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Friday, April 18, 2003

"Deranged marriage" offers a witty and intelligent critique of America's latest mind-numbing and culturally-simplifying reality TV show.

posted by Jenny at 12:00 PM |

Is being included on CNN's obituary list...an honor?

posted by Jenny at 9:34 AM |

It looks like DynCorp may be heading to Iraq to take over the policing actions Iraqis aren't allowed to carry out...a nice follow-up to the October NYT article on private military contractors, some of whose private militias are subsidiaries of Fortune 500 companies, working for the Pentagon.

posted by Jenny at 9:32 AM |

Fascinating

Check out CorpWatch's interview with Warren Langley, president of the Pacific Stock Exchange between 1996 and 1999. He served in the Air Force, and has worked for a defense contractor developing nuclear weapons systems. After reaching a spontaneous decision to protest the war in Iraq, he has become a peace activist who was arrested for non-violent civil disobedience after speaking out on the steps of his former employer at a protest blockade.

posted by Jenny at 8:32 AM |

Way to Go, Bechtel

The Bush administration awarded the Bechtel Group of San Francisco the first major contract today in a vast reconstruction plan for Iraq that assigns no position of authority to the United Nations or Europe.

...

The award will initially pay Bechtel, a closely held San Franciso company that posted $11.6 billion in revenue last year, $34.6 million and could go up to $680 million over 18 months.

Capital Eye reports that, based upon figures from the Federal Election Commission, Bechtel was the highest campaign contributor among all American companies now hired for the reconstruction of Iraq. Bechtel contributed a total of $1,297,465 to campaigns between 1999-2002, 59 percent of which was given to Republican candidates and $6,250 of which went specifically to Mr. Bush's campaign, second only to Halliburton's $17,677.

posted by Jenny at 6:15 AM |

In London, the body of a deceased Muslim woman was desecrated in an apparent hate crime.

posted by Jenny at 6:05 AM |

Franklin Graham, who has denounced Islam as a "wicked and evil" religion, will be leading the Department of Defense in Good Friday prayers today despite protest from Muslims at the Pentagon.

posted by Jenny at 5:57 AM |

Jeanne d'Arc is on top of the latest developments with the looting of museums and libraries in Baghdad...if you are at all interested, and even if you aren't, check out her collection of links and info here.

posted by Jenny at 5:54 AM |

Thursday, April 17, 2003

The fate of iraqwar.ru

Well, that Russian intelligence site has been discontinued, thanks in no small part to pressures from the United States. Some in the blogosphere even speculate that the blog was being used to inform the Iraqis of coalition movements.

posted by Jenny at 12:55 PM |

This interview with formerly-embedded Dutch journalist Laurent van der Stockt gives one perspective on Marine performance in the war on Iraq...one of the "highlights" being the killing of civilians.

Update: More Iraqis killed by Marines, this time in Mosul.

posted by Jenny at 12:48 PM |

Boycott frustration

Several months ago I threw out my Pantene, quit buying Maggi mixes and began a boycott on Proctor & Gamble, because of their unnecessary animal testing, and also simply because they are beginning to own everything. Giving up P&G has meant giving up a lot of other things, such as the most aerodynamically-contoured feminine hygeine products, Pringles, a whole lot of brands that spelled comfort to me in high school and, yes, college. Being gifted with curly hair that can quickly turn to frizz, I spent a significant portion of my uncomfortable youth on the search for reliable hair care products, and was thrilled when the German company Wella's stuff (the origins of which were unknown to me) worked wonders for my locks in the place of good old animal-tested Pantene. Well, that was all well and good until I was preparing breakfast the other day to overhear on the radio that P&G had bought out Wella. Wonderful, wonderful. In the end I started using an independent German brand which, according to transnationale.org, has no social significant social impact indicators and uses only seven offshore centers (likely money laundering hotspots or "tax free" labor zones) in comparison to P&G's 19+. Oh, and I had contemplated using L'Oreal's styling products (admittedly produced with a whopping 11 offshore centers), but Amp's post on the firing of that not-so-sexy sales associate has pretty much made me think twice. About using any and all of these @#$%ing products. The problem, as many of my friends and I often lament, is that we are living below the US poverty line, and it's pretty hard to find products from eco-homosapiens-friendly sources that don't break my bank account. German markets and bio-stores make it relatively easy to find cruelty, pesticide-free (and costly) foodstuffs, but personal care items aren't so easy to track down. I don't think I can afford Body Shop shampoo every two weeks. Besides getting my mother to ship those Foxfire books to me now and shirking my research grant to learn to make soap, is there any way to win in this situation without going broke?

