and guilty of shaming UK.”
According to the Scotsman, two low level British soldiers have been convicted of “abuse,” in their treatment of prisoners in Iraq at what they call “Britian’s Abu Ghraib.” Quoth The Scotsman: “THE ARMY was facing major questions over its handling of the Iraqi abuse scandal last night after five men in command at the camp where the abuse took place not only escaped charges but were promoted.”
It is reported that a US marine, who was captured on film killing a wounded Iraqi at point blank range during November’s assault on Fallujah, will not be formally charged due to lack of evidence.
Here’s a video of the shooting.
Here’s an eyewitness account by the person who filmed the video.
Something I left out of today’s column: in trying to back up his assertion that Syria is to blame for the assassination of Lebanese politician-businessman Rafik Hariri, Michael Young cites one Walid Jumblatt, the head of the Progressive Socialist Party. But who is this guy, Jumblatt, and why should we take him seriously? Well, we shouldn’t take him seriously, as evidenced by his past statements (reported by the New York Sun, via National Review):
“The Lebanese MP is also known for espousing conspiracy theories against America. On April 28, 2004, he gave an interview to Al Arabiyya TV, in which he detailed how America was really behind September 11: ‘Who invented Osama bin Laden?! The Americans, the CIA invented him so they could fight the Soviets in Afghanistan together with some of the Arab regimes. Osama bin Laden is like a ghost, popping up when needed. This is my opinion.'”
So, this Jumblatt character is to be believed — why? Young never says. Jumblatt’s loony ravings continue:
“Mr. Jumblatt was asked ‘Even 9/11?’ and answered: ‘Even 9/11…Why didn’t the sirens go off when the four hijacked planes took off?'”
He’s not only loony-tunes, he’s a rabid anti-Semite and racist:
“In addition to hating America, Mr. Jumblatt has also spoke against the countries that support America. Lebanon’s Daily Star published a February 3, 2003, article quoting him as saying that the true axis of evil is one of ‘oil and Jews’ … The oil axis is present in most of the U.S. administration, beginning with its president, vice-president, and top advisers, including [Condoleezza] Rice, who is oil-colored, while the axis of Jews is present with Paul Wolfowitz.'”
Jumblatt’s rantings are about as credible as this entire blame-Syria scenario, which is to say the whole thing is bull. What’s striking is that the War Party would stoop this low: citing a loon like Jumblatt whose views are positively Hitlerian. And it’s not as if Young didn’t know about Jumblatt’s crackpot views: after all, this account originally appeared in the Beirut Daily Star, where Young edits the opinion page.
How absurd is it for a foreign country to send troops to another foreign country and then import other foreign troops in to guard them? And when one foreign country decides to pull its troops out of the invaded country the remaining foreign country’s troops have to get some other foreign country to come and guard their troops that nobody wants there in the first place?
Juan Cole has a long post up in which he analyzes the somewhat sketchy information available about the process of choosing a candidate for PM of the Iraqi Assembly. Rather surprisingly, Ahmed Chalabi is still announcing to anyone who will listen that he has the votes to become PM. Cole explains how this might actually be true and also lays out a scenario which could result in Allawi retaining power.
Interestingly, Cole thinks that the women (33% of the seats by UN rule) might be the wild card that allow Chalabi to cobble together enough votes to be a contender, but Abu Aardvark reminds us of the truckloads of blackmail files Chalabi still has.
As I was writing this post, the wires began announcing that Chalabi has withdrawn from the PM contest, so now we can take all this reasoning about PM and apply it to whatever position Chalabi announces that he will win next since he never goes away.
Chalabi photo via billmon
According to a report from the Pentagon’s testing and evaluation office, the Defense Department wants to “target an adversary’s space capability by using a variety of permanent and/or reversible means to achieve five possible effects: deception, disruption, denial, degradation and destruction…”
Space control is military jargon for the ability to ensure one’s own access to satellite capabilities while denying space-based services to adversaries. It encompasses both defensive measures designed to protect satellites as well as what the Pentagon refers to as negation — measures to counter or destroy enemy satellite capabilities.
