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The nightmares that fill the Baghdad night
Haifa Zangana is an Iraqi-born novelist and former prisoner of Saddam's regime. The following, also published at Comment is Free, is a moving and very personal reminder of the darkness that overshadows the cradle of civilisation. Her last article on Webdiary was Death of a Professor: assassinations in Iraq. Thank you Haifa for sending this to us.
Iraq: the Women's Story was shown on Channel 4 last night. To protect the identity of the filmmaker, who lives in Baghdad and fears reprisals, she was given the name Zeina.
Zeina had sent me an email before the film was shown, saying:
Dear Haifa, I hope this letter finds you very well, also your family. I am writing to tell you that the film on the Iraqi woman is going to be shown today. I am interested in your opinion. Best and greetings, Zeina.
Immediately after watching the film, I emailed her my opinion. I received two replies. The first was brief:
I am happy you find it excellent. Thanks, Zeina.
PS: Intisar's brother was killed. She found his body in the hospital's fridge. He was slaughtered. She said that she is leaving. Well, sorry to tell you this, but you know how the situation is."
Intisar is the pharmacist who accompanied Zeina while shooting the film in Qaiem.
I did not reply. I could not. Words, just like Iraqi young men, went missing. Kidnapped, shot in the head, killed, slaughtered , tortured, drilled, bound and gagged, bodies, disappeared ... Silence replaced emotions. Silence became our way to mourn our dead: brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, husbands and children; our unnamed, uncounted dead. Unless ...
Despite my silence, I received her second email this morning:
Thank you, Haifa, I am happy that you still have hope. The resistance, and the spirit of resistance, will go on. History says so. But it tears my heart every moment to see the wonderful Iraqi young men slaughtered like sheep - even worse, like insects.
It tortures me, like all Iraqi mothers, to wait by seconds for my daughters to come back home from college. Nightmares fill our nights. And what is there on the horizon? Nothing. Just dark, bleak pictures of smaller, powerless, backward entities controlled by you-know-who ... This is the future of Iraq ... Actually, there will be no more Iraq: they have to find another name.
I wish I could have more hope; at least to feel better than I do. But I read almost all the Iraqi papers every day. I listen to people talk, and I watch. It is difficult for me to find hope in what I see. As a woman, I can tell you that we have no hope, no matter what.
Sorry again for this very down feeling. I wrote this reply yesterday very late at night but decided not to send it. I thought that maybe I would feel better in the morning and write in a better way. But it was not the night: it was the reality, which is darker than Baghdad's night these days. Well, I think you already know what I've just said. Best, Zeina.
Despite her "very down feeling", I know that Zeina will continue her work. She is one of the few independent journalists still working in Iraq defying the occupation forces as well as their puppet regime, with its sectarian and ethnic militias. More than 100 Iraqi journalists have been killed since the invasion in March 2003. Women journalists, academics, and doctors have not been spared.
Sabah Ali, an independent Iraqi journalist who reports occasionally for the Brussells Tribunal, wrote on May 8:
The Iraqi journalists union published a report and lists of the Iraqi journalists killed in the last three years. The list took five months of working on the ground, documenting when, where, how and by whom the journalists were killed. It is as follows: 69 journalists were killed by militias or unknown armed men; 21 were killed in explosions or fighting; 17 were shot by the American troops; and two were shot by the Iraqi troops.
Sabah Ali also provides us with a list of names of the killed journalists with detailed information regarding the circumstances of their deaths.
On October 27 2004, Liqa Abdul Razaq, a newsreader at al-Sharqiya TV, was shot with her two-month-old baby in the Aldoura district of Baghdad; Layla al-Saad, dean of law at Mosul University, was slaughtered in her house; Maha Ibrahim, editor in chief of Baghdad TV, was killed on July 3 2005, shot by US military gunfire.
The Iraqi journalist Raeda Mohammed Wageh Wazzan of the regional public TV station Iraqiya was found dead on February 25, five days after masked gunmen had kidnapped her and her son in the centre of the northern city of Mosul. She was shot in the head.
The cruel murder of Atwar Bahjat, one of the country's top television journalists, was the latest.
Those women were killed for giving a voice to the voiceless, but other women are differently abused in the "new Iraq". Under the democracy that is still so highly acclaimed by Bush and Blair, women face arrest just for complaining.
Here is an example: On May 3, US forces arrested Sanaa al-Badri, a woman doctor, in Dhuluiya, 25 miles north of Baghdad, a day after she accused US forces of stealing $4,000 (£2,145) in gold during a raid on her house, officials said.