This may sound like a trivial discussion compared to, well, almost everything going on around the world right now. But I think this small string of frustrations illustrates something key to the life experience of Gen Xers and those who are following them. It's one thing to speak of boycotts, adbusting, revolting against corporate domination. But the actual process of seeking out and building a community in which alternative sources provide daily necessities is incredibly hard, especially if you're coasting the periphery of the job market, hoping to stay afloat. For many who grew up shopping at Borders, slurping coffee at Starbuck's and picking up their Pantene at WalMart, the thought of finding new products seems Herculanean, if not impossible. But in many ways, these consumer choices are the key to unraveling larger and more expansive chains of oppression around the globe. If those of us who grew up in the US upper-middle class don't start somewhere, i.e., with hair mousse or soup mix, then what will all of this lofty rhetoric bring us in the long run? Which is one of the reasons I am taking time to write this, to emphasize again the importance of spreading awareness among today's consumers, in circles beyond our progressive comfort zone--and among the comfort zone itself.

Update: By the way, here's a list of P&G-owned products. Pretty scary, huh?

posted by Jenny at 12:40 PM |

Where are they now?

The Center for Public Integrity surveys the wherabouts of the top 100 figures in the Clinton administration, and who has gone through the "revolving door" to lucrative private sector jobs. Quite a few have made their way into corporate boardroom chairs, most notably Al Gore, who has recently been named to the Apple board or directors.

posted by Jenny at 11:29 AM |

Jeanne d'Arc hits home on the modern-day mythology and "Sally Field imperialism" of Bush's America.

posted by Jenny at 8:18 AM |

A chill wind...

Tim Robbins's address to the National Press Club deserves a read.

posted by Jenny at 8:11 AM |

War Horny (Revealing pic here as well)

Oil and empire notwithstanding, this war is also about the American libido. Since 9-11 it's been fragile and recessed. Defensive gestures like rallying 'round the flag don't address this deficit of lust. What's needed is a spectacular conquest. A massive military strike against a blustering but bluffing foe was inevitable once we were attacked. It doesn't matter whether the enemy actually poses a threat to us. Subjugating Iraq is a way to stoke the national stiffie.

The toppling statues of Saddam are a perfect counterpoint to the memory of those tumbling twin towers. Though one event has nothing to do with the other, they resonate in the psyche. No wonder the Pentagon wants the media to focus on images of high-tech mastery and stories of the gratefully invaded ("She wants it!"). Rumsfeld rocks to the rhythm of male arousal—it even informs his military strategy of speed over substance. In the Vietnam era, Henry Kissinger called power "the ultimate aphrodisiac." In Rumsfeld's update, a quick victory is the ultimate Viagra.

Before you call me a vulgar Freudian (oy!), consider the latest research on testosterone. In men, this hormone rises and falls dramatically; in women, it's more constant. Status has a lot to do with how much T a man's body produces. Alpha males have higher levels than losers, and that also goes for men who win a fight. On the battlefield or the playing field, triumph is a testosterone factory. But you don't have to be a champion to bristle with lust. Studies of sports fans show that guys feel sexy when their team wins. That's why sports bars are good pickup places. But testosterone does more than make men horny. Working in concert with adrenaline, it also makes them feel vibrant.

Only one event drove Iraq off the front page last week: the grand-slam homer by Yankee slugger Hideki Matsui, a/k/a Godzilla. When I first read the Daily News headline "Godzilla Roars!" I thought it referred to the marines. My confusion was understandable. The Fox-inspired style of war coverage owes a lot to ESPN. Data streams, tech talk, retired pros calling the plays, and the battle equivalent of helmet cams all create a confluence between sports and combat. Neither the Nielsen report nor the three cable news networks could break down viewing patterns by sex, so let me guess who is glued to the war news even when there's nothing urgent going on. He's a guy with a hard-on for sports or a big stake in video gaming, and he's tuning in to get his T up.

In this fantasia, any gladiator will do, whether he's rushing a quarterback or vanquishing a tyrant. Watching your team win inspires the same childlike awe, the same impulse to merge with the action hero, the same rush of desire. Depression lifts, confusion is dispelled, life is sweet. We're number one!

This experience is hard to find on the left. Watching your team lose the real-world series is a monumental bummer, and for many red-meat progs righteousness is a poor substitute for the hormonal surge that comes with power and prestige. That's my take on the psychology of left-wing hawks: They are fleeing from the effects of low status (and most of them are highly combative men). But you don't have to be butch to get the benefit of rooting for the warrior when you're convinced his cause is just. It's a libidinous act for anyone.

...

Brace yourself for inspirational anthems and heroic haberdashery. The hippest mannequins are already sporting combat wear: not just camo jackets and pants but sneakers, caps, and even thongs. There are khaki cloth belts, vests with lots of little pockets, shoulder sashes that smack of machine-gun magazines. A lot of this merch is being marketed to young women. The impulse is to accessorize, as if the power of the conqueror could be worn as a talisman.

That's always been true for men. Every military victory spawns a new male look. We owe the crew cut to World War II, and this time it's microfibermania. The current Men's Journal tells its young readers how to arrange these fabrics in seven formidable layers, just like the troops. This style requires a clean-cut mien, so watch for playa 'tude to lose its currency at the mall. The soldier-stud doesn't bash women; he liberates them. And he doesn't take offense if they dabble in khaki. Babes in battle gear are a fitting tribute to the women who fought on the front lines.

