Deep Blade Journal

US deeply involved in suppression of Iraq ethnic groups opposed to neoliberal constitution

Through a series of deadly operations throughout Iraq west of Baghdad with catchy names like “Iron Fist” and “Saratoga”, the US military has been for over one month cleaning out the provinces of Iraq most likely to reject the neoliberal constitutional process now being imposed on the country.

It is easy for these named operations to be promoted as “protection” for people:

In north-central Iraq, Iraqi security forces and U.S. Task Force Liberty soldiers began Operation Saratoga in advance of the Oct. 15 constitutional referendum and to protect people during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. Officials said Iraqi forces and Task Force Liberty soldiers will be much more visible across all the regions of north-central Iraq to act on recent information developed by the Iraqi police and army and coalition forces.

But many posts by the essential Juan Cole have cast much doubt on the military happy talk surrounding its ops. and the Constitution. Here, Cole describes how people living in the areas now under US attack perceive the Americans and sense what they will lose in the constitutional process:

In recent months, the Sunni Arabs came to feel that the new constitution deeply disadvantaged them, and it occurred to them they might be able to deploy the 3-province veto, themselves. They became galvanized at the thought that they might be able to derail the accursed constitution invented by the Kurdish warlords and Shiite ayatollahs to deprive them of their fair share of Iraq’s resources. This mobilization of Sunnis to vote in the referendum was even cited by Washington’s Iraq boosters as a positive sign! But as with all the hype of the boosters, their balloon has been shot down only a couple of weeks after they came up with their glib talking points. It was never very likely that the Sunnis could have derailed the constitution at the polls, though it was just possible if they could have gotten out enough votes in Ninevah (Mosul). Now, having watched their country taken over by foreigners, watched their women humiliated with foreign troops searching their underwear drawers, having watched their army dissolved, their relatives fired from government jobs in the tens of thousands, they have even been explicitly informed that they are not as good as the Kurds (who would never have put up with their own 3-province veto being subjected to a stealth veto if they had not liked the new constitution). (For a glimpse of what educated, middle class young Sunni Arab women think of the constitution, see Riverbend).

As for the hidden, underlying purposes of the current American operations (shrouded in newspeak and propaganda), I do not think we should dismiss the strong editorial opinion given by Robert Knight on the KPFA Flashpoints program last night:

DENNIS BERNSTEIN: Robert, this is a very important analysis and story, reporting you have just put together for us. Let’s just very quickly sum this up. In essence, we’re seeing sort of a textbook disinformation campaign to that which you’re accusing the others of doing.

ROBERT KNIGHT: Oh, it’s magnificent the way which newspeak is being applied for this anti-democratic military operation of the Bush administration in Iraq. Not everybody is falling for it. For instance the Iraqi member of Parliament Mashaan al-Jaburi said today, “What we fear most in the governance that contain mixed residence is the targeting of Sunni Arab neighborhoods — in order to prevent Sunnis from attaining the 2/3 of the consensus required to vote down the Constitution at the referendum.”

Key provisions of the proposed Iraqi Constitution
For a detailed examination of what I am talking about, please take a look at what you almost never see in media — a discussion of the evolution of the actual document Iraqis will be expected to vote on next weekend. Find it here at Foreign Policy in Focus. In this piece, Herbert Docena lays out how most Iraqis, even American collaborators, wanted to, “at least on paper, to build a Scandinavian-type welfare system in the Arabian desert, with Iraq’s vast oil wealth to be spent upholding every Iraqi’s right to education, health care, housing, and other social services.”

The Americans have other ideas.

Tragic process
How has this tragic Iraqi constitutional process been run so far? I recommend this guest piece posted by Juan Cole. Excerpt:

Both the procedure that produced the constitutional draft that will be voted on this October 15, and its constitutional substance were and are disastrous. As to the procedure, the pathetic rules of the pathetic Transitional Administrative Law [TAL] were violated in a pathetic manner. To start from the beginning, a foreign country, the U.S. has played an unseemly, illegitimate and probably illegal (Hague Convention, 1907) role in the constitution-making process of an occupied country.