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Iraq violence kills 2,500 in two months: UN
The killing continues here: http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200605/s1645974.htm
“Acts of violence have killed nearly 2,500 people and forced more than 85,000 to flee their homes inIraq , the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq
Most of these deaths can be blamed on the “War on Terror” voters who put Bush, Blair, and Howard in office should think deeply about the consequences of their vote has had on the Iraqi people. The violence continues and still no end in sight.
How quickly we forget
John: This is not directed just to you. I am just amazed at how quickly we seem to be able to forget the hundreds of thousands that died in Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Do people here really believe that his killing sprees would have stopped if he had been left in power?
I think it is pointless keeping tally of numbers dead and displaced by the current war without thinking about the numbers that would have continued to be killed in Saddam's on going war against the people he ruled, particularly the Shiites and the Kurds. Was the Bagdad night any less fearful under him, than it is now?
Let's face it, he would have ultimately been succeeded by those two murderous sons with funds plundered from the Iraqi people for God knows how long, and ordinary Iraqis would have continued to live in fear, and continued to disappear into mass graves. At least there is some chance of some light at the end of this very dark tunnel. Under Saddam, there was none. But either way, to die violently and to live in fear is a terrible thing and I just hope that one day the Iraqis will be able to live in peace with each other. I think it will take some time though as there are a lot of old scores being settled right now. When a dictator is removed, there are old and new scores that feed any underlying frictions, and there are often frictions between Shia Muslims and Sunni Muslims and not just in Iraq. Add in ethnic differences as with the Kurds and it is clear it will take a lot of goodwill for any lasting peace to have any chance.
Justifying slaughter
Jenny: You seem to be suggesting that the 250,000 dead and probably two million injured or maimed in Iraq are justified because Saddam killed hundreds of thousands of people himself.
If we use this equation to justify war then surely we need a programme of invasion to rid the world of all tyrants, not just one. It's a long list.
And, I am assuming, that if you are able to justify the death and suffering of so many Iraqis, that when we invade North Korea you will think the death of millions in other countries .... he has nuclear weapons after all..... is justifiable because he has been responsible for so many deaths.
Or do you believe that when the tyrant can kill us it is different? Would it be okay if he did not have nuclear weapons and we knew that only North Koreans civilians would die ..... as only Iraqi civilians are dying?
I am finding it hard to put a finger on the principle from which you operate.
If you believe that a tyrant responsible for many deaths should be removed then clearly you believe they should all be removed? Or do you?
If the tyrant has nuclear arms and many will die if we attack, is this justifiable in the same way that the Iraqi deaths are justified by you? Or is it different when we are the ones who are likely to get killed?
And yes, the Baghdad night was less fearful under Saddam than under us. Women for instance had more rights and freedom of movement; people had electrcity and water; citizens were not being blown to smithereens every day; the Iraqis had control of their own economy; they controlled their oil; they did not live under Occupation; they did not have mercenaries and criminals murdering, kidnapping and robbing; children went to school without fear of kidnap; academics taught in universities without fear of being murdered; their cities and towns and villages were not in ruins .... actually, as you will find if you access some of the Iraqi blogs, however bad Saddam was, what they have now is a million times worse.
You may not be keeping a tally of the dead and displaced but they are.
Your problem Roslyn Ross, not mine.
Roslyn: "I am finding it hard to put a finger on the principle from which you operate". Well with respect, that is your problem, not mine.
And I am finding it equally hard to keep up with your verbosity and seeming inability to accept that there just might be a valid opinion on some issues that differs from you own. And it might help if you actually read what I wrote before you attack your keyboard. To suggest what I wrote is justifying slaughter is patent nonsense but I do not intend to waste my time in a pointless attempt to convince you otherwise. This is not a cop out. You may as you say have the time to spend hours on Webdiary, but I have a drought, now into its sixth year, to contend with and that is my priority right now.
But I will say this: Those people lying in mass graves around Iraq just might have had an opinion on all this had they been alive today. They just might have had an opinion as to whether the Baghdad night was a safer and less fearful place than it is today. And I suggest the thousands of children who died of starvation as Saddam played his games might also have had an opinion.