The image of the fighting female is being presented as a victory for feminism. It might be, if women were allowed to command men in combat, but that doesn't even happen at brokerage houses. So what does it mean when girls gear up in camo? One possibility: They may not be in charge, but they do have access to the phallus (and I'm not talking about blowjobs). What if the phallus isn't a penis? There's a French theory about this, so feel free to boycott it. But what if the phallus is a force that impinges on space—and other people? Anyone can possess that sort of dick, and once you do you're fully equipped to get a T-rush.

I wonder what Irigaray would have to say about this...

posted by Jenny at 8:01 AM |

More on the looting of the Baghdad museum--and who might have benefited from it. There's more to theft and antiquities trade than meets the eye, and one interest group in particular seems to have the Defense Department's ear--an affiliation of art traders calling itself the "American Council for Cultural Policy (ACCP)", whose goal in consulting the government might have been "an attempt by the influential dealers to ease restrictions on Iraq's antiquities laws. The group's treasurer ... favors the export and sale of some of the world's oldest treasures to the US." Experts speculate that the ACCP is seeking to "loosen up the Iraqi antiquities laws under an American-controlled postwar regime..."

posted by Jenny at 7:51 AM |

Another informative article at the Atlantic site...this interview with journalist Stephen Schwartz offers opinions and insight on Wahhabi ideologies, issues with democracy in the Middle East, disentangling the United States from Saudi influence, the Balkans, and educating people in the United States on the cultural diversity of Islam. I find many of his comments to be very interesting, but was also troubled by this sentiment at the end:

If you were for Bill doing it in Kosovo, you have to be for George doing it in Iraq. Look, I want America to be a powerful rescuer of the victims. I want America to be the powerful nation that brings democracy and freedom to those who are oppressed. I want America to be the liberator. I know that isolationists don't want to hear this, and realists don't like to hear this, and people think I'm inflamed by some crazy spiritual or religious ideal. But this is the country that ended slavery. This is the country that said that kings could not rule the world, this is the country that said that Hitler would not be allowed to rule Europe. This is the country that changed its whole society to bring civil rights to the African-American. This is the country that produced Martin Luther King. That's who we are, and that's who I want us to be.

Um, I have some major issues here. "Rescuer" of "victims"--I'm not even sure if I should get started on that one. I see a huge amount of negligence here in not addressing the role of the US in fostering cycles of oppression and victimhood. (And what about the rhetorical danger of employing the word victim, anyway?) And to argue that the United States is the country that ended slavery when it was relatively slow in ending slavery (in name) in comparison to its European neighbors, to argue that this is the country that said that kings could not rule the world, that Hitler could not be allowed to rule Europe...I think Schwartz is buying into that good ol' American civil religion here. And isn't there a bit of pedestal work on "the African-American" here? Have we really changed our whole society to bring "him"(?) rights? *sigh* While such talk might win over those who need the reassurance that we "Americans" created and own the patent on that shiny neon torch of freedom, I am skeptical.

posted by Jenny at 7:41 AM |

"If there is a God, then he gives us not only life but also consciousness and awareness. If I live my life according to my God-given insights, then I cannot go wrong, and even if I do, I know I have acted in good faith." Adolf Hitler, December 1941
"He who does not carry demonic seeds within him will never give birth to a new world." --heavily marked passage in Adolf Hitler's personal autographed copy of Magic: History, Theory and Practice (Ernst Schertel, 1923)

And now for something (seemingly) completely different, here's an article at Atlantic Monthly's May issue on Hitler's forgotten Library, seeking to understand what exactly the Führer was looking for in the unexpected surplus of religious works, from Christological to occult, in his collection. Fascinating--and much more well-rounded than most speculation I've seen on Hitler's spirituality (of self).

posted by Jenny at 7:11 AM |

It's a rare occasion when the Democrats make me smile. I have all but lost hope in America's loyal opposition...indeed, with a few notable exceptions, the donkeys on Capitol Hill seem a heck of a lot more interested in keeping corporate interests on the hook than mobilizing widespread awareness about Middle Eastern politics or the historical roots of global anti-Americanism. But, once again, I digress. I ran into this post at The Daily Outrage which is worth at least a smirk of satisfaction:

Was it wrong for citizens of the world's greatest democracy to publicly debate the war in Iraq, once that war had begun? House Speaker Dennis Hastert has suggested critics of Operation Iraqi Freedom might be giving "comfort to our adversaries." Majority Leader Tom DeLay has complained our men and women in uniform are such wilting flowers that to second-guess their President would "demoralize" them.