Next, the TAL’s rules were repeatedly violated: there was no public or parliamentary discussion of the draft, and it was never voted on. The text was repeatedly changed after the only deadline that was (in my view) legally amended. [Then the three-province veto by a two-thirds majority was reinterpreted as a two-thirds majority of registered voters rather than of actual voters.] Only international pressure finally kept the National Assembly from an absurd misinterpretation of the rule of ratification through a mere law, actually a hidden and therefore illegal constitutional amendment.

No one can know what horrors will result, but Robert Dreyfuss, this morning on Democracy Now!, surmised that after the fissures caused by this US-driven process run their course, “It’s not out of the question that several hundred thousand or a million Iraqis could die over the next two years if this falls into open civil war.”

Investigation trouble? Falling ratings? Push it!

Mayor Bloomberg: “specific threat” to New York subways

I did not listen to much news today before posting that last piece on Bush equating the Terror War with the Cold War. Indeed there were some accompanying fright-producers!

USA TODAY: Police bolstered security on New York City’s subways Thursday after receiving a threat that the mass transit system could be the target of a terrorist attack in coming days.

“We have never had before a specific threat to our subway system,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg said at a news conference. “It was more specific as to target. It was more specific as to timing.”

But,…

Russ Knocke, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, cast doubt on the threat. He said the agency “received intelligence information regarding a specific but non-credible threat to the New York subway system in recent days. The intelligence community found it to be of doubtful credibility.”

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly asked the public to be vigilant and said that the police presence will be increased in and around subway stations and on ferries and buses. Police will pay particular attention to baby strollers, briefcases and other containers, Kelly said. The city’s security alert level remained at orange, the second-highest.

We’ve got vigilance, we’ve got color levels. Would it take an actual incident to distract the public from “ongoing” investigations of the Republicans and boost Mr. Bush’s ratings?

911! 911! 911! 911! 911! 911! 911! Communism?

PRESIDENT BUSH TODAY: We will confront this mortal danger to all humanity. We will not tire or rest until the war on terror is won.

The images and experience of September 11 are unique for Americans….

No act of ours invited the rage of the killers, and no concession, bribe or act of appeasement would change or limit their plans for murder.

On the contrary, they target nations whose behavior they believe they can change through violence.

Against such an enemy there is only one effective response: We will never back down, never give in and never accept anything less than complete victory.

Sooooo…Are not we the ones staying in Iraq until we’ve changed it through violence? Is Mr. Bush serious when he confidently states, “No act of ours invited the rage of the killers”? This notion would be laughable were it not so tragic and so costly in lives and treasure. Everything in dear leader’s actions over the past few years — including before 9/11 — expounds in the most stark terms of undeniable reality for those under the American killer aircraft and artillery of city-sized destruction — that war is what America wants. Cannot everything Bush says be perceived in the 180 degrees opposite direction by those who have been under sustained American bombing, conquest, occupation, detention, and torture for years and years now?

Bush puts the struggle against the racially-charged notion of “Islamic radicalism”, “militant jihadism”, or “Islamo-fascism” (choose your favorite scare-word from these) in Cold-War terms, worthy of NSC-68-like organizing principles. Bush continues:

The murderous ideology of the Islamic radicals is the great challenge of our new century. Yet in many ways, this fight resembles the struggle against communism in the last century.Like the ideology of communism, Islamic radicalism is elitist, led by a self-appointed vanguard that presumes to speak for the Muslim masses.

Osama bin Laden says his own role is to tell Muslims, quote, “what is good for them and what is not.” And what this man who grew up in wealth and privilege considers good for poor Muslims is that they become killers and suicide bombers.

He assures them that this is the road to paradise, though he never offers to go along for the ride.

Like the ideology of communism, our new enemy teaches that innocent individuals can be sacrificed to serve a political vision. And this explains their cold-blooded contempt for human life. [emphasis added]

Mr. Bush has taken a chapter out of Wolfowitz, and Wolfie’s hero, the late Paul Nitze. In the 1950s, fear of the Soviet Union was the organizing principle under which the American public — for the most part willingly — gave up astonishing numbers of lives and boatloads of treasure, leaving a legacy of high-technology instruments of death that still may well end current civilization with a cloud of war Bush apparently is insisting be pursued.

