Antiwar.com Blog

Raed Jarrar has an interesting idea. If you’ve ever wished you could help Iraqis deal with the aftermath of sanctions and the invasion as well as the ongoing occupation, this looks like a good way:

One of the last international NGOs, CARE, stopped their work in Iraq after their director was kidnapped yesterday. I used to see her all the time in the NGOs meetings in Baghdad.
Poor woman.

I have much to say about international NGOs and their work in Iraq, about their projects and their expenses, and about their international staff inside the country. But I prefer to postpone this some weeks until this kidnapping thing ends, peacefully as I hope.

With the withdrawal of most of the foreign humanitarian organizations from Iraq, and the incapability of the Iraqi “government” of funding itself much less funding local groups or organizations, the humanitarian crisis in Iraq is getting more serious.

Meanwhile, the U.S. army is planning to attack something around 20 cities and towns that are not under the control of the occupation authority.

“The Jarrars” (i.e. me and my family), decided to start a small individual humanitarian campaign for a month (maybe we’ll extend it) for buying basic things like some medical stuff, food, blankets, and other necessities and send them directly to hospitals in the most affected cities and towns. We will try our best to work under the supervision of one of the few functioning NGOs in Iraq (e.g. Occupation Watch, or others) to give more transparency to this small campaign, but over all the working plan is as follows:
*Money will be donated through PAYPAL to my account, (Jarrar_raed@hotmail.com), and will be reported on my blog frequently.
*My brother Majid will collect the money from Victoria in Canada and wire it to me in Jordan through my bank account.
*I will buy everything from Jordan, and publish the receipts on my blog.
*Then I will send things to my family in Baghdad, where they will send it in turn to hospitals depending on the priority and accessibility of the towns and cities.
*We will get official papers from the hospitals to insure they received the certain amount of supplements; we will publish them on our blogs too.
*We’ll publish a financial break down at the end of the month (end of Nov.)

You can send money from your credit cards too; even small amounts of money can do much in Iraq.

Today I received the first donation from a person in Japan called Tomoko. He sent 10,000 JPY.

Hit Raed’s Donation Button!

Some interesting election links:

*Various libertarian-ish people from Reason magazine’s Rolodex announce their presidential preferences. Kerry appears to be leading, with a strong showing by Badnarik. Most surprisingly emetic response goes to Nat Hentoff. (E.g., on Ralph Nader: “He’s also become part of the bash-Israel crowd, and to get on ballots he’s been cooperating with Lenora Fulani, who has been accused of harboring anti-Semitic biases.” Now I hold no brief for Fulani, but notice that Hentoff doesn’t even bother to call her “anti-Semitic,” much less provide any evidence for the charge – he’s content to simply note that she “has been accused of harboring anti-Semitic biases.” The stuff about FDR is nauseating, too.)

It is not my intention to disparage my fellow columnist Ivan Eland’s otherwise excellent book, “The Empire Has No Clothes: US Foreign Policy Exposed” (reviewed today by Anthony Gregory), but I do have to note an objection that concerns my field, such as it is.
Gregory’s review indicates that on page 140, Eland says:
“[I]n the year before the NATO bombing campaign, the number of Kosovar Albanians killed by Serbs was only about 2,500. In contrast, during the eleven weeks of Allied bombing, with no longer anything to lose, the Serbs slaughtered 10,000 Kosovar Albanians.”
Unfortunately, these figures are as accurate as claims about Saddam’s WMD’s. Continue reading “Myth of the 10,000”

If you thought Ron Suskind manufactured that quotation, Pat Robertson erases all doubts:

The founder of the U.S. Christian Coalition said Tuesday he told President George W. Bush before the invasion of Iraq that he should prepare Americans for the likelihood of casualties, but the president told him, “We’re not going to have any casualties.”

Pat Robertson, an ardent Bush supporter, said he had that conversation with the president in Nashville, Tennessee, before the March 2003 invasion. He described Bush in the meeting as “the most self-assured man I’ve ever met in my life.”

“You remember Mark Twain said, ‘He looks like a contented Christian with four aces.’ I mean he was just sitting there like, ‘I’m on top of the world,’ ” Robertson said on the CNN show, “Paula Zahn Now.”

“And I warned him about this war. I had deep misgivings about this war, deep misgivings. And I was trying to say, ‘Mr. President, you had better prepare the American people for casualties.’ ”

Robertson said the president then told him, “Oh, no, we’re not going to have any casualties.”

The most charitable reading of this I can muster is that Bush thinks casualty means fatality. Oh sure, Reverend, the boys might get a few flesh wounds . . .

But for God’s sake, still! This lunatic thought it would be possible to conquer a nation of 25 million, a nation he had endlessly pronounced a threat to world peace, WITHOUT A SINGLE DEATH? Or did he think he could simply decree such an outcome?

Saddam Hussein just moved down a spot on my list of people who shouldn’t have nukes.

Seriously.

The head of Iran’s security council said Tuesday that the re-election of President Bush was in Tehran’s best interests. Historically, Democrats have harmed Iran more than Republicans, said Hasan Rowhani, head of the Supreme National Security Council, Iran’s top security decision-making body.

Bush declined the endorsement.

Journalists in Iraq are learning that having their columns online is a lifesaver – especially if they’re not pro-war or pro-occupation. Australian journalist John Martinkus was googled and released:

Iraqi militants who kidnapped a reporter in Baghdad and threatened to kill him Googled his name to investigate his work before releasing him unharmed.

Australian John Martinkus was seized early on Saturday and held for nearly 24 hours before being freed.

His executive producer at an Australian news network, Mike Carey, said that the Internet – often used by Iraqi militants to air grisly images of hostages being beheaded – probably saved Martinkus.

“They Googled him and then went onto a website and saw that he was who he was, and that was instrumental in letting him go, I think, or swinging their decision.”

Carey said the company only heard of Martinkus’s abduction after his release.

“I got a call from John saying, ‘Mate, I’m at my fixer’s house, they’ve dropped us at the fixer’s house. I’ve been kidnapped but I’m free’,” he said.

Fixers are local people employed to help journalists.

Martinkus said his kidnappers initially threatened to kill him, before checking on his background.

He said he was treated well once he had told his kidnappers he was an independent reporter not linked to the United States-led coalition in Iraq.

Canadian journalist Scott Taylor , in this interview with AntiWar.com’s Chris Deliso relates a similar story:

After torturing me, the mujahedin gave me a pen and paper and told me to write down all the Web sites that might help prove my case. Even though they told me I had “failed the test” afterwards, I’m pretty sure from their behavior that they found enough articles there to vindicate me.

A later interrogator who questioned me at length was especially interested in why I hadn’t denounced the “imperialist occupation” of Iraq. He was very clear about this word. Come on – of course I have criticized the occupation on numerous occasions.

Thinking fast, I specifically referred them to one of our earlier interviews, “The Empire Strikes Out,” as well as the other interviews on Antiwar.com and on your site, besides other articles I’ve published.

CD: So, do you think that these interviews helped persuade the mujahedin to release you?

ST: I can’t prove that, but I’ve got to think it was probably a big help. … At very least I think it kept me alive at various points when they easily could have killed me, and would have.

And technically, it was this last group with the “anti-imperialist” leader that released me. So the specific articles I gave them, plus what you get when doing a search for my name and Iraq, yeah, I got to think that it helped swing things in my favor. So … thanks.