Democrats have replied with a webpage detailing all the ways Republicans felt free to deride Clinton's war in Kosovo. Check out Attorney General John Ashcroft (then a Senator) sniffing about the "lackluster air campaign"; DeLay complaining about getting "deeper embroiled into this Balkan quagmire," under command of "a president I don't trust"; while other leading Republicans make comparisons to Vietnam, call the Kosovo operation "a mess," "an unconstitutional war," "an unjust war," etc. Download the more detailed PDF file to see the carping about Clinton's war juxtaposed with a chronology of the military campaign. And don't miss the quaint alarm of Senator Phil Gramm wondering aloud how we'll save Social Security "if we keep spending the surplus" on an air war, while his colleague Tim Hutchinson frets the Kosovo operation might cost $6 billion that year. (Six billion! Ah, those were the days. Our first timid down payment on the Iraq war is more than 11 times that; the Bush tax cut would be more than 100 times that.)

posted by Jenny at 6:52 AM |

This article hits it home, once more, just how much work there is to be done on the American/Western homefront. How much of our concern with developing countries is a means of escape, a fetishization? An embrace of the underprivileged exotic and a negation of our own problems on the homefront? When I was younger, I always marveled at people who joined the Peace Corps, or moved to Africa or Latin America to teach science and English to village children, feeling a mixture of awe and envy because I figured I wasn't strong enough to leave home and live in such challenging, exotic environments, "helping people". Nowadays, I feel like a huge percentage of US-American actions in the "Third World" or global south smacks of colonialism...even those who want to work for NGOs, saving the indigenous from the encroaching forces of Coke and the golden arches, have aroused my skepticism. I remember when a treasured prof told me about Brazilian tribespeople who stood at the edge of the forest, greeting leftist documentary filmmakers with the sign, "Please, leave us alone." Have we really moved that far from the days in which Livingstone admonished the House of Commons that the two C's--Christianity and commerce--were the key crutches to the white man's burden? Like it or not, we are who we are--and although I don't want to belittle those from my own culture who go to live among the natives; at the same time, I feel like this model has been utterly and thoroughly exploited by Hollywood, and even more fetishized than in novels of "early American history". We must not attempt flights of fancy in which we perceive to merge with a new people, negating the very real differences that separate us from other classes, races, cultures, and more. Can our cultural skin ever fully be shed? The answer, in short, is no. bell hooks and other feminists have done much to debunk these racist, classist and otherwise tokenizing notions of "sameness" that retain the separate yet "equal" balances underpinning the military-industrial complex. Sadly, the revelations by hooks and her contemporaries have been missed by a huge portion of "American" society, which pathologically hates feminism and progressive activisim, using the conceits of earlier activists as an excuse not to look more closely.

But I digress. The bottom line is, what good does it to give money to the global needy if we continue to make consumer choices that not only lend to the degradation of employ on the homefront, but also perpetuate the systems of forced labor taking place across the developing world? If I ignore my own child's education, what good does it do if I set up a school in Congo, atheist or Christian? We are already seeing the effects of a poorly-educated populace, coupled by commercialized, impoverished or otherwise apathetic family systems, on American voter turnout. And the effects of that, of course, are a corporate government seemingly unchecked by any power on earth.

I don't mean to degrade the very helpful work being done in many areas of the world, particularly humanitarian and public education projects, by North American activisits. But I think that we American "conscientious" who dwell around the globe are in constant danger to closing our eyes to the trickle-down "atrocities" taking place in our own backyard. So many talented activists, NGO workers, volunteers from the United States. What would happen if we turned our gaze inward, on that which occurs in our country--that which sets the system in motion? All in all, it's easier to move abroad, learn a foreign language, immerse yourself among the "oppressed"...much more frightening and challenging to return home and take a stand to those who speak our language, who participate in our culture, who have the power to deny us the love and cultural acceptance that many of us have sought since the beginning of our existence. The greater challenge, then, may not lie in the life lived abroad, helping the underprivileged, but staying at home and dealing with the bogeymen of nationalism, apathy, consumption.

posted by Jenny at 6:46 AM |

The Debate Over UN Sanctions

I found this collection of articles and figures at The Agonist, and it's incredibly helpful if you're waging a debate on the effect of sanctions on Iraq. While Bush demanded recently that the embargoes be lifted, the United Nations is waffling on whether to lift the sanctions because the US is hesitant to allow inspectors back into Iraq.

posted by Jenny at 12:46 AM |

Wednesday, April 16, 2003

Here is Starhawk's account of the shooting and killing of International Solidarity Movement activists in Rafah. Since Rachel Corrie (23) was killed last month by an Israeli bulldozer, British ISM activist Tom Hurndall (22) and New Mexican activist Brian Avery (23) have both been shot in the head by Israeli forces. Details on these latest attacks can be found at the ISM website.

posted by Jenny at 2:25 PM |

On a brighter note

Via veiled4allah:

Muslims save Baghdad's Jewish community centre from looters
April 14 2003

Iraqi Muslims came to the aid of Baghdad's tiny Jewish community yesterday, chasing out looters trying to sack its cultural centre in the heart of the capital.

"At 3am, I saw two men, one with a beard, on the roof of the Jewish community house and I cried out to my friend, 'Hossam, bring the Kalashnikovs!'" said Hassam Kassam, 21.

Heither Hassan nor Hossam, who is the guard at the centre, was armed at the time but the threat worked in scaring off the intruders.

