News Flash! Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Does Not Rule Iran

I know this may come as a shock to people who follow major broadcast and print news in the US but it's true. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian President, is not - I repeat, not - the ruler of Iran.

• He does not set national policy.
• He does not command Iran's armed forces.
• He cannot pursue a nuclear weapons program without explicit permission (which he does not have).
• He cannot order attacks on Israel, the US or anyone else.
• He is a figurehead analogous to a hood ornament, put there to give the illusion of democratic rule.

Believe it or not it turns out Iran's form of democracy is a bit of a sham and some are quick to point this out whenever they get a chance. So it's a little difficult understand why those same people behave as if they believe that a popularly-elected position in such a sham of a democracy would actually come with any real power. That would seem to be an untenable position to hold, yet some of our most prominent media figures enunciate exactly these conflicting beliefs with a straight face.

The President of Columbia University, where Ahmadinejad spoke today, called him "a petty and cruel dictator". But given the set of powers listed above that he does not have I have to wonder what kind of "dictator" this is.

Well, it turns out that in addition to the office of President, which Ahmadinejad holds, the Iranian government has another official executive position called the "Supreme Leader".

Multiple choice:

Who holds more power in the Iranian Government?

A) The democratically-elected President, currently Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is subject to term limits.

B) The rarely-mentioned, unelected Supreme Leader of Iran, Ali Khamanei, who practically serves for life.

C) Satan.

D) None of the above.

Sorry, Christian conservatives, if you chose 'C' you are incorrect (but keep trying, I may ask who calls the shots in the White House later).

The correct answer is actually 'B', the Supreme Leader (the title itself is a bit of a hint). Let that be a lesson to you, test takers. Studies have shown that 'B' is the most frequently correct choice for mulitple-choice questions.

You see, the real power in Iran is wielded by a triumverate consisting of the Supreme Leader, an Assembly of Experts which selects the Supreme Leader and an unelected Council of Guardians, selected by the Supreme Leader by the way, which screens the field of Presidential candidates down to an officially-approved list for a popular election.

This is all well known to our news establishment. Still, on a daily basis we are bombarded with reporting focusing obsessively on the temperment, attitudes, idiosyncrasies and statements of Iran's President to the near exclusion of any coverage of that nation's Supreme Leader.

This is odd in and of itself. But it's particularly odd because it's not as if our learned and serious news givers are unaware of the structure of Iran's government and the existence of a Supreme Leader there. They were certainly aware of Ayatollah Khomeini when he held the position. So what happened in the interim? How and why did the identity of the actual leader of Iran slip down the memory hole?

What's more, I don't recall similar coverage being focused on Ahmadinejad's perfectly tame and reasonable predecessor, President Mohammad Khatami and his platform of reconciliation with the west. I hear tell that Mr. Khatami's electorial defeat at the hand of Ahmadinejad was made possible by the failure of his reconciliation efforts with the needlessly truculent and belligerent George W. Bush, who responded to Khatami's overtures by naming Iran a member of the mythical "Axis of Evil" in what I still view as the single most idiotic speech given in the history of the American Presidency, his 2002 State of the Union Address.

Despite all this, you never heard much about Khatami from our news media. But today it's all Ahmadinejad all the time.

I wonder why that is.

For whatever the reason the coverage we're getting on Iran these days is absolutely ludicrous to point of being completely unreadable.

Yes, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a nut. Fine.

He denies the Holocaust. Idiotic.

But he did not, and cannot threaten to "wipe Israel from the map", not only because there is no such idiom for saying such a thing in Farsi but because he has no power to attack a mole-hill, let alone another country.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad does not run Iran. Lets stop pretending that he does.

Enough already.

UPDATE: As fate would have it, as I was typing this post yesterday this was just published on the pages of the NY Times:

In demonizing Mr. Ahmadinejad, the West has served him well, elevating his status at home and in the region at a time when he is increasingly isolated politically because of his go-it-alone style and ineffective economic policies, according to Iranian politicians, officials and political experts.

Political analysts here say they are surprised at the degree to which the West focuses on their president, saying that it reflects a general misunderstanding of their system.

Unlike in the United States, in Iran the president is not the head of state nor the commander in chief. That status is held by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, whose role combines civil and religious authority. At the moment, this president’s power comes from two sources, they say: the unqualified support of the supreme leader, and the international condemnation he manages to generate when he speaks up.

“The United States pays too much attention to Ahmadinejad,” said an Iranian political scientist who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. “He is not that consequential.”

...unless you want to use him as an excuse to start a war.

.

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Caribbean Terror Mastermind Exposed

Authorities have identified the mastermind behind the recent spate of terror plots hatched by dastardly Caribbean allies of Al Qaeda. The suspect is shown here in recently-released footage from a training video found during a raid of an alleged Al Qaeda safe house cleverly disguised as a beef pattie stand:

Boo, unlikely Caribbean Islamic extremist!

Hooray, FEAR!

The Nexus of Politics and Terror

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Bush & Bin Laden

As you well know by now, American Strongman George W. Bush held a press conference in which he once again invoked Al Qaeda as a justification for everything he does. Some of the reporters present tried to challenge this tired old framing by asking him direct questions about his utter failure to capture Bin Laden after nearly 6 years.

But at this point it seems clear to me that this is a waste of time. To hell with him. What did they expect, that he'd break down and tell them something substantive and true? Can any good really come of continuing to engage him as if he has any credibility at all?

No. Bush is a known quantity. At this point there can be no doubt as to what to expect from him. The task before us now, knowing what he is, is to deal with him accordingly. So here's what should be done from now on every time Generalisimo invokes the specter of Osama bin Laden to scare us all into submission. Don't ask him for the truth. Simply take this video to the streets and play it over and over and over. Bypass him and his spin machine altogether and let the people get a reminder of how his alarmist rhetoric today contrasts with this...



(Partial transcript after the jump)

Q: Mr. President, in your speeches now you rarely talk or mention Osama bin Laden. Why is that?...

THE PRESIDENT: Deep in my heart I know the man is on the run, if he's alive at all. Who knows if he's hiding in some cave or not; we haven't heard from him in a long time. And the idea of focusing on one person is -- really indicates to me people don't understand the scope of the mission.

Terror is bigger than one person. And he's just -- he's a person who's now been marginalized. His network, his host government has been destroyed. He's the ultimate parasite who found weakness, exploited it, and met his match. He is -- as I mentioned in my speech, I do mention the fact that this is a fellow who is willing to commit youngsters to their death and he, himself, tries to hide -- if, in fact, he's hiding at all.

So I don't know where he is. You know, I just don't spend that much time on him, Kelly, to be honest with you...

Q But don't you believe that the threat that bin Laden posed won't truly be eliminated until he is found either dead or alive?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, as I say, we haven't heard much from him. And I wouldn't necessarily say he's at the center of any command structure. And, again, I don't know where he is. I -- I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him.

Got that? The next time this fool comes out there with his big-bad Bin Laden hysteria, just hit PLAY.


An aside: By the way, this is my favorite part of that press conference from the other day. Bush makes the following criticism of Bin Laden:

He is -- as I mentioned in my speech, I do mention the fact that this is a fellow who is willing to commit youngsters to their death and he, himself, tries to hide -- if, in fact, he's hiding at all.

Wow. Imagine that!

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Fox News STILL Smearing Obama

Fox News is a complete joke.

Nearly a month after CNN thoroughly debunked its preposterous "madrasa" smear of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, Fox News, amazingly, is still peddling revised versions of this steaming loaf of journalistic dung. I quote none other than the former journalist, Brit Hume, directly:

New Information on Whether Barack Obama Was Once a Practicing Muslim

Never a Muslim?

Barack Obama's chief spokesman has been saying since January that the Democratic presidential candidate has never been a practicing Muslim. Now the Los Angeles Times is reporting that Obama was registered as a Muslim when he attended primary school in Indonesia.

The Times quotes friends and teachers as saying Obama took Muslim religious classes in school and went to prayers at a local mosque. The Obama campaign reacted to the story this morning by reiterating its position that the senator "has never been a Muslim, was not raised a Muslim and is a committed Christian."

You know, I don't even have to write this one. A buddy of mine wrote it for me when this was sent to me:

"Would it make me a MOTO to point out that he most likely didn't fill out his own registration for primary school, and that it was most likely completed by his MUSLIM father? What 5 year-old actually "practices" any religion? Can any of us honestly say that we were "practicing Christians" at that age?"

