nonTROPPO.org

I know that Robert Fisk can drive many pro-war supporters livid with rage. They find him graphic at an almost pornographic level, and claim his words are fatally skewed by his political perspective. I rarely see that; I find him sometimes prone to bluntly unsubtle writing, but it seems to come from a deep well of passion and anger from the things he sees that channels into his writing. He often writes as few others do, able to deeply sketch out the personal and the tragic from a situation. He is, at heart, a humanist; a perspective which in this age of military jargon and staid political analysis is so desperately needed. You don’t read Fisk to understand the geo-political details - but to feel the deep pain that such policies lead to in fellow human beings. This is something we got plenty of for the victims of September 11th, personal details that tore at the heart strings, but never got for the victims in Afghanistan and rarely get now for Iraqis killed by US-UK forces. Here is Fisk detailing the market bombing in Baghdad:

It was an outrage, an obscenity. The severed hand on the metal door, the swamp of blood and mud across the road, the human brains inside a garage, the incinerated, skeletal remains of an Iraqi mother and her three small children in their still-smouldering car.
Two missiles from an American jet killed them all - by my estimate, more than 20 Iraqi civilians, torn to pieces before they could be ‘liberated’ by the nation that destroyed their lives. Who dares, I ask myself, to call this ‘collateral damage’? Abu Taleb Street was packed with pedestrians and motorists when the American pilot approached through the dense sandstorm that covered northern Baghdad in a cloak of red and yellow dust and rain yesterday morning.
It’s a dirt-poor neighbourhood, of mostly Shia Muslims, the same people whom Messrs Bush and Blair still fondly hope will rise up against President Saddam Hussein, a place of oil- sodden car-repair shops, overcrowded apartments and cheap cafes. Everyone I spoke to heard the plane. One man, so shocked by the headless corpses he had just seen, could say only two words. “Roar, flash,” he kept saying and then closed his eyes so tight that the muscles rippled between them…

See also Jo Wilding here. Both articles are about the same piece of news, but Fisk’s writing elevates his personal description over the Guardian piece.

The UK Government, along with foreign ministers in Europe, are soon to discuss a policy in which asylum seekers will be sent to EU run detention ‘camps’ in a country outside of the EU (somewhere like Albania) for their claims to be processed. Such ‘camps’ have failed miserably before - most noticeably for the Vietnamese - and such a ‘pawning off’ of our responsibilities and moral obligations (as a supposed ‘civilised’ and rich society) to detention camps in third-world countries is simply outrageous. As Bill Morris commented:

“At this time, when all eyes and minds are trained on the Gulf, the people of this country are entitled to ask why our government feels it has the moral duty to drop bombs on Baghdad yet is absolved of any responsibility to look after those left homeless, destitute or in danger as a result.”

This possible solution has been strongly condemned by Amnesty International, who are worried that it will be difficult to monitor and guarantee the treatment of refugees in such external countries. The UK has been the scene of a rising tide of violent crimes against asylum seekers, and as I have written before, most of it has been stoked up by hugely irresponsible press hysteria by gutter papers like the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail. People are scared of asylum seekers even in British counties where there are no refugees, crystal clear evidence that it is xenophobia plain and simple. This is mainly the reason that the Government is so desperate to offload refugees out of the country, a British xenophobia that is wholly wrong. The home secretary, David Blunkett, transparently confirms his desperation to be liked by xenophobic Daily Mail/Telegraph readers, because he wants to show:

“our citizens at home that European asylum policy is not simply a gateway for uncontrolled migration, but rather a firm and fair procedure for those who genuinely need protection.”

This is all about placating those stupid and ignorant enough to be scared of refugees (sadly a significant number), and has nothing to do with building the best system we can to help victims of tyranny Tony Blair spends so much of his time pontificating about.

A further question of private interests clashing with Richard Perles position in the Pentagon. This has lead to calls for an investigation of Perles activities (see my previous post for another article on Perle). Let us hope that such indications of private gains by such a core (background) figure in the Bush war machine will result in an open and critical probe on his role in the US Government.

UPDATE: Perle has resigned his position as chairman on the Defense board (although he is still a member of it). Looks like he knew he was in for a hard ride, and didn’t want to embarass his fellow chickenhawks. The fact is, however, he is STILL working for the US government.

George Monbiot, in this article suggests that the US Government should be somewhat careful when they accuse Iraqis of contravening the Geneva convention:

This being so, Rumsfeld had better watch his back. For this enthusiastic convert to the cause of legal warfare is, as head of the defence department, responsible for a series of crimes sufficient, were he ever to be tried, to put him away for the rest of his natural life.

His prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, in Cuba, where 641 men (nine of whom are British citizens) are held, breaches no fewer than 15 articles of the third convention. The US government broke the first of these (article 13) as soon as the prisoners arrived, by displaying them, just as the Iraqis have done, on television. In this case, however, they were not encouraged to address the cameras. They were kneeling on the ground, hands tied behind their backs, wearing blacked-out goggles and earphones. In breach of article 18, they had been stripped of their own clothes and deprived of their possessions. They were then interned in a penitentiary (against article 22), where they were denied proper mess facilities (26), canteens (28), religious premises (34), opportunities for physical exercise (38), access to the text of the convention (41), freedom to write to their families (70 and 71) and parcels of food and books (72).