Two hours later, the looters returned again and Hassan Kassem used the trick once more.

The centre is located in a freshly-painted white house on a lane off Rashid Street in Baghdad's old town.

Two days ago, amid rampant looting in the capital, neighbours removed the sign reading 'Special Committee for the Religious Affairs of Ezra Menahem Daniel' to make the premises less conspicuous.

On Saturday at about 10.30am, two men seized an opportunity created by the guard's mid-morning break to try to force open the door in a first attempt to burgle the centre.

"We came over right way and asked them what they wanted," said Abdallah Nurredin, 50.

They tried to explain that they wanted to talk to the guard, Nurredin said, "but when they saw the look we were giving them, they left without saying another word".

Yesterday, Hossam the guard left to look for a real gun in case the persistent thieves returned.

"The Jews have always lived here, in this house, and it is only normal that we should protect them," said Ibrahim Mohamad, 36, who works in a small undergarments factory near the centre of town.

Although the majority of Jews fled the country in the early 1950s, many of their Muslim tenants come each week to pay their rent to an old woman at the centre, Mohamad said.

In the Batauin district near the Saddun commercial artery, the entrance of a large synagogue is blocked by an immense iron portal.

The way onto the street is obstructed by trees and chairs. A self-defence militia formed on Saturday to fight back against bandits.

"We are defending the synagogue like all houses on the street and we will not let anyone touch it," said Edward Benham, a 19-year-old computer science student.

The young Christian said that Jews normally came each Saturday but because of the lingering security problem, no one came last Saturday.

posted by Jenny at 10:32 AM |

What Have You Got?

Serenity tells it like it is.

posted by Jenny at 10:23 AM |

Every so often I read something that just makes me splutter with indignation...and I always splutter the loudest when it's something that I saw coming, yet wanted to avoid thinking about. Check out LMB's post on the latest incarnation of TNN, and its progression from The Nashville Network to The National Network, and finally and ultimately, coming out of the closet to embrace its true destiny, what it had been evolving into for some time now:

"...unapologetically male; it's active; it's smart and contemporary with a personality that's aggressive and irreverent. This is a first major step in our journey to super-serving men in a way no one has done before."

Auuuuuugh...

posted by Jenny at 9:38 AM |

I haven't spoken much of the looting in Baghdad, particularly among the museums, partly because other bloggers have done such a good job (see Body and Soul for starters, start here and scroll up), mostly because I don't want to confront the loss of the Code of Hammurabi, the epic of Gilgamesh, and everything else that lay in the display cases. As many have pointed out, these artifacts are irrelevant beside one spared human life, but I still feel a sense of disgust and dread at what will happen to them, the chronicle of arguably the world's oldest civilization. Of course, it's completely unsurprising that the "coalition forces" spent more time protecting the Ministry of Oil...the Bush administration has shown an incredible amount of disregard for Iraqi culture in the pursuit of its aims, disguising its economic interest as desire to give freedom to the people of Iraq. Shrugging off history that has anything to do with Arabic peoples, ignoring the obvious connections between their histories and that of Western ones, and the innovations of these ancient civilizations, is about par for the course.

posted by Jenny at 9:29 AM |

Clothes that spy on you

More on Benetton and RFID, via Cowboy Kahlil.

posted by Jenny at 9:11 AM |

This article does a good job of speaking to the death taboos of contemporary corporate media:

There is one thing missing as the cliches of conflict shrink back into their pockets of least resistance. No, not those fabled weapons of mass destruction. (Though they better start to turn up pretty damn quick.) The missing link, for those of us watching far away, is death: the bodies of the men and women who have died.

Now that, in a way, is understandable. It is difficult to talk about bodies, or their bags, without straying into emotional quicksand. As the defense editor of the Daily Telegraph dryly observes: "The anti-war party seeks to inflate the number of those [killed in battle] by adding civilian deaths, which it also inflates." Statistics aren't neutral, here; they come bearing their unhidden agendas.

But trading figures isn't beginning at the beginning. The real beginning is a much simpler observation. When you go to war, when you walk the battlefields, when you're there, you see the bodies of the fallen all around you. Part of the scenery.

...

Nevertheless: this televised war, with all its access and actuality and for all the uniqueness of the seats in the stalls it delivers, has largely turned away at the moment of final reality. "Some of the scenes here in Basra are just too gruesome for us to show you," one correspondent confessed, unblinking. And nobody stopped to ask: why?

If you work in television, of course, you know why. Consider the relevant BBC producers' guidelines. "We should be circumspect about pictures of and accounts of injured, dying and dead combatants. Consideration must be given to the dignity of the individuals regardless of national origin. Pictures should not normally be close up and should not linger too long. Remember too that pictures may identify individuals, even at a distance, before next-of-kin know."

"We should not sanitize the awful realities of war," these guidelines say, "but especially harrowing actuality and pictures have to be justified by the context. Warnings should be given beforehand if a report will cause unusual distress. Particular care is required for reports during daytime or early evening."

