News from the Colonies - America's War in Iraq

Status
Not open for further replies.
I agree that what you have described is a real threat, and it is conceivable that attacks on America may be considered in some circles to be worth provoking, in order to consolidate power.

But I'm still holding out hope. The Busheviks have shown considerable clumsiness, are displaying growing gaps of credibility, and even in an election year there is visible division in the Republican ranks. From the initial self-righteous knee-jerk of nationalistic fervor, to the delayed and filtered public examination of events and their meaning, the totality of American response to terrorism is not yet finalized. I'm still hoping that just maybe we're getting smarter.

Bush administration policy has been extremely provocative of further attacks, maybe even intentionally so, from a cynical standpoint. But next time around the shock may not last as long (assuming the scale of attacks is not larger), and next time public scrutiny of government may be more readily applied, more focused, and more sustained. America's biggest political scandals could in such a sense become her greatest strength, whereby the really big intrigues and hidden agendas carry high risk of being scandalized. WHile the future is uncertain, and not a little frightening for people who value openness and freedom, it's also a very tricky era for the last gigantic colonialist dinosaurs still roaming the earth.
 
I think that Americans have given up on the vital checks and balances that the US has thrived off on for so long. All three levels of the federal gov't are republican, which by nature is not going to be overtly critical of the Bush administration. I think the Neo-Cons have done a very good job of convincing Joe Shmoo out there that America is threatened by enemies large and small. I was watching a Canadian program called hot type, and an author of An End to Evil being David Frum. Tried to defend his claims that America should combat terrorism because if it doesn’t a holocaust and genocide will befall the American ppl. This is the scare tactics that made the US go into Iraq. Its simple the public bought the premises of the war when many ppl were questioning it. Ppl in the US call these ppl peaceniks, of freaks but history has proven them to be correct. But Americans have such a high esteem for their nation (so they should) but nationalism should never blind the populous to the obvious. It’s a sad state of affairs when one looks at the US from the outside. You notice how tame the US media is, how uncritical of the administration it is. I don’t necessarily blame the American ppl for their blissful ignorance. It has been their gov’t and media which has short changed them of reality. Although I did not read the book as of yet, I will soon enough. An End to Evil is really a collection of thoughts on what the Neo-Con gods want:

Law-abiding citizens value privacy. Terrorists require invisibility. The two are not the same, and they should not be confused. (pg 71)
---------------------------------------------------
We may be so eager to protect the right to dissent that we lose sight of the difference between dissent and subversion... (pg 74)
-------------------------------------------------
But even a nation of laws must understand the limits of legalism. Between 1861 and 1865, the government of the United States took tens of thousands of American citizens prisoner and detained them for years without letting any one of them see a lawyer. (pg 229)
---------------------------------------------------
People who live next door to a storefront mosque in Brooklyn, New York, will almost certainly observe more things of interest to counterterrorism officials than will people who live next door to a Christian Science church in Brookline, Massachusetts. (pg 79)
-------------------------------------------
The lax multiculturalism that urges Americans to accept the unacceptable from their fellow citizens is one of this nation's greatest vulnerabilities in the war on terror. (pg 93)
-------------------------------------------
The administration's solicitude for Muslim sensitivities might well have been interpreted by many Muslims as a vindication of bin Laden's methods. (pg 149)

And it goes on and on and on:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5490.htm

To all Americans, it may seem pretentious of me to say this but you must get these men out of power. These men are some of the most powerful men in Washington; do you want them to rule you for much longer? This is nothing short of fascism at its best, nationalism, fear, xenophobia, in this case islamophobia, and imperialism. Your rights are being diminished and it seems very little effort is being done to combat this. Of course the US should deal with terrorism effectively but it must be done within what makes America great, with civil liberties, international alliances, and American popularity overseas. The masse ignorance of American society about the world around them and how it works do these men many favors. It's harsh criticism but it has been proven time and again. American democracy is at stake, and your way of life is as well, the American ppl are capable of doing this and the American ppl alone you are the strongest army in the world.
 
