True tales from the frontlines of the Global War on Thoughtism:
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Wednesday, October 31, 2007
THIS WEEK'S COLUMN: Who Will Be Our Next Torturer-in-Chief?
George W. Bush has shoved American politics into the dark realm of the lunatic right, zipping past Joe McCarthy into territory previously covered by historical accounts of Germany in the 1940s. We've lost our right to see an attorney, to confront our accusers, even to get a fair trial. Government agents have kidnapped thousands of people, many of whom have never been heard from again. Bush even signed an edict claiming the right to assassinate anyone, including you and me, based solely on his whims. Torture, the ultimate sign that civilized society has been replaced by a police state, was repeatedly authorized by government officials who smirked the few times reporters had the temerity to ask them about it.
The 2000, 2004 and 2008 presidential elections have been and will prove to be decisive moments in American history. In each case the American people were offered a stark choice between a future of freedom and one under tyranny.
In 2000 the American people chose dictatorship, watching passively as a rogue Supreme Court violated the Constitution and handed Bush the keys to the White House. We had a chance to restore the vision of the original Framers in 2004. Instead, we sat on our asses while Bush stole yet another election. The 2008 race could mark our last chance to get back the system of government we enjoyed before the December 20, 2000 coup.
We must elect--by an overwhelming, theft-proof majority--a candidate who promises to renounce Bush and all his works. A reform-minded president's first act should be to sign a law that reads as follows: "The federal government of the United States having been illegitimate and illegal since January 20, 2001, all laws, regulations, executive orders, and acts of commission or omission enacted between that infamous day and 12 noon Eastern Standard Time on January 20, 2009 are hereby declared invalid and without effect." Guantánamo, secret prisons, extraordinary rendition, spying on Americans' phone calls and emails, and "legal" torture would be erased. Our troops should immediately pull out of Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Somalia; we should apologize to our victims and offer to compensate them and their survivors. Bush should never appear on any list of American presidents. When he dies, his carcass shouldn't receive a state funeral. It ought to be thrown in the trash.
Unfortunately, no one like that is running for president. To the contrary, most of the major presidential candidates want to accelerate America's slide into outright moral bankruptcy.
Inspired by what good people find appalling, America's Mayor has turned into America's Maniac. Torture, says Rudy Giuliani, is smart. He endorses the medieval practice of waterboarding, revived in CIA torture chambers after 9/11, in which a person is strapped to a board, tipped back and forced to inhale water to induce the sensation of drowning.
"It depends on how it's done," Giuliani said when asked about waterboarding and whether it is torture. "It depends on the circumstances. It depends on who does it." Giuliani used to be a federal prosecutor. Would he have used similar logic in the prosecution of an accused torturer?
The mayor-turned-monster even used a campaign stop in Iowa to mock the victims of sleep deprivation, long acknowledged by international law as one of the severest forms of torture. "They talk about sleep deprivation," he said. "I mean, on that theory, I'm getting tortured running for president of the United States. That's plain silly. That's silly."
Waterboarding causes pain, brain damage and broken bones (from the restraints used on struggling victims), and death. Survivors are psychologically scarred. "Some victims were still traumatized years later," Dr. Allen Keller, director of the Bellevue/New York University Program for Survivors of Torture, told The New Yorker. "One patient couldn't take showers, and panicked when it rained."
Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin described the sleep deprivation he suffered as a captive of the Soviet KGB: "In the head of the interrogated prisoner, a haze begins to form. His spirit is wearied to death, his legs are unsteady, and he has one sole desire: to sleep…Anyone who has experienced this desire knows that not even hunger and thirst are comparable with it."
Giuliani isn't the only wanna be Torturer-in-Chief. Congressman Tom Tancredo, a Colorado Republican, offered this Lincolnesque rhetorical gem at one of the debates: "What do we do in the response to a nuclear--or the fact that a nuclear device or some bombs have gone off in the United States? We know that there are--we have captured people who have information that could lead us to the next one that's going to go off and it's the big one…I would do--certainly, waterboard--I don't believe that that is, quote, 'torture.'"
In an appearance on Fox News' "Hannity & Colmes," Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee said the U.S. does and should torture: "We have received good solid information from [torture], and have saved American lives because of it."
Duncan Hunter made fun of the concentration camp at Guantánamo: "You got guys like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed [a detainee victim of U.S. waterboarding], "who said that he planned the attack on 9/11. You got Osama bin Laden's bodyguards. Those guys get taxpayer-paid-for prayer rugs. They have prayer five times a day. They've all gained weight. The last time I looked at the menu, they had honey-glazed chicken and rice pilaf on Friday. That's how we treat the terrorists. They've got health care that's better than most HMOs…They live in a place called Guantánamo, where not one person has ever been murdered."
Three inmates have been found dead at Gitmo. (The military claimed they were suicides.) As of August 2003, at least 29 POWs had attempted suicide. Scores of hunger strikers are being force-fed.
Fred Thompson says he won't authorize waterboarding "as a matter of course" but likes to keep his options open. Mitt Romney punts questions about waterboarding: "I don't think as a presidential candidate it is appropriate for me to weigh in on specific forms of interrogation that our CIA would employ. In circumstances of extreme threat to the nation, where we employ what is known as enhanced interrogation techniques, we don't describe those techniques."
At a Democratic debate in New Hampshire, Barack Obama refused to rule out torture. "Now, I will do whatever it takes to keep America safe. And there are going to be all sorts of hypotheticals [presumably, Tancredo's hoary "ticking time bomb" fantasy] and emergency situations, and I will make that judgement at that time." Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden said they agree with Obama. Democrats Bill Richardson, John Edwards and Chris Dodd have offered unequivocal stances against torture. On the Republican side, only John McCain and Ron Paul have done so. Even McCain, himself a victim of torture in Vietnam, refuses to rule out voting to confirm Bush's attorney general nominee, Michael Mukasey. "If it amounts to torture," Mukasey said of waterboarding, "then it is not constitutional."
"If"?
COPYRIGHT 2007 TED RALL
George W. Bush has shoved American politics into the dark realm of the lunatic right, zipping past Joe McCarthy into territory previously covered by historical accounts of Germany in the 1940s. We've lost our right to see an attorney, to confront our accusers, even to get a fair trial. Government agents have kidnapped thousands of people, many of whom have never been heard from again. Bush even signed an edict claiming the right to assassinate anyone, including you and me, based solely on his whims. Torture, the ultimate sign that civilized society has been replaced by a police state, was repeatedly authorized by government officials who smirked the few times reporters had the temerity to ask them about it.
The 2000, 2004 and 2008 presidential elections have been and will prove to be decisive moments in American history. In each case the American people were offered a stark choice between a future of freedom and one under tyranny.
In 2000 the American people chose dictatorship, watching passively as a rogue Supreme Court violated the Constitution and handed Bush the keys to the White House. We had a chance to restore the vision of the original Framers in 2004. Instead, we sat on our asses while Bush stole yet another election. The 2008 race could mark our last chance to get back the system of government we enjoyed before the December 20, 2000 coup.
We must elect--by an overwhelming, theft-proof majority--a candidate who promises to renounce Bush and all his works. A reform-minded president's first act should be to sign a law that reads as follows: "The federal government of the United States having been illegitimate and illegal since January 20, 2001, all laws, regulations, executive orders, and acts of commission or omission enacted between that infamous day and 12 noon Eastern Standard Time on January 20, 2009 are hereby declared invalid and without effect." Guantánamo, secret prisons, extraordinary rendition, spying on Americans' phone calls and emails, and "legal" torture would be erased. Our troops should immediately pull out of Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Somalia; we should apologize to our victims and offer to compensate them and their survivors. Bush should never appear on any list of American presidents. When he dies, his carcass shouldn't receive a state funeral. It ought to be thrown in the trash.
Unfortunately, no one like that is running for president. To the contrary, most of the major presidential candidates want to accelerate America's slide into outright moral bankruptcy.
Inspired by what good people find appalling, America's Mayor has turned into America's Maniac. Torture, says Rudy Giuliani, is smart. He endorses the medieval practice of waterboarding, revived in CIA torture chambers after 9/11, in which a person is strapped to a board, tipped back and forced to inhale water to induce the sensation of drowning.
"It depends on how it's done," Giuliani said when asked about waterboarding and whether it is torture. "It depends on the circumstances. It depends on who does it." Giuliani used to be a federal prosecutor. Would he have used similar logic in the prosecution of an accused torturer?
The mayor-turned-monster even used a campaign stop in Iowa to mock the victims of sleep deprivation, long acknowledged by international law as one of the severest forms of torture. "They talk about sleep deprivation," he said. "I mean, on that theory, I'm getting tortured running for president of the United States. That's plain silly. That's silly."
Waterboarding causes pain, brain damage and broken bones (from the restraints used on struggling victims), and death. Survivors are psychologically scarred. "Some victims were still traumatized years later," Dr. Allen Keller, director of the Bellevue/New York University Program for Survivors of Torture, told The New Yorker. "One patient couldn't take showers, and panicked when it rained."
Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin described the sleep deprivation he suffered as a captive of the Soviet KGB: "In the head of the interrogated prisoner, a haze begins to form. His spirit is wearied to death, his legs are unsteady, and he has one sole desire: to sleep…Anyone who has experienced this desire knows that not even hunger and thirst are comparable with it."
Giuliani isn't the only wanna be Torturer-in-Chief. Congressman Tom Tancredo, a Colorado Republican, offered this Lincolnesque rhetorical gem at one of the debates: "What do we do in the response to a nuclear--or the fact that a nuclear device or some bombs have gone off in the United States? We know that there are--we have captured people who have information that could lead us to the next one that's going to go off and it's the big one…I would do--certainly, waterboard--I don't believe that that is, quote, 'torture.'"
In an appearance on Fox News' "Hannity & Colmes," Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee said the U.S. does and should torture: "We have received good solid information from [torture], and have saved American lives because of it."
Duncan Hunter made fun of the concentration camp at Guantánamo: "You got guys like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed [a detainee victim of U.S. waterboarding], "who said that he planned the attack on 9/11. You got Osama bin Laden's bodyguards. Those guys get taxpayer-paid-for prayer rugs. They have prayer five times a day. They've all gained weight. The last time I looked at the menu, they had honey-glazed chicken and rice pilaf on Friday. That's how we treat the terrorists. They've got health care that's better than most HMOs…They live in a place called Guantánamo, where not one person has ever been murdered."
Three inmates have been found dead at Gitmo. (The military claimed they were suicides.) As of August 2003, at least 29 POWs had attempted suicide. Scores of hunger strikers are being force-fed.
Fred Thompson says he won't authorize waterboarding "as a matter of course" but likes to keep his options open. Mitt Romney punts questions about waterboarding: "I don't think as a presidential candidate it is appropriate for me to weigh in on specific forms of interrogation that our CIA would employ. In circumstances of extreme threat to the nation, where we employ what is known as enhanced interrogation techniques, we don't describe those techniques."
At a Democratic debate in New Hampshire, Barack Obama refused to rule out torture. "Now, I will do whatever it takes to keep America safe. And there are going to be all sorts of hypotheticals [presumably, Tancredo's hoary "ticking time bomb" fantasy] and emergency situations, and I will make that judgement at that time." Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden said they agree with Obama. Democrats Bill Richardson, John Edwards and Chris Dodd have offered unequivocal stances against torture. On the Republican side, only John McCain and Ron Paul have done so. Even McCain, himself a victim of torture in Vietnam, refuses to rule out voting to confirm Bush's attorney general nominee, Michael Mukasey. "If it amounts to torture," Mukasey said of waterboarding, "then it is not constitutional."
"If"?
COPYRIGHT 2007 TED RALL
Monday, October 29, 2007
Cartoon for October 29
We stood by and watched as an illegitimate coup leader seized power in 2000, reversing the results of the presidential elections. We sat on our asses after 9/11 as he waged war against countries that had not attacked us and rewarded those that had. We farted around as he stole the key state of Ohio in 2004, and by extension the whole election. We've done nothing about the USA-Patriot Act, the habeas corpus-ending Military Commissions Act, the destruction and neglect of New Orleans by Katrina, Guantanamo, extraordinary renditions and legal torture.
Tell me again: How exactly do we qualify as "the land of the free and the brave"?
Click on the cartoon to make it bigger.
We stood by and watched as an illegitimate coup leader seized power in 2000, reversing the results of the presidential elections. We sat on our asses after 9/11 as he waged war against countries that had not attacked us and rewarded those that had. We farted around as he stole the key state of Ohio in 2004, and by extension the whole election. We've done nothing about the USA-Patriot Act, the habeas corpus-ending Military Commissions Act, the destruction and neglect of New Orleans by Katrina, Guantanamo, extraordinary renditions and legal torture.
Tell me again: How exactly do we qualify as "the land of the free and the brave"?
Click on the cartoon to make it bigger.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Cartoon for October 25
Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut unwittingly exposed the Democrats' Big Lie on Iraq: that they need support from Republicans to stop the war. In fact, any senator can place a "hold" on any piece of legislation. They can even do it anonymously if they're afraid of the political ramifications of their action! So, the next time you hear on TV that the Democrats "need" 60 votes in the Senate to override Bush's threatened veto, don't believe it. And write to the network to demand an immediate correction.
Click on the cartoon to make it bigger.
Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut unwittingly exposed the Democrats' Big Lie on Iraq: that they need support from Republicans to stop the war. In fact, any senator can place a "hold" on any piece of legislation. They can even do it anonymously if they're afraid of the political ramifications of their action! So, the next time you hear on TV that the Democrats "need" 60 votes in the Senate to override Bush's threatened veto, don't believe it. And write to the network to demand an immediate correction.
Click on the cartoon to make it bigger.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
COLUMN: HEY, SOLDIERS: QUIT WHINING!
Troops Suck Up to Bush, Ask for Support
Over a year ago, in March 2006, the military newspaper Stars and Stripes published the results of a Zogby poll of troops serving in Iraq. 72 percent said U.S. forces should withdraw within a year. Twenty-five percent thought we should pull out right away. But 85 percent said a major reason they were there was "to retaliate for Saddam's role in the September 11 attacks." These people are confused, to say the least.
Even more confusing is the persistent flow of complaints by Iraq War veterans that Americans on the home front are partying like it's 2009 while their comrades back in Vichy Mesopotamia are getting blown up.
Army infantry officer Will Bardenwerper gave voice to this oft-stated sentiment in an October 20th New York Times op/ed. "As I began my 13-month deployment (in Tal Afar, Iraq)," wrote a dispirited Bardenwerper, "I imagined an American public following our progress with the same concern as my family and friends. But since returning home, I have seen that America has changed the channel." He was struck by "the disparity between the lives of the few who are fighting and being killed, and the many who have been asked for nothing more than to continue shopping."
Typical suggestions for fairer distribution of sacrifice and a military draft--the latter to obtain additional manpower and inspire antiwar marchers to fill the streets like they did during Vietnam--follow. At least he left out the usual calls for victory gardens and gas rationing.
The war sucks. On that point, the millions of Americans who were against it from the start (and the many millions more who've come around to agreeing with us) agree with the soldiers serving in it. Forced reenlistment through the "stop-loss" loophole is placing thousands of lives in suspended animation, destroying marriages and small businesses. Troops aren't getting enough protective gear.
It's also true that Americans have stopped paying attention. I'm a news junkie. And even I flip the page past the same old "2 Dead, 7 Wounded in IED Blast" headline.
But hey, soldier, you volunteered. If not for you, there wouldn't be a war in the first place.
"Supporting the troops means supporting their mission." That's been the mantra of the pro-war right. It's been hard for those of us who oppose the war to argue with them because so many of the troops have repeatedly allowed themselves to be used as propaganda shills for Bush Administration officials and the Republican Party in general.
It's bad enough that a majority of soldiers voted for Bush in 2004. Over and over since the war began, American troops have been seen on television applauding Bush, Rumsfeld, Rice and others whose cynical recklessness have sent their buddies to their graves. Sailors cheered wildly when Bush staged his notorious "Mission Accomplished" photo op on an aircraft carrier. They swooned when he joined them for Thanksgiving dinner in Baghdad.
"The shocked and elated soldiers jumped to their feet, pumped their fists in the air, roared with delight, and grabbed their cameras to snap photographs," reported CNN about Bush's visit. A "standing ovation" followed. "It gave us a little extra oomph," said a member of the 1st Armored Division. "It really boosted my morale," said another. No one heckled or booed the imposter president. No one threw tomatoes. No one told him where he could stick his plastic turkey.
Even after soldiers get killed, their parents promote the war so their dead kids won't be lonely in heaven. At Fort Benning, Georgia met Deb Tainsh, whose son was killed by a roadside bomb near the Baghdad Airport. She presented Bush with more than 100 e-mails from parents of soldiers who have died or are presently serving in Iraq. "Every one of these letters says, 'Mr. President, we support you,'" she said. "The consensus is that they...want him to do everything he can to win this war and that our prayers are with him."
"Bush, 61, has so far met with more than 1,500 relatives of the 4,255 American troops who have lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan," the Bloomberg News wire service reported last week. "In most of the meetings, [Bush's] aides say, he hears support for his policies, hardening his resolve to stay the course in Afghanistan and Iraq." Few Gold Star mothers tell him off. Those who do are polite to the man who murdered their children as surely and as viciously as if he'd shot them himself. Why don't they spit at him?
Four years after the WMDs and liberation flora failed to turn up, people still enlist. After soldiers die, their parents insist that theirs was a noble sacrifice. Tell me again: Why should I care about the war? Why shouldn't I go shopping?
Soldiers who want antiwar Americans to march to demand that they be brought home should take a cue from Vietnam veterans. They marched with peace protesters and threw their medals at the Capitol. Soldiers serving on the front refused orders. Some fragged their officers. Vietnam Veterans Against the War claimed more than 50,000 members by 1971. That year saw numerous dramatic acts of dissent by U.S. troops, including 50 veterans who marched to the Pentagon and demanded that they be arrested as war criminals. Fifteen vets took over and barricaded the Statue of Liberty for two days. These acts swayed opinions and helped convince lawmakers it was time to withdraw.