And so on and so forth, through the valleys of sense and sensitivity, taste, decency, propriety. Most broadcasters operate under similar rules (and are furiously berated by politicians and generals if they forget them). Most newspaper editors follow the throng. The dead become undead for photographic purposes; the hills and deserts are swept clean. Of course you can see why. Of course you wouldn't want, inadvertently, to tell some mother back home that her son is dead. Of course outrage, in its various manifestations, would inevitably follow.

...

It isn't as though television - guidelines and all - is exactly corpse-averse. On the contrary, America and Channel 5's most popular show, Crime Scene Investigation, delivers vanloads of corpses every week. Tune in tomorrow at 9pm to watch our heroes "discover a hand in a consignment of meat at a processing plant and swiftly discover that the rest of the body has been turned into hamburgers." Great! That's entertainment. But when it comes to real people killing other real people in our name, then "awful" and "harrowing" considerations - plus their relevant sub-clauses - come to bear. Our viewing sensibilities, real or assumed, come first.

And that, seriously, somberly, doesn't work any longer, practically or morally. It is self-censorship of the most self-serving kind. We can cover our screens and front pages with pictures of little Ali Ismail Abbas, with his missing limbs and longing eyes, because - for all his agonies - he's alive. But we can't show other 12-year-old playmates and friends, because they're dead. What kind of sanitized reality, pray, is that?

posted by Jenny at 9:10 AM |

Tuesday, April 15, 2003

South-of-the-Border Spying

It's no secret, of course, that the Bush administration is working to expand its surveillance powers over American citizens. Ill-conceived proposals like the CAPPS passenger screening program, for instance, are just the latest in a long line of White House-sanctioned efforts at data mining in the name of fighting terrorism.

For the last 18 months, however, the government has also been buying the personal data of hundreds of millions of residents of 10 Latin American countries -- all without their knowledge or consent. As the Associated Press reports, ChoicePoint, a private US company, has been purchasing information gleaned from voting and driving records in countries from Mexico to Brazil, then selling it to the likes of the Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department.

Unlike Europe, most Latin American countries lack privacy laws that specifically ban the sale of such information, but the line between legal and illegal data mining is murky. And in any case, ChoicePoint won't say exactly how it comes by its data. Colombia -- where ChoicePoint gathers cradle-to-the-grave information on all citizens -- provides a good illustration of the practice and its hazy ethics, critics say.

"'I don't believe 31 million Colombians authorized that,' said Nelson Remolina, a Colombian lawyer and privacy expert, referring to the number of records ChoicePoint obtained. The Colombian government is only supposed to divulge records requested by name, or when permission is granted by the subject, he said."

ChoicePoint, by the way, is no stranger to political controversy. As Gregory Palast reported for Salon, a ChoicePoint subsidiary was responsible for "purging" thousands of blacks from Florida's voting rolls in the 2000 elections, likely contributing to George W. Bush's win.

posted by Jenny at 1:56 PM |

TomPaine has a good review of the rising stars of Rummy, Condi and Wolfowitz (and the seeming disapperance of Powell) ...good for making the hair on the back of your neck rise.

posted by Jenny at 1:48 PM |

Bush vetoes Syria war plan

Perhaps my cynicism seems infinite...but I wonder if he'll still feel this way after, say, reelection?

posted by Jenny at 1:39 PM |

posts are on their way folks, hang on...

posted by Jenny at 12:00 PM |

Monday, April 14, 2003

Allright, now I've had my daily whoop of laughter.

Update: Missing Iraqi Minister Now Cult Figure.

posted by Jenny at 1:41 PM |

Here's a scary one (scroll down) via Tom Tomorrow:

With Republicans expecting President Bush to roll to reelection in 2004, their focus is fast turning to 2008 and whom the GOP will run against expected Democratic nominee Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. Now, Whispers is told that Florida Gov. Jeb Bush looks strong. "If Jeb is in the mix" for the nomination, says a top GOP official, "it's his."

posted by Jenny at 12:28 PM |

*sigh*

Yet another colonial export economy?

The U.S. Agency for International Development is expected to rely almost exclusively on profit-making corporations to rebuild Iraq's social institutions, angering nonprofit organizations that say they can do the work more effectively.

Several hundred million dollars are at stake in three development contracts, covering health care, education and governance, which are expected to soon be awarded by USAID. Tasks range from helping to build democratic institutions to publishing textbooks and training teachers.

Bidding for the contracts, which have not yet been awarded, was by invitation only. People familiar with the bidding process said only one nonprofit was contacted, and it refused the invitation because it didn't think the contract goals could be met within the one-year time period specified. In international development, the nonprofits are typically known as nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs.

"They seem to have turned to just a small pool of preselected large firms for these activities, despite decades of experience that NGOs can bring," said Mary McClymont, chief executive of InterAction, an association of nonprofit groups.

More.

posted by Jenny at 10:55 AM |

Apologies in advance for this lengthy post, but I couldn't help myself. This article must be read in its entirety, but I'll include some excerpted quotes here because it is excellent, and even if you don't have time to go to it now, you should read a little of it here.