So you have lived in Iraq under Saddam and in the current situation have you to be able to tell me that it is more fearful now? I am sure it is more fearful for some, just as I am sure it was more fearful under Saddam for those who lie in his mass graves. Oh and you say under Saddam they did not have murderers kidnapping and robbing. And kids could go to school without fear. I suppose those in the graves just went quietly, did they? And the children who were murdered by Saddam. Well they are hardly in need of school now, are they? Really Roslyn!
Keep count? We can all do that. I guess Saddam would have just gone on digging mass graves, and his murderous sons would have been waiting in the wings to take over and continue his legacy. Have you kept a tally of how many he killed, Roslyn, during his 30 years in power? Do you really believe he had finished killing? And I put it to you that much of the killing that is going on now by Iraqis against Iraqis is a direct legacy of the hatreds created by that monster through his killing. When tyrants rule and kill Roslyn, the legacy of hate they leave behind lives on for generations, and the killing goes on for generations. Let us not lay it all at the feet of the COW.
As for the other despots around the world. Should they have been, or should they be removed? Pol Pot for instance? Oh yes, the world stood by and let him be as he murdered around three million people. I happen to think the failure of the world to intervene was appalling. But being a pacifist you of course would not agree. Sure people would have died had the UN intervened, so they were left to die at the hands of that tyrant anyway, in their millions. There are no simple answers Roslyn for the world when tyrants decide to murder their own people, or as in North Korea, let them starve. The world will always have to weigh up whether it is best to let mass murderers run their course in history or try to stop them. Whether the death toll is greater when the world intervenes or greater if the tyrant is allowed to continue is never known till peace finally prevails.
I suppose being a pacifist you would say there is never any justification for war. Am I right? Should Australia in WW2 have just sat back and waited for the Japanese to arrive rather than go out and kill Japanese soldiers? Should Hitler have just been allowed to keep on overrunning other countries and mass murdering those he saw as less than human?
If I thought that we could actually reach some consensus on all this, I would go on, but as I said, I have other priorities right now. But I will ask that you not put words in my mouth. I have never said I justify slaughter. I merely pointed out that we seem to forget that the Baghdad night was also very fearful under Saddam Hussein. Fear is fear. People in Iraq having been living in fear for a very long time, and there is no end in sight until the Iraqis themselves learn to live together peacefully, respecting each others religious and ethnic differences, and they have a responsible government committed to the welfare of all Iraqis. That may be a long time coming but it certainly was never going to happen under Saddam Hussein.
I have to go, I am being called to attend to other things and I do not even have time to spell check this.
To act or not to act?
Jenny Hume notes: "Those people lying in mass graves around Iraq just might have had an opinion on all this had they been alive today. They just might have had an opinion as to whether the Baghdad night was a safer and less fearful place than it is today."
This is an important point. If you opposed the overthrow of Saddam (I personally thought there were other measures to take short of full-blown invasion of the country, but that's another story), are you prepared to take responsibility for those Saddam was killing? I don't "do" body counts, but apparently the numbers were in the hundreds of thousands.
So it seems to me the moral choice was between allowing the killing to go on, or stopping it in the knowledge we'd kill people in the process. Either way innocents were going to die. (The utter mismanagement of the situation by Bush et al., once the decision to invade was made, caused far more deaths than there should have been on all sides.)
I think we are now facing the same situation in Sudan. As Western leaders express their regrets for their inaction in Bosnia and Rwanda - situations in which action would almost certainly have killed people - genocide is unfolding in Darfur before our very eyes. No excuses. (Both former President Clinton and Foreign Minister Straw have apologised for Rwanda and Srebrenica respectively). We can't say "we didn't know." The Sudanese "National Islamic Front" has killed some 400,000 Muslims and expelled millions more.
The Bush Administration has, so far, done exactly what its critics say it should have done in Iraq: acted multilaterally, followed the UN procedure of diplomacy, inspectors, etc. Now what? We have "peace." Some peace.
Roslyn, Angela, here's your challenge: what would you do next about Darfur? What's the pacifist solution?
Pacifism or whack and be whacked,or compound it
Darfur.Solution? look at the root cause first. Look at the foreign governments and the international business interests they represent and examine the input those governments are having in the various issues.Openly discuss this and the military input such are doing and then hold open UN discussions with this information available for public scrutiny.
Wars and resource wrangling by proxy needs to be a thing of the past for the sake of those suffering under the inevitable private armies/'terrorists'/'rebels'/ Thatcherlike coup attempters etc. Perhaps less Vice Presidents would go down in helicopters too. I note the new China pipeline through there being planned, this is a dynamic area.