Bad writting and, even worse, edititing

I hate it when this happens.

A morbid smile tugs at my lips. Apparently two Finnish businessmen have been shot dead in Baghdad, and it is neither death nor Finn jokes that makes me want to laugh so badly. It's the testament to the fact that modern society no longer has the time to make sense. From the BBC:
Details of the attack on the Finnish businessmen emerged from the Finnish capital, Helsinki.

"I can confirm that two Finnish businessmen were shot and died in Baghdad this morning, but at this moment we have no further details," Rolf Johansson, a spokesman for the foreign ministry, said.
Click to expand...
That's just rushed writing with minimal copy editing.

F@ck the BBC. F@ck them right in the ear for that one.

• BBC. "Finnish businessmn shot in Iraq." March 22, 2004. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3556223.stm
 
Last edited:
In their defense, the press is under US restrictions in Iraq, and chaos is not. Imagine enduring the ordeal of getting into Iraq with BBC credentials, spending a few days rushing toward firefights, and asking corpses in dangerous empty streets, "what just happened?" It's a tough beat.

In some dark alley in the USA, someone may be the wrong color at the wrong time and end up dead in the next few days, as too often happens, and the papers will only be able describe the scene of the murder in a short routine blurb. Finnish.
 
(This post has been removed by Tiassa in order to make its own topic - 3.29.2004)
 
Last edited:
This is no way to treat your liberators:

Associated Press Television News pictures showed one man beating a charred corpse with a metal pole. Others tied a yellow rope to a body, hooked it to a car and dragged it down the main street of town. Two blackened and mangled corpses were hung from a green iron bridge across the Euphrates.
link

Conclusion: Iraqis don't deserve to be "liberated". Americans go home.
 
If these blokes were foreigners cruising your neighborhood, would you consider them liberators? Tourists? Friendly visitors?

They were armed mercenaries, and for these types to be portrayed as victimized American civilians in Iraq is quite a stretch. As a colony, the party was over for America in Iraq before it ever started, and it's going to continue deteriorating.

There can be no salvaging American legitimacy in shaping Iraq. If American leadership had any sense of reality they would be begging for UN peacekeepers to replace all Americans as rapidly as possible.
 
Blackwater is a private security firm employed by the DoD to provide protection for civilian contractors operating in Iraq. Companies like KBR that provide the bulk of the food and water and shelter for our troops hire firms like Blackwater to provide protection for their convoys. Blackwater hires former soldiers from countries all over the world.

There are literally thousands of civilian contractors at work in Iraq today rebuilding everything from the water systems to the power grid to restoring the oil fields, all in a collective effort to get the country back on its feet. These people might live down the street from you or I. They might work for the same company that you do. Do they not need security?

To suggest that it makes any difference that these poor souls were employed by Blackwater, or by Mactec Engineering is absurd. It's very sad to see someones politics cloud their sense of human decency.

To suggest that these sorts of attacks would automatically cease if U.S. troops changed their pots from desert brown to U.N. blue shows an incredible ignorance of the recent history of U.N. peacekeeping missions, notably the similar events that occured barely five years ago in Kosovo, or ten years ago in Somalia.
 
I am not suggesting that changing their pots to blue would help the situation. I am suggesting that everything that is institutionally American-branded within the corpse of Iraq is inevitably going to turn to shit. When I point out that American occupations in the mideast are unacceptable, I am referring to Arab sentiment, and not my own: American solutions to Arab problems are compromised by regional US policy that is distinctly unpopular among Arabs.

Attacking my "human decency" for this observation is your prerogative. My concept of human decency includes willingness to confront realities that contribute to escalating violence and tragedy in a part of the world I particularly care about. Examining why residents of Fallujah may be brutally venting their emotions is not to condone or encourage the insanity. Or, to acknowledge the reasons for violence is not to support the resultant acts of violence.

This is precisely where understanding breaks down between proponents of the US occupation / "nation building" and everyone else, and especially between interventionists and Iraqis, and it's important to take a long, disquieting look.