War itself is venal, dirty, confusing and perhaps the most potent narcotic invented by humankind. Modern industrial warfare means that most of those who are killed never see their attackers. There is nothing glorious or gallant about it. If we saw what wounds did to bodies, how killing is far more like butchering an animal than the clean and neat Hollywood deaths on the screen, it would turn our stomachs. If we saw how war turns young people into intoxicated killers, how it gives soldiers a license to destroy not only things but other human beings, and if we saw the perverse thrill such destruction brings, we would be horrified and frightened. If we understood that combat is often a constant battle with a consuming fear we have perhaps never known, a battle that we often lose, we would find the abstract words of war--glory, honor and patriotism--not only hollow but obscene. If we saw the deep psychological scars of slaughter, the way it maims and stunts those who participate in war for the rest of their lives, we would keep our children away. Indeed, it would be hard to wage war.

For war, when we confront it truthfully, exposes the darkness within all of us. This darkness shatters the illusions many of us hold not only about the human race but about ourselves. Few of us confront our own capacity for evil, but this is especially true in wartime. And even those who engage in combat are afterward given cups from the River Lethe to forget. And with each swallow they imbibe the myth of war. For the myth makes war palatable. It gives war a logic and sanctity it does not possess. It saves us from peering into the darkest recesses of our own hearts. And this is why we like it. It is why we clamor for myth. The myth is enjoyable, and the press, as is true in every nation that goes to war, is only too happy to oblige. They dish it up and we ask for more.

War as myth begins with blind patriotism, which is always thinly veiled self-glorification. We exalt ourselves, our goodness, our decency, our humanity, and in that self-exaltation we denigrate the other. The flip side of nationalism is racism--look at the jokes we tell about the French. It feels great. War as myth allows us to suspend judgment and personal morality for the contagion of the crowd. War means we do not face death alone. We face it as a group. And death is easier to bear because of this. We jettison all the moral precepts we have about the murder of innocent civilians, including children, and dismiss atrocities of war as the regrettable cost of battle...

Yet, at the same time, we hold up our own victims. These crowds of silent dead--our soldiers who made "the supreme sacrifice" and our innocents who were killed in the crimes against humanity that took place on 9/11--are trotted out to sanctify the cause and our employment of indiscriminate violence. To question the cause is to defile the dead. Our dead count. Their dead do not. We endow our victims, like our cause, with righteousness. And this righteousness gives us the moral justification to commit murder. It is an old story.

...

The reasons for war are hidden from public view. We do not speak about the extension of American empire but democracy and ridding the world of terrorists--read "evil"--along with weapons of mass destruction. We do not speak of the huge corporate interests that stand to gain even as poor young boys from Alabama, who joined the Army because this was the only way to get health insurance and a steady job, bleed to death along the Euphrates. We do not speak of the lies that have been told to us in the past by this Administration--for example, the lie that Iraq was on the way to building a nuclear bomb. We have been rendered deaf and dumb. And when we awake, it will be too late, certainly too late to save the dead, theirs and ours.

The embedding of several hundred journalists in military units does not diminish the lie. These journalists do not have access to their own transportation. They depend on the military for everything, from food to a place to sleep. They look to the soldiers around them for protection. When they feel the fear of hostile fire, they identify and seek to protect those who protect them. They become part of the team. It is a natural reaction. I have felt it.

But in that experience, these journalists become participants in the war effort. They want to do their bit. And their bit is the dissemination of myth, the myth used to justify war and boost the morale of the soldiers and civilians. The lie in wartime is almost always the lie of omission. The blunders by our generals--whom the mythmakers always portray as heroes--along with the rank corruption and perversion, are masked from public view. The intoxication of killing, the mutilation of enemy dead, the murder of civilians and the fact that war is not about what they claim is ignored. But in wartime don't look to the press, or most of it, for truth. The press has another purpose.

Perhaps this is not conscious. I doubt the journalists filing the hollow reports from Iraq, in which there are images but rarely any content, are aware of how they are being manipulated. They, like everyone else, believe. But when they look back they will find that war is always about betrayal. It is about betrayal of the young by the old, of soldiers by politicians and of idealists by the cynical men who wield power, the ones who rarely pay the cost of war. We pay that cost. And we will pay it again.

Update: Chris Hedges, who works for the New York Times, spent 15 years reporting from conflict situations around the world. A "rehabbed war junkie", he is the author of War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning. There is a fascinating interview with him posted at Alternet.

posted by Jenny at 9:29 AM |

Anybody seen any polls, scientific, unscientific or otherwise, as to US public opinion on preemptive strikes against Iran and Syria? As Sharon sends two of his senior aides to Washington for talks on the "regional implications of the Iraq war" and the need to "take care of Syria and Iran", ready to be welcomed by the Bush administration's Likudniks, former Bush 41 Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger tells the BBC that Bush should be impeached if he takes military action against these two countries. I am curious as to where US public opinion is on this...does the domestic media even report when former government officials speak out against policies from the hawk's nest? And if so, does it have any effect at all?

posted by Jenny at 9:12 AM |

Nice.

