Antiwar.com Blog

FALLUJAH, Iraq, Aug 14 (AFP) – Eight Iraqis were killed and 10 others wounded, mostly women and children, on Saturday after US troops clashed with insurgents in the flashpoint city west of Baghdad and warplanes struck two homes, hospital sources told AFP.

They don’t even bother claiming to have had “intelligence” about their bombing targets anymore.

The US military said earlier it struck positions suspected of being used by insurgents after they attacked a US marine postition on the outskirts of the city at about 2:00 pm (1000 GMT) with rocket propelled grenades and machine gun and small arms fire.

My emphasis. These bombings of houses are clearly meant to be lessons in due process and the American legal tradition of innocent until proven guilty.

Click the image for the 2004 American presidential election Ultimate Metaphor:

From Tim at Doctor Recommended.

Lawrence of Cyberia on Arna’s Children:

Arna’s Children won the Best Film award at Prague’s One World Film Festival in April 2004. Days later, it received the Best First Documentary award at the Canadian International Documentary Festival. The following month, it was named Best Documentary at New York’s Tribeca Film Festival. Sadly, by the time Arna’s Children received this international recognition, all but one of the movie’s leading characters were already dead.

Fafnir interviews Tim Russert and Robert Novak:

FB: Wow. I wish I could be a real journalist like you guys!
RUSSERT: Oh, journalism isn’t for the faint of heart, Fafnir. You gird your loins every day only in the cloth of justice, and the only thing you’ve got coming to you is a lot of scorn, a lot of enemies, a ton of money, TV appearances, book deals, a promotional boys’ club that props up everything you do…
NOVAK: And the work. You’ve gotta get right in the thick of it. Some days you’ll get a call from the White House giving you something to write, and other days the phone won’t ring – and you’ll have to just make stuff up on your own!

Oh, and speaking of making stuff up, here’s Abu Aardvark on the NYT’s Team Miller and Chalabi.

Arthur Silber on THE USELESS PRESS, AND DEEPER INTO DISASTER.

Julia Child, 1912-2004 by Martial at De Spectaculis

Stupidest press conference ever. While you’re at TalkLeft, check out the post on Bush’s ‘Born-Again Drug War’ “There are faith-based organizations in drug treatment that work so well because they convince a person to turn their life over to Christ,” Bush divulged to the religious journal Christianity Today. “By doing so, they change a person’s heart [and] a person with a changed heart is less likely to be addicted to drugs and alcohol.”

Jesse Taylor at pandagon: Annie Jacobsen, discredited paranoid and the white woman who actually made herself seem like more of a terrorist than the 14 Arabic men she says were acting suspiciously, is back, desperately trying to prove her point. She interviews Billie Jo Rodriguez, apparently also a passenger on the flight, and the results are hilarious.

Mark at Rafah Kid Rambles:

In the last three weeks in Balata alone, soldiers have shot and killed three teenagers, one while he was drinking tea with his friends in the cemetery next to the grave of his relative. There is no reason for the soldiers to be in the camp: often they do not appear to be doing any kind of military operation; they do not arrest anyone; they just seem intent on terrorizing the residents.

The last boy killed was shot from a house which soldiers had occupied up on a hill. The family whose home it is told us that just after the soldier shot the boy, he turned to them and said: “We just shot an Arab boy, now you will hear his screams”.

Aaron Trauring links this story from Amira Hass in Ha’aretz: Gandhi’s grandson to kick off unarmed Palestinian campaign As Aaron says, this is hopeful news.

Yes, I know, everyone is posting it, but for anyone who hasn’t come across the link, here’s Roderick Long’s talk on anarchism from Mises University.

Joe at American Leftist comments on Wolfowitz’s latest brilliant plan:

So Wolfowitz wants $500 million to build a network of “friendly militias”, presumably, in places like the tribal areas of Pakistan: (from “A network of friendly militias to fight terror”, AFP)

The Pentagon urged Congress Tuesday to authorize US$500 million for building a network of friendly militias around the world to purge terrorists from “ungoverned areas” and warned Muslim clerics against providing “ideological sanctuary” to radicals. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, a key architect of the Iraq war, told the House Armed Services Committee the money would be used “for training and equipping local security forces– not just armies — to counter terrorism and insurgencies.”

I think the key here is finding the really really friendly militias. Hey, I know, how about those Afghan jihadists who we funded and trained to fight the Soviets in the 80’s? — I wonder what those guys are up to? …

Joe says he found this story at the Whatever It Is, I’m Against It blog, which I’m glad he linked up because I’d been meaning to blogroll this blog since finding the link over at Left I and forgot about ’til now. Anyhow, check out all WIIIAI’s posts – they’re good. Sample:

The attack on Najaf, which I believe is called Operation Sensitive Resolve, has been postponed in favor of trying to starve the city into submission, but sensitively, or as Colin Powell puts it, “Our forces in Najaf are squeezing the city.” He says the insurgents “don’t understand the spirit of peace and reconciliation” and therefore have to be starved, bombed and shot, in a spirit of peace and reconciliation.