Wolfowitz highlighted Nitze’s theory of social organization through Cold War in remarks entitled Paul Nitze’s Legacy: For a New World and delivered to an Aspen Institute luncheon in Washington, DC on April 15, 2004:

As every student of security policy must know, NSC-68 which was signed by President Truman in 1950, was Nitze’s strategic blueprint for the Cold War. Although written before North Korea rolled south, it was a document that people quickly took up in the wake of the Korean invasion. It is a document that has been read and reread over the course of 50 years. It is a model of long-term strategic planning. NSC-68 addressed not only importance of a nuclear armed Soviet Union, but also the importance of the ideological orientation of the Soviet Union. Paul recognized the Soviet ideology as an inherent evil. And when combined with a formidable military capability, that ideology became an existential threat.In its opening analysis, NSC-68 says this, quote: “The Soviet Union, unlike previous aspirants to hegemony, is animated by a new fanatic faith, antithetical to our own, and seeks to impose its absolute authority over the rest of the world.” As we reflect on these words, it is striking how similar they are to what we face today. Although it is called religious, the fanaticism that we are dealing with has roots that stem much more from the ideological zealotry of the 20th century than from the religious origins on which it claims to draw.

Secular or religious, the adversaries we face today are ultimately animated by their own will to power, not by any altruism. While there are important differences between the challenge of our time and the one that Nitze and these other wise men faced 50 years ago, there are striking similarities in the character of the enemy—a similarity summarized, perhaps, with a single word: evil.

Wolfowitz seamlessly weaves the NSC-68 legacy — a legacy of relentless dumping of public resources into endless production of weapons of planetary destruction in order to stave off the perceived power of the Soviet state — into the new world evil of Islamic terrorism conducted at random by mostly invisible stateless actors, also requiring an endless American garrison economy.

So none of what Mr. Bush said today is new. For a past example, take the May 25, 2004 speech Mr. Bush gave at the Army War College in Carlisle, PA:

We did not seek this war on terror, but this is the world as we find it. We must keep our focus. We must do our duty. History is moving, and it will tend toward hope, or tend toward tragedy. Our terrorist enemies have a vision that guides and explains all their varied acts of murder. They seek to impose Taliban-like rule, country by country, across the greater Middle East. They seek the total control of every person, and mind, and soul, a harsh society in which women are voiceless and brutalized. They seek bases of operation to train more killers and export more violence. They commit dramatic acts of murder to shock, frighten and demoralize civilized nations, hoping we will retreat from the world and give them free rein. They seek weapons of mass destruction, to impose their will through blackmail and catastrophic attacks. None of this is the expression of a religion. It is a totalitarian political ideology, pursued with consuming zeal, and without conscience.

Does not Bush describe what is actually the US agenda in the Middle East — imposition of a US-approved neoliberal constitutional client state in Iraq with expanding bases, fuel supplies and hegemonic intentions? Nearly everything he says about them applies to us, 1000-fold.

Bush now continues the process of conflating and amplifying the current perceived threats from this ragtag tapestry of disaffected people who feel their very existence is under attack into a new NSC-68-inspired foundation for permanent war. It’s just laughable that such an enemy could form an “empire” of global stature. Relative personal wealth of a very few of the “enemy” individuals hardly matches even a tiny fraction of the American juggernaut, with its global network of bases — many on the very soil the so-called “fanatics” call home. And there lies the true, unspoken challenge for the criminal Bush regime — how to reinvigorate the rapidly-decaying public consensus behind American taking and holding of the strategic resources acquired by the Iraq invasion.

A friend recently recommended a radio program offering an alternate interpretation of Islamic politics and the nature of not only Islamic but Christian fundamentalism. From the description at Minnesota Public Radio’s Midday (October 4, 2005, click through for audio, requires Real Player):

“A militant kind of piety” Best-selling religion writer Karen Armstrong says that the rise of modernity and the rise of religious fundamentalism are linked. In a speech Saturday at St. Mark’s Cathedral in Minneapolis, the former nun said that fundamentalist religious movements were both enabled by modernity and arose as a backlash against modernity.

Let’s start from the deep understanding of humanity and its troubles offered by Karen Armstrong rather than the deep criminality and hyperbolic mendacity offered by Bush. We must form a political force that limits the impunity of the current regime. Only by wresting power from Bush and his failed mandarins can we begin honestly to stop more US-led war and reduce the likelihood of more terrorism against which the Bush-Blair policy of warmaking has been a colossal, destructive, and long-term debilitating failure.