Everything happening in the aftermath of the US decision to invade Iraq is a US liability. The dying horror experienced by these Blackwater operatives, and the bereavement of their loved ones is in no way any different than the horrific trauma experienced by thousands of Iraqis as a direct result of American intervention.

The mainstream US media is scrupulously avoiding images of what war and hostile occupation looks like, because the American majority is under many illusions that are necessary for national comfort, and for staying national and corporate courses. Media fears very similar attacks on their "human decency" as you have made on mine- attacks that are based more on repressing truth for it's non-cooperation with a particular world view, than they are based on repressing the spectacle of suffering.

The horrific killing we choose to witness or ignore that stems from intervention in Iraq will continue and worsen until it is made painfully clear that the USA does not have a mandate to dismantle and assemble foreign governments, especially in such overt, violent, and deceptively justified ways.

Human decency sometimes requires not looking away from ugly realities, because denial and repression of these situations prolongs the violence. This intervention in Iraq was doomed from the start, and the suffering and dying will continue until this disturbing fact is accepted by the American voters and taxpayers who are consenting to it.
 
They were armed mercenaries, and for these types to be portrayed as victimized American civilians in Iraq is quite a stretch.
Click to expand...

You wrote that sentence Hype, and even if you regret it now, you still have to live with it. To suggest that you didn't realize what you said connotes means either you're backtracking, or you were not committed to the statement when you made it.

If you truly were committed to that statement, you were attempting to rationalize what happened today. You know it. I know it. Anyone with a brain can interpret what you meant when you used the word "mercernary" in place of "security contractor". Don't ever try to lose me in a circular argument.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I don't know it. I don't know why you are incredulous (we can leave that alone as an emotion you are entitled to). I don't know why "mercenary" does not apply to these personnel. I don't know where my argument is circular. Please explain.
 
Have you seen the footage? How can they be described as anything other than terrified do-gooders?
Mercenaries? Are you trying to be funny?
 
"...terrified do-gooders..."

:D The best medicine from the good Dr.

So long as we can laugh at our self-deceptions, there is hope. I realize some find humor insultingly inappropriate in these situations, but I know how it's always right there, and somehow psychologically precious, in the immediate experience of trauma. Many die spontaneiously laughing at the ridicilousness of war, and I've been surprised at the irrepressible giggle that adrenaline delivers right behind the dread of someone trying to kill you in very sudden and noisy ways. Of course there exists agony too, and humor does not deny it. I know that through deepest sorrow, the first good belly-laugh, even if over something stupid, means so very, very much.
 
US Promises Overwhelming Response to Iraq Killings

Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt - "It will be at a time and a place of our choosing. It will be methodical, it will be precise and it will be overwhelming."

That'll show'em who's boss!!

Are they also going to go after (with "overwhelming" force) the individuals who mutilated the corpses? Do they really deserve death?
 
I already suggested to leave them alone and go home. They're not welcomed!

It’s interesting to think that a couple of more incidences like this could significantly affect US public opinion on the occupation of Iraq. I never understood how the stupid public can be more concerned for mutilation of corpses than the suffering living. If that’s what it takes to change public opinion about the war then I say steal every god damn American corpse in Iraq and dance around with it in the streets. (I would say that even if it were the body of my son or daughter. I don’t want, need, or care about their dead body.)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
the Iraqis are divided in what they want. certainly those who live in the Sunni Triangle do not represent all of Iraq

Iraqis want stability, and the US forces are the only visible object at which they can throw their frustration at.

the Americans are simultaneously blamed for being in Iraq, and not being enough in Iraq (law and order haven't been restored yet)

the wild mob mentality doesn't really mean much if you look at these kids playing with the hung corpses, as drool flows from their mouth.

what comes to mind is the Colorado Avalanch fans in 1996 rampaging and rioting through Denver after the Avalanch won the Stanley Cup.
what was the purpose of burning cars and vandalizing property? just mindless mayham

of course, in Iraq it's not just that... there is, as i said before, some frustration, with the Americans being the only visible object...

so it's 2 of those elements mixed together.

the answer is to stay and prevent complete destabilization. if they leave, it will be a disaster
 
Million mercenary army?