Indeed...

Now, back to Fox News. Their apologists may argue that since they used the LA Times as their source they shouldn't be blamed for this shoddy reporting and that my problem is really caused by the notoriously "liberally biased" west coast daily. But given the recent changes at that paper, that claim is even more dubious than it otherwise would have been.

Furthermore, if one were to take the time to look up the actual Times story Fox cited, one would find that it wasn't quite as cut-and-dried as they implied. He attended Catholic schools, Muslim schools and secular public schools, for instance. All of this, of course, was reflective of his mixed parentage:

His former Roman Catholic and Muslim teachers, along with two people who were identified by Obama's grade-school teacher as childhood friends, say Obama was registered by his family as a Muslim at both of the schools he attended...

[Snip]

In 1968, Obama began first grade at St. Francis Assisi Foundation School, just around the corner from his home...

[Snip]

"At that time, Barry was also praying in a Catholic way, but Barry was Muslim," Dharmawan said in Obama's old classroom, where she still teaches 39 years later. "He was registered as a Muslim because his father, Lolo Soetoro, was Muslim."

Now, isn't that what I just said. Shouldn't this obvious fact have occurred to the learned Brit Hume before he filed his report? If not, shouldn't he have have read it in the LA Times story he cited?

Fox News: They distort. I deride.

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The "Right to Exist"

As alluded to in previous posts, much is made of the state of Israel's "right to exist" and I have called into the question whether it really is Israel whose "right to exist" is genuinely threatened. But there's another weakness in this framing of the conflict that I neglected. The entire argument is nonsensical on its face. In a piece in the Los Angeles Times today entitled, Why Does The Times Recognize Israel's 'Right to Exist'?, Saree Makdisi thrashes the nail soundly about the head:

First, the formal diplomatic language of "recognition" is traditionally used by one state with respect to another state. It is literally meaningless for a non-state to "recognize" a state. Moreover, in diplomacy, such recognition is supposed to be mutual. In order to earn its own recognition, Israel would have to simultaneously recognize the state of Palestine. This it steadfastly refuses to do (and for some reason, there are no high-minded newspaper editorials demanding that it do so).

Second, which Israel, precisely, are the Palestinians being asked to "recognize?" Israel has stubbornly refused to declare its own borders. So, territorially speaking, "Israel" is an open-ended concept. Are the Palestinians to recognize the Israel that ends at the lines proposed by the 1947 U.N. Partition Plan? Or the one that extends to the 1949 Armistice Line (the de facto border that resulted from the 1948 war)? Or does Israel include the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which it has occupied in violation of international law for 40 years — and which maps in its school textbooks show as part of "Israel"?

For that matter, why should the Palestinians recognize an Israel that refuses to accept international law, submit to U.N. resolutions or readmit the Palestinians wrongfully expelled from their homes in 1948 and barred from returning ever since?

If none of these questions are easy to answer, why are such demands being made of the Palestinians? And why is nothing demanded of Israel in turn?

Orwell was right. It is much easier to recycle meaningless phrases than to ask — let alone to answer — difficult questions. But recycling these empty phrases serves a purpose. Endlessly repeating the mantra that the Palestinians don't recognize Israel helps paint Israel as an innocent victim, politely asking to be recognized but being rebuffed by its cruel enemies.

Actually, it asks even more. Israel wants the Palestinians, half of whom were driven from their homeland so that a Jewish state could be created in 1948, to recognize not merely that it exists (which is undeniable) but that it is "right" that it exists — that it was right for them to have been dispossessed of their homes, their property and their livelihoods so that a Jewish state could be created on their land. The Palestinians are not the world's first dispossessed people, but they are the first to be asked to legitimize what happened to them.

Imagine that. Palestinians are being asked to "recognize" an entity that wont return the favor and wont even go so far as to fully define what it is they wish to have recognized -- it's own borders. Meanwhile it's teaching its children that the land Palestinians are standing on is already part of Israel. I suppose that explains what we see in this map and this one. Nice.

Whose right to exist is really in danger here?

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Don't Think of Nuclear War!

This is the kind of post The Fear of All Sums was really created to cover, people playing mind games with words and figures like this.

In an essay entitled, The Words None Dare Say: Nuclear War, George Lakoff, Professor of Linguistics at UC Berkley, breaks down the way Strongman George Bush's insane plans are being soft-pedaled in the media...

The elimination of Natanz would be a major setback for Iran's nuclear ambitions, but the conventional weapons in the American arsenal could not insure the destruction of facilities under seventy-five feet of earth and rock, especially if they are reinforced with concrete."
—Seymour Hersh, The New Yorker, April 17, 2006

"The second concern is that if an underground laboratory is deeply buried, that can also confound conventional weapons. But the depth of the Natanz facility - reports place the ceiling roughly 30 feet underground - is not prohibitive. The American GBU-28 weapon - the so-called bunker buster - can pierce about 23 feet of concrete and 100 feet of soil. Unless the cover over the Natanz lab is almost entirely rock, bunker busters should be able to reach it. That said, some chance remains that a single strike would fail."
—Michael Levi, New York Times, April 18, 2006

A familiar means of denying a reality is to refuse to use the words that describe that reality. A common form of propaganda is to keep reality from being described.

In such circumstances, silence and euphemism are forms of complicity both in propaganda and in the denial of reality. And the media, as well as the major presidential candidates, are now complicit.

The stories in the major media suggest that an attack against Iran is a real possibility and that the Natanz nuclear development site is the number one target. As the above quotes from two of our best sources note, military experts say that conventional "bunker-busters" like the GBU-28 might be able to destroy the Natanz facility, especially with repeated bombings. But on the other hand, they also say such iterated use of conventional weapons might not work, e.g., if the rock and earth above the facility becomes liquefied. On that supposition, a "low yield" "tactical" nuclear weapon, say, the B61-11, might be needed.

If the Bush administration, for example, were to insist on a sure "success," then the "attack" would constitute nuclear war. The words in boldface are nuclear war, that's right, nuclear war — a first strike nuclear war.

We don't know what exactly is being planned — conventional GBU-28's or nuclear B61-11's. And that is the point. Discussion needs to be open. Nuclear war is not a minor matter...

[Snip]

Bush, Cheney, McCain, Edwards, Clinton, and Obama all say indirectly that they seriously consider starting a preventive nuclear war, but will not engage in a public discussion of what that would mean. That contributes to a general denial, and the press is going along with it by a corresponding refusal to use the words.

If the consequences of nuclear war are not discussed openly, the war may happen without an appreciation of the consequences and without the public having a chance to stop it. Our job is to open that discussion.

Of course, there is a rationale for the euphemism: To scare our adversaries by making them think that we are crazy enough to do what we hint at, while not raising a public outcry. That is what happened in the lead up to the Iraq War, and the disaster of that war tells us why we must have such a discussion about Iran. Presidential candidates go along, not wanting to be thought of as interfering in on-going indirect diplomacy. That may be the conventional wisdom for candidates, but an informed, concerned public must say what candidates are advised not to say.

I highly recommend the full article.

In the past I've linked to at least one of those articles cited at the top of the excerpt and my point in doing so bears repeating. Starting a first-strike nuclear attack with so-called "low yield" nuclear weapons (an absurd contradiction in terms) is not beyond the audacity nor stupidity of our current leadership in Washington. It would be a mistake for us to put such a thing past them. Before dismissing such speculation as alarmist consider this previous post and some of the GOP's past rhetoric on this very subject. Yes, they're thinking (thought) about this and may very well have already decided to do it.

You know, there was a time when a nuclear war was considered a "big deal".

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Olbermann's Special Comment on Condi Rice

Condoleeza Rice recently made a comment about how the excitement around Barack Obama's candidacy showed how far blacks had come in America. I'd have to agree with her for once but, at the same time, her remarks made me think of a Chris Rock routine, "The Black Progress Chart". I can just picture it in my mind:

"Barack Obama runs for President? Moooooovin' on up!"

"Condi Rice speaks in public? Sliiiiidin' right back down!"

Some folks think I'm too hard on Dr. Rice but, I'm telling you, it just ain't so. Kieth Olbermann gives us just one more reason why.




Partial Transcript:

But Secretary of State Rice may have now taken the cake. On the Sunday morning interview show "Of Broken Record" on Fox, Dr. Rice spoke a paragraph, which if it had been included in a remedial history paper at the weakest high school in the nation would've gotten the writer an "F" - maybe an expulsion.

