Antiwar.com Blog

In light of the information breaking in the White House’s torture scandal, along with the legal complications of their thousands of detainees in Iraq as well as the fact that the Iraqi insurgents are clearly winning, I’m wondering who the Republicans are going to run as their presidential candidate. Do they have time to find someone?

On the other hand, they could probably just support Kerry, anyway. Maybe the Republicans could swing a pardon deal for the Bush Administration with Kerry.

Video Shows Murder And Slaughter Of American Robert Jacob, In Riyadh

Click link above for video link on Information Clearinghouse.

Chanting glorifying Jihad, or holy war, is heard in the background on the tape as two men are seen chasing a Western-dressed man who screams: “Wait, wait! No, no!”

Seconds later about 10 gunshots ring out as the man falls to the ground.

The tape, then shows the two men rush to the body. One appears to be slitting the victim’s throat.

The two assailants, who are also dressed in Western clothes, are only ever shown from the shoulder down.

The killing takes place in the covered yard of a residential building where a four-wheel-drive vehicle is parked in a garage space. After the killing, the tape says: “Voice of Jihad – expel the infidels from the Arabian Peninsula.”

The footage is attributed to an al-Qaeda terror cell which claimed responsibility for the killing.

The video described the victim as “American Jew Robert Jacob, who worked for the spy group Vinnell”.

Mr Jacob, 44, who worked for the US Vinnell Corp, which helps train the Saudi National Guard, was shot dead at his home in Riyadh last Tuesday. He was reportedly shot nine times in the head.

Yesterday, an al-Qaeda cell said it had killed a US national in a drive-by shooting and kidnapped another American in the Saudi capital amid a bloody campaign by the network to drive Western “infidels” out of the kingdom.

Remember when Al-Douri was the focus of a manhunt in Iraq because the US was convinced that he was a leader of the insurgency?

Here’s a Sydney Morning Herald article from December, 2003:

With the capture of Saddam Hussein, US forces are focusing more attention on Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, a long-time Saddam deputy as vice chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council, and now top of the shrinking list of Iraqi officials who have eluded capture. He is one of 13 former regime members from the US list of 55 most-wanted Iraqis to elude capture, and the only one with a $US10 million ($13 million) bounty on his head. The US says al-Douri is a leading force behind the Iraqi insurgency, but Iraqi officials say he has leukaemia and is probably expending his energy avoiding capture.

The US has stepped up the hunt for al-Douri in recent weeks, destroying one of his homes with missiles and detaining his wife and daughter in an attempt to pressure him to surrender.

Human rights groups condemned the detentions, saying family members should not be used as bargaining chips and that the arrests violated international law and the Geneva Convention, which guarantees rights for people under occupation.

Many Iraqis were bewildered when the $US10-million reward was announced, because al-Douri was the subject of much ridicule during Saddam’s regime. Atwan Rasul, 38, a Baghdad fish seller, said: “You couldn’t tell jokes about Saddam himself, but you could tell jokes about Izzat al-Douri. No one respected him. This man can’t be the leader of the Iraqi resistance.”

Knowing what we now know about the near-total absence of actual intelligence being gathered by the military in Iraq, despite their willingness to inflict pain and humiliation on their captives, and the tendency for torture victims to say whatever their torturers want to hear it seems likely that the focus on Al-Douri was inspired by the now-infamous “flow of information” from Abu Ghraib interrogations. Watching the Americans chasing a clown like Al Douri was probably the subject of much coffee-shop humor in Baghdad.

Less funny is the Keystone Kops like idiocy of the US’s “decapitation” strikes at the opening of the invasion. Much ado was made of the strikes aimed at Saddam Hussein (which managed to kill dozens of civilians instead of Saddam) but only today do we have confirmation that the US was trying to bomb many Iraqi leaders in that period, although they managed to miss them all, reduce the number of “hearts and minds” that were available for winning, and jump-start the insurgency that was to form in the wake of the pointless violence.

