“WHO IS IN CHARGE?” October 24, 2010
Posted by wmmbb in Iraq Policy.trackback
Following the precedent as required by imperialism, the American presence with “combat” troops and mercenaries continues in Iraq.
The land bases and installations controlled by the US military continue to expand on a worldwide basis. Apparently bases are more controllable than governments, even those that can be overthrown and replaced by a junta as in the case of Honduras. Iraq is following the established pattern, although why exactly anybody would want to steal the land around the green zone in Baghdad setting up a massive installation under the guise of an embassy I haven’t a clue. No doubt there is a rationale rather than throwing money at a wall, a feature characteristic of military spending in general as explained in 1984.
Iraq was a glorious episode in US Imperialism with the current Wikileaks release giving some of the chapter and verse when the details can be framed into their various narratives. How many civilians have been murdered, directly or indirectly, in the course of the pursuit of glory is the kind of question that cannot, or will not be answered. The Secretary of State speaks out for the safety of collaborators (which may be a legitimate concern) but is mute as an American citizen is executed on a vessel in international waters.
Dennis Kucinich has spoken out against the occupation of Iraq and the death of civilians. Last August he wrote to the Administration (via The Raw Story):
“Who is in charge of our operations in Iraq now?” he asked. “George Orwell? A war based on lies continues to be a war based on lies. Today, we have a war that is not a war, with combat troops who are not combat troops. … This is not the end of the war; this is simply a new stage in the campaign to lull the American people into accepting an open-ended presence in Iraq.”
Somehow Mr Kucinich’s concerns escaped the notice of the media, who were no doubt chasing the ambulances and picking up the press releases from Afghanistan (and now Pakistan) at the time.
Talking with Scott Horton, Pepe Escobar gives his update on the developing political scene in “post-occupation” Iraq. We will see to what extent Iraq becomes another Honduras.
ELSEWHERE:
David Batty and Jamie Doward in The Guardian report that some of the war crimes identified in the documents released by Wikileaks may have involved British troops and therefore would need to be followed through the British courts.
Robert Frisk in The Independent on Sunday outlines some of the cases related to the Wikileaks release.
Your argument would be a lot stronger if you avoided loaded terms like “murder,” “execution,” etc. It smacks of propagandistic hyperbole, and weakens your case. What’s wrong with letting the facts speak for themselves, without your obvious attempt to twist the reader’s conclusions into a preconceived paradigm?
You are right this piece was somewhat tendentious and less dispassionate.
I would argue on a factual, rather than an emotional basis, that war is a licence to murder people. And the argument would be put that soldiers placed in these have not choice. Nevertheless. as I understand it, the killing of unarmed civilians is a war crime. Aerial bombing and missiles fired from drones adds a new element. There is no accountability for the repeated failures of intelligence.
The point is not to use emotional terms but to observe that the violence and terror of war is resorted to as last resort, but rather as a first resort. So that raises the question as to What is the alternative? What are the causal factors of terrorism, whether that be suicide bombing or drone attacks in remote areas?
You are correct I have a pre-conceived paradigm, which we all ought to I believe explore. You may think this an overstatement, but I suggest the failure to consider the aspects of war crimes in the prosecution of the war against terrorism, using the means of terrorism, is a civilizational crisis. It goes fundamentally to what we are as human beings.
Given that the Israelis were determined to prevent the flotilla from reaching Gaza, and given that the folks on the flotilla were determined to break the blockade, the results were almost predictable. The Israelis requested numerous times that the flotilla disembark at either ports of Haifa or Ashdod, so the cargo could be inspected, and then transported to Gaza. 5 of the ships complied, but the Marama resisted, the Israelis attempted to board the ship, the activists attacked, and the result was 9 dead activists, one of whom had dual Turkish-US citizenship.
This was hardly a “murder” or “execution.” It was tragic, and hopefully both sides have learned something since then, so that the tragedy will not be repeated. But clearly the activists on the flotilla were more interested in breaking the blockade, than bringing relief supplies to Gaza.
If this was a violation of something called “international law,” so is the US Blockade of Cuba, which began in 1961, and almost led to a nuclear confrontation between the US and the Soviets.
Unfortunately, there is currently no body to enforce international law. The closest thing to that is an active US foreign policy, which has done less than an adequate job.
Furkan Dogan was an American citizen. He did not hold dual citizenship.The forensic evidence, as revealed by the UN Enquiry, indicates that he was shot from above and was lying bleeding on the deck where he was shot at short range. The forensics were conducted by Turkish doctors. These details are from the interview that Scott Horton had with Gareth Porter.
As for the cargo there is probably a standard procedure in that it has to be declared at the port of origin, so it can be sent to the port of destination where usual custom procedures apply.
The reason, I am guessing the Israelis attempted to land on the deck from above is that they were surrounding the MV Mari Marmara with inflatables and their attempts at boarding were beaten back, as the passengers and crew were quite entitled to do. Then the question arises as to why the Israelis did not wait until the vessels had crossed into the exclusion zone, but that was not Israeli territorial waters, and thus was the province of the Hamas government of Gaza.
The Cuban Missile Crisis had some differences, in particular that US Government has aerial photographs launching sites and so forth. What evidence did the Israelis have that the peace flotilla was carrying anything other than humanitarian aid? Have they produced any such evidence since the boarding? So why have they not returned all the personal photographic and computer equipment and the vessels that they apprehended, including the video camera that Furkan Dogan was using? Why were the protesters subjected to the personal abuse by their Israeli captors?
Stan,your last point is a very good one. There are, as I understand it, various ways that international law is enforced and maintained. There is the International Criminal Court. There are extradition treaties and reference to Interpol.There are UN inquiries.
Whenever we share a common good, such as fishing grounds or gases in the atmosphere, issues of governance arise. I agree that US foreign policy is a form of international governance, which better if they applied the principles of accountability, human rights and the rule of law but they act in what they perceive as the US national interest. Teddy Roosevelt in 1922 made reference to the “invisible government”, the set of powerful oligarchical corporate interests that control US policy.
You make many good points, and appear to know some things about the situation I was not aware of.
While the flotilla activists may have been “entitled” to fight off Israeli boarders, given the Israeli’s oft-stated determination to prevent the breaking of their blockade, someone was bound to get hurt.
While Israel could not be certain there were materials that could be used for weapons aboard the flotilla, they had plenty of proof that Hamas (which had declared war on the Jewish state) had bombarded them with rockets almost daily, over a period of years. Thus their determination to prevent the flotilla landing in Gaza.
If the flotilla activists’ interest was in embarrassing the Israelis, they succeeded; if their interest was getting badly-needed supplies to Gaza, they failed.
Their refusal to allow the cargoes to be checked in an Israeli port suggests their primary focus was on breaking the blockade, rather than simply getting supplies to Gaza. What did they expect the Israelis to do? What could the Israelis possibly have done?
The simple answer is that they could have let them through. What was the big deal? They could have easily checked with the Turkish Government.
Was military violence the only way the Israelis could have stopped the firing of rockets? What pretext did those Palestinians who launched the rockets have?
The suffering inflicted on the people of Gaza is not just an incidental outcome; it is deliberate policy which forms part of a larger pattern, including the blockade but extending to diverting water, directing sewerage, firing on people as they work their fields close to the wall and the humiliation of people at check points, not to mention the relentless theft of land and dispossession in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Juan Cole describes some of these developments at Informed Comment.