"If Congress were now to revise the Iraq authorization, she said, out loud, with an adult present: "... it would be like saying that after Adolf Hitler was overthrown, we needed to change, then, the resolution that allowed the United States to do that, so that we could deal with creating a stable environment in Europe after he was overthrown."

The secretary's résumé reads that she has a master's degree and a Ph.D in political science. The interviewer should have demanded to see them, on the spot. Dr. Rice spoke 42 words. She may have made more mistakes in them than did the president in his State of the Union Address in 2003...

[Snip]

"The resolution that allowed the United States to" overthrow Hitler?

On the 11th of December, 1941, at 8 o'clock in the morning, two of Hitler's diplomats walked up to the State Department - your office, Secretary Rice - and 90 minutes later they were handing a declaration of war to the chief of the department's European Division. The Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor four days earlier, and the Germans simply piled on.

Your predecessors, Dr. Rice, didn't spend a year making up phony evidence and mistaking German balloon-inflating trucks for mobile germ warfare labs. They didn't pretend the world was ending because a tin-pot tyrant couldn't hand over the chemical weapons it turned out he'd destroyed a decade earlier. The Germans walked up to the front door of our State Department and said, "We're at war." It was in all the papers. And when that war ended, more than three horrible years later, our troops and the Russians were in Berlin. And we stayed, as an occupying force, well into the 1950s. As an occupying force, Madam Secretary!

[Snip]

"It would be like saying that after Adolf Hitler was overthrown, we needed to change then, the resolution that allowed the United States to do that, so that we could deal with creating a stable environment in Europe after he was overthrown."

Oh, good grief, Secretary Rice, that's exactly what we did do! We went back to Congress to deal with creating a stable environment in Europe after Hitler was overthrown! It was called the Marshall Plan.

Marshall!

Gen. George Catlett Marshall!

Secretary of state!

The job you have now!

C'mon!

The prosecution rests.

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Bush Compares Himself to George Washington

Abandoning any pretense of not being a complete joke, the High Lord & Protector of the Realm today compared his war on terrah with the American Revolution, I shit you not.

President Bush honored the 275th birthday of the nation's first president on Monday, likening George Washington's long struggle that gave birth to a nation to the war on global terrorism.

"Today, we're fighting a new war to defend our liberty and our people and our way of life," said Bush, standing in front of Washington's home and above a mostly frozen Potomac River.

"And as we work to advance the cause of freedom around the world, we remember that the father of our country believed that the freedoms we secured in our revolution were not meant for Americans alone."

With his characteristic disregard for the stomachs of those gathered in attendance, Bush then took a moment to pose for the above photograph with a fellow presidential impersonator.

Also typical of his administration, the actors on hand portraying colonial soldiers were not provided with adequate armor (read, "hot air-sickness bags") they so desperately needed for their hazardous mission.

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The Fraud of War: Taking the Bait

Last month the Washington Post ran this bit of head-slapping idiocy by Liz Cheney, daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney, flogging the strictly Dickly meme that opposition to Maximum Ruler's "troope surge" is unpatriotic, helps the terrorists and is hurting the troops. To be sure, the piece is barely worthy of the bottom of a bird cage and I certainly can't fault anyone who feels moved to slam her for this literary vomit. Volumes could be written to dismantle her deceitful straw-man arguments and, I have to admit, the idea of doing so is very tempting.

However, some responses are more useful than others. In fact, some well-intentioned responses can not only miss the mark but actually serve to advance Ms. Cheney's position. For example, I found a piece in Consortium News written in response to Ms. Cheney entitled, "Who Helps the Terrorists?" by Robert Parry.

To make a long story short, Parry cites purportedly intercepted letters released by the Pentagon in July 2005 as the foundation of his otherwise valid argument that the Iraq war is counterproductive (mistake) . Reportedly taken during the raids that killed Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the letters are said to have been written to him by Al Qaeda's No. 2 man, Ayman al Zawahiri.

I outlined my problem with his approach in the comments section of his post. However, because I found his post several days after it was published my response was late. As such, he probably hasn't even seen it, which would explain his non-response. Because of that, I am reposting my response here for posterity (corrected for grammar and style) and as a springboard for future anti-war rants...

Robert,

I read your post and thought about blogging it myself. But upon fact-checking I decided not to and here's why.

I followed your link to a previous Consortium News post entitled, "Al-Qaeda’s Fragile Foothold" which, in turn, links to the infamous "Atiyah Letter" you reference here. From that letter you've excerpted the following passage"...

Indeed, prolonging the war is in our interest, with God’s permission.

...and claimed that by "the war" Atiyah is referring to our war in Iraq. I don't believe that conclusion is clear at all given the context of the sentence. Here is the same excerpt presented in context...

The most important thing is that you continue in your jihad in Iraq, and that you be patient and forbearing, even in weakness, and even with fewer operations; even if each day had half of the number of current daily operations, that is not a problem, or even less than that. So, do not be hasty. The most important thing is that the jihad continues with steadfastness and firm rooting, and that it grows in terms of supporters, strength, clarity of justification, and visible proof each day. Indeed, prolonging the war is in our interest, with God’s permission. The best acts are those that last, however few they may be, provided that we guard against mistakes building up and that we have integration in the jihadist enterprise. The only thing that you have to fear is yourselves and your own mistakes, not your enemy. By God, your enemy will never defeat you as long as you are patient and steadfast, not having caused damage that is great or frequent; and you seek help in God. It is the grace of God and the grace of the Supporter, and the Almighty will not neglect us. "Now surely the help of God is nigh".

Within that context it would appear to me that "the war" being referenced here is Atiyah's jihad, not the US campaign in Iraq. It is the continuance of this jihad that suits Al Qaeda's interests.

This conclusion is further supported in the earlier "Zawahiri Letter" that you also quoted in "Al Qaeda's Fragile Foothold". The passage you quoted...

"The mujahaddin must not have their mission end with the expulsion of the Americans from Iraq, and then lay down their weapons, and silence the fighting zeal."

...was written within a very different context than you seem to suggest. In it, Zawahiri is describing his vision of the jihad in 4 proposed stages, the first of which is very clearly to expel the US from Iraq. I quote from the translated text of that letter:

So we must think for a long time about our next steps and how we want to attain it, and it is my humble opinion that the Jihad in Iraq requires several incremental goals:

The first stage: Expel the Americans from Iraq.

The second stage: Establish an Islamic authority or amirate, then develop it and support it until it achieves the level of a caliphate- over as much territory as you can to spread its power in Iraq, i.e., in Sunni areas, is in order to fill the void stemming from the departure of the Americans, immediately upon their exit and before un-Islamic forces attempt to fill this void, whether those whom the Americans will leave behind them, or those among the un-Islamic forces who will try to jump at taking power.

There is no doubt that this amirate will enter into a fierce struggle with the foreign infidel forces, and those supporting them among the local forces, to put it in a state of constant preoccupation with defending itself, to make it impossible for it to establish a stable state which could proclaim a caliphate, and to keep the Jihadist groups in a constant state of war, until these forces find a chance to annihilate them.

The third stage: Extend the jihad wave to the secular countries neighboring Iraq.

The fourth stage: It may coincide with what came before: the clash with Israel, because Israel was established only to challenge any new Islamic entity.

As you can see, according to this letter the jihad will continue even after the primary goal of expelling the US is achieved. So, again, it's the continuance of the jihad, not the US occupation, that is said to be in Al Qaeda's interests. So you can see why I have some problems with your conclusions.

Before I go, I'd like to add that these are not the ravings of some right-wing flamer. I'm very much on your side here and agree with you 100% about the war and the damage it will do to the world. I just don't believe you're approaching the subject from the right angle in this case.

It seems to me that you may have taken the bait and inadvertently led your readers to a series of documents that actually support the Bush Administration's position.

That alone wouldn't be a bad thing necessarily if it were still the truth. But the possibility that these letters are forgeries, black propaganda planted for our amusement and befuddlement, has been raised... more than once, in fact. So, it can be argued that we're doing ourselves no favors by basing our anti-war arguments on these documents. Please take note.

I usually enjoy your work and hope you do continue to fight the good fight.

Take care and please excuse the lengthy response. I'm long-winded.

Now, clearly I have no problem with Parry's contention that the war in Iraq does more to further Al Qaeda's cause than anyone in the US "mainstream", right or left, seems willing to admit. This is clearly the case and it's an argument that needs to made forcefully.