Thanks to King of Zembla for including Deep Blade Journal in the list of “Blogs we’re plugging this week”. Back at you… I’d never read this blog before, but check it out! There is excellent coverage of Katrina malfeasance, the massive and growing Bush-Delay Republican crime scandals, Justice-nominee Harriet “Crony” Miers, and lots of other great cuts into the flesh of corruption — cuts that Deep Blade appreciates.

Under Bush leadership, Iraqis are “smoked” and “fucked” for “amusement”

How depraved is the Bush administration for creating conditions and detention policies leading to this:

The soldiers referred to their Iraqi captives as PUCs – persons under control – and used the expressions “f***ing a PUC” and “smoking a PUC” to refer respectively to torture and forced physical exertion.

One sergeant provided graphic descriptions to Human Rights Watch investigators about acts of abuse carried out both by himself and others. He now says he regrets his actions. His regiment arrived at FOB Mercury in August 2003. He said: “The first interrogation that I observed was the first time I saw a PUC pushed to the brink of a stroke or a heart attack. At first I was surprised, like, `This is what we are allowed to do?”’ [emphasis added]

The troops would put sand-bags on prisoners’ heads and cuff them with plastic zip-ties. The sergeant, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said if he was told that prisoners had been found with homemade bombs, “we would f*** them up, put them in stress positions and put them in a tent and withhold water — It was like a game. You know, how far could you make this guy go before he passes out or just collapses on you?”

He explained: “To `f*** a PUC” means to beat him up. We would give them blows to the head, chest, legs and stomach, pull them down, kick dirt on them. This happened every day. To `smoke’ someone is to put them in stress positions until they get muscle fatigue and pass out. That happened every day.

“Some days we would just get bored so we would have everyone sit in a corner and then make them get in a pyramid. We did that for amusement.”

How much more of this incredible sickness will the American people stand for? When will a moral authority finally arise with enough power to hold the US military and political leadership accountable for these crimes, for which most certainly they are ultimately responsible? Our souls are close to unredeemable already. At best, President Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Stephen Cambone, and all other responsible US officials would be subject to what probably would be a decades-long tribunal, resulting in conviction, appropriate punishment, and perpetual infamy for the crimes they have committed against peace and humanity.

Worrying and calming messages mixed

A combination of refinery shutdowns following the hurricanes, decrease in demand for gasoline as people drive less under high prices, and concern about heating oil supply as the weather gets colder have left fuel prices pegged high but unsure about which way to move.

Sep.30.2005, The Daily Times, Maryville, TN: Fuel costs soar

Despite a Department of Energy report Wednesday that the nation’s stock of gasoline is growing, many East Tennessee drivers experienced sticker shock at the pumps Thursday afternoon.

Prices at some stations rose as much as 30 cents, hitting a high of $3.29.

Sep.30.2005, Bloomberg: Gasoline Futures Drop for Second Day on Signs of Lower Demand

Record pump prices and concern about fuel shortages caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita are showing signs of denting consumer demand, prompting a second-straight decline for gasoline futures… About 5 percent of the nation’s refining capacity has been closed because of Hurricane Katrina.

“We’re still facing some monumental problems getting these refineries back up,” said Andy Lebow, a trader with Man Financial in New York…

The shutdown of refineries and efforts to maximize gasoline output may lead to higher heating oil prices when the weather cools. Most refiners try to shift production to emphasize heating oil over gasoline in September. High profit margins may have led facilities to put off changing their mix of products.

“With the weather still relatively warm, the market is unlikely to sharply focus on the bullish heating oil market that is in the works,” said Antonio Szabo, chief executive of Houston-based consultant Stone Bond Technologies. “Refiners are making gasoline late in the year.”

Volatility of fuel price is enhanced by monopoly practice (desire for maximum profit), delivery system operations near maximum capacity, and the fact that geological supply also is being drawn at near-maximum rate. Without effective swing production, the only way prices are going to be limited is through demand control and reduction. Demand reduction for gasoline finally is showing up at the $3/US gallon threshold. Heating oil and natural gas will be a tougher nuts if we have a cold winter in the Northern US, partly because of the monopoly practices described in the Bloomberg story above. Deja vu 1973. Worry.