I can remember when I thought Perry de Havilland was a libertarian.

UPDATE: Check out Swopa’s post on the Shi`a descending on Najaf.

From the AP:

About 10,000 demonstrators, some in buses, others on foot, arrived in Najaf on Saturday to show their solidarity with the militants and act as human shields to protect the city.

Many of the demonstrators arrived from as far away as Baghdad, as well as the southern cities of Amarah and Nasiriyah, demanding the interim government’s resignation and an end to the offensive here.

I was watching TV the other night and saw a new episode of the Verizon Wireless commercial, you know the one I mean, a guy with a cell phone at his ear repeatedly asks “Can you hear me now?” as he moves from spot to spot in the swamp, or desert, or city. And now, or plastic tent, which is where the new one takes place. It features veteran Palestinian detainee Abed al-Ahmar. What’s that, you haven’t seen it yet? Well then, click here.

In a late-breaking development, Israel has demanded that Verizon pull the al-Ahmar ad because it “aids, abets, glorifies and/or trivializes terrorism.”

Action Item

As Uri Avnery mentions, the settlers “have at their disposal almost unlimited amounts of money, provided by American Jewish millionaires and Christian fundamentalists.” One of the millionaires is Irving Moskowitz, whose casino license application is pending before California’s Gambling Control Commission. An effort is under way to stopmoskowitz.

Al Sadr is wounded or maybe he isn’t. The US has stopped attacking the Mahdi Army and is reportedly engaged in truce talks. This has the warfloggers hopping mad, and if you read their comments you’ll see that the neocons, Likudniks and Arab-haters are fragmenting from the Republican types who are defending Bush from accusations of appeasement and failing to smite the enemy with an iron fist, to hell with the consequences. Sadr has set some conditions to the truce, which triggered new howls of horror from the bomb junkies.

So, why did the US back off? If you remember, yesterday the military spokesman started emphasizing that the Marines (aka infidels) weren’t going into the Imam Ali shrine, oh no. The Iraqis were going to do it. What Iraqi would be insane enough to do this, you ask? Well, none of them, apparently. Not even the Kurds. It’s my opinion that once the peshmerga realized they were getting the shrine attack dumped exclusively on them, they backed off, for very good reasons, not least of which is that they were outnumbered.

Mahdi Army guerillas in Basra abducted a British journalist but turned him loose on Sadr’s orders.

I’ll update this posting with interesting developments through the day, as I did yesterday.

UPDATE: Thousands descend on Najaf after Sadr urges Shiite militia to fight on

Thousands of Iraqis descended on Najaf after Moqtada Sadr urged his Shiite militia to fight on, while US and Iraqi forces closed in on his stronghold and a British journalist was abducted in the south.

Around 2,000 demonstrators marched under the blazing sun from Najaf’s twin city of Kufa after Friday prayers, straight through the US and Iraqi lines to the revered Imam Ali mausoleum.

Showered with sweets and water, they embraced members of Sadr’s Mehdi Army who have battled US-led forces for nine days in this beseiged pilgrimage city and shouted their support for the cleric and his fighters.

“All of us are soldiers of Moqtada Sadr. With our blood and our soul, we serve you Ali” chanted demonstrators, none of them carrying weapons.

Militiamen refused 5,000 dinar notes being handed out by one man, waving him off. “We are mujahedeen,” or holy fighters, they said, as he desperately tried to shove the money in their pockets.

In Baghdad, a Sadr spokesman urged thousands more to march the 160 kilometres (100 miles) to Najaf, as another 1,000 began a similar walk from the holy city of Karbala.

“As we gather here, outside the headquarters of the agent of the occupation who have brought nothing but death and destruction to this country, we order you to march to Najaf on foot,” Sayed Hazem al-Araji told worshippers gathered outside the Green Zone, which houses the US embassy and some government offices.

In Karbala, Sadr representative Sheikh Abdulrazaq al-Nadawi told the faithful: “We’re going to Najaf to break the seige on our brothers”.

Mass protests were also held in Tallafar in the north and Kut al-Hayy in the south to denounce the caretaker government, while in Basra another Sadr aide pressed Iraqi police and national guardsmen to join the Mehdi Army.

In the Sunni Muslim bastion of Fallujah, 1,500 people called for holy war.