They were not “released and repatriated without delay after the cessation of active hostilities” (118), because, the US authorities say, their interrogation might, one day, reveal interesting information about al-Qaida. Article 17 rules that captives are obliged to give only their name, rank, number and date of birth. No “coercion may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever”. In the hope of breaking them, however, the authorities have confined them to solitary cells and subjected them to what is now known as ‘torture lite’: sleep deprivation and constant exposure to bright light. Unsurprisingly, several of the prisoners have sought to kill themselves, by smashing their heads against the walls or trying to slash their wrists with plastic cutlery.

The US government claims that these men are not subject to the Geneva conventions, as they are not “prisoners of war”, but “unlawful combatants”. The same claim could be made, with rather more justice, by the Iraqis holding the US soldiers who illegally invaded their country. But this redefinition is itself a breach of article 4 of the third convention, under which people detained as suspected members of a militia (the Taliban) or a volunteer corps (al-Qaida) must be regarded as prisoners of war.

Even if there is doubt about how such people should be classified, article 5 insists that they “shall enjoy the protection of the present convention until such time as their status has been determined by a competent tribunal”. But when, earlier this month, lawyers representing 16 of them demanded a court hearing, the US court of appeals ruled that as Guantanamo Bay is not sovereign US territory, the men have no constitutional rights. Many of these prisoners appear to have been working in Afghanistan as teachers, engineers or aid workers. If the US government either tried or released them, its embarrassing lack of evidence would be brought to light.

Here is the Geneva convention for perusal. And here are some more detailed resources.

A photo of a Prisoner from Afghanistan shown by the Americans, along with the hypocritical Rumsfeld quote:

Nice article in the Guardian, outlining the double-standards of the British Government in regards to Iraqi asylum-seekers: A Cold Shoulder for Saddam’s Victims See here for my previous post

On Friday, I attended a direct action at Old St. I was part of a cyclists ‘critical mass’, but we ended up blocking the round-about at Old St for a period of time with a group of walkers. I was expecting a sit down protest - but instead it was a march - spontaneous. The police lay back waiting to see what was going to happen, but on realising we were going to stay to block the roads into the city, then they mobilised to contain the group. Using very aggressive tactics, they confined us and the crushed us into a small space (something called a kettle I believe). They managed to get the traffic flowing, but enough cyclists had escaped to keep slowly cycling and re-blocking traffic. I wondered whether this was really the best time to do such an action. Although some passers-by (and even Drivers) supported the anti-war sentiments, others (all drivers) just got angry and abusive (not that the cyclists care, being anti-car and more critical of petrol-consumers in general). The idea is not to upset people on their way home from work, but to use non-violent direct action to disrupt the running of the city. We all feel strongly enough that the shamful stance of the Goverment is enough that everything we can do, we will (non-violently, at least in my case).

What an amazing and sobering day. Spontaneous anti-war happenings were occurring all over London. I arrived by about 2.30pm to be blocked by police at Holborn. A group of about 250 (mostly) Bengali Kids were marching through London (from the East End), on the way to Parliament Square, but the police obviously didn’t expect people to start congregating so early, and so rushed the grunts (low ranking police) to try to stop people marching. The police were in quite a state of disarray, not least because they were having to fight against children! The Bengali kids were amazing, really full of their rights to march, and horror at what was happing. They started surging towards the police, to their obvious shock. They started fighting (imagine these tiny 8-14 year old’s attacking police), and within 1-2minutes they broke through police lines. The police were stupid and reckless to have stopped the march to express our disgust at the Government.

The police had to hastily close off all routes to Parliament Square apart from one, and there were school children everywhere. This was at about 4pm. The atmosphere was wonderful, music provided my 2 mobile sound systems (on bikes), and the (now common) broad spectrum of the young, the old,
families, feminists, radicals, mild-mannered English, well the works… Everyone was so energised, and the feeling so unified. The kids started clashing with the police as they (police) were denying entry to another group, and they had (apparently) hit a Bengali girl. That was tense, and the police had decided to treat the kids just as they would any other, violence to keep their line. Quite shameful really, and it only antagonised the crowd more. As usual the police were enacting quite pointless crowd control policies (of course the front-line police are just following orders - but the Commanding Officers are often wholly inflexible[1]). I would never personally fight with anyone, but I can sympathise wholly with my fellow demonstrators. I also know the police are just following orders, but there is still a subtle issue about personal ‘responsibility’. And it is the case that the police can get away with exceptional amounts of brutality without ever being accountable[2], because the police themselves investigate police brutality (hmmm, hardly impartial!)