From Reuters, via Tom Tomorrow:

"Is this your liberation?" one frustrated shopkeeper screamed at the crew of a U.S. tank as a gang of youths helped themselves to everything in his small hardware store and carted booty off in the wheelbarrows that had also been on sale.

"Hell, it ain't my job to stop them," drawled one young marine, lighting a cigarette as he looked on. "Goddamn Iraqis will steal anything if you let them. Look at them."

...

Dozens of corpses lay rotting by roadsides or in cars blown up by U.S. forces as they captured Baghdad.

Near the airport, volunteers wearing face masks and rubber gloves used shovels to scrape human remains from the burned-out wrecks of cars, trucks and buses, just yards away from U.S. forces and their tanks.
With no possibility of identification, corpses were being buried in shallow graves on the roadside.

"This is going to cause a major problem for sanitation and the water system," a U.S. army engineer officer told Reuters.

Nearby, the corpse of an airport worker rolled around in the current of a pool created when a U.S. bomb struck a water mains.

"That's 'bubbling Bob'," said one soldier. "Been there a while. I ain't gonna fish him out. Let the Iraqis do it."

posted by Jenny at 8:57 AM |

Unscientific poll alert

Has the war in Iraq made you more likely to vote to re-elect President Bush?

Yes, he's my choice now -- 15%
I would have voted for him anyway -- 40%
I would never vote for Bush now -- 45%

Get going!

P.S.--I stole this "alert" format from Tom Tomorrow, whose wit never ceases to amaze...

posted by Jenny at 8:48 AM |

US Considering Sanctions Against Syria

Yippee, just what we need--another Middle Eastern country starved by US sanctions. Bravo, Washington.

posted by Jenny at 8:44 AM |

Insightful to juxtapose the stories of a readily-liberated Tikrit with this account from Back in Iraq...

posted by Jenny at 8:40 AM |

About bloody time

The roadmap to a Palestinian state, conceptualized by the EU, Russia, UN and US has been released, as I just discovered at LMB. The actual text of the official statement can be accessed here. I'm currently at "Phase II" and am shaking my head, albeit unsurprised, at the ways in which Palestine is called upon to cease terrorist activity. All good and well on one hand; I am not trying to downplay the atrocities of Hamas. But what about Israeli attacks and settlement within the contested zone, pushed by the Sharon government? Thankfully, the document does call upon Israel to dismantle all outposts placed after 2001, and to halt settlement...but I can't help but think that until entities such as the EU, United States and beyond recognize the disastrous scale at which Israel has intruded into Palestinian territory and disrupted the lives of Palestinians, until these atrocities are systematically acknowledged within and outside of Israel, a lasting peace between these two groups will be hard to maintain.

I find the timing with all of this intriguing. The Scotsman suggests that Jack Straw allowed this "roadmap" to be leaked in an attempt to force Washington into releasing information on the issue with Bush could be withholding for fear of suffering harm from it in an election year. Nonethtless, Bush had been dropping hints about this lately. I believe that his "spontaneous" announcement of the plan to help inaugurate a Palestinian state, given in the Rose Garden in mid-March, was engineered to win Islamic support in the buildup to the war with Iraq. On the international level, the Bush administration needs to appear Islam-friendly...thus it wouldn't surprise me one whit if they were in agreement with the leaking of the document.

Of course, what matters the most in all of this is the way the plan will be implemented and whether it will be welcomed by Palestinians (and Israelis). Oh yeah, and whether or not (or maybe I should pessimistically say when?) the conservative war machine plans on rolling into Syria to root out them nasty chemical weapons.

posted by Jenny at 6:16 AM |

Sunday, April 13, 2003

Okay, I'm turning in...blogger is driving me nuts. I think it has something to do with the fact that I'm a Mac user. But I won't back down...there's more to come tomorrow!

posted by Jenny at 2:13 PM |

Religion & Ethics is featuring a neat list of prayers for times of war and danger. Interesting to see vedas juxtaposed with prayers from the Royal Army Chaplains' Department!

posted by Jenny at 2:10 PM |

In addition, the NY Review of Books has an informative article by Elizabeth Drew on the role of Karl Rove in the Bush administration. Since it's the mode to talk mostly about Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rummy and Perle these days, it was good for me to check on on Bush's longtime advisor...particularly since he seems to have played such a role in the making (or unmaking) of recent Texas politics.

posted by Jenny at 2:02 PM |

Here's an interesting post on the role of Bush 41 in his son's administration...

posted by Jenny at 1:53 PM |

Here's a good Michael Kinsley article on why victory in the war doesn't mean that those who supported it are victorious in the argument about the war. Another good one for those of you "peaceniks" enduring some gloating from the hawk's nest.

posted by Jenny at 1:42 PM |

Blogger has been ignoring my attempts to post for the last day or so...will have to do some catch up work!

posted by Jenny at 1:15 PM |