I included an article about this convergence of Shi`a on Najaf yesterday from a rather dubious source, but it seems to have been confirmed by this AFP article.

UPDATE: In Kut:

Seven Iraqis were killed and 34 wounded as US forces attacked suspected Shiite militia positions in the southern city of Kut, a hospital official said Friday, as the governor warned of air strikes if fresh violence broke out.

A woman was among six people killed and 20 wounded when US shells hit the Izzat district on the Tigris River, said the chief of Kut’s general hospital.

“The Americans also hit an Iraqi National Guard post by mistake in the Al-Haidariya neighbourhood, killing one guardsman and wounding 14 others at around 2:00 am (2200 GMT),” he added.

UPDATE: Hilla:

A group of 20 Polish soldiers have been surrounded by several hundred militants loyal to Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr at a police station in Hilla, southern Iraq, a Polish military spokesman said on Friday.

“Our soldiers were helping the Iraqi police, when their post was surrounded. Negotiations with the militant forces are under way, but there is no shooting going on,” Polish General Staff spokesman Colonel Zdzislaw Gnatowski said.

UPDATE: US bombs Fallujah again

US planes have bombed several targets in the Sunni Muslim city of Fallujah for the second day, killing four Iraqis, including two children.

Fallujah Hospital director Rafeh Iyad says another four people, including one child, have been wounded.
[…]
Several people had also killed and injured in US raids on the city on Thursday.

From the elipse: The US military says it has no information on the attacks on the city, which is west of Baghdad. How is that possible? A mystery bombing, I guess.

UPDATE: Sadr tells “interim government” to resign:

The spokesman quoted Sadr as telling supporters at Imam Ali Mosque: “I advise the dictatorial, agent government to resign … the whole Iraqi people demands the resignation of the government … they replaced Saddam with a government worse than him.”

“I will not leave this holy city,” the spokesman quoted Sadr as telling supporters who chanted “No, no to America.” “We will remain here defending the holy shrines till victory or martyrdom.”

Doesn’t sound like the truce is coming along very well.

Forget the angle everyone else is taking. Who is Golan Cipel?

This chapter covers the end of the Clinton administration to the transition into the Bush administration. Clearly, the 9/11 plot was in full force, many of the hijackers already in the US learning to fly or preparing their missions. The commission continues to reiterate Richard Clarke’s enthusiasm for attacking al’Qaeda as soon as possible. Such demands fell on deaf ears in both administrations. However, the report claims that the Clinton administration did its best:

“President Clinton was deeply concerned about Bin Ladin. He and his national security advisor, Samuel ‘Sandy’ Berger, ensured they had a special daily pipeline of reports feeding them the latest updates on Bin Ladin’s reported location. In public, President Clinton spoke repeatedly about the threat of terrorism, referring to terrorist training camps but saying little about Bin Ladin and nothing about al Qaeda. He explained to us that this was deliberate—intended to avoid enhancing Bin Ladin’s stature by giving him unnecessary publicity.” (page 191)

Around late 1999, Jordanian and American officials each captured al’Qaeda suspects. The arrests in Jordan helped to thwart a large millennium attack, while the arrest of a man on the Canadian border – with a trunk full of explosives – was a lucky catch (“It appears that the heightened sense of alert at the national level played no role in [the] arrest.” (page 196)). Unfortunately, these arrests did nothing to excite either administration into facing al’Qaeda head-on. Nonetheless, Richard Clarke’s staff warned after the events in Jordan that “[f]oreign terrorist sleeper cells are present in the US and attacks in the US are likely.” (page 196) Later, Clarke concluded:

” . . .U.S. disruption efforts thus far had ‘not put too much of a dent’ in Bin Ladin’s network. If the United States wanted to ‘roll back’ the threat, disruption would have to proceed at ‘a markedly different tempo.'” (page 199)

The next attempts to disrupt al’Qaeda were diplomatic. The President and a few cabinet members repeatedly visited Pakistan in 2000 with the hope of convincing its government to lessen its support of the Taliban. Pakistan’s repeated pronouncements of help never went into action, for as Madeleine Albright pointed out, the US had “few carrots to offer.” (page 200).

The government also focused on terrorist financing…sort of:

“Treasury regulators, as well as U.S. financial institutions, were generally focused on finding and deterring or disrupting the vast flows of U.S. currency generated by drug trafficking and high-level international fraud.” (page 201).

During these years, the CIA gradually received more funds for counter-terrorism operations. Unfortunately, symptomatic of any large bureaucracy, the OMB reported that “CIA spending on counterterrorism from its baseline budget had shown almost no increase.” (page 201) Continue reading “Notes on Chapter 6 of the 9/11 Report”