Amazing how fast things can be sorted out when such a light is cast upon all that is happening.Illuminating. Divesting of stock by any country involved in arms paly and coups and war crimes may be a good start for all the world's pension funds, nice thought.And then a boycott of any who deal with them. Ouch .Human rights don't make any difference to these creeps but the "bottom line" does.
Name,shame and divest at a world level. Bet ya don't need the cavalry often then. No man is an island, and no corporation safe from a run on it's stock. Enron has also shown what happens to such leaders when their dealings are held to account(but not so simple), time to add the international deals too. I note that yet again the rebel groups are the ones responsible for failing to agree with the accords presented and how easy it is to have a ruthless band do anything for money and PR gain.
Who funds them and who arms them? Perkins' Economic Hitman is such a guide to realpolitik. Cheers. What do you mean by pacifism? Do you mean the acknowlegement that military means must be the last resort and are a sign of failure of proper channels?(a military harware producers delite).
Or do you mean the deliberate choice by a person or group to never use force even in self defence, like strict Budhists (not Zen eh?) or the tactics used by the Judeans against the Roman occupation,initally?(pre that tricky Pilot, method used today, infiltrate the crowd with ya own trouble makers). Christianity in it's purist form is very strict about retaliation,which would work great in a world full of strict Christians.
Funny enough, the vengeance does seem to come as the mills grind away, eventually.The catch 22 is if you want it compounded upon their head you have to not want it compounded upon their head and must first forgive them, truly in your heart. We. It is not for the weak minded as me to workl out. I guess this is a bit different from the punished for seven generation line fed elsewhere. what do Moslems have as a guide for vengeance issues I wonder? And all the same base.We have come a long way from primitive whack and be whacked.
The dead are dead
Will: There's a problem arguing with what the dead might say .... they can't say anything. What the living are saying, and surely they count for more, is that life is far worse now than it was under Saddam..... despite the killing and yes that was bad but not as constant or as ongoing as some suggest..... however, all killing is bad, but the point remains, as bad as it was, the living Iraqis preferred that State to the one they are in.
The dead are dead. Saddam killed hundreds of thousands in his time but the application of sanctions killed millions. That's us. So far, in the killing stakes, when you add in the 250,000 latest estimate of Iraqi dead, we are way, way ahead.
If you have not answered in regard to the Kurds, and I haven't checked the other forums yet, I would ask that you do. I intend to do you the courtesy of responding on Darfur. If you have and I have not read it yet, my apologies.
I for one still think the opinion of the living as expressed in today's reality counts for a lot more than some presumption of what the dead might say.
A choice to read or not
You said: And I am finding it equally hard to keep up with your verbosity
It is always your choice to read or not to read. My understanding is that debate on Webdiary is not limited. People write as little or as much as they choose. People read as little or as much as they choose.
You said: and seeming inability to accept that there just might be a valid opinion on some issues that differs from you own.
That is a judgement on your part. My understanding of the concept of Webdiary is that issues are raised and people debate them until they no longer wish or choose to debate them. I continue to respond to posts directed to me. I consider that polite. When there are no more posts directed to me I no longer post.
There are many opinions other than my own which are valid. But the point of Webdiary is to debate, hence, what you get is most often debate and discussion on conflicting positions. It is the nature of the beast.
You said: And it might help if you actually read what I wrote before you attack your keyboard.
I did read it and responded accordingly. We all interpret in our own way. You interpret what I post as being verbose and as a refusal to accept the positions of others.... you may be right to a degree or you may be wrong. I interpreted yours according to how it appeared to me. I may be right to a degree or I may be wrong. That is debate.
My views on Iraq are drawn from reading and in terms of how Iraqis feel there are any number of excellent Iraqi blogs which can tell you how they see life with Saddam and life under occupation. Amazing how they do it in such chaos and with so little electricity. If one accesses such sites it is clear that life now is a nightmare of epic proportions compared to any nightmares they lived under Saddam.
You said: And I put it to you that much of the killing that is going on now by Iraqis against Iraqis is a direct legacy of the hatreds created by that monster through his killing.
Well, according to the Iraqi blogs much of the killing going on now is because of American bombs; American trigger-happy soldiers; trigger-happy and uncontrolled mercenaries; American efforts to incite civil war; American lack of control or lack of concern about criminal elements rising to the fore and really, because Iraq has been invaded and occupied.