Some soldiers in Iraq have offered resistance. After being denied conscientious objector status, Petty Officer Third Class Pablo Paredes went AWOL in 2004. He was sentenced to two months in the brig and three months hard labor. Army First Lieutenant Ehren Watada refused to be sent to Iraq in 2006, telling the media that the war's illegality would make him a party to war crimes. Army Specialist Darrell Anderson, faced with a second tour of duty after being wounded by a roadside bomb, deserted and fled to Canada. "I went to Iraq willingly," said Anderson. "I wanted to die for my country. I thought I was going to go there and protect my family back home. All I was doing was killing other families there." The Army decided not to prosecute him. Several other deserters have applied for political asylum in Canada, but they're only a fraction of the thousands who went there during the 1960s and 1970s.
When Bill Clinton was president, Republicans said he should be afraid to speak at military bases. That should go double for Bush. The next he shows up to use you as a TV prop, soldiers and fellow Americans, boo the crap out of him. What's the worst he can do? Kill you?
COPYRIGHT 2007 TED RALL
Troops Suck Up to Bush, Ask for Support
Over a year ago, in March 2006, the military newspaper Stars and Stripes published the results of a Zogby poll of troops serving in Iraq. 72 percent said U.S. forces should withdraw within a year. Twenty-five percent thought we should pull out right away. But 85 percent said a major reason they were there was "to retaliate for Saddam's role in the September 11 attacks." These people are confused, to say the least.
Even more confusing is the persistent flow of complaints by Iraq War veterans that Americans on the home front are partying like it's 2009 while their comrades back in Vichy Mesopotamia are getting blown up.
Army infantry officer Will Bardenwerper gave voice to this oft-stated sentiment in an October 20th New York Times op/ed. "As I began my 13-month deployment (in Tal Afar, Iraq)," wrote a dispirited Bardenwerper, "I imagined an American public following our progress with the same concern as my family and friends. But since returning home, I have seen that America has changed the channel." He was struck by "the disparity between the lives of the few who are fighting and being killed, and the many who have been asked for nothing more than to continue shopping."
Typical suggestions for fairer distribution of sacrifice and a military draft--the latter to obtain additional manpower and inspire antiwar marchers to fill the streets like they did during Vietnam--follow. At least he left out the usual calls for victory gardens and gas rationing.
The war sucks. On that point, the millions of Americans who were against it from the start (and the many millions more who've come around to agreeing with us) agree with the soldiers serving in it. Forced reenlistment through the "stop-loss" loophole is placing thousands of lives in suspended animation, destroying marriages and small businesses. Troops aren't getting enough protective gear.
It's also true that Americans have stopped paying attention. I'm a news junkie. And even I flip the page past the same old "2 Dead, 7 Wounded in IED Blast" headline.
But hey, soldier, you volunteered. If not for you, there wouldn't be a war in the first place.
"Supporting the troops means supporting their mission." That's been the mantra of the pro-war right. It's been hard for those of us who oppose the war to argue with them because so many of the troops have repeatedly allowed themselves to be used as propaganda shills for Bush Administration officials and the Republican Party in general.
It's bad enough that a majority of soldiers voted for Bush in 2004. Over and over since the war began, American troops have been seen on television applauding Bush, Rumsfeld, Rice and others whose cynical recklessness have sent their buddies to their graves. Sailors cheered wildly when Bush staged his notorious "Mission Accomplished" photo op on an aircraft carrier. They swooned when he joined them for Thanksgiving dinner in Baghdad.
"The shocked and elated soldiers jumped to their feet, pumped their fists in the air, roared with delight, and grabbed their cameras to snap photographs," reported CNN about Bush's visit. A "standing ovation" followed. "It gave us a little extra oomph," said a member of the 1st Armored Division. "It really boosted my morale," said another. No one heckled or booed the imposter president. No one threw tomatoes. No one told him where he could stick his plastic turkey.
Even after soldiers get killed, their parents promote the war so their dead kids won't be lonely in heaven. At Fort Benning, Georgia met Deb Tainsh, whose son was killed by a roadside bomb near the Baghdad Airport. She presented Bush with more than 100 e-mails from parents of soldiers who have died or are presently serving in Iraq. "Every one of these letters says, 'Mr. President, we support you,'" she said. "The consensus is that they...want him to do everything he can to win this war and that our prayers are with him."
"Bush, 61, has so far met with more than 1,500 relatives of the 4,255 American troops who have lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan," the Bloomberg News wire service reported last week. "In most of the meetings, [Bush's] aides say, he hears support for his policies, hardening his resolve to stay the course in Afghanistan and Iraq." Few Gold Star mothers tell him off. Those who do are polite to the man who murdered their children as surely and as viciously as if he'd shot them himself. Why don't they spit at him?
Four years after the WMDs and liberation flora failed to turn up, people still enlist. After soldiers die, their parents insist that theirs was a noble sacrifice. Tell me again: Why should I care about the war? Why shouldn't I go shopping?
Soldiers who want antiwar Americans to march to demand that they be brought home should take a cue from Vietnam veterans. They marched with peace protesters and threw their medals at the Capitol. Soldiers serving on the front refused orders. Some fragged their officers. Vietnam Veterans Against the War claimed more than 50,000 members by 1971. That year saw numerous dramatic acts of dissent by U.S. troops, including 50 veterans who marched to the Pentagon and demanded that they be arrested as war criminals. Fifteen vets took over and barricaded the Statue of Liberty for two days. These acts swayed opinions and helped convince lawmakers it was time to withdraw.
Some soldiers in Iraq have offered resistance. After being denied conscientious objector status, Petty Officer Third Class Pablo Paredes went AWOL in 2004. He was sentenced to two months in the brig and three months hard labor. Army First Lieutenant Ehren Watada refused to be sent to Iraq in 2006, telling the media that the war's illegality would make him a party to war crimes. Army Specialist Darrell Anderson, faced with a second tour of duty after being wounded by a roadside bomb, deserted and fled to Canada. "I went to Iraq willingly," said Anderson. "I wanted to die for my country. I thought I was going to go there and protect my family back home. All I was doing was killing other families there." The Army decided not to prosecute him. Several other deserters have applied for political asylum in Canada, but they're only a fraction of the thousands who went there during the 1960s and 1970s.
When Bill Clinton was president, Republicans said he should be afraid to speak at military bases. That should go double for Bush. The next he shows up to use you as a TV prop, soldiers and fellow Americans, boo the crap out of him. What's the worst he can do? Kill you?
COPYRIGHT 2007 TED RALL
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Ted Rall Live in Columbus
I'll be speaking about graphic storytelling at this year's triennial Festival of Cartoon Art, sponsored by and held at Ohio State University. Here's the schedule of this worthy event.
I go on on Friday, October 26 at 2 pm. My talk was originally supposed to be a panel discussion with Guy DeLisle (graphic novelist of "Pyongyang"), and I had originally asked Joe Sacco ("Palestine") to participate. As it turns out, it will be just little old me.
The last time around, I think in 1996 or thereabouts, I made an ass out of myself, ranting about how old-style editorial cartoons suck while asserting that the only worthwhile political cartoons appeared in the alternative weeklies and were drawn by artists like, well, me. (Mainly, I was right. But I exaggerated big-time. Lots of great mainstream editorial cartoonists work at daily papers.) After this inspiring presentation I headed to the men's room to take the dump I should have taken there instead of verbally, I heard several people walk in and say comments like "Can you believe that asshole?"
Normally I discount such comments. This time, they were right. Hopefully I'll do better this year.
Anyway, this won't be a political rant but rather a 45-minute overview of comics journalism in the modern era. I'll be projecting images of other artists' work, including that of absentees Sacco and DeLisle, culminating with my own current projects and a sneak peak at my upcoming graphic novel, scheduled for publication in 2008. I always save lots of time for the Q&A period.
Tickets are still available for this year's festival, so snatch them up!
I'll be speaking about graphic storytelling at this year's triennial Festival of Cartoon Art, sponsored by and held at Ohio State University. Here's the schedule of this worthy event.
I go on on Friday, October 26 at 2 pm. My talk was originally supposed to be a panel discussion with Guy DeLisle (graphic novelist of "Pyongyang"), and I had originally asked Joe Sacco ("Palestine") to participate. As it turns out, it will be just little old me.
The last time around, I think in 1996 or thereabouts, I made an ass out of myself, ranting about how old-style editorial cartoons suck while asserting that the only worthwhile political cartoons appeared in the alternative weeklies and were drawn by artists like, well, me. (Mainly, I was right. But I exaggerated big-time. Lots of great mainstream editorial cartoonists work at daily papers.) After this inspiring presentation I headed to the men's room to take the dump I should have taken there instead of verbally, I heard several people walk in and say comments like "Can you believe that asshole?"
Normally I discount such comments. This time, they were right. Hopefully I'll do better this year.
Anyway, this won't be a political rant but rather a 45-minute overview of comics journalism in the modern era. I'll be projecting images of other artists' work, including that of absentees Sacco and DeLisle, culminating with my own current projects and a sneak peak at my upcoming graphic novel, scheduled for publication in 2008. I always save lots of time for the Q&A period.
Tickets are still available for this year's festival, so snatch them up!