However, there's a danger in making the case carelessly. By seizing upon "intelligence" that consists of what I am convinced are forged documents, Parry has unwittingly planted the exact seed in his own readers that BushCo wants planted. That alone wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing if it were still a seed of truth, but the strong possibility that these documents are forgeries mitigates that possibility almost completely in my mind.

What's more, he simultaneously discredits his own case against the war by misunderstanding and misquoting what those forged documents actually say. That he did it on a prominent "net roots", alternative media site like Consortium News, no less, only doubles the pain.

Ouch!

Indications of Forgery

If there are any lingering doubts about these documents being forgeries, if the links in the above comments are not convincing enough, there is more.

Just last week NPR ran an unrelated segment on Morning Edition entitled, "The Partisans of Ali: The Origins of the Shia-Sunni Split", the first in a series detailing the history behind the Sunni-Shiite schism in Islam. In it correspondent David Shuster covered some of the history which, coincidentally, highlights the more damning anomalies in those letters.

For instance, the "Zawahiri Letter" contains a reference to "the grandson of the Prophet Imam al Hussein Bin Ali" as "Imam". The funny thing about that reference is best explained in Shuster's report. Describing the turmoil in Islam that followed the death of the Prophet Muhammad, Shuster reports:

"There was a dispute in the community of Muslims in present-day Saudi Arabia over the question of succession," says Augustus Norton, author of Hezbollah: A Short History. "That is to say, who is the rightful successor to the Prophet?"

Most of the Prophet Muhammad's followers wanted the community of Muslims to determine who would succeed him. A smaller group thought that someone from his family should take up his mantle. They favored Ali, who was married to Muhammad's daughter, Fatimah.

[Snip]

The Sunnis prevailed and chose a successor to be the first caliph.

Eventually, Ali was chosen as the fourth caliph, but not before violent conflict broke out. Two of the earliest caliphs were murdered. War erupted when Ali became caliph, and he too was killed in fighting in the year 661 near the town of Kufa, now in present-day Iraq.

The violence and war split the small community of Muslims into two branches that would never reunite.

The war continued with Ali's son, Hussein, leading the Shia. "Hussein rejected the rule of the caliph at the time," says Vali Nasr, author of The Shia Revival. "He stood up to the caliph's very large army on the battlefield. He and 72 members of his family and companions fought against a very large Arab army of the caliph. They were all massacred."

Hussein was decapitated and his head was carried in tribute to the Sunni caliph in Damascus. His body was left on the battlefield at Karbala. Later it was buried there.

It is the symbolism of Hussein's death that holds so much spiritual power for Shia.

So we see here that Hussein was never a recognized Caliph in the Sunni tradition, a fact underscored by his beheading at their hands. So it seems unlikely that Ayman al Zawahiri, an Egyptian Sunni -- a strict, fundamental extremist at that -- would refer to the Shiite martyr Hussein as "Imam". He's more likely to regard Hussein as a heretic.

But wait, there's more:

The Shia called their leaders imam, Ali being the first, Hussein the third. They commemorate Hussein's death every year in a public ritual of self-flagellation and mourning known as Ashura.

[Snip]

The significance of the imams is one of the fundamental differences that separate the two branches of Islam. The imams have taken on a spiritual significance that no clerics in Sunni Islam enjoy.

"Some of the Sunnis believe that some of the Shia are actually attributing almost divine qualities to the imams, and this is a great sin," Gause says, "because it is associating human beings with the divinity. And if there is one thing that's central to Islamic teaching, it is the oneness of God."

That sucking sound you hear is all the credibility of the letters in question leaving the building. These anomalies, taken in conjunction with the Pentagon's public admission, that it had been intentionally planting manufactured propaganda about Zarqawi lead to only one reasonable conclusion. The letters are forgeries.

Have we learned nothing from the well-documented campaign of fraud that led us into Iraq in the first place? Did the forged Niger documents, hyped as evidence of Saddam's alleged attempts to procure uranium, teach us nothing? Perhaps I should spell it out.

YOU CANNOT TRUST ANY PRONOUNCEMENTS FROM THE US GOVERNMENT REGARDING THE WAR. DO NOT ACCEPT THEM AT FACE VALUE. The most you can do with them is to try to glean whatever morsels of truth may exist between the lines but it is probably best to just disregard them completely.

And why is no one curious about who forged those Niger documents anyway? Shouldn't we want to know that?

But I digress.

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Iraq: The Hidden Story

A British news team explores the underreported side of the conflict in Iraq.



I've added this one to the side bar as a Web Gem.

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Decoding White House War Spin

I've been tossing this thing around in my head for some time now, trying to figure a way to summarize all the propaganda surrounding Dear Leader's glorious march to another war in a single post. I've not been successful thus far, such a mess it is. Then along comes The Daily Show to once again show us how it's done:





...and here:




Once again, unfortunately, these clips come with an expiration date. To view these after March 15th follow this link to Crooks & Liars.

See also two recent articles by Rosa Brooks' on the subject:

Insurgents: They Buy American

The Dubya Vinci Code

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Posting Delayed by Category 5 Propaganda Hurricane

Every time I think I'm ready to post something comprehensive about the selling of our next big war-for-no-reason-at-all I find myself knocked down and overwhelmed by another gust of hot air. We are being inundated at this time by a barrage of amazingly transparent propaganda accompanied by almost no common-sense analysis.

It is truly breathtaking to watch the machine at work, I must admit and I will be commenting on this warmongering nonsense soon. I've simply been taken aback by the sheer scale of the propaganda at the moment. I find it deeply disturbing.

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A Brief Reminder About the Libby Trial and the Coming Attack on Iran

Before this gets completely lost in the shuffle of our inexorable drive towards another war, I thought I should at least make a passing reference to this well-documented but little discussed fact. The very people who are now telling us that the supposed nuclear weapons threat posed by Iran is the most important thing in the world right now are the same people who saw fit to blow the cover of a CIA operative, Valerie Plame, who's main area of concentration was on, guess what, WMD proliferation issues in Iran.

According to current and former intelligence officials, Plame Wilson, who worked on the clandestine side of the CIA in the Directorate of Operations as a non-official cover (NOC) officer, was part of an operation tracking distribution and acquisition of weapons of mass destruction technology to and from Iran.

Speaking under strict confidentiality, intelligence officials revealed heretofore unreported elements of Plame's work. Their accounts suggest that Plame's outing was more serious than has previously been reported and carries grave implications for U.S. national security and its ability to monitor Iran's burgeoning nuclear program.

The Libby trial has revealed, in detail that would be shocking if we hadn't already been numbed beyond the capacity to feel shock by this administration, that there was a concerted effort to blow this agent's cover for purely political purposes (as opposed to some frivolous purpose like protecting the nation or something).

So how do we reconcile this? On the one hand we have a White House that tells us that Iran's nuclear program poses the gravest of threats to the safety of the US and the world. On the other hand, they seem to have felt perfectly at ease tossing out the window a CIA operation to counter Iran's efforts, outing not just Ms. Plame, but her entire under-cover operation, endangering the lives of any agents or cooperating individuals known to be associated with her and spoiling those assets for any future operations that may start up.

So, it seems Iran's programs are important enough to start a war over today, but they're not so important that we'd want to protect federal agents working to track them or anything. No, we can feel free to sacrifice them to BushCo's political calculus.

I find that so interesting. Maybe folks should talk about that more.

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"Surging" Into a Self-Sustaining Loop

Whenever I read Chris Floyd's Empire Burlesque I get a strange feeling of deja vu, as if I'm reading my own thoughts penned by a better writer. Writing about the latest Milleresque propaganda -- crying out for Iranian blood -- splashed across the pages of the New York Times, Floyd touches on a point about the "surge" that I've been stuck on for some time. Floyd writes:

But what's most notable about the unsourced story is the way it -- and the White House -- are now trying to conflate the Iranians with the Iraqi insurgency, in much the same fashion as they merged Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda in the public mind. Here, the trick is to focus on Iran's alleged supply of IEDs to Iraq's Shiite militias, talking of their deadly effectiveness against American soldiers -- while scarcely noting the fact that the overwhelming number of attacks against the "Coalition of Aggression" come from the Sunni insurgents. What then are the headlines, the soundbites for the public? Iran... IEDs... deadly... insurgency... kill Americans." The intended effect, of course, is to convey the impression that Iran is driving the Iraqi insurgency that is now killing Americans in record numbers.