What I lay at the feet of the Coalition of the Killing as Iraqis and others call it, is the invasion, the occupation, the incompetence, the venal greed, the wilful destruction, the unleashing of the mercenaries, the imprisonment without trial, the torture, the lack of utilities, the lack of order, the lack of medicine, food and a decent life for Iraqis who have already suffered enough.
Even if I accepted a case for invasion to get rid of Saddam, which I don't, I hold the American incompetence and complete lack of consideration for the Iraqi people to be not just irresponsible but criminal.
At the time of the invasion the Iraqi administration and infrastructure was destroyed.... except the Oil ministry. The Iraqis live amidst rubble and disease, without water and power most of the time and the American projects which are moving ahead and are on schedule are the fortresses the US is building across Iraq for its longterm occupation and the American Embassy in Baghdad.... the world's largest embassy, built for some 3,000 staff.....
American soldiers and 'diplomatic' staff have clean beds and fresh food, hot coffee and pristine hospitals and the Iraqis have squalor, hunger and disease. Whatever you think about the rightness of the invasion the occupation as it is carried out is criminal .
America can keep its fortresses 'on schedule' but not the rebuilding of Iraq.
You said: . I happen to think the failure of the world to intervene was appalling.
I agree in regard to Pol Pot.
You said: But being a pacifist you of course would not agree.
There are many ways to intervene without dropping bombs on people. I can agree on the need to intervene and disagree with you on how to do it.
You said: Sure people would have died had the UN intervened, so they were left to die at the hands of that tyrant anyway, in their millions.
UN intervention is one thing ..... American led intervention which the UN considered illegal is another.
You said: I suppose being a pacifist you would say there is never any justification for war. Am I right?
As you said, it is not that simple. One can be a pacifist as an individual and choose not to fight in war but as I have said before, I don't believe in imposing my view on others and if others choose to fight so be it.
I take the view that anything which can avoid war should be done. War is only ever a last, desperate thing. If Australia were invaded I would expect most people to fight against the invaders. I could see their justification for that even though I would choose not to kill.
But fighting against people who have invaded you is one thing.... invading other nations is a different thing completely.
I take it that you support the Iraqis right to fight against the occupation in any way that they can?
You said: Should Australia in WW2 have just sat back and waited for the Japanese to arrive rather than go out and kill Japanese soldiers?
I would favour defensive action not offensive. As I have said before, one needs a level of pragmatism along with principle. I support a nation's right to defend itself but still hold that war should only ever be an option when there are no others.
Even in the WW2 scenarios there were other options that were not considered and so war became inevitable.
You said: If I thought that we could actually reach some consensus on all this, I would go on, but as I said, I have other priorities right now.
We do not have to reach consensus. It is okay to agree to disagree.
You said: But I will ask that you not put words in my mouth.
Read it again. I qualified what I said and you used the word slaughter not me.
I have also previously apologised for possibly misinterpreting you but you also ignore that.
I am sorry that you are offended, at least that is the impression I receive, because that was never my intention.
I feel you have over-reacted but we all do that at times and it sounds as if you have a lot on your plate. I sympathise with your situation in regard to the drought..... I also have a farm and know the emotional and psychological demands of such times. Luckily, where we are, though such impacts are minimal.
I think we have more in common than you might think but disagree on certain ways to go about achieving the same goals.
I hope the rains come soon.
I'll just let it be.
Roslyn: You wrote:
Read it again. I qualified what I said and you used the word slaughter not me.
That is not correct and if you read my original post you will find that is so. You responded to that original post with one entitled Justifying Slaughter and that is what I took exception to most. My post could in no way be interpreted as my saying I was justifying slaughter and I did not use that word anyway. However I see not point in tit for tat arguing over words. I have read your reply but do not have the energy to go through it point by point as those points have been made over and again on this subject by you and others.
The point I was trying to make in all this is that we should not forget what Saddam Hussein did to his people, and would have continued to do had he and his murderous sons stayed in power. Who knows what the ultimate toll of his killing sprees might have been? While I am sure many Iraqis despair at the state of their country and the lawlessness and live in constant fear, I am just as sure that few (other than Saddam's favoured Sunni minority) would claim to have had a decent life as you put it under the mass murderer.
I was very briefly on Iraq soil during Saddam's reign. Everywhere armed men patrolling. The fear in the air was patent. Being younger and more naive at that stage of my life, I did not realise at the time that I had landed in a country where people were being murdered and buried in mass graves in their hundreds of thousands. But I have never forgotten the atmosphere of that place.