These strikes were apparently based on “intelligence” acquired from Iraqis on the ground which looks like it was about on par with Ahmed Chalabi’s “intelligence.” It’s interesting in hindsight to look back and see why some of the neocons’ trumpeted predictions about Iraq failed to materialize. Remember all the en masse surrenders that were supposed to happen? Sometimes they would even announce them and after a day or two of confusion it would become clear that they were about 180 degrees wrong. Remember this one? Iraqi army division surrenders to coalition forces, Pentagon officials say. Never happened. Basra “uprising?” Never happened. An Najaf “HUGE chemical weapons plant” that was supposed to have been discovered, breathlessly reported in screaming headlines by Fox News and the Jerusalem Post?? Nada. Zip. Nothing.

The extent of the wrongness of practically everything the neocons and Bushie warbots believed about Iraq would be amusing if it weren’t so destructive and fatal to thousands of people. Oh, and Al Douri’s family is still in one of the US’s Iraq gulags, and their detention is still a war crime under the Geneva Conventions.

Saudis described as Al Qaeda militants have kidnapped one American and claim to have killed another in the same operation.

In a statement posted on Sawt al Jihad Islamist web site, Al Qaeda militants identify the kidnapped American as Paul Marshal Johnson from New Jersey – born on May 8, 1955 – and a specialist in Apache helicopters.

“The Mujahidoun were able in the same operation to kill another American working as a manager in the military sector,” said the statement signed by the “Al Qaeda Organisation in the Arabian Peninsula”.

“They stalked him and then killed him inside his home,” it said.
[…]
In a statement, the Mujahidoun displayed a copy of the passport of the American it kidnapped, his Saudi driving licence and his business card, which showed he worked for Lockheed Martin as a systems engineer and site manager.

It said he was one of four top engineers specialising in developing Apache helicopters.

Further, the kidnappers’ statement says that they reserve the right to treat this American captive as the Americans treated their brothers in Abu Ghraib.

“It is not a secret that these planes have long been used by the Americans and their Zionist allies and the apostates in killing Muslims, terrorising and displacing them in Palestine, Afghanistan and Iraq,” the statement said.

“The Mujahidoun in the Arab Peninsula reserve the legitimate right to deal with the Americans in the same way to avenge what the Americans did to our brothers in Abu Ghraib prison [in Iraq] and Guantanamo,” the statement said in reference to images of US soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners.

The famously competent Saudi police who have not arrested any of the perpetrators of any of the attacks in the past few months (except one who was wounded so they had to take him), are “combing Riyadh” looking for the kidnapped American.

Another American has been gunned down in Riyadh.

No details yet. The last one like this was Tuesday. Last Sunday, a BBC cameraman was shot and his reporter colleague critically wounded.

That’s just this week. One might wonder if there is a pattern developing.

Sadly, No! makes fun of the warbots at the Corner and InstaStatist by highlighting their now-embarrassing excitement over the State Department’s 2003 report on terrorism that turned out to be a lie grossly wrong. Oops! Rahul Mahajan also has some apropriately withering comments:

I’m no expert on statistics, but it seems to me that comparing the number of incidents in an entire year with the number in part of a year is a pretty basic error.

Now, of course, there might be some of you out there who wish to defend the arithmetical ability of both State and Defense by pointing out that whenever they make “errors,” the errors always tend in the same direction, to make the administration look better. You might even produce arguments to show that the likelihood, if the errors were truly random, that all of them would pile up on one side, is negligible.

But if you make those arguments to Paul Wolfowitz and Dick Armitage be sure to speak very slowly and draw lots of pictures.

Fortunately for us, Col. Lounsbury was confined to his room with a case of food poisoning resulting in this review of the Pentagon-funded Al Hurra TV, the US Propaganda Channel in Arabic.

Giblets and Fafnir on why just because there exists a paper trail of memos justifying an action doesn’t mean it actually occured: (excerpt)

“Chris what you have there is a legal finding,” says Giblets.
“A consultation,” says me.
“Now all that means is that it was within Gibletsian law to sell your stuff and use it to buy a motorcycle,” says Giblets.
“But that doesn’t mean we actually sold your stuff and bought a motorcycle!” says me. “Least I don’t think we did.”
Chris gets all upset sayin “But there is a motorcycle!” which is really besides the point. I mean the memos just show that we talked about buyin a motorcycle, and the motorcycle shows that somebody bought a motorcycle but it doesn’t show who it was or how they did it or why. It is another mystery wrapped in a conundrum wrapped in a motorcycle.

