Antiwar.com Blog

Another orange-jumpsuited headless body has turned up in Baghdad, this time floating down the Tigris River. The body has not been identified yet. American Nick Berg’s body was also found dressed in an orange jumpsuit. Berg’s murderers claimed that Berg was killed in retaliation for the torture of Iraqi prisoners who also wear the orange jumpsuits.

An American apology to Iraqis –

Thanks to Eli at Left I for links and comments on the Not in Our Name ad Wednesday, July 7 on the back page of the Baghdad daily newspaper Al-Sabah Al-Jadeed declaring “No to torture and occupation.” Be sure and read the comments from ordinary Iraqis who were interviewed for their reactions to the ad.

And more on why apologies are in order –

Gryn at Daily Kos posts: Seymour Hersh says the US government has videotapes of boys being sodomized at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

“The worst is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking,” the reporter told an ACLU convention last week. Hersh says there was “a massive amount of criminal wrongdoing that was covered up at the highest command out there, and higher.”
[…]
Some of the worse that happened that you don’t know about, ok. Videos, there are women there. Some of you may have read they were passing letters, communications out to their men. This is at Abu Ghraib which is 30 miles from Baghdad […]

The women were passing messages saying “Please come and kill me, because of what’s happened”. Basically what happened is that those women who were arrested with young boys/children in cases that have been recorded. The boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling. The worst about all of them is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking that your government has. They are in total terror it’s going to come out.

It’s impossible to say to yourself how do we get there? who are we? Who are these people that sent us there?

Go here for the streaming video of Hersh’s speech.

“You seem surprised to find us here,” the man said. “I am,” I said. “I wasn’t expecting to find anyone.”

“We are everywhere,” the man said. “We are all over the country.”

“Forgive me,” I said, “but I don’t understand. Who do you mean by we?”

“Jewish refugees.”

I really didn’t know what he was talking about. I had been living in East Africa for the pasts two years and in those times the British colonies were parochial and isolated. The local newspaper, which was all we got to read, had not mentioned anything about Hitler’s persecution of the Jews in 1938 and 1939. Nor did I have the faintest idea that the greatest mass murder in the history of the world was actually taking place in Germany at that moment.

“Is this your land?” I asked him.

“Not yet,” he said.

“You mean you are hoping to buy it?”

He looked at me in silence for a while. Then he said, “The land is at present owned by a Palestinian farmer but he as given us permission to live here. He has also allowed us some fields so that we can grow our own food.”

“So where do you go from here?” I asked him. “You and all your orphans?”

“We don’t go anywhere,” he said, smiling through his black beard. “We stay here.”

“Then you will all become Palestinians,” I said. “Or perhaps you are that already.”

He smiled again, presumably at the naivety of my questions.

“No,” the man said, “I do not think we will become Palestinians.”

“Then what will you do?” Continue reading “Roald Dahl in Palestine”

Edit: Mashaan al-Juburi, Youssef Kashmola or Usama Kashmula (depending on which account you rely – picture here)governor of Mosul, was assassinated today as he drove toward Baghdad in a convoy.

Also assassinated today was Sabir Karim, an auditor for the Industry Ministry, as he left his office in Baghdad.

UPDATE: AP is naming the assassinated governor of Mosul as Youssef Kashmola. However, googling the name Youssef Kashmola or Youssef Kashmala produces no results. I can document al-Juburi as being the governor of Mosul up to June 17, 2004, so I’m not sure what’s going on at this time. I’ll update this post if I find the name verified or an explanation for this confusion.

The consensus seems to be some version of the Kashmola name. This picture identifies him as governor of Mosul province, not the city.

Democracy Now! is reporting that a deal has been struck between Dennis Kucinich and John Kerry’s warmongering delegates, brokered by political hack Sandy Berger, concerning the anti-war stance of the Democrat Party. Kucinich’s demand for an early withdrawal of US troops from Iraq has been quashed. Interviewed by Amy Goodman, Kucinich said:

“Amy, I have not changed my position one iota. I think it’s important to understand that. At the same time, what we’re able to achieve inside the Democratic Platform Committee is an altogether different thing. So, you know, I know that there’s still a great distance to go before the Democratic Party and John Kerry will have policies that are going to be satisfactory to me. But I also know that there comes a time where we have to realize the implications of what happens if we continue to say that, you know, if you don’t adopt a withdrawal strategy, you are not going to have our support. I think that’s, you know, that’s a very dangerous proposition in terms of the fact that we have an administration that lied to get us into a war, and you can’t — you know, you can’t pin that war on the Democrats. This was a — you know, there are Democrats who voted for it. That’s true. And John Kerry was one of them. And I’m going to do everything I can to keep trying to influence a new direction for the Party. But we didn’t have the votes inside the platform. So, the question is, do we — you know, do we create a fight that there’s just no support for winning inside the Party?” Continue reading “Did Kucinich Sell Out Anti-War Democrats?”

American Ambassador Robert Beecroft finished his mandate as head of the OSCE mission in Bosnia in early July. In his open farewell address, published by the Imperial propaganda outfit IWPR, and reposted by NATO propaganda outfit ISN, he offers an interesting assessment of Bosnia’s problems. While honest, his proposed solution shows a fundamental lack of understanding of Bosnia and its people.
Continue reading “More Mythical Bosnia”