Will: I note your reply to me also and yes, I agree mostly with what you say. I actually was in two minds over the intervention in Iraq. I wanted to see the Iraqis have a chance at freedom, but I also knew it would likely turn into the mess it has. You cannot just remove a tyrant who has allied himself with a minority group to terrorise the majority over thirty years, and then not expect mayhem to result. But by the same token, no one has the crystal ball. Who knows what that madman would have done once he had successfully got the sanctions lifted. Turned into a wise and venerable leader with his peoples' best interests at heart? No, I think he would have gone on digging mass graves till the day he died, and building himself a few more palaces along the way.
I am leaving this thread now. I really have to get on with other things.
Roslyn, no, I am not upset. And yes, let us hope the rain comes soon. As you can imagine, you cannot do much on thirty points of rain in five months. Six years is a long time to wait for a decent break, and there is no end in sight. Farmers are suffering an appalling level of stress, with suicide rates escalating to double that of the cities. We are at least a bit more fortunate in that we both have off farm income. With the property destocked for three out of the past five years, we could not survive on the farm alone, that is for sure. Others are not so fortunate and we see all the sons around us leaving the land for good. It is very depressing driving past the empty homesteads I can tell you.
Oh and yes, I did note your apology to me in the other thread but have only just come back to it. So accepted, with grace.
Mea Culpa
Jenny: Mea Culpa. I did use the head Justifying Slaughter but did not remember I had done so. My mistake. I checked what I wrote to you on my copy, which I keep, because sometimes I post and nothing happens.
Reading again, and reflecting, it is perhaps a somewhat exaggerated term and yet in another respect no. I was referring in essence to the fact that when hundreds of thousands die unnecessarily the word slaughter is often used. However, going by the tenor of your posts, it was unfair of me to attribute such a justification to you.
And I agree with you that of course we should not forget what Saddam Hussein did to his people but that does not mitigate in any way what we are doing to them. In fact what we are doing is worse because he is a recognised tyrant and we like to think we are everything but tyrannical. Perhaps one man's tyrant is another man's strong leader and one man's liberator is another man's tyrant.
We do not know what he might have done. In truth, he might well have turned a corner like Gaddafi. But we certainly know what we have done .... inflict untold misery, suffering and death on a people who had already suffered enough.
If you take this approach you always get death. The international community could have believed that the Berlin Wall would never have fallen and attacked the Russians to free the East Germans from tyranny. On your criteria that would be worthwhile. And yet it did fall, peacefully.
Perhaps Saddam would have fallen peacefully or died in his sleep. None of it matters because the dead cannot speak and have no say other than an unspoken claim for compensation, and the living, the people of Iraq, say our invasion and occupation is far, far worse than anything Saddam was.
But, you of course may be right. We shall never know and in truth, what all of us need to deal with is reality, not maybes.
I am sure your time in Iraq had a powerful effect on you. Such things do. We, who are fortunate enough to live in one of the world's great countries .... in terms of quality of life rather than military power .... cannot appreciate what it is to live in fear, under the foot of tyranny, unless we actually visit such countries.
One of the reasons why I am so opposed to pre-emptive strikes and invasion without reason or sanction is because it makes it that much easier for tyranny to breed in the world. The Chinese Government is also a tyrant and responsible for mass murder of its own citizens and yet we will not invade China because they have nuclear weapons. The same goes for the Russians and the North Koreans and others.
But now that the US has set a precident to invade a sovereign nation which was no threat and made no threat it has given the green light to China to invade and occupy Taiwan .... or as the Chinese see it, to take back what is theirs anyway.
When this happens we shall be helpless because we have no moral ground at all on which to stand. If we can do it then so can they. It is precedents like these and the lack of principled behaviour which the US and its allies have shown which puts us all at risk. Rather than ending tyranny we are making it easier for tyranny to flourish.
But I realise you do not wish to discuss this further and that's fine. I respect your position and we can agree to disagree.
Who killed who
get the word out
This story and reading the links about the execution of Atwar Bahjat is so much harder to come to terms with than reports of 'another bomb and more bodies found' that seems a regular feature of media coverage on Iraq. For the women of Iraq like the women of Afghanistan it seems life gets harder and more brutal by the day. The courage of these women to speak out defies belief.
I have just emailed SBS and asked them to screen this documentary as part of their Cutting Edge or Hot Docs series. A few more requests might make it happen.