Source: Information Clearing House/The Independent
Article Link: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5976.htm
Article Title: "Occupiers Spend Millions on Private Army of Security Men," by Robert Fisk and Severin Carrell
Article Date: March 29, 2004

Robert Fisk and Severin Carrell write in The Independent about private "security contractors" in Iraq.
An army of thousands of mercenaries has appeared in Iraq's major cities, many of them former British and American soldiers hired by the occupying Anglo-American authorities and by dozens of companies who fear for the lives of their employees.*

Many of the armed Britons are former SAS soldiers and heavily armed South Africans are also working for the occupation. "My people know how to use weapons and they're all SAS," said the British leader of one security team in southern Baghdad. "But there are people running around with guns now who are just cowboys. We always conceal our weapons, but these guys think they're in a Hollywood film."*

There are serious doubts even within the occupying power about America's choice to send Chilean mercenaries, many trained during General Pinochet's vicious dictatorship, to guard Baghdad airport. Many South Africans are in Iraq illegally--they are breaking new laws, passed by the government in Pretoria, to control South Africa's booming export of mercenaries. Many have been arrested on their return home because they are do not have the licence now required by private soldiers.*

Casualties among the mercenaries are not included in the regular body count put out by the occupation authorities, which may account for the persistent suspicion among Iraqis that the US is underestimating its figures of military dead and wounded. Some British experts claim that private policing is now the UK's biggest export to Iraq--a growth fueled by the surge in bomb attacks on coalition forces, aid agencies and UN buildings since the official end of the war in May last year. (The Independent)
Click to expand...
The issue apparently carries some implications for the British; an opposition MP noted, "This suggests that British forces are unable to provide adequate protection . . . ."

The Department for International development told The Independent, of its security situation: "DFID staff would prefer not to have this . . . It's much easier for them to do their job without any visible security, but the security risks are great down there."

Additionally, aid groups are concerned about the amount spent on security, such as the £278 million spent by DFID. Christian Aid's Dominic Nutt said, "It's right that DFID protects its staff, but this is robbing Peter to pay Paul."

Comment: The thing is that "nobody deserves to die," and "nobody deserves to die horribly." But this is a war zone, and those simple rules just don't apply.

Regardless of the roles of Fallujah's desecrated dead in dealing with the Iraqis, we must wonder at what an "army of thousands" of mercenaries/security contractors, does to the image of the occupiers held by Iraqis. Does the presence of irregular armed security forces blur the line between aid worker and oppressor? Are these contractors prepared for the "sensitivity issues" of the communities they work in?

Has South Africa turned "against us"? Does George Bush need to bomb Pretoria? Or does South Africa's desire to not be a staging ground for private offenders not count as lacking the resolve to do what's right?

(I'm not nearly as worried about the Pinochet-aspect of the Chileans; hey, if Iraqis can be retrained to the New American Order, so can the Chileans. But it's not necessarily good PR, and that can have a massive effect within the war zone while we all sit around and yap about it.)
 
Washington is allowing Iraq to very closely mirror the opening of the Lebanese civil war, when the appearance of foreign war dogs on the streets heralded the beginning of the country's complete shredding.
 
On a slightly heavier note, here's a little taste of Baghdadi nightlife to ponder, along with the future of this country:

"...waxing nostalgic about the good old days under Saddam, a refrain I am by now accustomed to hearing, and I was trying not to roll my eyes, two sharp gunshots cut her words short and returned her to reality. By now the sound of gun shots rarely distracts me, but this time it was too close, and too incongruent with the bustling nightlife. I saw two men walking hurriedly across the street in between the traffic, arms raised and pistols in the air. "They killed a man!" someone shouted. I got up and saw a man in a suit collapsed on the curb, blood spreading from beneath his head. The two men had walked up to him, shot him in the head, taken his pistol, then walked away laughing into a dark street."
Click to expand...

This website is a sobering read for anyone under illusions about the "liberation" of Iraq.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top