But the story is also significant for what it doesn't spell out, but clearly implies. Assuming for a moment the highly unlikely possibility that the Bushist security organs are actually telling the truth or even something like it in this instance -- given their repeatedly demonstrated propensity to lie and lie and lie again when the Bossman wants a war -- we are left with an extraordinary claim by the Bush Administration: that their own allies have turned against them and are now killing American soldiers with sophisticated weapons.

For who are the "Shiite militias"? They are the armed wings of the political factions that now run the Bush-backed Iraqi government, elected in an electoral process designed by the Bush Administration that guaranteed the rise of these extremist sectarian armed cliques to power. The Shiite militias ARE the Iraqi government -- or at least, they are part of that government's many contentious factions. If they have power, if they operate with impunity -- with or without weapons supplied by the long-time allies in Iran, with which most of the Iraqi Shiite factions have a relationship going back decades -- then it is because these factions have been and are now being empowered, armed, funded, trained and supported by the Bush Administration.

This is what the Bushists are tacitly admitting when they claim that the Shiite militias are fragging their ostensible American allies with Iranian weapons. They are saying that even the factions "liberated" and empowered by the American invasion are now attacking and killing U.S. soldiers, with even more virulence than the Sunni insurgents. They are saying that Bush is now "surging" more soldiers into a situation where every single armed faction in the Iraqi conflict is targeting and killing Americans, including those factions armed and funded by the Americans themselves.

This is a remarkable confession. And it represents yet another of the many overwhelming reasons to bring Bush's bloody Babylonian escapade to a halt without further delay. The most compelling reason, of course, is the fact that the invasion was a war crime from the word go and every second that it continues is a furtherance and compounding of that original sin. But even by the viscera-smeared lights of the war's own proponents, to have reached the place where the very people you have empowered are killing your troops is surely the end of the road.

What's wrong with this picture?

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Iraq Redux

Gary Unger, author of House of Bush, House of Saud upon which much of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 was based, has written an extensive essay for Vanity Fair dealing with the parallels between the propaganda leading to the invasion of Iraq and what we're hearing today about Iran. I don't have much to add because Unger lays it all out so plainly. I'll let this extended excerpt speak for itself. All emphases, of course, are mine...

From the Wonderful Folks Who Brought You Iraq

The same neocon ideologues behind the Iraq war have been using the same tactics—alliances with shady exiles, dubious intelligence on W.M.D.—to push for the bombing of Iran. As President Bush ups the pressure on Tehran, is he planning to double his Middle East bet?

by Craig Unger March 2007

In the weeks leading up to George W. Bush's January 10 speech on the war in Iraq, there was a brief but heady moment when it seemed that the president might finally accept the failure of his Middle East policy and try something new. Rising anti-war sentiment had swept congressional Republicans out of power. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had been tossed overboard. And the Iraq Study Group (I.S.G.), chaired by former secretary of state James Baker and former congressman Lee Hamilton, had put together a bipartisan report that offered a face-saving strategy to exit Iraq. Who better than Baker, the Bush family's longtime friend and consigliere, to talk some sense into the president?

By the time the president finished his speech from the White House library, however, all those hopes had vanished. It wasn't just that Bush was doubling down on an extravagantly costly bet by sending 21,500 more American troops to Iraq; there were also indications that he was upping the ante by an order of magnitude. The most conspicuous clue was a four-letter word that Bush uttered six times in the course of his speech: Iran.

In a clear reference to the Islamic Republic and its sometime ally Syria, Bush vowed to "seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies." At about the same time his speech was taking place, U.S. troops stormed an Iranian liaison office in Erbil, a Kurdish-controlled city in northern Iraq, and arrested and detained five Iranians working there.

Already, hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent on the war in Iraq. Tens, perhaps hundreds, of thousands of people have been killed. Countless more are wounded or living as refugees. Launched with the intention of shoring up Israeli security and replacing rogue regimes in the Middle East with friendly, pro-Western allies, the war in Iraq has instead turned that country into a terrorist training ground. By eliminating Saddam Hussein, the U.S.-led coalition has sparked a Sunni-Shiite civil war, which threatens to spread throughout the entire Middle East. And, far from creating a secular democracy, the war has empowered Shiite fundamentalists aligned with Iran. The most powerful of these, Muqtada al-Sadr, commands both an anti-American sectarian militia and the largest voting bloc in the Iraqi parliament.

"Everything the advocates of war said would happen hasn't happened," says the president of Americans for Tax Reform, Grover Norquist, an influential conservative who backed the Iraq invasion. "And all the things the critics said would happen have happened. [The president's neoconservative advisers] are effectively saying, 'Invade Iran. Then everyone will see how smart we are.' But after you've lost x number of times at the roulette wheel, do you double-down?"

By now, the story of how neoconservatives hijacked American foreign policy is a familiar one. With Vice President Dick Cheney and Rumsfeld leading the way, neocons working out of the office of the vice president and the Department of Defense orchestrated a spectacular disinformation operation, asserting that Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction posed a grave and immediate threat to the U.S. Veteran analysts who disagreed were circumvented. Dubious information from known fabricators was hyped. Forged documents showing phony yellowcake-uranium sales to Iraq were promoted.

What's less understood is that the same tactics have been in play with Iran. Once again, neocon ideologues have been flogging questionable intelligence about W.M.D. Once again, dubious Middle East exile groups are making the rounds in Washington—this time urging regime change in Syria and Iran. Once again, heroic new exile leaders are promising freedom.

Meanwhile, a series of recent moves by the military have lent credence to widespread reports that the U.S. is secretly preparing for a massive air attack against Iran. (No one is suggesting a ground invasion.) First came the deployment order of U.S. Navy ships to the Persian Gulf. Then came high-level personnel shifts signaling a new focus on naval and air operations rather than the ground combat that predominates in Iraq. In his January 10 speech, Bush announced that he was sending Patriot missiles to the Middle East to defend U.S. allies—presumably from Iran. And he pointedly asserted that Iran was "providing material support for attacks on American troops," a charge that could easily evolve into a casus belli.

"It is absolutely parallel," says Philip Giraldi, a former C.I.A. counterterrorism specialist. "They're using the same dance steps—demonize the bad guys, the pretext of diplomacy, keep out of negotiations, use proxies. It is Iraq redux..."

This is but a sample. I strongly recommend reading the article in its entirety. At the risk of seeming redundant...

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Rule By Decree

I quote him again:

---

"As anyone who studies the behavior of the U.S. empire during the last century discovers a common factor; every time the US are going to attack someone, they don’t do it right away, they start by preparing the terrain of their internal public opinion, one of the things that worries them the most....That way, when they launch the attack, they obtain the support of a big part of their internal public opinion. Almost all media in the country support them... they look for allies in Europe, from the U.N., they start preparing the terrain..."

Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela
February 20, 2005

---

I was scanning news stories on the internet a couple of days ago when I ran across the following headline:

Chavez Gains Free Rein In Venezuela

The report describes how the Venezuelan congress has ostensibly given it's President, Huge Chavez Frias, dictatorial powers to "rule by decree". Well, that certainly does sound like an alarming development when it's put that way. As if to ensure your alarm, the reporter begins as follows:

Convening in a downtown plaza in a session that resembled a political rally, lawmakers unanimously gave Chavez sweeping powers to legislate by decree and impose his radical vision of a more egalitarian socialist state.

"Long live the sovereign people! Long live President Hugo Chavez! Long live socialism!" said National Assembly President Cilia Flores as she proclaimed the "enabling law" approved by a show of hands. "Fatherland, socialism or death! We will prevail!"

The law gives Chavez, who is beginning a fresh six-year term, more power than he has ever had in eight years as president, and he plans to use it during the next 18 months to transform broad areas of public life, from the economy and the oil industry in particular, to "social matters" and the very structure of the state.

His critics call it a radical lurch toward authoritarianism by a leader with unchecked power — similar to how Fidel Castro monopolized leadership years ago in Cuba.

"If you have all the power, why do you need more power?" said Luis Gonzalez, a high school teacher who paused to watch in the plaza, calling it a "media show" intended to give legitimacy to a repugnant move. "We're headed toward a dictatorship, disguised as a democracy."