Email comments@sbs.com.au
email sbs,good comment Susie,make an effort,make a difference
Very true, when one gets to know the person and sees them in your mind and then hears of their murder it very much a shock, especially to us who are so unused to such daily violence here. Had dinner when away with an Iraqi family living, working, playing, new house, all seems so normal until the wife dropped in conversation that her entire family were still in Baghdad, academics or professionals. I had thought all were safely out. Every time I hear another death I wonder if it was one of them that I heard all about that night. Again our sanitised news and reporting just statistics enables us to build a wall and dehumanise.
The other tactic is to take no notice of dissent in any way, just disregard it with scorn as Howard did; The Mob (really it must have been a bit of a scare politically).This disempowers the population and has the effect of people turning away when they feel impotent to effect change by protest.
We now have examples where Soros' revolution in Ukraine, and Georgia and attempts in Uzbekistan and success in Nepal and Solomons and Thailand have all been people power. It shows what outrage and determination can achieve. Cheers
Don't Blame JW Howard
Hey, don't blame Howard. Blame 52%of Australians who voted him into power and continue to support him, his government and his policies.
They are accepting of a government cabinet in which three main players are totally corrupted by the sale of wheat for weapons. Whether there is a paper trail or not, the fact that it went on for years is proof enough.
The PM having started his government with a never ever promise to continue to lie and deceive for the last ten years. Just listen to the words he uses, they always have two meanings, so that if questioned later on he denies that what he said was what he meant.
The disgusting way we treat humans, called refugees.
We have an Australian national, being held without trial for four years and our government does nothing but support the detention. Without having commited a crime.
The treasurer, having been handed a reformed economy with the hardest work having been accomplished, and given a world economy of the best in 100 years. What does he do with this opportunity? He has one big give away party, while our infrastructure is collapsing all around us. Have a look, in every state our hospitals are deteriorating, public transport the same, national roads as well. Some money has been given but not near enough. IR laws starting to hit now, we are now importing labour from China, at lower wages, to do our work.
Don't blame JW Howard, blame the 52% of Australians, possibly living next door to you, or right opposite you.
We have an opposition that because it has to try and get elected notices that 52% of voters support the current government policies starts to accept these policies as well, and in so doing appear to have no real directions of their own. With the knowledge that they have to be elected to implement their polocies. So, like JW Howard, they have to appear to agree with these policies, as they need some of those 52% of the voters to change their voting intentions.
Don't blame JW Howard (while choking).
No links supplied as we all read the same newspapers and internet sites.
Hamish: they all say many contradictory things though Mick - links are helpful (though not compulsory), so we can see which sources you are drawing from and possibly make judgements about them. Nothing is self-evident.
It is not a failure of Howard but of Beazley and Labor.
I do not think that "blame John Howard" is the answer. The Labor party leadership has been also intricately involved. As have the Australian media which in general sanitises the reality of war from our screens .This aids jocks who want to use military might as a solution. It also prevents us realising the consequences for ourselves one day should we finally be on the "losing" side, or actually have warfare over our homes. By failing to understand we fail to have empathy for those who do have it now.
Latham was advised against using certain realities during the election by the party machine, despite knowing by then that we had been deceived. Was he also advised to ignore the failings of the government? Failings? Pick a ministry? Cannot think of one which has not demonstrated almost criminal incompetence or uninvestigated allegations, even of corruption like the VISA scandal.
But there is more to blast the voters' screens with: more incompetence and in critical areas of defence and security, HUH? Security incompetence: in protecting us from terrorist attacks? The failure of intelligence regarding Bali (US knew), the deception of East Timor operations that left our troops vulnerable, and a suicide of one of our best, the SIEV X killings, and how about the scandal of the security failings at our airport allowing organised crime to move whatever they wished despite it being years since 911, and add to that that Mick Keelty says that our Iraq involvement makes us a terrorist target! Security a calamity of incompetence under this government! A vote on security would have been damning.
One could add the amount spent of our taxes on all this just to rub it home. Or one could talk of the economy and management, but with a sharper look at the practices of the government, adding all the little corrupt/incompetent deeds that get so glossed over in the media.
For how long will "I didn't know " be an accepted excuse by a minister,despite being briefed? And the books? Any incompetence in accounting? You bet! The incompetent Defence department-still again four years in a row with an $8 billion buck black hole according to the auditor-general. Any tiger Helicopters flying yet? Abrams tanks (without the DU armor to save money) and we need to buy something big now to carry them - where? Why?