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Cartoon for October 22
In Mike Judge's cult film "Idiocracy" (a must-see for cultural elitists everywhere), stupid people breed at a faster rate than smart ones until, 500 years later, the U.S. has been reduced to utter moronitude.
Which got me thinking.
Perhaps, though it's hard to imagine why, a perfectly intelligent person might have joined the military early in the Bush Administration. Four years into Iraq and six years into the meatgrinder of Afghanistan, however, it's fair to say that only a less than brilliant person would sign away his life for, literally, nothing. (Save your e-mails, righties: citing "patriotism" as a reason to enlist doesn't work. French patriots didn't fight for the Vichy regime during World War II. They joined the resistance. A patriot would have nothing to do with the military while the White House is occupied by an illegitimate coup leader.)
Anyway, if the carnage continues in Iraq for another 500 years, it stands to reason that the average I.Q. of those who remain behind will increase. Thus this cartoon...
Click on the cartoon to make it bigger.
In Mike Judge's cult film "Idiocracy" (a must-see for cultural elitists everywhere), stupid people breed at a faster rate than smart ones until, 500 years later, the U.S. has been reduced to utter moronitude.
Which got me thinking.
Perhaps, though it's hard to imagine why, a perfectly intelligent person might have joined the military early in the Bush Administration. Four years into Iraq and six years into the meatgrinder of Afghanistan, however, it's fair to say that only a less than brilliant person would sign away his life for, literally, nothing. (Save your e-mails, righties: citing "patriotism" as a reason to enlist doesn't work. French patriots didn't fight for the Vichy regime during World War II. They joined the resistance. A patriot would have nothing to do with the military while the White House is occupied by an illegitimate coup leader.)
Anyway, if the carnage continues in Iraq for another 500 years, it stands to reason that the average I.Q. of those who remain behind will increase. Thus this cartoon...
Click on the cartoon to make it bigger.
Friday, October 19, 2007
Thursday, October 18, 2007
COLUMN: ONWARD, CHRISTIAN PANDERERS
Pols Push U.S. Toward Theocracy
A poll finds that 55 percent of Americans think the U.S. was created as a Christian theocracy. "The strong support for official recognition of the majority faith appears to be grounded in a belief that the United States was founded as a Christian nation, in spite of the fact that the Constitution nowhere mentions God or Christianity," says Charles Haynes of the First Amendment Center.
Sadly, these morons are allowed to vote. Tragically, one of them is a major presidential candidate. "The Constitution established the United States of America as a Christian nation," John McCain recently told an interviewer.
Here's an offer that an erstwhile front-running shoe-in, now low on cash, ought not to refuse. Senator McCain: If you can show me where the Constitution makes us a Christian nation, I'll donate $10,000 to your campaign. If you can't, please explain why we should trust your presidential oath to preserve, protect and defend a document you haven't read.
Lest you think McCain's comment was an isolated brainfart, check out his pandering morsel from the same interview: "We were founded as a nation on Judeo-Christian principles. There's very little debate about that."
Speaking of war criminals, Bush won 80 percent of the Christian fundamentalist voting bloc in 2004. (If they can show me where Jesus advocates the murder of hundreds of thousands of people, I've got another ten grand set aside.) This year, however, the Christian soldiers are in play, dissatisfied with the entire field of presidential candidates.
It's not for lack of sucking up.
Mitt Romney is one-upping McCain, misrepresenting Mormonism as well as the secular nature of American government. "The values of my faith are much like, or are identical to, the values of other faiths that have a Judeo-Christian philosophical background," he said in New Hampshire. "They're American values, if you will." Or if you won't. As The New York Times notes, "Mormons do not believe in the concept of the unified Trinity; the Book of Mormon is considered to be sacred text, alongside the Bible; and Mormons believe that God has a physical body and human beings can eventually become like God." Also, the Mormon Jesus will eventually return to Independence, Missouri. "Much like." Right.
McCain, Romney, Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, Mike Huckabee, Sam Brownback have all signed up to address this week's right-wing Christian "Values Voter Summit." So has Democrat Bill Richardson. But when it comes to indulging the whims of Christianists, these guys have nothing on the Big Three Dems.
Hillary Clinton has hired an "evangelical consultant" to court the quarter of voters who tell pollsters that God favors the United States in foreign affairs. Barack Obama deploys evangelical imagery at campaign stops in the Bible Belt. At an evangelical church in Greenville, South Carolina, he said he wants to be an "instrument of God" and expressed confidence "we can create a Kingdom right here on Earth."
"That terminology," said the Rev. Welton Gaddy of the Interfaith Alliance, "has a very specific, indisputable definition that is exclusive rather than inclusive." On the campaign trail, Gaddy continued, Obama "has sounded precisely like George W. Bush."
Even John Edwards, the most reasonable person running, isn't above whoring his faith for votes. "I think that America is a nation of faith. I do believe that. Certainly by way of heritage--there's a powerful Christian thread through all of American history," he told BeliefNet. To his credit, he doesn't go as far as his opponents. Yet he can't bring himself to condemn prayer in public schools: "Allowing time for children to pray for themselves, to themselves, I think is not only okay, I think it's a good thing."
Between 10 and 14 percent of Americans are atheists. Devoting a "moment of silence" in schools sends a message to their children: you and your parents are out of step with American society.
If people want to believe in God, the Great Pumpkin, or a Jesus who lives in Missouri, that's up to them. But religion has no place in the public life of a democracy. None.
Right-wing Christians started questioning their support for the GOP last year, when former White House staffer David Kuo published "Tempting Faith," a bestselling book that revealed that Bush Administration officials privately ridiculed evangelicals and ignored them between elections. Bush betrayed "the millions of faithful Christians who put their trust and hope in the president and his administration," wrote Kuo, who was the White House's deputy director of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives until 2003.
Who knew? Bush isn't all bad.
McCain, meanwhile, is getting ready to get soaked to score Christian votes. "I've had discussions with the pastor about [undergoing a full-immersion baptism] and we're still in conversation about it," he says.
COPYRIGHT 2007 TED RALL
DISTRIBUTED BY uclick, LLC/TED RALL
Pols Push U.S. Toward Theocracy
A poll finds that 55 percent of Americans think the U.S. was created as a Christian theocracy. "The strong support for official recognition of the majority faith appears to be grounded in a belief that the United States was founded as a Christian nation, in spite of the fact that the Constitution nowhere mentions God or Christianity," says Charles Haynes of the First Amendment Center.
Sadly, these morons are allowed to vote. Tragically, one of them is a major presidential candidate. "The Constitution established the United States of America as a Christian nation," John McCain recently told an interviewer.
Here's an offer that an erstwhile front-running shoe-in, now low on cash, ought not to refuse. Senator McCain: If you can show me where the Constitution makes us a Christian nation, I'll donate $10,000 to your campaign. If you can't, please explain why we should trust your presidential oath to preserve, protect and defend a document you haven't read.
Lest you think McCain's comment was an isolated brainfart, check out his pandering morsel from the same interview: "We were founded as a nation on Judeo-Christian principles. There's very little debate about that."
Speaking of war criminals, Bush won 80 percent of the Christian fundamentalist voting bloc in 2004. (If they can show me where Jesus advocates the murder of hundreds of thousands of people, I've got another ten grand set aside.) This year, however, the Christian soldiers are in play, dissatisfied with the entire field of presidential candidates.
It's not for lack of sucking up.
Mitt Romney is one-upping McCain, misrepresenting Mormonism as well as the secular nature of American government. "The values of my faith are much like, or are identical to, the values of other faiths that have a Judeo-Christian philosophical background," he said in New Hampshire. "They're American values, if you will." Or if you won't. As The New York Times notes, "Mormons do not believe in the concept of the unified Trinity; the Book of Mormon is considered to be sacred text, alongside the Bible; and Mormons believe that God has a physical body and human beings can eventually become like God." Also, the Mormon Jesus will eventually return to Independence, Missouri. "Much like." Right.
McCain, Romney, Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, Mike Huckabee, Sam Brownback have all signed up to address this week's right-wing Christian "Values Voter Summit." So has Democrat Bill Richardson. But when it comes to indulging the whims of Christianists, these guys have nothing on the Big Three Dems.
Hillary Clinton has hired an "evangelical consultant" to court the quarter of voters who tell pollsters that God favors the United States in foreign affairs. Barack Obama deploys evangelical imagery at campaign stops in the Bible Belt. At an evangelical church in Greenville, South Carolina, he said he wants to be an "instrument of God" and expressed confidence "we can create a Kingdom right here on Earth."
"That terminology," said the Rev. Welton Gaddy of the Interfaith Alliance, "has a very specific, indisputable definition that is exclusive rather than inclusive." On the campaign trail, Gaddy continued, Obama "has sounded precisely like George W. Bush."
Even John Edwards, the most reasonable person running, isn't above whoring his faith for votes. "I think that America is a nation of faith. I do believe that. Certainly by way of heritage--there's a powerful Christian thread through all of American history," he told BeliefNet. To his credit, he doesn't go as far as his opponents. Yet he can't bring himself to condemn prayer in public schools: "Allowing time for children to pray for themselves, to themselves, I think is not only okay, I think it's a good thing."
Between 10 and 14 percent of Americans are atheists. Devoting a "moment of silence" in schools sends a message to their children: you and your parents are out of step with American society.
If people want to believe in God, the Great Pumpkin, or a Jesus who lives in Missouri, that's up to them. But religion has no place in the public life of a democracy. None.
Right-wing Christians started questioning their support for the GOP last year, when former White House staffer David Kuo published "Tempting Faith," a bestselling book that revealed that Bush Administration officials privately ridiculed evangelicals and ignored them between elections. Bush betrayed "the millions of faithful Christians who put their trust and hope in the president and his administration," wrote Kuo, who was the White House's deputy director of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives until 2003.
Who knew? Bush isn't all bad.
McCain, meanwhile, is getting ready to get soaked to score Christian votes. "I've had discussions with the pastor about [undergoing a full-immersion baptism] and we're still in conversation about it," he says.
COPYRIGHT 2007 TED RALL
DISTRIBUTED BY uclick, LLC/TED RALL
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Anti-semitism for Me, but not for Thee
posted by Susan Stark
Ann Coulter has done it again. She has said some politically incorrect thing Ted Rall-style.
But the difference between her and Ted is that she is, for some reason, treated like a serious, major political thinker, while Ted is marginalized in comparison.
Ms. Coulter recently made an anti-semitic statement, claiming that Jews can only have their spirituality "perfected" if they become Christians. This is classical anti-semitism at it's finest.
Now imagine if Ted or anyone else on the left made such a statement. They would be pushing brooms and mops faster than you can say "Torquemada".
Now, will Missy Coulter be pushing a mop? Not according to NBC spokesperson Allison Gollust:
"The decision to put someone like Ann Coulter on our air is not one we would ever take lightly," said NBC spokeswoman Allison Gollust. "However, when you talk about banning someone from the airwaves because of their views...you are getting into dangerous territory."
Oh, golly gee, such concern for free speech! Does this mean that Noam Chomsky, an intellectual with harsh criticism for Israel, will get equal blab-time with Coulter? Or what about Norman Finklestein, who wrote the The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering? Will he be invited on TV without being shouted down by the host?
And if Ahmedinejad is "evil" for denying Israel's legitimacy, then Coulter is twice as "evil" for denying Judaism's legitimacy. By that token, Ahmedinejad should be a regular staple on all of the news channels. That would be in keeping with Ms. Gollust's assertion of not "banning someone from the airwaves because of their views".
Or what about Hezbollah? There is a ban on their satellite channel in the United States. What's the big deal about that considering what Ann Coulter just said is right up their alley? (In my opinion, we should be able to watch Hezbollah here in the US if we choose to. The ban is stupid and infantile.)
Alas, Ms. Coulter will continue to be given the royal treatment in pundit-land, despite her remark. And her books have and will continue to be "best-sellers".
But, I have my own conspiracy theory as to why there won't be any fallout for her latest remark. As much as the Anti-Defamation League and the National Jewish Democratic Council publicly claim to decry her words, they secretly benefit from those words. Many Jews have fallen away from supporting Israel, and some prominent Jews are questioning whether Israel should even exist anymore. There's nothing like a good, anti-Semitic remark blurted out by a public person like Ann Coulter to scare the Jews back into compliance again.
posted by Susan Stark
Ann Coulter has done it again. She has said some politically incorrect thing Ted Rall-style.
But the difference between her and Ted is that she is, for some reason, treated like a serious, major political thinker, while Ted is marginalized in comparison.
Ms. Coulter recently made an anti-semitic statement, claiming that Jews can only have their spirituality "perfected" if they become Christians. This is classical anti-semitism at it's finest.
Now imagine if Ted or anyone else on the left made such a statement. They would be pushing brooms and mops faster than you can say "Torquemada".
Now, will Missy Coulter be pushing a mop? Not according to NBC spokesperson Allison Gollust:
"The decision to put someone like Ann Coulter on our air is not one we would ever take lightly," said NBC spokeswoman Allison Gollust. "However, when you talk about banning someone from the airwaves because of their views...you are getting into dangerous territory."
Oh, golly gee, such concern for free speech! Does this mean that Noam Chomsky, an intellectual with harsh criticism for Israel, will get equal blab-time with Coulter? Or what about Norman Finklestein, who wrote the The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering? Will he be invited on TV without being shouted down by the host?
And if Ahmedinejad is "evil" for denying Israel's legitimacy, then Coulter is twice as "evil" for denying Judaism's legitimacy. By that token, Ahmedinejad should be a regular staple on all of the news channels. That would be in keeping with Ms. Gollust's assertion of not "banning someone from the airwaves because of their views".
Or what about Hezbollah? There is a ban on their satellite channel in the United States. What's the big deal about that considering what Ann Coulter just said is right up their alley? (In my opinion, we should be able to watch Hezbollah here in the US if we choose to. The ban is stupid and infantile.)
Alas, Ms. Coulter will continue to be given the royal treatment in pundit-land, despite her remark. And her books have and will continue to be "best-sellers".
But, I have my own conspiracy theory as to why there won't be any fallout for her latest remark. As much as the Anti-Defamation League and the National Jewish Democratic Council publicly claim to decry her words, they secretly benefit from those words. Many Jews have fallen away from supporting Israel, and some prominent Jews are questioning whether Israel should even exist anymore. There's nothing like a good, anti-Semitic remark blurted out by a public person like Ann Coulter to scare the Jews back into compliance again.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Super Website Redesign Fundraising Fun Pack!
Got a pile of spare cash lying around? I need it. Or, more accurately, my webmaster needs it--to upgrade rall.com from its vintage 1995 design (while keeping it simple and easy to use). To raise the thousands of dollars it will cost to continue to offer my cartoons and columns for free (like an idiot!), I am offering the following never-before-offered Fun Pack of Ralliana:
One (1) Original Galley Proof of "Waking Up in America" (1992). Only ten copies were ever printed by St. Martin's Press of the galleys for my first book. Seven copies went to editors for review; most of these are probably history. One is at the Huntington Library's collection of my ephemera. I have two remaining copies, one of which would be yours.
The match proof print for "All The Rules Have Changed" (1995). Author and editor Dave Eggers designed this cover. He printed out this proof at the San Francisco offices of Might magazine. Only one copy exists.
The match proof print of the original cover of "Revenge of the Latchkey Kids" (1998). This is the original cover, containing the banned original title of the book, "Kill Your Parents Before They Kill You." Barnes & Noble refused to stock the title with that name, so Workman Publishing issued the seminal Gen X manifesto with a revised title. Only one copy exists.
PLUS Five (5) Original Cartoons of your choice. (Provided, of course, that I still have them in my possession.)
Total Price: $3,000. Money must be sent by PayPal or received by certified check or money order on or before October 31. Offer not valid after this date.
EXTRA BONUS OFFER: Friend for a Day!
I will be your friend for a day. I will come to your home. I will hang out with you and/or your family and/or your friends. I will eat meals with you, converse, talk politics and movies and music, or whatever you feel like. You set the agenda; I'll do it. Within reason, obviously. Yes, I'll go bowling. Or cow-tipping.
You will cover all expenses, including airfare if you live outside New York City, and housing (your place or, if you don't have room or it's not up to my high standards, a good hotel), and meals, and whatever.
You get me for exactly 24 hours. If you are creepy or exceedingly annoying, I will leave. No refunds, partial or otherwise. Offer not valid after this date.
Price: $5,000 for one day, $8,000 for two days. Money must be sent by PayPal or received by certified check or money order on or before October 31.
Got a pile of spare cash lying around? I need it. Or, more accurately, my webmaster needs it--to upgrade rall.com from its vintage 1995 design (while keeping it simple and easy to use). To raise the thousands of dollars it will cost to continue to offer my cartoons and columns for free (like an idiot!), I am offering the following never-before-offered Fun Pack of Ralliana:
One (1) Original Galley Proof of "Waking Up in America" (1992). Only ten copies were ever printed by St. Martin's Press of the galleys for my first book. Seven copies went to editors for review; most of these are probably history. One is at the Huntington Library's collection of my ephemera. I have two remaining copies, one of which would be yours.
The match proof print for "All The Rules Have Changed" (1995). Author and editor Dave Eggers designed this cover. He printed out this proof at the San Francisco offices of Might magazine. Only one copy exists.
The match proof print of the original cover of "Revenge of the Latchkey Kids" (1998). This is the original cover, containing the banned original title of the book, "Kill Your Parents Before They Kill You." Barnes & Noble refused to stock the title with that name, so Workman Publishing issued the seminal Gen X manifesto with a revised title. Only one copy exists.
PLUS Five (5) Original Cartoons of your choice. (Provided, of course, that I still have them in my possession.)
Total Price: $3,000. Money must be sent by PayPal or received by certified check or money order on or before October 31. Offer not valid after this date.
EXTRA BONUS OFFER: Friend for a Day!
I will be your friend for a day. I will come to your home. I will hang out with you and/or your family and/or your friends. I will eat meals with you, converse, talk politics and movies and music, or whatever you feel like. You set the agenda; I'll do it. Within reason, obviously. Yes, I'll go bowling. Or cow-tipping.