Oh, things certainly seem dire down there for each and every American trapped inside a Venezuelans body, screaming to get out, doesn't it? "It's the end of democracy", we're led to believe.

Of course, buried near the bottom of the story is this surprisingly reasonable statement from one State Department official in nearby Columbia:

"It's something valid under the constitution," said Shannon, the assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, told reporters in Colombia. "As with any tool of democracy, it depends how it is used," he added. "At the end of the day, it's not a question for the United States or for other countries, but for Venezuela."

What happened here? Did someone forget to fax the day's theme to this guy? What does he mean it's "valid under the constitution?" How are we supposed to paint Chavez as an anti-constitutional tyrant if we've got this guy down there citing facts about the Venezuelan constitution? Isn't he "emboldening the enemy"?

Let's delve further into this because I think we may be on to something. Eric Wingerter has penned what seems to be the definitive breakdown of what's behind this "enabling law" in Venezuela and the shrieking "rule by decree" headlines we're seeing in the US news media.

Mr. Wingerter, what say ye?

Did you hear that President Chavez is going to Rule by Decree for the next 18 months? The very idea evokes a picture of a not-too-distant South American past, one in which all-powerful executives live out their capricious whims and mete out brutal retribution against political enemies. It's all so dramatic and perverse and larger than life. Somewhere Andrew Lloyd Webber is already mapping out the musical score.

But in this case, it's just not true. Of course, if you've been reading the newspapers lately, you'd have a hard time figuring that out. The Miami Herald headline blares: "Chavez Granted Power to Rule by Decree." Time Magazine asks "Is Chavez Becoming Castro?" And those are the restrained ones. The right-wing rags have headlines like "A Dictatorship Rises," and "Hugo Chavez Kills Democracy." So you'd be forgiven for not getting the nuances in this storyline.

Here's what's actually happening: The Venezuelan assembly is poised to pass a law that will give the executive branch greater leeway to establish norms on a certain range of issues. Most of these involve guidelines for the president's own cabinet-level agencies. In other words, the Venezuelan version of the IRS will map out the country's tax structure; the Transportation department will devise its own strategic plan for public transit nationwide, etc. This represents a shift of certain powers from the legislative branch to the executive, to be sure, but on paper they don't seem to stray too far from the powers that the executive branch in the United States already has. Venezuelanaysis.com has a full listing of the ten issue areas that are affected.

It is important to note that this type of power-transfer is allowed under the Venezuelan constitution of 1999, which expressly permits the President to issue executive orders specifically within these issue areas. Of course, the constitution continues to guide the country's overall legal framework, which is to say that no "decree" can supercede constitutional law.

What's more, this "enabling law" is not new to the current constitution. Venezuela's previous constitution allowed for similar powers shifts to the executive, and you can be sure that past presidents took advantage of this authority on multiple occasions throughout the 70's, 80's and 90's.

OK, so it's not anything new and, contrary to rumor, Chavez hasn't been granted the power to "rule by decree" at all. Yet here we are being subjected to these screaming headlines described above in virtually every corner of the US media if not the world.

I find that particularly interesting because the nature of these new powers -- i.e. executive branch agencies being granted the right to write the rules governing their particular area of responsibility independent of legislative approval -- sounds eerily familiar.

Bush Directive Increases Sway on Regulation
[Registration req'd; Alternative link]
By ROBERT PEAR
Published: January 30, 2007 [New York Times]

WASHINGTON, Jan. 29 — President Bush has signed a directive that gives the White House much greater control over the rules and policy statements that the government develops to protect public health, safety, the environment, civil rights and privacy.

In an executive order published last week in the Federal Register, Mr. Bush said that each agency must have a regulatory policy office run by a political appointee, to supervise the development of rules and documents providing guidance to regulated industries. The White House will thus have a gatekeeper in each agency to analyze the costs and the benefits of new rules and to make sure the agencies carry out the president’s priorities.

This strengthens the hand of the White House in shaping rules that have, in the past, often been generated by civil servants and scientific experts. It suggests that the administration still has ways to exert its power after the takeover of Congress by the Democrats.

[Snip]

Consumer, labor and environmental groups denounced the executive order, saying it gave too much control to the White House and would hinder agencies’ efforts to protect the public.

Typically, agencies issue regulations under authority granted to them in laws enacted by Congress. In many cases, the statute does not say precisely what agencies should do, giving them considerable latitude in interpreting the law and developing regulations.

The directive issued by Mr. Bush says that, in deciding whether to issue regulations, federal agencies must identify “the specific market failure” or problem that justifies government intervention.

Besides placing political appointees in charge of rule making, Mr. Bush said agencies must give the White House an opportunity to review “any significant guidance documents” before they are issued.

[Snip]

Peter L. Strauss, a professor at Columbia Law School, said the executive order “achieves a major increase in White House control over domestic government.”

“Having lost control of Congress,” Mr. Strauss said, “the president is doing what he can to increase his control of the executive branch.”

So, in what way does this differ from what is being done in Venezuela, one might ask. Allow me to suggest some important distinctions:

1) In Venezuela the measure is temporary, with the powers set to expire after 18 months. Not so in the US where the change is permanent.

2) In Venezuela the measure was adopted after a vote of the duly-elected representatives in that nation's legislature. In the US it happened by Executive Order, quietly and without the consultation of any other branch of government -- a decree, if you will.

3) In Venezuela the measure applies to a President who does not subscribe to a Unitary Executive Theory, unlike the President of the United States.

One can only wonder why a temporary legislative measure in the distant land of Venezuela sets off more alarm bells and feigned concern for the state of democracy than does the odious Unitary Executive Theory, the avowed philosophy of its own President, in the American news media.

Is that sulfur I smell?


More:

Bush Seizes Power While Media Fixates on Chavez
Eric Wingeter on Chavez' "Rule by Decree"

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Straight to the Good Part

I think this AP story serves as a good follow-up to the "The" vs "A" post from a few days ago. That earlier post dealt with the use of language to control the terms of a debate, focusing on the use of indefinite article "the" to reinforce false assumptions (e.g., "What are we to do about the WMD in Iraq"). The following excerpt is an example of same technique applied this time by the use of the adjective "its"...

U.S. Warns Iran to Back Down

By Jim Krane, Associated Press Writer | January 23, 2007

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates --A second U.S. aircraft carrier strike group now steaming toward the Middle East is Washington's way of warning Iran to back down in its attempts to dominate the region, a top U.S. diplomat said here Tuesday.

Nicholas Burns, U.S. undersecretary of state for political affairs, ruled out direct negotiations with Iran and said a rapprochement between Washington and Tehran was "not possible" until Iran halts uranium enrichment.

"The Middle East isn't a region to be dominated by Iran. The Gulf isn't a body of water to be controlled by Iran. That's why we've seen the United States station two carrier battle groups in the region," Burns said in an address to the Dubai-based Gulf Research Center, an influential think-tank...

So what has happened here? It seems that we have completely skipped over the most important part of the debate, the part where we actually establish as a fact the idea that Iran is attempting to dominate the region or that it's nuclear program is for anything other than energy production. We haven't bothered with that at all. Instead we've gone straight to the good part, the fun part, the part where we decide what to do about this unconfirmed threat.

This is how simple, subtle choices of words can change the entire dynamic of the debate. The US official quoted here could have warned Iran to not attempt to dominate the region. He could have made reference to Iran's suspected desire to dominate the region. He could have used any number formulations that more accurately portrayed state of knowledge on Iran's intentions, characterizing them as uncertain or unclear. But, alas, that doesn't the serve the purpose of justifying the war that's already been decided upon. So he chose not to use any of those. Instead he baselessly gave us a definitive reference to "it's attempts" to dominate the region as if they were already documented and agreed upon.

That possessive adjective, "it's", carries with it the implicit assumption that thing that is possessed actually exists. How can it be possessed if it doesn't exist, right? Good, no need to prove it then.

Naturally, it follows that the only question that remains now is what to do about "it's attempts" and it follows very nicely from there that we have our warships in place.

So, as you can see, if we accept this spokesman's framing of the issue we have unwittingly conceded the point completely. The decision to take some action against Iran has already been made for us before a single countering argument can even been made because the issue has come to us pre-packaged with a ready-made concession to the warmongers. If we accept it as-is then, just as was with Iraq, they may fire when ready.

"Can't get fooled again!"

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"The" vs "A"

This is my kind of article. A psychology professor breaks down one glaring example of the use of language to control the terms of the debate. In this case he looks at the impact of the indefinite article:

American psychologist, Elizabeth Loftus, and her colleagues have shown how rhetorical tricks can make people misconceive reality. In one study by Loftus and Zanni (1975), people were shown a film of a car accident, and then asked questions about what they saw. A random half of the witnesses were asked “Did you see a broken headlight?” and the other half were asked “Did you see the broken headlight?” In the first version, 7% of the people said they saw a broken headlight. In the second version, 17% said they saw the broken headlight. In fact, there was no broken headlight. If someone uses the definite article “the”, then listeners and readers tend to presume that what follows actually exists.

In another study by Loftus (1975), people viewed a film and one group answered a questionnaire that included, "Did you see the children getting on the school bus?" and the other group did not get this question. A week later, people filled out a second questionnaire that contained the question, "Did you see a school bus?" Only 6% of the people who had not been exposed the the question a week earlier recalled seeing a school bus, but 26% of those who had been exposed to the the question a week earlier said "yes" they had seen a school bus. In fact, there was no school bus.

Thus, by the simple use of the, just one time, 10% of the people could be made to believe that something was there that was not there. With some additional details that fit, like children getting on school buses, and with the delay of a week to consolidate the false information, 20% of people could be made to believe that something was there that was not there.

Imagine the effectiveness of the, repeated over and over and over and over, for weeks and months, by authorities whom we are trained to trust, providing lots of information that coherently fits with the false claims. For example, the Independent article quoted President Bush using the three times:

"We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We will interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq."

There are in fact attacks on US forces (but done by anti-Iranian Sunni insurgents), and there are in fact networks providing advanced weapons for these attacks (but coming from pre-war Iraqi caches and pilfered from US supplies). Those two true facts serve to add coherence and believability to the unsubstantiated claim about “the flow of support from Iran and Syria” for which there is in fact no evidence. Thus we come to confidently believe something is there that is not there.

The Independent is careful not to serve as a propagandist for governments bent on misleading the public in order to make new wars. When unnamed officials make claims, they are not presented as true, but as alleged, reportedly. And when there is no evidence, the Independent says that there is no evidence:

“Officials have also reportedly claimed that thousands of Shia militia fighters have been trained in Iran by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and the Ministry of Intelligence and Security. Again, no evidence to support these claims has been made public.”

American journalists writing for US media are much less careful, and much more comfortable reinforcing beliefs for which there is no evidence, other than the repeated over and over and over. For example, ABC News headlined a report, “EXCLUSIVE: Iranian Weapons Arm Iraqi Militia”. The report quoted unnamed authorities that “smoking-gun evidence” has been found, that “the material is going directly from Iranian factories to Shia militias” and that “the weapons have been supplied to Iraq's growing Shia militias”. But the alleged weapons and other evidence are only hearsay, never made public and not seen by the reporter. The “smoking gun” is actually smoke and mirrors made by repeated use of the definite article the.

The world is again being tricked into war by empty rhetoric and fear, unsupported by facts.

Please read the article in its entirety. I actually have nothing more to add.

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It's an Occupation, Not a War

Every now and then I find myself in "enemy" territory.

For instance, I was invited to a small New Year's Eve gathering by some relatively new acquaintances. I understand that many of my views are hard for some folks to swallow at first glance. They cut against the "mainstream", nightly news grain so I don't walk into new environments with pistols blazing or anything. But sometime during the football game the subject of Iraq came up because of Saddam's execution -- it wasn't me, I promise. The reaction of the people there was one of celebration on the one hand and disgust that Muslims could possibly have any complaints about it on the other. So, right then and there it was clear. This is not my target audience -- but maybe they should be.

Anyway, I have nothing against these folks. They seemed damned decent to me and I liked them. They didn't strike me as partisan political junkies at all. They were ordinary folks who, like anyone else, were reacting to the news of the day. But the conversation was peppered with vintage BushCo talking points despite the fact that I didn't get the feeling these were rabid Bush supporters. Still, they were riding the "fight them there so we don't have to fight them here" horse like Willie Shoemaker. That stuff is like horseradish or dirty diapers to me -- damned near impossible to ignore. It's hard to let that stuff go unanswered.

My opening came when one of the guests mentioned that our involvement in the war was now longer than our involvement in World War II. That factoid seemed to surprise some of the others in the room and that gave me the opportunity send up my trial balloon.

"That's true," I said, "but when you really think about it, it's not really a war so much as it is an occupation," I offered helpfully.

"I mean, there's not really a line of troops with tanks, air support, attack chopper and gunships facing our guys over there," I added.

I finished it off with what I admit was a bit of superficial rhetorical camouflage, "So, if you look at it in terms of other occupations, it's not really that long at all."

Everyone reacted positively to that one, to my pleasant surprise, agreeing that it was more like an occupation than a hot war like WWII or even Vietnam.


Seed Planted

The distinction between war and occupation is an important one when it comes to people's perception of our involvement in Iraq. The Bush administration seems to realize that as long as they can keep the public locked into the war paradigm they can still kick up little dust-bunnies of support for their program. Their well-worn assortment of schoolyard taunts, accusing critics of wanting to "cut & run" or "appease the enemy" are just enough to earn them at least the grudging support of an American public that feels obligated to back their country in a war, right or wrong.

But something happened in that room when I managed to get people to acknowledge the true nature of what's happening in Iraq. Once they accepted the idea of it being an occupation instead of a war all the talk of "victory" ended abruptly. Now, one might suspect that this happened because I'd made them uncomfortable, but I don't think so. That's not the feeling I got. What I think really happened is that everyone realized that you can't win an occupation the way you can win a war.

So here we see how language, the words we choose to use, effects the direction and tone of the debate -- a fact that I promise you is not lost on the Bush Administration. The power of language is why our media establishment is so squeamish about naming the obvious civil war that is taking place in Iraq. They insist on calling it all "sectarian violence" because "civil war" just seems too damning for their tastes and those of the White House. They would be even more squeamish about labeling our presense there an occupation if any significant pressure to do so even existed.

If it's called a war then the more than 3,000 dead servicemen can be minimized as insignificant compared to other wars. But that's not a fair comparison, is it? How do those numbers stack up in comparison to other occupations? How many of our troops died in Germany? Japan? The Balkans? Somalia? Need a I go on? That simple shift of the paradigm changes the whole ballgame.

War allows people to behave like cheerleaders, cheering on our armed services as they slug it out against military adversaries who can be tangibly defeated. Victory is easily defined as the operational incapacitation of the enemy. Whoo-hah.

Occupation, on the other hand, is a completely different animal. An occupation is carried out against a civilian population and it's a lot harder to get decent, ordinary Americans cheering for military assaults on civilians.

What's more, the only possible victory that exists in the occupation of people who neither want to be occupied nor share your goals for their country is the continuance of the occupation. Victory is no longer an attractive end to be achieved but a seemingly permanent, artificial condition to maintained. As such, an occupation mind-set forces people back home, like the ones I met last night, to think and ask the only questions that matter.

"Why are we there again?" and "When are we going to leave?"


Why are we there?

Because being there is the whole point. Being there to control the oil supply; being there to threaten Iran and Syria; and being there to influence the region by our very presence are all the stated reasons outlined by top Bush Administration officials years before 9/11 ever happened.

We don't have to speculate on any this because these fools wrote it all down long ago in a series of documents dating back as early as 1992. The message was tweaked, expounded upon and polished again until it was finally published on the web at the website of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC). A full year before the events of 9/11 ever happened, in a document entitled "Rebuilding America's Defenses" (PDF file) the PNAC spelled it all out very plainly:

Indeed, the United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.

So you mean Saddam isn't the real reason? The outlines of the same ideas described in that PNAC document can be found with even more refinement at the White House's own website in the National Security Strategy of the United States of America.

These are no low-level small fries I'm talking about. The PNAC is comprised of officials and advisers from the very top of our government, past and present -- names like Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Bush, Libby, Khalizad, Podhoretz, Bennett and Cohen just to name a few.

They're proud of this stuff. For them victory does not mean ending this conflict. For them victory means occupation and occupation means control, which brings us to the true answer to the second question.


When are we going to leave?

Never. Understand this. We don't ever intend to leave. This is why we're building 14 permanent bases and the largest foreign embassy in the world over there. This is why our President is so stubbornly opposed to any timetable for withdrawal. A timetable would mean too much pressure to actually withdraw and he doesn't really intend to ever withdraw. It's a problem for future presidents, you know.