And the failure to guarantee DU ordinance is not now spread across the areas of military manoeuvres on our own shores. The US jet that went down off Brisbane will not even be retrieved but what was it armed with and what about the pollutants in that?
I particularly liked the report of how we were billed by the US for dropping their bombs on Iraq. Dropping death is not cheap. Did we bill them for the intelligence our Orion's gave them after illegally flying over Iran? A hundred thousand a photo should do it. And why were we told we went to war again?
Planning for the future, a critical skill one would think; how have they faired over these ten years? Add the incompetence of planning .for the demand of supplying skilled workers for such a resources boom, despite papers predicting such demands for a long time and duhhh don't they look incompetent. The industry says that is costing us millions. Add to that the fragile nature now of our economy now, and every swinging voter can tell you how they feel about interest rates. Why? Because equity made in the housing bubble was not used to buy capital producing goods but feeding instead the importing houses buying cheap goods from China, often on credit cards, then consolidated into mortgages increasing repayments at a rate faster than wages.
Result? Repayments taking increasing amount of weekly income. Final result? Lack of buying power, fall in retail. Already seen. Add a crash to property prices and there is no soft landing. What would have happened to the government income without the resources boom, the imports for China. What a shame we locked into the price of gas for 20yrs, thanks gov, that will cost us billions. Lucky China.
Efficiency? This is the illusion that privatising produces efficiency for the same service. Accurate work statistics? From what I hear on the grapevine, the Labor party would do well to look at such for employment. An example might be the privatisation of immigration/refugee sevices. The businesses are creaming a nice little margin there at our, the tax payers expense, with no accountability.
Privatised immigration services? Remember the boy who died? An "internal company audit" followed not a government investigation, no open process there.
The tricks and lies from our parliament, the Lightfoot fiasco and Woodside ,no open investigation there. The FTA and loopholes allowed and abysmal result for us now.the negotiators now on pharmaceutical boards. The Thai free trade with the corrupt PM now chased from office? What of his deals here?
And of course the AWB scandal, but we need say nothing on that ,other than it is typical in every way of this government, right down to the modus of investigation.
And finally the abhorrent support for torture by this government. The refusal of Beazely to force a senate investigation into the torture allegations called for by the Greens, to fail to investigate the allegations that the Howard government were informed of the torture going on and failed to act, Habib's torture, to call for David Hicks to be returned, and to investigate the Iraq war intelligence and other scandals, the failure to investigate the CACI employee resident of South Australia openly accused of being a major instigator at Abu ghraib.
Also the voting with the government to stop investigations as called for by the Greens into other nefarious actions show that Beazley is NOT to be trusted as a leader, but just another stooge happy to cover up torture and war mongering deceit and intelligence failures by ONA. The Australian people vote according to the picture that they are fed. If Labor is so incompetent it cannot put to the people in clear language and visual/visceral impact the reason that we are now at risk of terrorist attack, that we have wasted a boom economy while losing a manufacturing base and running down education, running up huge personal debt backed by falling house prices and paid for by falling wages, and then spending on security incompetently and war wastefully then ....
Labor supporters should be asking the big questions here. What are they really supporting? Of course, with the new sedition laws and ASIO and AFP laws and powers, Labor may not legally be able to do any critical questioning with out having it's hard drives smashed and meatheads pulling them in for questioning, seven days at a time, with their kids as well.
Lovely laws we have, eh? Labor passed them. I reckon it will be Diebold machines anyway; saves the stress of wondering what the result will be.
Cheers
John: If only we had more
Time to dent Howard's armour!
Roslyn, “If only we had more politicians of conscience like Bob Brown.”
The ALP seems to want to follow the Howard government with a “me too” approach. Blair and Bush are fast losing popularity now. In Australia we must find a way to dent Howard’s armour. The ALP continues to want to battle over the economy. The Iraq war is causing the deaths of around 680 Iraqis per month. We must continue to point out the tragic cost of lives. Howard’s policies are part of the problem. You're right: we need a change of government and more politicians of conscience.
Greens ask the correct questions on Iraq
Senator Bob Brown, and the Greens seem to be the only Australian Politicians that have any thought for the terrible position most Iraqis find themselves in:
"The truckloads of tortured, mutilated bodies, smashed infrastructure and cost of the Iraq war now approaching one trillion Australian dollars are outcomes of the Prime Minister's decision to back President Bush's invasion three years ago," Greens Leader Bob Brown said today.
The questions for John Howard today are: