style democracy by a formerly self-exiled political dynamo (remember to say thank you). Our nascent 'democracy' has been shipped over to Pakistan at the behest of delightful Neo-Con masters -- George W. Bush et al. -- and is complete with letters from the United States Senate and phone calls from Condi. If this isn't enough to strike you as eerily familiar, there's more.

Like our own harbinger of 'democracy', Iyad Allawi, the American choice for Iraq's post occupation Prime Minister, was deftly assisted by a Republican lobbying firm in Washington D.C. Allawi's firm spent $340,000 in their campaign to push him as the people's Prime Minister. How much did the Daughter of the East (read: West) spend on her campaign for a glorious return? Democracy does nothing if not advocate transparency and accountability of its public servants, but not in Pakistan where we are a step above the rest thanks to the fact that our criminals are cloaked by the National Reconciliation Ordinance.

Similar to Iraq's foray into Neo-Con democracy, ours has kicked off with a spate of portentous violence. One hundred and forty dead? No problem. That's called collateral damage. They died for democracy, just like the estimated 655,000 dead Iraqis did. As Mistress Condi would say, these are the birthing pangs of democracy. Our Iraqi style democracy will be bloody, but we're being heralded into a new era. That should be a comfort to us. Before we go silently into this good night, it's worth taking a look at our predecessor. Let's spend a moment imagining just how spectacular our Iraqi style democratic landscape is going to be.

The corruption that plagued the Iraqi occupation will be no problem for Pakistan. The US led provisional Authorities, headed by Paul Bremer, managed to 'lose' $8.8 billion dollars worth of funds meted out by the US government by the time they handed power over to a 'democratic' Iraqi government. The Iraqi Central Bank also faced a mysterious cash shortage as millions of dollars disappeared from its vaults. Allawi's government, in time, managed to drain one fund of $600 million dollars, leaving no paperwork behind. What amateurs these Iraqis are. We're set. We have the NRO; there will be no money troubles in Pakistan, the new Iraq.

Poverty? We have that in spades. Figures from 2006 place eight million Iraqis as living on less than $1 a day. Almost 70 per cent of Iraqis are unemployed thanks to Neo Liberal shock therapy economics and some 96 per cent of Iraq's population depends on food rations. In Pakistan we don't have food rations for our poor, we let them starve. Note to self, we'll have to get on that.

Underdevelopment is also something we Pakistanis will beat Iraq at. Who does Newsweek think they're kidding? We've long been worse than Iraq and our successive governments continually pride themselves on doing absolutely nothing about it. More than 500,000 residents of Baghdad are deprived of running water and when they do have access to it, it's not potable due to the fact that 65 per cent of Iraq's water plants have been subject to leaks and sewage contamination. These figures, largely from US Foreign Relations Committee hearings and other independent American sources, offer proof of America's wanton destruction of Iraq. Pre-war Saddam era figures don't even come close.

Households in Baghdad receive on average only two to six hours of electricity a day, largely due to the collapse of Iraq's supply grid after the invasion. Prior to March 2003, Iraq's total power generation was around 4,300 megawatts, after Operation Iraqi Freedom it dropped to 3,700 megawatts. Isn't Neo-Con democracy wonderful? We have so much to look forward to.

A United Nations study of 2005 found that one third of Iraqi children suffer from malnourishment, whereas an Iraqi Health Ministry study of the previous year found that 'easily treatable conditions such as diarrhea' account for 70 per cent of deaths among children. We can match those figures, those brutal figures, and we don't even have a large-scale war going on. Baghdad has nothing on Karachi -- the many million residents of Lyari are routinely denied access to water and electricity. Households across this city in Malir, Ibrahim Hyderi, and Saddar -- you name it -- have always been deprived of these basic rights and not by occupational governments, but by our own 'elected' representatives. Tragically, we choose the very men and women who keep our city's neighborhoods entrenched in poverty. We vote for them. We'll probably vote them in again in 2008. As voters, we Pakistanis are either incredibly forgiving or monumentally stupid.

When Pakistan enjoys the same democracy that Iraq does -- and you know certain people are hanging their careers on this happening -- we won't even need hired armies like Blackwater to come in. Our police out-Blackwater Blackwater. They already behave like private mercenary forces, for hire wherever power and money call them. They do not protect and serve, no, not our police force. They are the protected and they serve only their own interests. Police brutality in Pakistan has raged for many years; Iraqi style democracy won't tame our vigilante cops, only empower them.

The violence is building, it's getting bloodier. Rawalpindi, Dera Bugti, Wana and that's only in the past week. Look at Swat. Once known for its beautiful Buddhist ruins and idyllic Northern beauty, it has been consumed by death and ruin. Just as Najaf and Karbala were overcome, just as Fallujah and Mosul were earmarked for destruction, so has Swat been. And what about those left behind? The victims of this rising violence? Like Cindy Sheehan, the courageous mother who followed President Bush all over the country holding a vigil for her son Casey, killed in the unjust Iraq war, we have our own mothers, wives, and sisters sitting Shiva outside government offices protesting the disappearance of their loved ones. Newsweek was not prescient; truthfully, they're a little late to the party.

The same could be said for the bulk of the American media, of course. A little late to the party, and with blinders on.

As for the American people, we still haven't even come to the party.

What is going to prevent Iraq-style democracy from taking Pakistan?

What is going to prevent the same thing from taking the USA?

If not us, who? If not now, when?

There's nothing you can do that can't be done...