Concerning the police, a couple of days ago when Parliament was voting to go to war, we were outside the Houses of Commons (and the police had tried to break up the group), and I was with my friends Gabriele, Cecilia and Yolanda. As the vote finished and politicians were making their way out, They would walk through the protesters, and one of them bumped into my friend Gabriele, a police officer immediately came to him and warned him of not obstructing (although the politician had bumped into many of us as it was a ‘crowd’. So we moved out of harms way not to provoke them any more, and a few minutes later, the same police came up and warned Gabriele again, and again he was doing nothing (well, chanting ‘peace not war’ or something). Then another 3 police officer stood behind him, while the other was standing some way in front but staring him out, obviously trying to work him up. At this point we just left, as it wasn’t worth that kind of interaction. This is probably what (some) police do when they’re bored in what was an otherwise wholly peaceful gathering…


[1]e.g. On the night of the Parliamentary vote, 25 police officers blocked 5 demonstrators entry to the demonstration for over 2 hours! What a waste of resources…
[2] See here for information on a documentary outlining such brutality.

I feel so tired. The bombs are finally falling, and this disturbing process, the daily twists and turns, the optimistic hopes against the backdrop of inevitability, the measured rhetoric and passion on both sides, have come to a crashing halt. I am now being asked to ‘support our troops’ - but they are not mine in any way other than the taxes I have paid to fund them. They are enacting a policy that I believe is deeply flawed, and are responsible on an individual level for those they kill. They are doing their job, but ‘their job’ is to kill people - Why should I value the life of a British soldier more than the Iraqi conscript he is being paid in cash to kill?

I am not a pacifist[1], but this process of lies and deciet - the facts (propaganda) shown to be desperately fabricated - threats shown to be nothing more than smoke and mirrors, and the outright stupidity of many of Bush’s statements (and ever-changing goals) make this a deeply depressing and sad time. I have thought deeply on some of the more cogent arguments for War, and some have been/are worth considering . But the overall balance is so stacked by the transparent arrogance and mal-intent of Bush and his Boys, that this war can only be seen in the sick light cast by the chickenhawks running the show. They don’t give a shit about ‘liberation’, about ‘freedom’ , about ‘democracy’^[2]. They do care about total geo-political control

I hope those opposed to this war can gather their energy to make our opposition known. There are so many questions remaining. The issue of the Kurds and Turkey, the length Iraqis will hold out, whether the US will target Civilian installations like water processing as they did so callously did Gulf War MkI. Here is a report today suggesting that the US intelligence services fed misleading information to the weapons inspectors - one more small stone in the wall of belligerence and utter contempt the US administration built over the diplomatic process.


[1] Well, not intellectually anyway - emotionally however I find it almost impossible to become ‘violent’ - I can’t hit another human being even if I may think it would be the right thing to do. Of course given a desperate enough situation I’m sure I could be pushed.
[2] e.g. Kurds in Turkey, Palestinians in the occupied territories, using allies such as Kuwait & Saudi Arabia etc. etc. etc.

The ever lovable, tactful and delicate little Bush munchkin, Donald Rumsfeld, seems to dislike the constraints placed on the US by those horrible international treaties banning the use of chemical weapons in war time. Tsk tsk, poor munchkin…
Rumsfeld Suggests use of ‘Non-Lethal’ Chemical Agents

Some nice background on the current bidding for reconstruction projects in relation to a subsidiary of Haliburton, who is still paying a suspected $1million dollars annually to US vice-president Dick Cheney. Cheney, money making, and the war

A nice little background on one of the movers’n’shakers of the Bush love boat, Richard Perle. He is a co-founder of a business which is involved in ‘homeland security’ technology, and at the same time works deep within the Defence Department. This is the perfect stereotype of the sort of person who should be kept WELL clear of public office (if it is to ever regain any sense of ‘ethical rigor’ with voters). The article suggests repeatedly that the only reason that Perle is not undergoing a serious conflict of interests is because he says so. I assume there are probably legal requirements in place, but that someone like him is doing that job at all places such requirements in a grey-area at best.
Richard Perle in the New Yorker

Rather obviously (building on Bush’s previous lies), the evidence of Iraq trying to get uranium in the last few years to make a bomb is another load of outright fabrication:

Britain/US uses Fabricated Evidence against Iraq

The article suggests that there is no evidence suggesting that it was British/US intelligence services who were responsible, but that leaves me feeling rather cold. Why, exactly, would Niger (the country involved) fabricate evidence it was purposefully selling nuclear material to Iraq when it wasn’t? Surely the agent with the most to gain is the USA/UK, who benefits greatly from wave after wave of half-truths and outright lies propagating through media channels. Then, when the fabricated nature of the ‘facts’ are exposed, the west can simply claim it had no part in its fabrication (or the media just blanks it as ‘uninteresting’ news). So a small UN body can easily reveal flaws in information that the heavily funded and far more ‘connected’ intelligence services fail to? I think either out-right fabrication or a cynical faked ‘ignorance’ over the dubious sources is much closer the mark. The governments of the USA and UK have been desperately searching for anything as evidence, and this is just a further depressing marker of such propaganda.

Oh, and IAEA completely dismissed the repeated major accusations by Bush and Powell that Aluminium tubes were being purchased by Iraq to make centrifuges for a nuclear weapons program (see here).