And what about all this recent talk of a "troop surge" and an "expansion" of the military? Are these ideas being pursued for the purpose of helping to end this occupation or to facilitate its continuance? It's well-known that the military at it's current size can barely keep up it's current pace as it is. It certainly can't pursue any significant new wars without diverting resources away from Iraq. But a "troop surge" and "expansion" would make it possible to continue the occupation unabated while launching new optional wars against nations like Iran or Syria.

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An aside: For those of you doing Vietnam analogies at home:

Troop surge & expansion = escalation
Iran and/or Syria = Cambodia

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This just so happens to dovetail very smoothly into the PNAC's pre-9/11 prescriptions for the US military. Quoting from PNAC's "Rebuilding America's Defenses" again, two "core missions" for the US Military are to:

• fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars;
• perform the “constabulary” duties associated with shaping the security critical regions;

To accomplish these missions the PNACers most notably prescribe the following:

RESTORE THE PERSONNEL STRENGTH of today’s force to roughly the levels anticipated in the “Base Force” outlined by the Bush Administration, an increase in active-duty strength from 1.4 million to 1.6 million. [read: "Expand the military"]

REPOSITION U.S. FORCES to respond to 21st century strategic realities by shifting permanently-based forces to Southeast Europe and Southeast Asia, and by changing naval deployment patterns to reflect growing U.S. strategic concerns in East Asia.

In the above formulation the repositioning of forces would seem to merely surround the middle-east. But in a later section describing their thoughts in greater detail, under the subheading, "Persian Gulf", they explain:

After eight years of no-fly-zone operations, there is little reason to anticipate that the U.S. air presence in the region should diminish significantly as long as Saddam Hussein remains in power... From an American perspective, the value of such bases would endure even should Saddam pass from the scene. Over the long term, Iran may well prove as large a threat to U.S. interests in the Gulf as Iraq has. And even should U.S.-Iranian relations improve, retaining forward-based forces in the region would still be an essential element in U.S. security strategy given the longstanding American interests in the region.

In short, again, they have no intention of ever leaving Iraq.


Israel's methods, Israel's results

Again, this is an occupation, not a war. The war portion of our program ended within about two weeks of the invasion. Since that time we have been actively engaged in the permanent occupation of a Muslim country. To assist us in this enterprise we have enlisted the aid of world's foremost authorities on the occupation of Muslim countries, the United Kingdom and Israel. Both have extensive experience from their occupations of Palestine. But Israel in particular has occupied Muslim neighbors in Palestinian territory and the Golan Heights section of Syria continuously for the last 40 years, with stints in Lebanon sandwiched in between for good measure.

The role of Tony Blair's UK in Iraq has been well-documented and needn't be rehashed here. But less is said about Israel's role. From the very outset the US has also relied heavily on Israel's military and intelligence services. Our troops receive training from Israeli Defense Forces in their counterinsurgency efforts, drawing from "lessons learned in the conflict with the Palestinians". Israel also supplies a great deal of the intelligence on Iraq that our government relies on in its continuing operations there.

Let's think about that for a moment. We're taking advice from the Israelis on how to end an insurgency and terrorist activity. In it's 40 years of occupation in Palestine the Israeli terrorist problem has gotten nothing but worse. How are they the ones to go to for tips on how to end terrorism?

Answer: They're not. Instead, they're the ones to go to for tips on how to manage it.

That's an important distinction. In an earlier post I cited University of Southampton professor Oren Ben-Dor's explanation of how this all works. For Israel the idea is not to end the conflict in Palestine at all. Instead they seek to manage it, to contain it and to use it when needed to justify its actions. The ongoing violence resulting from their occupation are made-to-order pretexts for punitive military action, the expansion of Israeli territory and the suppression of Palestinian rights.

This too threatens to be the way of the US occupation of Iraq. Every day of violence justifies our presence and our presence engenders more violence in a self-sustaining loop. When you view the situation from that perspective, focused on the occupation, everything the Bush administration has done makes perfect sense. The permanent bases, the absolutely HUGE embassy, the refusal to enunciate a public plan for withdrawal, the close consultation with Israel and the circular nature of the operations in general all play very conveniently into an open-ended, indefinite, long-term occupation of that country. Even Bush himself is now calling it "the long struggle". Israel has kept this kind of game up for 40 years so don't hold your breath waiting for the US to leave Iraq.

However, it stands to reason that if you employ Israeli methods you're likely going to get Israeli results. Unfortunately, there's nothing in Israel's long-term counter-terrorism track record that suggests that its methods will lead to anything other than more terrorism, more local dissatisfaction and desperation, and the increased radicalization of the occupied population.

Israel's creation and its subsequent occupation of what is left of Palestinian land eventually led to the formation of the PLO in the first place, which we used to think was as bad as it gets... until we saw Hezbollah.

Hezbollah itself was created in response to Israel's occupation of Lebanon and the civil war it caused (stop me if that sounds familiar). We all thought that was uniquely bad... until we saw Hamas.

Hamas was formed in response to Israel's continued occupation and expansion into Palestine and we now, very clearly, care for them even less. It gets more radical as we go along.

With the US, like Israel, occupying a Muslim country using Israeli tactics and methods it can expect to reap the exact same results Israel is getting. Terrorism against the US, even inside the US, stands to mirror that of Israel in the future. This is true, not in spite of our occupation of Iraq, but because of it. This occupation almost guarantees it. We'll be fighting them over here much more than we otherwise might have precisely because we're occupying them over there.

Of course, the US is not Israel and there certain structural truths about Israel that don't exist in the US. However, in the eyes of the Arab world (and in our own congress apparently) the two have always been viewed as nearly synonymous. Our actions in Iraq only serve to reinforce, if not cement, that perception. We allow this at our own peril.

This is the barely-hidden truth that, if revealed convincingly to a wide audience, will unravel this whole thing politically. We are not at war with Iraq and Iraq never threatened our freedom. We are occupying Iraq and we are doing so because that's how our current leaders want it.

They only way for the American people get their sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, cousins and friends out of Iraq is to make a significant change in our nation's leadership and to let the new leaders who take their place know that they are on the clock. That process begins by abandoning the self-serving psychological framework the current administration has crafted to justify their actions. Understand that this "war" is actually an unnecessary and wholly premeditated occupation that must end. It is imperative that we do so. The alternative is unthinkable.

I think I brought a few folks closer to this realization last night.


UPDATE: In this post I made mention of the enormous US embassy that BushCo is building in Baghdad. Today the Financial Times published a story about that embassy that, I think, underscores the reality of the situation there. Our presence there is part of a long-term occupation, not a war on terror:

At the heart of George W. Bush’s “new way forward” – which the president is expected to announce on Wednesday and involve substantial troop reinforcements – is the plan already under way to expand the US civilian presence across Iraq and complete the world’s largest embassy in Baghdad.

Construction of what critics call “Fortress Baghdad” has led to arguments inside the State Department amid fears that the overwhelming diplomatic presence will perpetuate a sense of US occupation and become a focus of local anger.

[Snip]

The embassy compound being built inside Baghdad’s Green Zone covers 104 acres, making it six times larger than the United Nations compound in New York. A city within a city for more than 1,000 people, it will have its own water, sewers and electricity, six apartment buildings, a Marine barracks, swimming pool, shops and some walls 15 feet thick.

The State Department has told the Financial Times that the US civilian presence in Iraq has “grown considerably beyond the numbers projected for the new embassy compound”, which is scheduled for completion by September 1 at a cost of $592m (€455m, £307m).

[Snip]

Condoleezza Rice, secretary of state, and other officials have repeatedly sent cables to personnel around the world saying diplomats have a patriotic duty to volunteer for Baghdad and the expanding “provincial reconstruction teams”, where diplomats work out of military bases.

“Baghdad dwarfs everything else. It is becoming a monster that has to be fed every year with a new crop of volunteers,” says one diplomat.

[Snip]

John Brown, who resigned as a US diplomat in protest against the 2003 invasion and now teaches public diplomacy, says the embassy “will be a symbol of the US occupation and the near-total separation of US embassy staff members from the society with which they are supposed to interact”.

“Indeed, the planned embassy reminds me of the huge, cavernous buildings that housed Soviet missions in eastern Europe during the cold war. They were hated by the local population for all they stood for: secrecy, arrogance and domination.”

Exactly.

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