Digby connects some dots and makes an interesting argument about the “flow of information” from the Abu Ghraib torture chambers to the White House. (excerpt)

Everyone’s been speculating that the reason General Fay has requested to be replaced by a higher ranking General is because of a need to interview General Sanchez and army protocol precludes him interviewing someone of a higher rank than he. I’m sure that’s at least partly true, although it is more likely that this shuffle is designed to kill more time before the election. But there is also the problem that Fay cannot complete his investigation without being able to talk to his equal in rank, Maj. General Barbara Fast, something which is also prohibited.

And, she may just be the key to the whole story.

Tom Ridge finally calls on the General to be an important part of the War Effort.

Raed Jarrar directed a country-wide survey of Iraq (link to Salam Pax’s description of the part of the survey he helped Raed with, along with numerous pictures)to determine civilian casualties after Mission Accomplished was declared in the now infamous Flight Suit Speech by Duhbya. He now has a website displaying his findings.

I would like to thank my great American friend, Michael Richardson, a writer and graphic designer from Northampton, MA, USA, for his huge effort, and for the time he spent designing the IRAQI CIVILIAN WAR CASUALTIES website. Michael emailed me some weeks ago offering to help me complete this small humanitarian job that started one year ago.

Thousands were killed and injured.

Each one of these thousands has a life, memories, hopes. Each one had his moments of sadness, moments of joy and moments of love.

In respect to their sacred memory, I would appreciate it if you could spend some minutes reading the database file when I publish them, read their names, and their personal details, and think about them as human beings, friends, and relatives — not mere figures and numbers.

For all of you who have linked to the lunaville Iraq Coalition Casualty Count site, they have moved. The new URL is http://icasualties.org/oif/ and they have added new information like casualty counts for contractors.

From Tom Tommorrow:

Tim Dunlop has an excellent post about the Bushie Republicans’ excuses for torture: (excerpt)

Excerpt: (click to enlarge pictures)

So let me make it easy for those who still wish to excuse what has happened. Here’s a list of things you can no longer say with any certainty about this issue and be considered credible:

• There was only a handful of people involved (a few bad apples etc.)
• It wasn’t systemic
• It only involved relatively junior officers
• As soon as they knew about them they acted immediately to stamp out the practices of abuse
• As soon as they knew about them they acted immediately to bring charges against those involved
• No-one died
• No-one was raped
• Only the guilty or terrorists were affected
• The investigation has been open to full scrutiny
• It wasn’t really torture

Repeat: none of this washes anymore, and you can read this report from Human Rights Watch (.pdf file) for a pretty comprehensive account of what we now know about the way the conditions for this abuse were put in place and encouraged, sometimes implicitly, sometimes explicitly, by the Bush administration, right down to—almost unbelievably—presenting legal argument that the president was not bound by US or international law and therefore able to authorise various techniques of abuse.

On the bright side, here’s something that, as far as we know, you can still say with relative certainty:

• It wasn’t as bad as Saddam

Maybe that makes you feel better, or is all you need to know. It seems to be more than enough for the likes of rightie-come-lately, Dennis Miller, who continues the rightwing tradition of making hilarious torture jokes:

MILLER: I’m sorry, those pictures from the Abu Ghraib. At first, they, like infuriated me, I was sad. Then like, a couple days later, after they cut the guy’s [Nick Berg] head off, they didn’t seem like much. And now, I like to trade them with my friends.

And of course, he was taking his lead from Rush Limbaugh (same link as Miller):

LIMBAUGH:“The media ought to start making some money off these pictures and videos, not just publishing them free. We need some prison torture, you know, bubble gum cards … you know, like I say, we got baseball cards and bubble gum. Now let’s have terror cards — only let’s show our prison abuse photos instead of the terrorists and who they are and what they do.”

Which brings us back to moral relativism.

I added the pictures above to Tim’s post. These were released by the Washington Post yesterday and are archived here by AntiWar.com.