You will cover all expenses, including airfare if you live outside New York City, and housing (your place or, if you don't have room or it's not up to my high standards, a good hotel), and meals, and whatever.
You get me for exactly 24 hours. If you are creepy or exceedingly annoying, I will leave. No refunds, partial or otherwise. Offer not valid after this date.
Price: $5,000 for one day, $8,000 for two days. Money must be sent by PayPal or received by certified check or money order on or before October 31.
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Your Suggestions Requested
The Rallblog, and the whole website, is about to undergo a complete (and expensive--so if you'd like to make a contribution, now would be a VERY good time) overall. We're starting from scratch, which means now is the time that cool suggestions can be entertained. So if you have an idea for what you'd like to see added to the website (or left out), please post a comment to this post. Thanks!
The Rallblog, and the whole website, is about to undergo a complete (and expensive--so if you'd like to make a contribution, now would be a VERY good time) overall. We're starting from scratch, which means now is the time that cool suggestions can be entertained. So if you have an idea for what you'd like to see added to the website (or left out), please post a comment to this post. Thanks!
THIS WEEK'S COLUMN: SCAPEGOATING BLACKWATER
U.S. Soldiers Commit War Crimes at One-Ninth the Price
Private security companies in Iraq have come under political attack after mercenaries for Blackwater USA fired upon unarmed Iraqi civilians in Baghdad's Nisour Square, killing 17 and wounding 24. Angry Iraqis, including collaborationist officials of the U.S.-backed occupation regime, have complained that swaggering rent-a-soldiers operate with callous disregard for the safety of Iraqis. A 27-year-old ex-paratrooper for Blackwater even stands accused of--but faces no possibility of prison time for—shooting, while in a drunken frenzy, a man who was guarding Iraqi Vice President Adil Abd-al-Mahdi.
A media pile-on has ensued.
Condi Rice, whose State Department is a major Blackwater client, ordered cameras mounted on vehicles in the company's convoys. The House of Representatives, normally so divided it can't agree that torture is bad or that sick kids need doctors, came together as one--389 to 30--to pass a bill that would subject mercenaries to criminal prosecution when they blow away foreigners in a war zone. Now the presidential contenders are weighing in.
"We cannot win a fight for hearts and minds when we outsource critical missions to unaccountable contractors," said Barack Obama. "To add insult to injury, these contractors are charging taxpayers up to nine times more to do the same jobs as soldiers, a disparity that damages troop morale."
Obama may be onto something. Why pay for employed by private corporations, when you can get the same cowboy antics at one-ninth the price?
Pundits and politicians are scapegoating Blackwater and other private security firms to help sell the continuation of the Iraq War. Some mercenaries shoot at anything that moves. They endanger locals with crazy practices like speeding down jammed highways on the wrong side. (Memo to Secy. Gates: Ban screenings of "Ronin.") Rein in these Rambo wannabes or fire them, the argument goes, and Iraqi commuters will warm to their friendly public-sector replacements in the United States Armed Forces. A thousand roses will bloom. Soon we'll be awash in that staple of postwar gratitude, Iraqi war brides.
But it isn't just Blackwater. Official U.S. soldiers are no less stupid or vicious or trigger-happy than their private counterparts.
In 2003 U.S. troops manning a checkpoint in Karbala repeatedly fired a 25-millimeter cannon at a Toyota containing 13 people trying to flee the fighting. At least seven people, including five children age five or under, were killed. "You just f---ing killed a family because you didn't fire a warning shot soon enough," a captain radioed to his platoon leader moments later. Checkpoint shootings of innocent civilians became a daily occurrence, due to rules of engagement that placed more value upon the lives of American troops than those of the Iraqis they were supposedly there to liberate.
Often the "checkpoints" were invisible to Iraqi motorists. American soldiers would hide in buildings near an intersection and fire "warning shots" at the engine blocks of approaching vehicles. Assuming that they were being ambushed by bandits, Iraqi drivers would floor the accelerator. Soldiers then treated them as potential suicide bombers, turning them into Swiss cheese. "Many U.S. officials describe…the military's standard practice of firing at onrushing cars from their checkpoints in Iraq," reports The Washington Post.
"We fired warning shots at everyone," said one soldier. "They would speed up to come at us, and we would shoot them. You couldn't tell who was in the car from where we were. We found that out later. We would just look in and see they were dead and could see there were women inside."
That's what happened to Italian intelligence agent Nicola Calipari. After obtaining the release of a journalist from insurgents who had held her hostage for one month, Calipari accompanied her to a checkpoint near the Baghdad airport. U.S. soldiers opened fire. The warning shot missed the engine block. Calipari died; the reporter was wounded. Though their Iraqi driver insists that he was driving their Toyota Corolla (memo to travelers to Iraq: consider a Honda) under 25 miles per hour, the Pentagon said he was "speeding."
A lot of professional U.S. soldiers have screamed their contempt for Iraqis since the beginning of the war. "For almost a year," reported the East Bay Express in 2005, "American soldiers stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan have been taking photographs of dead bodies, many of them horribly mutilated or blown to pieces, and sending them to [a pornographic website]. American soldiers have been using the pictures of disfigured Iraqi corpses as currency to buy pornography."
If you've just eaten, stop reading now.
The Express describes the photos: "A man in a leather coat who apparently tried to run a military checkpoint lies slumped in the driver’s seat of a car, his head obliterated by gunfire, the flaps of skin from his neck blooming open like rose petals. Six men in beige fatigues, identified as U.S. Marines, laugh and smile for the camera while pointing at a burned, charcoal-black corpse lying at their feet."
There's more.
"[A] person who posted a picture of a corpse lying in a pool of his own brains and entrails wrote, 'What every Iraqi should look like.' One person posted three photographs of corpses lying in the street and titled his collection 'DIE HAJI [a racist slur for Iraqis used by U.S. soldiers] DIE.'"
Google the Express story. It gets even uglier.
Blackwater's hired goons are exempt from prosecution. So, apparently, are real soldiers. Atrocity after atrocity goes unpunished or rewarded with a slap on the wrist.
Specialist Jorge Sandoval, 22, was acquitted of murdering two Iraqis, one on April 27, the other on May 11 near Iskandariyah, south of Baghdad. However, a military court-martial found him guilty of planting detonation wire on the first victim to make him look like an insurgent. If he was innocent, why did he try to cover up the shooting?
Specialist James Barker, 23, of the 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, based in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, admitted that he held down a 14-year-old Iraqi girl in 2005 while another soldier raped her, then shot her several times in her Mahmudiya home. He dowsed her with kerosene and set her on fire. According to CNN, "he was not sure if he penetrated the girl, because he was having trouble getting an erection." He and five fellow soldiers also murdered her parents and her 7-year-old sister. Thanks to a plea bargain, said The New York Times, "he could be released on parole in 20 years."
The same crime committed in the U.S. would earn life in prison, or the death penalty.
A Marine Staff Sergeant charged in the massacre of 24 people in Haditha, The New York Times reports, will not face murder charges because investigating civilian deaths isn't a military priority. "Prosecuting the Haditha case has posed special challenges because the killings were not comprehensively investigated when they first occurred," says the Times. "Months later, when details came to light, there were no bodies to examine and no Iraqi witnesses to test."
The 2005 Express piece contains this tragicomic gem: "[Disrespect for Iraqi deaths] could become an international public-relations catastrophe." Internationally, the "war porn" scandal was merely one of a string of stories that confirmed our reputation as brutal neocolonialists. Here in the United States, however, "supporting the troops" means turning a blind eye to their actions--or blaming them on private contractors.
U.S. Soldiers Commit War Crimes at One-Ninth the Price
Private security companies in Iraq have come under political attack after mercenaries for Blackwater USA fired upon unarmed Iraqi civilians in Baghdad's Nisour Square, killing 17 and wounding 24. Angry Iraqis, including collaborationist officials of the U.S.-backed occupation regime, have complained that swaggering rent-a-soldiers operate with callous disregard for the safety of Iraqis. A 27-year-old ex-paratrooper for Blackwater even stands accused of--but faces no possibility of prison time for—shooting, while in a drunken frenzy, a man who was guarding Iraqi Vice President Adil Abd-al-Mahdi.
A media pile-on has ensued.
Condi Rice, whose State Department is a major Blackwater client, ordered cameras mounted on vehicles in the company's convoys. The House of Representatives, normally so divided it can't agree that torture is bad or that sick kids need doctors, came together as one--389 to 30--to pass a bill that would subject mercenaries to criminal prosecution when they blow away foreigners in a war zone. Now the presidential contenders are weighing in.
"We cannot win a fight for hearts and minds when we outsource critical missions to unaccountable contractors," said Barack Obama. "To add insult to injury, these contractors are charging taxpayers up to nine times more to do the same jobs as soldiers, a disparity that damages troop morale."
Obama may be onto something. Why pay for employed by private corporations, when you can get the same cowboy antics at one-ninth the price?
Pundits and politicians are scapegoating Blackwater and other private security firms to help sell the continuation of the Iraq War. Some mercenaries shoot at anything that moves. They endanger locals with crazy practices like speeding down jammed highways on the wrong side. (Memo to Secy. Gates: Ban screenings of "Ronin.") Rein in these Rambo wannabes or fire them, the argument goes, and Iraqi commuters will warm to their friendly public-sector replacements in the United States Armed Forces. A thousand roses will bloom. Soon we'll be awash in that staple of postwar gratitude, Iraqi war brides.
But it isn't just Blackwater. Official U.S. soldiers are no less stupid or vicious or trigger-happy than their private counterparts.
In 2003 U.S. troops manning a checkpoint in Karbala repeatedly fired a 25-millimeter cannon at a Toyota containing 13 people trying to flee the fighting. At least seven people, including five children age five or under, were killed. "You just f---ing killed a family because you didn't fire a warning shot soon enough," a captain radioed to his platoon leader moments later. Checkpoint shootings of innocent civilians became a daily occurrence, due to rules of engagement that placed more value upon the lives of American troops than those of the Iraqis they were supposedly there to liberate.
Often the "checkpoints" were invisible to Iraqi motorists. American soldiers would hide in buildings near an intersection and fire "warning shots" at the engine blocks of approaching vehicles. Assuming that they were being ambushed by bandits, Iraqi drivers would floor the accelerator. Soldiers then treated them as potential suicide bombers, turning them into Swiss cheese. "Many U.S. officials describe…the military's standard practice of firing at onrushing cars from their checkpoints in Iraq," reports The Washington Post.
"We fired warning shots at everyone," said one soldier. "They would speed up to come at us, and we would shoot them. You couldn't tell who was in the car from where we were. We found that out later. We would just look in and see they were dead and could see there were women inside."
That's what happened to Italian intelligence agent Nicola Calipari. After obtaining the release of a journalist from insurgents who had held her hostage for one month, Calipari accompanied her to a checkpoint near the Baghdad airport. U.S. soldiers opened fire. The warning shot missed the engine block. Calipari died; the reporter was wounded. Though their Iraqi driver insists that he was driving their Toyota Corolla (memo to travelers to Iraq: consider a Honda) under 25 miles per hour, the Pentagon said he was "speeding."
A lot of professional U.S. soldiers have screamed their contempt for Iraqis since the beginning of the war. "For almost a year," reported the East Bay Express in 2005, "American soldiers stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan have been taking photographs of dead bodies, many of them horribly mutilated or blown to pieces, and sending them to [a pornographic website]. American soldiers have been using the pictures of disfigured Iraqi corpses as currency to buy pornography."
If you've just eaten, stop reading now.
The Express describes the photos: "A man in a leather coat who apparently tried to run a military checkpoint lies slumped in the driver’s seat of a car, his head obliterated by gunfire, the flaps of skin from his neck blooming open like rose petals. Six men in beige fatigues, identified as U.S. Marines, laugh and smile for the camera while pointing at a burned, charcoal-black corpse lying at their feet."
There's more.
"[A] person who posted a picture of a corpse lying in a pool of his own brains and entrails wrote, 'What every Iraqi should look like.' One person posted three photographs of corpses lying in the street and titled his collection 'DIE HAJI [a racist slur for Iraqis used by U.S. soldiers] DIE.'"
Google the Express story. It gets even uglier.
Blackwater's hired goons are exempt from prosecution. So, apparently, are real soldiers. Atrocity after atrocity goes unpunished or rewarded with a slap on the wrist.
Specialist Jorge Sandoval, 22, was acquitted of murdering two Iraqis, one on April 27, the other on May 11 near Iskandariyah, south of Baghdad. However, a military court-martial found him guilty of planting detonation wire on the first victim to make him look like an insurgent. If he was innocent, why did he try to cover up the shooting?
Specialist James Barker, 23, of the 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, based in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, admitted that he held down a 14-year-old Iraqi girl in 2005 while another soldier raped her, then shot her several times in her Mahmudiya home. He dowsed her with kerosene and set her on fire. According to CNN, "he was not sure if he penetrated the girl, because he was having trouble getting an erection." He and five fellow soldiers also murdered her parents and her 7-year-old sister. Thanks to a plea bargain, said The New York Times, "he could be released on parole in 20 years."
The same crime committed in the U.S. would earn life in prison, or the death penalty.
A Marine Staff Sergeant charged in the massacre of 24 people in Haditha, The New York Times reports, will not face murder charges because investigating civilian deaths isn't a military priority. "Prosecuting the Haditha case has posed special challenges because the killings were not comprehensively investigated when they first occurred," says the Times. "Months later, when details came to light, there were no bodies to examine and no Iraqi witnesses to test."
The 2005 Express piece contains this tragicomic gem: "[Disrespect for Iraqi deaths] could become an international public-relations catastrophe." Internationally, the "war porn" scandal was merely one of a string of stories that confirmed our reputation as brutal neocolonialists. Here in the United States, however, "supporting the troops" means turning a blind eye to their actions--or blaming them on private contractors.
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
COLUMN: "We Don't Speak to Evil"
Here's this week's column. Feel free to comment.
A nation's leaders choose peace, setting aside years of distrust. Forgiving decades of political subversion and economic sabotage, they send emissaries to request full diplomatic relations from their once and present nemesis. They persist, even though they're repeatedly rebuffed. When war breaks out, they offer military assistance--to their "enemy."
The nation is Iran. And the reaction is ridiculous.
"The Evil Has Landed," shrieked the headline of the New York Daily News on the occasion of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's speeches at the United Nations and Columbia University. A "madman," Rupert Murdoch's New York Post spat, setting the tone for a week of Bizarro News. On "60 Minutes," the Iranian president said there was no reason his country and ours couldn't be friends--even the best of friends.
"La la la la--we can't hear you" was the response.
"Is it the goal of your government, the goal of this nation to build a nuclear weapon?" CBS News' Scott Pelley asked Ahmadinejad.
He replied: "You have to appreciate we don't need a nuclear bomb. We don't need that. What need do we have for a bomb?"
Pelley followed up: "May I take that as a 'no,' sir?"
Ahmadinejad: "It is a firm 'no.'"
Some Americans would pay good money to hear an answer as honest and straightforward as that from their leaders. Yet, minutes later, Pelley kept badgering: "When I ask you a question as direct as 'Will you pledge not to test a nuclear weapon?' you dance all around the question. You never say 'yes.' You never say 'no.'"
Weird. Is Pelley hard of hearing? But what I really can't figure out is how Iran qualifies as our--Very Big Word coming--"enemy." We're not at war with Iran. Neither are our allies. What gives?
Capitalizing on the reliable ignorance of the American public and the indolent gullibility of its journalists, the Bush Administration regularly conflates its numerous targets of regime change, pretending they love each other to death and are united only in their desire to slaughter innocent American children. There are gaping chasms in this narrative, but they vanish into our national memory hole.
In 1998, three years before 9/11, while the U.S. was still sucking up to the Taliban, Iran nearly went to war against Afghanistan. Taliban guards burst into Iran's consulate at Mazar-e-Sharif and murdered eight diplomats and an Iranian journalist. Iran massed 35,000 troops on its eastern border with Afghanistan before the U.N. stepped in to mediate.
After the 9/11 attacks turned the U.S. against the Taliban, U.S. media outlets put footage of a handful of jeering Palestinians on heavy rotation. Meanwhile, "In Iran, vast crowds turned out on the streets and held candlelit vigils for the victims. Sixty-thousand spectators respected a minute's silence at Tehran's football stadium."
Wondering why you never heard that? The above quote comes from the BBC. Fox News didn't report. American news consumers didn't know, much less decide.
Finding an opportunity for rapprochement and a mutual foe in the Taliban, Iran became a silent America ally after 9/11. The Iranian military offered to conduct search and rescue operations for downed U.S. pilots during the fall 2001 war against the Taliban. It used its influence with the Afghanistan's Dari population to broker the loya jirga that installed Hamid Karzai as president of Afghanistan.
Everyone expected U.S.-Iranian relations to thaw. There was even talk about ending sanctions and exchanging ambassadors. A few weeks later, however, White House neocons had Iran named as a member of an "Axis of Evil" in Bush's 2002 State of the Union address. "We were all shocked by the fact that the U.S. had such a short memory and was so ungrateful about what had happened just a month ago," remembers Javad Zarif, now the Iranian ambassador to the U.N.
Bush accused Shiite-majority Iran, a mortal enemy of Sunni-dominated Al Qaeda, of offering sanctuary to Al Qaeda fighters fleeing Afghanistan. "Iran must be a contributor in the war against terror," Bush railed. "Either you're with us or against us." The allegation was BS. No one--not the CIA, not one of our allies, no one--believed that Iran would harbor, or had harbored, members of Al Qaeda. "I wasn't aware of any intelligence supporting that charge," says James Dobbins, Bush's special envoy to Afghanistan. But we never took it back.
In May 2003, Iran shook off its annoyance and again tried to make nice. The Iranian overture came in the form of a letter delivered to the State Department after the fall of Baghdad. "Iran appeared willing to put everything on the table--including being completely open about its nuclear program, helping to stabilize Iraq, ending its support for Palestinian militant groups and help in disarming Hezbollah," reported the BBC.
U.S. officials confirm this overture.
"That letter went to the Americans to say that we are ready to talk, we are ready to address our issues," says Seyed Adeli, an Iranian foreign minister at the time. Larry Wilkerson, chief of staff to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, says the Bushies made a conscious decision to ignore it. "We don't speak to evil," he recalls that Administration hardliners led by Donald Rumsfeld said.
In the minds of the hard right, the case for Iran's evilness rests on three issues: the 1979 hostage crisis, its opposition to Israel, and its pursuit of nuclear weapons.
Readers of Mark Bowden's "Guests of the Ayatollah" can't help but sympathize with the American embassy staffers who spent 444 days in captivity from late 1979 to early 1981. But the right-wingers' real beef over this episode concerns our wounded national pride.
What they fail to mention is that President Carter brought the mess upon himself, first by continuing to prop up the corrupt and brutal regime of Reza Shah Pahlavi long after it was obviously doomed, and then by admitting him to the U.S. for cancer treatment. Carter knew that his decision to coddle a toppled tyrant could stir up trouble.
"He went around the room," said then-Vice President Walter Mondale," and most of us said, 'Let him [the Shah] in. And he said, 'And if [the Iranians] take our employees in our embassy hostage, then what would be your advice?' And the room just fell dead. No one had an answer to that. Turns out, we never did."
Iran finances and arms Hezbollah, the paramilitary group-cum-nascent state based in Lebanon that wages sporadic attacks against Israel. If proxy warfare and funding Islamist terror organizations that despise Israel were a consideration, however, the U.S. would cut off relations with and impose sanctions against Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. (Can we stop talking to ourselves? We supported the Afghan mujahedeen.) It is possible to maintain friendly relations with nations that hate one another, and we do.
There are two points missing from most discussions of Iran's nuclear energy program and whether it's a cover for a weapons program. First, Iran ratified the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1970. Leaders of the Islamic Republic inherited the NPT from the Shah. The revolutionaries voluntarily chose to honor the agreement after they threw him out.
Second, the U.S. practices a double standard by threatening war against Iran while ignoring Israel's refusal to obey a U.N. resolution calling for a nuclear-free Middle East passed in 1996. As of the late 1990s, U.S. intelligence agencies believed Israel to possess between 75 and 130 nukes. Iran has zero. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, there's even less evidence against Iran than there was against Saddam's Iraq.
There are many legitimate reasons to criticize the government of Iran. They're just a regional rival in the Middle East--another frenemy.
(C) 2007 Ted Rall, All Rights Reserved.
Here's this week's column. Feel free to comment.
A nation's leaders choose peace, setting aside years of distrust. Forgiving decades of political subversion and economic sabotage, they send emissaries to request full diplomatic relations from their once and present nemesis. They persist, even though they're repeatedly rebuffed. When war breaks out, they offer military assistance--to their "enemy."
The nation is Iran. And the reaction is ridiculous.
"The Evil Has Landed," shrieked the headline of the New York Daily News on the occasion of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's speeches at the United Nations and Columbia University. A "madman," Rupert Murdoch's New York Post spat, setting the tone for a week of Bizarro News. On "60 Minutes," the Iranian president said there was no reason his country and ours couldn't be friends--even the best of friends.
"La la la la--we can't hear you" was the response.
"Is it the goal of your government, the goal of this nation to build a nuclear weapon?" CBS News' Scott Pelley asked Ahmadinejad.
He replied: "You have to appreciate we don't need a nuclear bomb. We don't need that. What need do we have for a bomb?"
Pelley followed up: "May I take that as a 'no,' sir?"
Ahmadinejad: "It is a firm 'no.'"
Some Americans would pay good money to hear an answer as honest and straightforward as that from their leaders. Yet, minutes later, Pelley kept badgering: "When I ask you a question as direct as 'Will you pledge not to test a nuclear weapon?' you dance all around the question. You never say 'yes.' You never say 'no.'"
Weird. Is Pelley hard of hearing? But what I really can't figure out is how Iran qualifies as our--Very Big Word coming--"enemy." We're not at war with Iran. Neither are our allies. What gives?
Capitalizing on the reliable ignorance of the American public and the indolent gullibility of its journalists, the Bush Administration regularly conflates its numerous targets of regime change, pretending they love each other to death and are united only in their desire to slaughter innocent American children. There are gaping chasms in this narrative, but they vanish into our national memory hole.
In 1998, three years before 9/11, while the U.S. was still sucking up to the Taliban, Iran nearly went to war against Afghanistan. Taliban guards burst into Iran's consulate at Mazar-e-Sharif and murdered eight diplomats and an Iranian journalist. Iran massed 35,000 troops on its eastern border with Afghanistan before the U.N. stepped in to mediate.
After the 9/11 attacks turned the U.S. against the Taliban, U.S. media outlets put footage of a handful of jeering Palestinians on heavy rotation. Meanwhile, "In Iran, vast crowds turned out on the streets and held candlelit vigils for the victims. Sixty-thousand spectators respected a minute's silence at Tehran's football stadium."
Wondering why you never heard that? The above quote comes from the BBC. Fox News didn't report. American news consumers didn't know, much less decide.
Finding an opportunity for rapprochement and a mutual foe in the Taliban, Iran became a silent America ally after 9/11. The Iranian military offered to conduct search and rescue operations for downed U.S. pilots during the fall 2001 war against the Taliban. It used its influence with the Afghanistan's Dari population to broker the loya jirga that installed Hamid Karzai as president of Afghanistan.
Everyone expected U.S.-Iranian relations to thaw. There was even talk about ending sanctions and exchanging ambassadors. A few weeks later, however, White House neocons had Iran named as a member of an "Axis of Evil" in Bush's 2002 State of the Union address. "We were all shocked by the fact that the U.S. had such a short memory and was so ungrateful about what had happened just a month ago," remembers Javad Zarif, now the Iranian ambassador to the U.N.
Bush accused Shiite-majority Iran, a mortal enemy of Sunni-dominated Al Qaeda, of offering sanctuary to Al Qaeda fighters fleeing Afghanistan. "Iran must be a contributor in the war against terror," Bush railed. "Either you're with us or against us." The allegation was BS. No one--not the CIA, not one of our allies, no one--believed that Iran would harbor, or had harbored, members of Al Qaeda. "I wasn't aware of any intelligence supporting that charge," says James Dobbins, Bush's special envoy to Afghanistan. But we never took it back.
In May 2003, Iran shook off its annoyance and again tried to make nice. The Iranian overture came in the form of a letter delivered to the State Department after the fall of Baghdad. "Iran appeared willing to put everything on the table--including being completely open about its nuclear program, helping to stabilize Iraq, ending its support for Palestinian militant groups and help in disarming Hezbollah," reported the BBC.
U.S. officials confirm this overture.
"That letter went to the Americans to say that we are ready to talk, we are ready to address our issues," says Seyed Adeli, an Iranian foreign minister at the time. Larry Wilkerson, chief of staff to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, says the Bushies made a conscious decision to ignore it. "We don't speak to evil," he recalls that Administration hardliners led by Donald Rumsfeld said.
In the minds of the hard right, the case for Iran's evilness rests on three issues: the 1979 hostage crisis, its opposition to Israel, and its pursuit of nuclear weapons.
Readers of Mark Bowden's "Guests of the Ayatollah" can't help but sympathize with the American embassy staffers who spent 444 days in captivity from late 1979 to early 1981. But the right-wingers' real beef over this episode concerns our wounded national pride.
What they fail to mention is that President Carter brought the mess upon himself, first by continuing to prop up the corrupt and brutal regime of Reza Shah Pahlavi long after it was obviously doomed, and then by admitting him to the U.S. for cancer treatment. Carter knew that his decision to coddle a toppled tyrant could stir up trouble.
"He went around the room," said then-Vice President Walter Mondale," and most of us said, 'Let him [the Shah] in. And he said, 'And if [the Iranians] take our employees in our embassy hostage, then what would be your advice?' And the room just fell dead. No one had an answer to that. Turns out, we never did."
Iran finances and arms Hezbollah, the paramilitary group-cum-nascent state based in Lebanon that wages sporadic attacks against Israel. If proxy warfare and funding Islamist terror organizations that despise Israel were a consideration, however, the U.S. would cut off relations with and impose sanctions against Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. (Can we stop talking to ourselves? We supported the Afghan mujahedeen.) It is possible to maintain friendly relations with nations that hate one another, and we do.
There are two points missing from most discussions of Iran's nuclear energy program and whether it's a cover for a weapons program. First, Iran ratified the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1970. Leaders of the Islamic Republic inherited the NPT from the Shah. The revolutionaries voluntarily chose to honor the agreement after they threw him out.
Second, the U.S. practices a double standard by threatening war against Iran while ignoring Israel's refusal to obey a U.N. resolution calling for a nuclear-free Middle East passed in 1996. As of the late 1990s, U.S. intelligence agencies believed Israel to possess between 75 and 130 nukes. Iran has zero. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, there's even less evidence against Iran than there was against Saddam's Iraq.
There are many legitimate reasons to criticize the government of Iran. They're just a regional rival in the Middle East--another frenemy.
(C) 2007 Ted Rall, All Rights Reserved.
Monday, October 1, 2007
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